So you’ve heard about those ultra mobile PC’s hitting the market and maybe you’re not 100% convinced that buying the Macbook Air or Voodoo Envy 113 is the right choice so you want to hear the pros and cons of the systems. Hopefully this article wipe away the mist from the subject.
Performance is probably going to be your biggest concern. Is it possible to get the performance out of an ultra mobile PC that you could get out of a regular notebook? The answer is yes. In fact most ultra portable notebooks can outperform average notebooks in performance. On the other most of them do not quite match up to the specs of most “performance powerhouse” notebooks not to mention gaming systems.
The two main things that ultra protectable notebooks lack is upgradability, of course smaller HDD and the lack of optical drives. Thanks to some advances in technology (especially Toshiba) a lot of the newer models now carry optical drives. In terms of expandability they generally carry few options and most do not have the option for anything other than an integrated video graphics card.
Another factor is performance. Many of the ultra portable notebooks do well in terms of regular everyday tasks such as watching movies, desktop publishing, music and web browsing. But when it comes to other high end tasks such as video editing, picture editing and other high end tasks will not perform best. But certain high end machines will handle these tasks fine although you will have to be willing to pay mega bucks for them. Be advised though that they will never come near to the performance of a dedicated desktop system.
Price is another big factor. As with all new technologies the ultra portable notebook is expensive mainly because the components to make it are also expensive. So is it worth it to pay $2,000 (the average price of most systems) for a notebook that will probably become obsolete in three years? Well considering that many of this technology is being outperformed by newer systems; unless you have the money to spend on a system it is quite irrelevant to take the money for a regular notebook (one that might outperform an ultra portable system.
So unless your company is giving you a complimentary system or you are rich enough to afford one, buying an ultra portable system might not be the wisest decision at this point. Mainly because of the price, they are quite expensive and while they can match the performance of regular notebooks they do not live up to performance notebooks of their price.
The best advice would be to wait until another 2-3 years until the price drops and of course the specs get a lot better. On the other hand if you do get a good deal on one it might not be that bad. Whatever you do, don’t be too disappointed if it lasts a lot less than an average computer.
