Vizio the TV manufacturing company decided to shake up the Windows PC industry with their three new ultrabooks. Today we are going to review the 15.6 inch version which comes with a 1.9 Ghz Core i7 ULV processor, 256 GB of solid state storage and a 1080p screen for a $1,249 MSRP.
Furthermore the quality is not being cut back, with that low price and good quality, whether Vizio would be able to pull it off?
HARDWARE/DESIGN
Its all about sharp edges and and metal surfaces with a slim body. The only ports you can find are the USB 3.0 sockets on either side, a 3.5mm headset jack on the left and an HDMI port on the right. This 15.6 inch version is known by the name of CT15 and this one is only 3.96 pounds and the Samsung series 9 is 3.51 which is respectable. It comes with an aluminum base coated in black soft touch plastic, this helps to insulate the heat, makes the unit easy to grip and disguises the laptop’s thickness. The lid closes quite firmly and strongly, there is a Vizio logo on the bottom right corner of the screen.
SCREEN/ SPEAKERS
The 15.6 inch screen is beautiful and crisp to watch, it has great viewing angles but you loose alot of brightness when viewing off centre but the colors are not washed out. It’s also a matte display so you can use it in a bright room. Vizio uses SRS audio enhancement software and it improves the quality of the volume, depth and the overall sound. But its not that good as compared with other ultrabooks but at this price its great.
KEYBOARD/TOUCHPAD
It comes with UV coated plastic keys, if you like flay keys this is made for you. But it is difficult to write on this keyboard as you will always hit the wrong button. Furthermore they are shallow which makes it hard for you to press them Overall the keyboard is not that appealing. The Vizio’s single button touchpad is made up of Sentilic and its not ready to go and compete with the best ultrabooks in the market. Two finger scrolling is smooth though the main problem is that gestures lag behind your input.
PERFORMANCE AND SOFTWARE
With a 1.9 Ghz Core i7-3517U processor (that turbos up to 3GHz) and a 256GB solid state drive it works faster and is quite responsive. It can handle multitasking very easily and gaming goes well on the Vizio. IT takes 16 seconds to boot which is quite reasonable and fast at this price. Furthermore every Vizio pc is a Microsoft Signature PC, meaning it comes with Windows 7 without any tweaks. Vizio brings you with clean software slate which will attract customers alot. And if you need a gaming PC, Vizio gives you the CT15-A2 which $50 less and gives you everything.
BATTERY LIFE/ HEAT AND NOISE
The battery life is the main drawback here, at 65% brightness and full on browsing and downloading high-res images it lasted for 3 hours which is just poor. Here just say bye bye to the full day battery life. But the noise is minimum, the fans audible and the heat problem is solved quite well. The palm rest, keyboard area is cold but the upper left hand corner gets hot.
The price is right but the battery life and the poor keyboard might not be good to get soo many customers.
