Gigabyte U2442D-CF1 14-Inch Ultrabook (Aluminum Champagne Gold)

This notebook could be improved in a number of ways, but since there's nothing else quite like it, I give it a full 5-stars.

Asus was supposed to release a similar notebook, as were a couple other manufacturers, but they turned out to be vaporware.

I searched high and low for a lightweight/ultraportable with a decent resolution (greater than 1366x768, this one is 1600x900) and a proper dedicated graphics card (2gb GT 730M).

The GT 730M is more than just a rebadged GT 640M as some sites have called it, it's has a higher stock clock speed (725 vs 625)putting it closer to the GT 650M and some reports have referred to the core as a GK207 vs GK107, w/ 24 ROPS vs. 16. I haven't yet figured out how to verify this, nor have I been able to get the latest drivers directly from Nvidia to load. On the subject of drivers, Gigabyte offers Windows 7 versions of all the software, drivers, and even a Windows 7 bios so you don't have to use Windows 8 if you don't want to.

The notebook really is light weight and runs quite cool. The stock msata SSD is the tried and true Crucial M4 which doesn't have the top benchmark numbers, but in real world use, it's a rocket. The notebook also has room for a second normal 7 or 9.5mm hard drive which is completely unheard of in a 'true' ultrabook. I believe the Gigabyte U2442D doesn't get to wear an "Ultrabook" sticker because it comes with an i5 instead of an i7, however the i5 is much faster than any of the low voltage dual core i7's and many of the previous regular voltage dual core i7's. i7 used to mean 4-cores with hyper-threading flagship performance, but now it just means at least $200 more on the sticker price.

A few things to consider if you're looking to purchase one of these notebooks; the aluminum lid has a gold-ish tint to it and the rest of it is just grey plastic. It doesn't really look premium and I slapped on a skin for the lid and a few stickers on the palm rest to keep it from getting scratched up too quickly. The screen is a traditional matte which is great for glare, but not so great for keeping clean or getting the sharpest colors. The notebook comes with Windows 8, which really sucks for productivity (but most computers come with Windows 8). The Nvidia Kepler architecture is great for gaming, but even with 384 Cuda cores, it sucks at openCL so GPU acceleration of programs like Matlab, Solidworks, Photoshop, Ansys, Comsol, etc aren't going to really benefit from the dedicated card like they would with an ATI/AMD dedicated card of the same level.

At the end of the day, it's a very capable, very light weight notebook for playing and getting work done. When the box arrives you will not be disapointed, the packaging is sharp and Gigabyte throws in extras like a very nice leather sleeve and a keyboard cover/screen cloth.

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