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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
88 Comments
View All Comments
piroroadkill - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
So it has a low end CPU, only one memory slot, a 1366x768 screen, HPs bloody AWFUL touchpad, Intel 3000 graphics.That sounds like par for the course for HP. Although the one memory slot thing is especially odd. Nothing else is significant. I would never buy an HP laptop with their all-in-one touchpad.
It's so bad that even if somehow the rest of the laptop was great (it isn't) I wouldn't consider it.
ShieTar - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
You write"HP's engineers took a look at Intel's ultrabook spec and, rather than see how small they could get their design, opted to see just how much they could pack into the spec."
and then
"HP has strangely opted to be much more conservative with speccing their ultrabook than other vendors have"
and also
"Ultimately, though, the Folio 13 is rather tame for an ultrabook, all the more perplexing since other vendors were able to cram more power into smaller designs."
It seems to me like your first line is not based in reality, but that they rather opted to see just how much profit margin the can get away with.
Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Look at the size of the integrated battery, ports available, and the quality of the keyboard compared to other ultrabooks.ImSpartacus - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Yeah, this machine really is a puzzling design choice.I've long lusted for the "RAZR Maxx" of Ultrabooks. Take a thin machine and fill it up with battery until it is about the thickness of a "non-thin" machine.
But HP managed to tank efficiency enough that it doesn't matter. Quite disappointing.
rkhpedersen - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
Why do you keep mentioning the battery? According to yourself it does not deliver.JNo - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
I concur, there's a lot of contradictory (and therefore confusing) statements in this review Dustin. Your main positives seem to be the keyboard and a 'boxy' design that isn't leveraged for other benefits. You then say it's your favourite ultrabook to date along with the Dell whilst complaining about all the shortcomings. The reasons for it being favoured seem thin on the ground and at odds with the rest of your tone.JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
The reasons to favor one laptop over another almost always come down to the feel of the system in actual use -- and I'm not talking about speed and performance. I too think the boxier design with deeper key presses is a good thing -- the ultra-thin wedges on other ultrabooks leave the typing experience severely compromised. The rest of the stuff HP did is certainly "deviating from the norm", but unfortunately much of it is in a not-so-good way.Single-channel RAM probably only costs 5-10% performance at best (e.g. in graphics tests where IGP and CPU are being pegged), but when a smaller laptop can have two SO-DIMM slots there's no good reason for the change. Locking down the CPU is okay, as the i5 ULV works well enough, but was that necessary? The larger battery on paper should be great, but it fails to deliver (likely from lack of careful power tuning optimizations).
Despite the above, the pricing is still reasonable compared to the competition. I'd love a better display (as always), but the Folio runs cooler and quieter than other ultrabooks and the keyboard is more comfortable to type on, with most other areas being more or less "equal". So yes, that makes it a "favorite", but as noted in the conclusion it's still flawed.
french toast - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Can i make a request? I have noticed from other sites that both batterylife AND performance fluctuates wildely when notebooks/ultrabooks are run off battery instead of mains....From what i can tell most of your tests come from the mains to test absolute best case scenario performance..where as in most cases that form factor is going to be used on the move, so the most relevant benchmark/gaming scores are going to come off battery power, not mains.
I have noticed that Intel 17w chips perform SIGNIFICANTLY worse when running off battery compared to Mains...likely AMD also, would it then be possible to include in the same graphs the benchmarks/gaming score from running off the deviced battery so readers can see the REAL performance whilst out and about...i just don't think the performance measurements are representative for the scenario it would be used.
I enjoy your reviews by the way ;) Thanks.
jamawass - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
Jarred Walton recently tested an AMD based notebook which showed gaming performance does not deteriorate on battery power compared to intel.french toast - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
The point im getting at, and somewhat backed up by what you have said, is that intel iGP is terrible when running off a battery in comparison to AMD.What people think they are getting and what they actually get in real world are not the same things, you don't but a laptop to have it plugged into the mains, they are designed to be carried around..i just think it would be more approapriate to test with and with out battery in the same chart...its more accurate...other websites do it.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21902/7
I will wait a while if i don't get noticed down in the comments section i will email in with a request, would be really great if Anandtech could do this IMO.