HP Folio 13 Review: Deviating From the Norm
by Dustin Sklavos on April 17, 2012 12:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- HP
- Sandy Bridge
- Ultrabook
Battery Life
HP's engineers seem to have short-changed some of the hardware itself in the Folio 13, but those sacrifices (along with sacrifices in form factor) were made in an effort to cram as large a battery as possible into the Folio 13. Indeed, it does include the biggest internal battery of any of the ultrabooks we've tested; the Acer TravelMate's battery is bigger on paper but it sticks out of the chassis slightly, while the Alienware M11x R3 can't really be classified as an ultrabook.
Interestingly, despite having a bigger battery than much of the competition, HP's Folio 13 is only able to provide middling efficiency. Battery life isn't poor by any stretch of the imagination, but ultimately the gamble doesn't seem to have paid off as much as HP would've liked as it's clear there's still some optimization that needs to be done.
Heat and Noise
Another area where the HP Folio 13 benefits tremendously as the result of HP's engineers willing to go a little bit thicker than the competition is in its cooling system. Noise even under load is a fairly quiet whine, and the system does a good job of keeping the i5 running frosty.
Having gotten used to seeing systems running in the 80s and higher, it's refreshing to see the Folio 13 only peaking in the mid-70s where full-sized notebooks tend to hang out. That said, I'm still not thrilled with the idea of having the fan intake on the bottom of the ultrabook (or on any laptop, really). As systems designed to be as light and portable as possible it stands to reason these are going to be used on laps most of the time, and while HP smartly positions the intake near the back and center of the bottom of the notebook, it still seems like this could cause problems. I feel like there has to be a better way to turn ultrabooks into true laptops.
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LordConrad - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
If laptop makers decide to include higher resolution screens by default, I hope there is an option to downgrade. If the native resolution on my 15 inch laptop was any smaller than 768p, I would have trouble reading it.cbf - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
Go the Windows control panel and increase the point size of your text.A5 - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Thin & light always has and always will cost more. It requires more R&D effort to fit all this stuff in a small enclosure.sigmatau - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
The R&D to creating this case was so high that manufacturers need to charge a $550 premium over a regular laptop?Really? $550 for a thinner case with the same hardware?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Way to just pull a random number out of your hat. Where do you get $550 from? The lowest sale price of a Core i3 laptop, perhaps? Let me give you a rundown of estimated costs (give or take):i5 ULV CPU: $125 (for an OEM?)
RAM: $25
Custom motherboard: $100
128GB SSD: $100 (for an OEM)
LCD: $65
OS: $50 (OEM price?)
Chassis: $150
Keyboard: $25
Touchpad: $10
Bill of Materials alone, then, I'd estimate at $650 give or take, which is $200 higher than what you're estimating. Now, add in additional R&D costs of $200 to design and mass produce a higher quality (e.g. not injection molded plastic) laptop, and then the profit is looking more like $150. If they sell a ton of these, then the R&D costs are covered and they could conceivably get the price down as low as $700 (on sale), but I wouldn't expect anything lower than that.
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
How do you know that? I don't mean to question your BoM, I know it's a rough estimate. I'm just curious as to where one could find that sort of information.I thought it was neat when Mr. Sklavos mentioned the cost of LCD panels (http://www.anandtech.com/show/5717/toshiba-portege... It felt like a natural addition to the article that strengthened his point. And it made those LCD rants easier to read, but that's another story...
Anyway, I know you guys are super busy, but it would be pretty sweet if reviews and stuff referenced material costs if it didn't make the review read poorly.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
Actually, I'm the editor of Dustin's articles -- I started adding the LCD pricing comments. :-) Which just makes the issue of low quality panels far more frustrating to me. I'm still working on an article on the topic, but ran into a few snags....The real difficulty with the above pricing is that without actually knowing how much OEMs get charged for some parts, I'm left to go off other sources. I can find some components on the open market, so I can quote those prices (e.g. LCDs, SSDs, CPUs), but what you or I would pay to buy the part is almost certainly quite a bit more than what a large OEM would pay for buying in volume. If you were to buy the equivalent components on your own, prices would be up probably $100 at least from my estimates. Mostly it was a list to point out a reasonable BoM for this laptop.
Super56K - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
If only they played by those rules as far as BoM costs. I'd love to pay an extra ~$50 for a 900p 13" screen. But instead they nail us with a 'premium' upgrade option (if they even give you the option)Even on my 15" HP Probook a 1080p screen upgrade, with a new video cable, is around $100-110 to purchase myself. I'd have gladly paid $500 instead of $380 for it with its 768p screen. Ah well, I'm counting down the months until I decide to void my warranty and 'fix' it myself.
kmmatney - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
I was hoping this meant a 16:10 screen...Oderdigg - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Really?2nd Gen i5, 4GB, 128 SSD, keyboard backlight, USB 3.0, 1GB NIC and 802.11b/g/n. If they had an i7 or an LED panel, it wouldn't be $1000 anymore. It's also very cool to the touch even under duress so there's a good amount of R&D involved.
I just wish it had a better panel, otherwise it's great.