Thinking of buying a new laptop, but really need some serious portability? Travelling around the world and want a light but capable machine to carry with you? Here are the five thinnest and lightest ultraportable laptops that you can buy today from an Australian retailer.
Gizmodo’s Buying Guides are presented by the Lenovo range of laptops, convertibles, all-in-one desktops and tablets available from Officeworks.
Also: What CPU To Choose For Your New Laptop: Energy Efficiency And Portable Processing Power.
Dell XPS 13
Are you thinking of buying a Windows laptop? Don’t, until you’ve read about this laptop. The new Dell XPS 13 isn’t perfect, but it’s freaking incredible for the starting-at AU$1499 you’ll spend to bring one home. At 15mm thin it’s the thickest of the laptops in this bunch, but at 1.18kg it’s the second lightest. This laptop is defined by its beautiful screen, a 13.3-inch number that almost stretches edge to edge.
Read our review of the 2015 Dell XPS 13.
Apple MacBook
The new MacBook is Apple’s first 12-inch laptop, with a Retina screen to boot. Instead of filling the entire chassis with gear, Apple centralised the Intel Core M CPU, flash memory and RAM onto a tiny board that makes a fun-size Mars bar look chunky. In fact, the logic board on the MacBook is 67 per cent smaller than the logic board on the 11-inch MacBook Air. It’s a mere 13.1mm thin at its thickest point, and only weighs 0.92kg.
Read our review of the 2015 Apple MacBook.
Asus UX305
A simple, beautiful, seamless design. An incredibly thin chassis, crafted from metal and finished in a high quality dark grey paint. A fanless, low-power Intel Core M processor and oodles of battery life hidden away underneath a big trackpad and great keyboard. Sounds like Apple’s new MacBook, right? Nope. The Windows 8.1-powered Asus ZenBook UX305 — 12.3mm thin, 1.2kg light — is an amazing feat of computing. This is a laptop that I want to use every single day.
Read our review of the 2015 Asus ZenBook UX305.
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
Laptops just made a quantum leap. Intel’s new Broadwell chips make it possible for notebook makers to create incredibly thin devices with fanless designs, and these notebooks are finally starting to hit the market. Lenovo’s new Yoga 3 Pro — 12.8mm thin, 1.19kg light — runs brand new top of the line hardware, and has an amazing hinge that lets it flip from laptop into tablet mode, or anything in between, at a moment’s notice.
Read our review of the 2015 Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro.
Acer Aspire S7
Acer’s Aspire S7 is a thin and portable laptop, but it doesn’t sacrifice power to get there. You can buy the S7 with an Intel Core i7 processor inside, and that makes it grunty enough to handle all the tasks you’d want it to from a day of working travel. It doesn’t have any fancy flipping hinges or tablet features, but it’s still a perfectly dependable — and perfectly thin and light, at 12.9mm thin and 1.3kg — laptops.