Gallery: 11 Must-See Ultrabooks and Tablets From CES 2012
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[](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gadgetlab/ces-2012) LAS VEGAS -- If you're coming to CES, bring a cool ultrabook or innovative tablet or don't bother stepping off the plane. They're the hottest things at the show. Ultrabooks are poised to disrupt the traditional notebook space, and with good reason. They're thin, they're light, and they're loaded with panache, making traditional business notebooks and desktops look like relics. And since they use solid-state storage, ultrabooks boot up almost instantaneously, a feature that could convert critics who wonder why anyone would pay the big money these sleek, aesthetic dream machines command. And then there are the tablets, which dare to challenge the Kindle Fire and almighty iPad. We're seeing tablets with Super AMOLED screens, lower prices and a bevy of form factors. Hell, we even found a waterproof tablet. We expected to see a lot of quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 tablets, as well as tablets that run Ice Cream Sandwich. We were not disappointed. One of the most interesting tablets we've run across is the ASUS MeMO 370T, which offers both those killer features in a 7-inch form factor for $250. We covered the 370T in our [Nvidia report](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/asus-nvidia-tegra-3/), but Asus' PR people dropped the ball on getting us a chance to photograph it so we haven't included it here. Here are the 11 coolest ultrabooks and tablets we've seen at CES. Yes, there are a lot of Samsung products on the list, but they're killing it this year, and deserve the recognition. HP Envy Spectre --------------- Ultrabooks are meant to be a premium product, packing top-of-the-line specs into an impossibly thin frame. Here at CES, the HP Envy Spectre epitomizes that definition. This is one cool bit of kit, but it’ll cost you. The Envy Spectre will set you back $1,400 when it goes on sale in the United States on Feb. 8. So what makes this ultrabook so fancy? Where do we start? The Envy Spectre features a scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass chassis and squeezes a 14-inch 1600x900 Radiance Display onto a 13.3-inch frame thanks to its attractive, super-slim bezel. The glass looks great — if you like the look of the iPhone 4 and 4S, you’ll love the Spectre. The top is completely flat, with rounded corners. It's got built-in Beats audio for discerning audiophiles. It uses HP's CoolSense technology to keep things, well, cool. And it even has an NFC chip on the palm rest so you can quickly and easily share URLs from your smartphone browser. This area is (somewhat oddly, aesthetically speaking) covered with still more Gorilla Glass. It looks and feels a bit unusual for a notebook. The Spectre also has several ports, including an Ethernet port that, interestingly, is kept slimmer by the bottom portion of the port being comprised of a mechanical flap. Rounding out the specs, it’s got a Core i5 CPU, 4 or 8GB of RAM and a 128 or 256GB SSD. The HP Envy Spectre is said to run nine hours on a charge. Dimensions are 0.79 inches thin and a hefty (for an ultrabook) 3.79 pounds. *— Christina Bonnington*
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Lenovo IdeaTab S2 ----------------- There's a lot to like about [Lenovo](http://www.lenovo.com/)'s latest Android tablet. First and foremost, it runs Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. Also, the 10-inch tablet slots into a keyboard dock that turns it into something very close to a laptop, much like the [Transformer tablets](http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/) from Asus. The dock also has batteries inside of it, and it can gas up your tablet with an extra 3 or 4 hours of play time. It's also very thin at 0.33 inches, and relatively light at 20 ounces. You can load it with up to 64GB of storage. One bummer: no quad-core chip, just a dual-core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4. But it's still fast enough to impress. It will ship in the second quarter of 2012, probably starting at about $350. We expect the dock to cost an extra $150. — Michael Calore.
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LG Z330/Z430 ------------ What’s better than an ultrabook? A super ultrabook, of course. That's what LG would like us to think, anyway. LG debuted two "Super Ultrabook" models, the 13.3-inch Z330 (pictured) and the 14-inch Z430. Both feature a 1366x768 LED-backit display and Intel Core processors. The Z330 ships with 4GB of memory with a 120GB or 256GB SSD. The Z430 gets 8GB and a combination 500GB HDD with an optional 16GB or 128GB SSD. I’m not sure the Z series will live up to the “Super Ultrabook” billing, but it’s got some nice features. It wakes up practically instantaneously. It's got great brushed-aluminum appearance, and I like the texture around the black-keyed Chiclet keyboard. Mouse clicks require only the lightest tap. That said, I wasn't a fan of all the grills punctuating the bottom and side. It detracts from the otherwise slick styling. The Z330 is a uniform 0.58 inches thick and weighs 2.66 pounds. The Z430 weighs 3.3 pounds and is 0.78 inches thick. They'll be available sometime this quarter. *— Christina Bonnington*
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 ---------------------- Don’t let anyone fool you — size *doesn’t* matter. Seriously. Well, at least when it comes to tablets. That is especially true in Samsung’s case, which is making large smartphones and small tablets like the Galaxy Tab 7.7 The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is the latest in the South Korean company’s series of Android slates. Yes, the marquee difference is the size — hey! It’s slightly larger than the original — but the size isn’t the main attraction. The screen is. The 7.7 features Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus screen, and it is easily among the sharpest, most brilliant displays you’ll find in the mobile space. It’s gorgeous. Seriously, seriously gorgeous. We’re used to seeing these on smaller Samsung handsets like the Galaxy SII, and it’s nice to see it scaled up. Under the hood, the new Tab is brawnier than its predecessors. It's powered by a 1.4GHz dual-core processor backed by 1GB of RAM, and it comes with both a microSD card slot for expansion and LTE connectivity. Memory-wise, it's more amenable to expansion than any Galaxy Tabs before it. And with the 4G radio inside, it'll be the fastest yet.*— Mike Isaac*
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Toshiba Satellite ultrabook --------------------------- Toshiba already has a high-performance ultrabook, the [Portege Z835](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/reviews/2011/11/ultrabooks-for-everyone-toshiba-joins-the-fray/). But that didn't keep it from rolling into CES with an unnamed prototype Satellite ultrabook that could be a great lower-cost option. The mystery prototype has an aluminum chassis, a trendy backlit Chiclet keyboard and a 1,366x768 resolution display. As with the norm in this segment, it's svelte at 0.78 inches thick and just under four pounds. It's a little thicker than the Portege, so it's got room for an Ethernet port, an HDMI port and three USB slots, as well as a slot for your SD card. No one at Toshiba would tell us what's inside the prototype, but we're betting it has either an Intel Core or Ivy Bridge processor and a combination SSD and hard drive for speedy booting at a reasonable price. The unnamed Satellite ultrabook lands in May with pricing starting at $799. *— Christina Bonnington*
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Samsung Series 5 Ultra ---------------------- Most ultrabooks lack an optical drive, but a growing number of manufacturers are finding that consumers still want them. Enter the Samsung Series 5 Ultra. It has a 1600x900 high-resolution matte display and — ta da! — an optical drive if you spring for the 14-inch model. That fact alone makes it slightly slicker than the Series 9. It's also got room for ethernet and HDMI ports *and* and an SD card slot. Inside, the Series 5 Ultra has a hybrid hard drive comprised of 16GB of ExpressCache memory and a 128GB SSD or 500GB SATA hard drive. Look for the Series 5 Ultra later this month with a base price of $899. *— Christina Bonnington*
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Lenovo ThinkPad T430u Ultrabook ------------------------------- The ThinkPad wing of Lenovo is dipping into ultrabook waters in earnest here at CES. This week saw the debut of the [ThinkPad T430u](http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/new-products/index.html), a new 14-incher from the business-minded brand. The ultrabook takes its design cues from the company's very successful, very thin [ThinkPad X1 business machine](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/reviews/2011/05/lenovo-x1/), slimming it down even further. You get the familiar black Lenovo chassis and the same roomy, dreamy keyboard. You'll be able to choose between spinning hard drives or SSDs, which will affect the weight, the performance and the price. It can handle up to a 1-terabyte hard disk, as well. It has a couple of unique features sure to please the polos-and-khakis set: a fingerprint reader with power-on authentication, and a bottom panel that pops off so you can service the drives and the RAM. The ThinkPad T430u will pack one of Intel's new Ivy Bridge processors when it arrives in the second half of 2012. And the price is a wicked-low $850. That's a bargain for this much machine. — Michael Calore.
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Samsung Galaxy Note ------------------- It’s official: Screen sizes on smartphones have gotten ridiculous. Samsung’s Galaxy Note smartphone boasts a mammoth 5.3-inch display, the biggest we’ve yet seen on a phone. It’s all getting confusing as manufacturers blur the lines. Is it a smartphone? A tablet? We have no idea. Whatever it is, it’s impressive. Aside from the gargantuan screen, the note is comparable to most high-end Android smartphones. It runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3), comes with rear- and front-facing cameras and sports Samsung's TouchWiz UI skin over the stock Android OS. We could see Notes in the hands of Very Important People taking notes and making appointments with the “S Pen,” an exceedingly smooth stylus that’s fun to use. The Note also features 4G LTE connectivity, so you’ll be able to take care of business quite quickly. When it’s coming and what it’ll cost is anyone’s guess at this point, but expect to see it exclusively through AT&T later this year. *— Mike Isaac*
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Fujitsu Arrows -------------- Given all the tablets on the market right now, manufacturers have to ask themselves how to make their product stand out from the rest. Fujitsu came up with an unusual answer: Waterproof it. Yes, we’re serious. To crib from Ice Cube, the Fujitsu Arrows can dance underwater and still not get wet. Yes, it’s a novelty, unless you’re the type to bathe and browse. In most other respects, the Arrows is par for the course. A dual-core processor, DLNA support and a 5.1 megapixel camera mean it’s up to snuff with it’s competitors. And did we mention it’s waterproof?*— Mike Isaac*
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Toshiba Excite X10 ------------------ Toshiba is hyping its latest tablet as the "the world's thinnest and lightest." After some hands-on time with the new [Excite X10](http://us.toshiba.com/excite-x10-10-inch) on Tuesday, we're going to go ahead and believe the hype. Toshiba made waves in 2011 when it launched the [10-inch Thrive](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/reviews/2011/07/toshiba-thrive/), a tablet with HDMI, USB and SD card ports, a replaceable battery and a removable back. But all that bunting made it one of the heaviest and thickest tablets on the market. It's obvious the Excite X10, a 10-incher weighing only 1.18 pounds and measuring only 0.3 inches thick, is a big swing in the opposite direction. "We want to make a statement that we're serious about thin and light hardware," Toshiba product manager Carrie Cowan told Wired.com. Even though it's alarmingly slim and light, the Excite X10 still doesn't skimp on connectivity. It has mini HDMI and micro USB ports and a microSD card reader, all squeezed into a razor-thin body with a super-light magnesium alloy back. The company hasn't decided exactly when it's going to release the Excite X10 -- it will come out during the first half of the year, but right now it's a Honeycomb device. Toshiba could delay the hardware release and load it up with Ice Cream Sandwich (the 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4033 processor can certainly handle it) but Cowan says the company is anxious to get the new design onto shelves, so it might launch with Honeycomb with software updates to follow. One thing everyone's reasonably certain about is the price: It will start at $530 for 16GB and go up to $600 for the 32GB version. That's steep, but paying a premium for sexy hardware isn't anything new. — Michael Calore.
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Samsung Series 9 ---------------- What makes the Samsung Series 9 so notable? Well the 13-incher appears to be the lightest and thinnest of the bunch so far, coming in at a scant 2.5 pounds and a mere half-inch at its thickest point. What’s more, it’s tapered at the edges. It’s so thin we’d swear you could use it to slice bread, and the matte black finish straddles the line between professional and cool. The 15-incher is, of course, slightly larger, but only just. It’s a hair over half an inch thick and a bit more than 3 pounds. For a 15-inch notebook, though, that's supermodel thin — and light. Our only gripe so far was both models weren’t quite so quick as the LG Z330 to boot up, but that’s hardly a reason to keep us from liking them. Series 9 ultrabooks will be available next month. They’ll start at $1,399. *— Christina Bonnington*
