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
Conclusion: A Mixed Bag
Of the ultrabooks I've tested so far, the ones I've personally liked the best have been the Dell XPS 13 and this one, the HP Folio 13. Both have fairly good keyboards and both deviate from the norm a little bit, displaying some ingenuity and thought in their designs. I particularly appreciate the Folio 13's more boxy design; it seems silly, but the lack of a wedge shape is refreshing and more than that, helps to both distinguish HP's entrant visually and gives their engineers some elbow room.
What we're still looking at, fundamentally, is the first generation of ultrabooks. The first generation of netbooks wasn't so hot, either, and most of us remember the first generation iPad being derided as a giant iPhone. All of the vendors seem to be working out kinks, and it doesn't help that Sandy Bridge isn't quite as ready for this form factor as Ivy Bridge will be (and Haswell especially, further down the line). Intel's spec is forward-looking in a way that's good for the future, but leads to compromises in the here and now. Hence, working kinks out so that the second generation should be a lot more impressive.
To that end, I think the form factor, design, and the aesthetic of the HP Folio 13 are fundamentally the strong points. It has one of the best keyboards available in an ultrabook, and it runs nice and frosty. What HP needs to work on for the next revision is eschewing the clickpad and going back to a traditional touchpad with dedicated buttons, increasing the customization available (including running the system's memory in dual-channel instead of single-channel mode), bumping the mSATA speed up to 6Gbps for future-proofing's sake, and further optimizing power consumption. That the screen needs to be replaced with something better goes without saying, but I'm optimistic that the days of lousy, low-resolution TN displays in notebooks are numbered.
None of the ultrabooks available right now is perfect. With Ivy Bridge en route, hopefully we'll be seeing refreshes soon that work out many of the weaknesses of this generation while building on their strengths. In the meantime, if you need a system right now it's going to come down to which one feels the best for you. Performance is generally comparable (excepting the Toshiba Portege Z830 and its turbo-free Core i3) between the systems as such that you don't really give up anything tangible going with a slower processor, and battery life is essentially the same way. As such, it's a matter of preference.
Personally, I like the HP Folio 13 more than most, and pricing is decent at around $1000 for our review unit. However, like the competition the Folio 13 just doesn't seem quite ready for prime time yet. It's also important to remember that Ivy Bridge refreshes within the next month could substantially alter the ultrabook landscape.
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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.