Style Blog

After having purchased my macbook air (the summer 2012 model) I'm now going down that crazy path of looking at getting a cover for it.
I have a few preferences before I begin:

It must be stylish

It must offer protection against all but drops

It must not scratch the casing (Some cases have zips that come into contact with the casing) see the konomo review below for the studs issue.

Konomo Envelope Review - Selected as looking like being the best leather envelope. The sleeve looks like one end is left exposed so I prefer the envelope.

Yes its stupid but I just wanted to do an unboxing video embarrassing I am sure however here it is..

Or skip on straight to the Macbook Air 2012 Review

[Editors note - this is an old blog post now so the technology has moved on so beware of performace claims that are no longer relevant - pretty much just admire the style !]

A suite of windows laptops that address many of the issues lacking given in previous posts. They seem to have gotten a lot right and have moved the price point into a new zone (are we spending more on our laptops I mean are we prepared and happy to do this these days)

[Please note this is an old blog post now and laptops and technology have moved on so please treat any information as old]

From my recent blog on the best 15 inch laptops out there I was talking with a colleague Henrick and he raised the question as to why I was looking at 15 inches. In Asia 14 inch and sometimes 13 inch are more popular - they love stuff small and cute in Japan for example. But here the 15 inch has dominated main stream laptop sales and for me this has also been the size laptop I have looked at in the past.

HP Envy Spectre 14 xt

Thanks to CNET for the image

 
I did have a serious consideration 4 years ago on the subject but the 15 inch won out.  This is the laptop I have now the dell 1530 XPS which is due for replacement as the screen is having freezing issues depending on the opening and closing movement (hinge) a slight adjustment gets rid of the green slime and all is well. Its also running the rubbish Vista. It will last me out until windows 8 perhaps later this year and the arrival of the Ivy Bridge 3rd gen Intel processors which should be much better for battery consumption. At the time I went for the 15 inch version and didn't regret it. I have perhaps watched 50 movies in 4 years and could be argued that a 14 inch might have been ok to do this as well. The display is a very important consideration for me. In todays market so long as I can connect to a big flat screen then working on a 14 inch laptop (usually sharing the same keyboard) should offer advantages giving up few of the disadvanages. Im actually tapping this out using a Samsung notepad an 11 inch N120 and it is fun for a short time to work on this. I think I would be fine full time with a 14inch machine, some 13 inch machines cram 14 inch worth of resolution into them but I would not go this low.

So thanks Henrick for muddying the water and giving me a whole new bunch of machines to compare ! I am finding myself looking at the smaller siblings of the same machines found in my 15 inch laptop reviews. Namely Dells XPS 14z, the HP Envy 14 and the Samsung Series 5, 7 and 9's.

The display becomes more critical for me so for these what are the resolutions for these ?

Dell 14z - A dissapointing 1366 by 768

HP Envy 14 Spectre1600-by-900 (What I want) but the RAM is just 4GB preventing me from going for it !