CULV laptops?

I was looking at CULV laptops (specifically the Aspire Timeline series) earlier, and I'm kind of confused as to what the point is:

- It costs as much as a standard 13-14" laptop
- It weighs almost as much as a standard 13-14" laptop
- It's about the same size as a standard 13-14" laptop
- Any P- or T-series CPU would blow it out of the water in terms of performance

So it has neither the price and size benefits of a netbook, nor the power of a regular notebook. Am I missing something here?

 

Most of them. Yeah. Its a really good question.

They DO offer downright impressive battery life. That's about it.

Except in the Acer 1410(USA name, its the... 1800 something in europe I think.) [Also not LISTED as a "timeline" but its specs match so closely...]
Which has been priced 449$ MSRP, seen for about 400$ fairly frequently.
Its specs run about:
CULV Solo 1.4ghz
11.6in 1366x768 screen
GMA4500HD intel graphics
All the fixings except an optical drive.
Better battery life than most atom-netbooks. (Disregarding newer Z5X0/GMA500 based systems, and ones with oversize batteires) With just the battery that fits in the frame well.
Windows 7 upgrade coupon. Vista Home-premium included.

Its not meant to go up against laptops. Its meant to go against netbooks. And does on the large side. Its only a smidgen larger than the average 10in netbook. Little over an inch. And has the benifit of a non-crippled screen thanks to it. (Many programs assume 1024x768 bare minimum these days. 1024x600 does NOT work well for this...)


That said? The larger, more expensive, fancier versions and whatnot? Yeah. I don't get it either. I mean, I guess they have their nich with battery life... But whatever. I rather have a P8700 based system, and two batteries.

 

Getting a laptop with a P or T series processor and an ATI and NVDIA GPU will blow away these CULV laptops... and then getting a 12 cell battery will garuntee you a 4 hour battery life at least so CULV notebooks aren't worth it as they'll only give u 1-2 more hours more... (comapnies everytime say that there's 8-9 hour battery life etc but in the end its only 5. )

 

There will be a huge weight difference though =D

 

The Timeline series is far cheaper than most 13-14" laptops. You can get it for as low as $400! While say Lenovo X300 starts at $2000... Most people don't need the power of a regular voltage CPU anyways.

 

I have a 2.5ghz processor in my laptop and i can obtain over 6hrs battery life with wifi on with the standard 6 cell battery. I can get more if i lowered brightness or use more aggressive power plan settings that will disable my dvd drive etc and this that and the over. It handles everything I do with ease and has power to spare.

The Asus UL30A with an 8 cell gets around 8-9hrs battery life. Some laptops with standard C2D processors do come close to that with 9 cell batteries because of Intel Speedstep.

Although these notebooks can offer good value for money though i'm not sure that i am so keen on where this is taking the 13.3 sector.

You do have notebooks though like the Sony SR that also offer integrated graphics and extended batteries but they start at about £150 more.

 

I only looked briefly on Newegg and they wanted $600-900 for a Timeline, which is enough money to get a full-power 13.3" or 14" laptop. I'm sure I could find a better deal if I looked harder, but I wasn't that interested.

Me neither. 13.3" is about the smallest size you can find a full-power laptop in these days. If they get replaced by CULV's, there's gonna be a huge gap between 10" netbooks and 15" mainstream notebooks.

 

They are machines with less power hungry yet still powerful processors that fit the gap between a (cheap) netbook and a (expensive) normal laptop. We who buy these do not need the extra power or battery sucking power a P/T series would provide. And of course a 13"/14"/15" culv machine will be the same size as a normal laptop, how could they make it any smaller with that screen?

In what other 13.3"machine besides a culv can you get a dual core processor, 4GB of ram, an ssd, 3.5lb wight, draft n wireless, bluetooth, and be guaranteed at least 8 hours battery life for only $799? Not a Studio XPS 13, Vaio SR or Z, Toshiba U505, not an HP DV3...

I am glad they were created because I needed a little more power than my EEE could provide, yet still wanted extrememly long battery life like it could provide (along with no optical drive), and culv machines fit my needs perfectly.

 

At what price? Remember those CULV crush netbooks yet cost almost the same price. If you compare it to full featured laptops in that price range, they are lighter, smaller and offer a pretty darn good battery life.

 

I'm not disputing that these notebooks do not have not their place.
However, I was looking at the question of battery advantage as that was raised. Some notebooks do come close to the battery life that notebooks like the Asus UL30A get with extended batteries also.

I said i'm not sure where this is going because i have noticed that notebooks in the 13.3 sector increasingly seem to be quite powerful notebooks like the Asus F6ve or notebooks with a CULV processor and no dvd drives. Companies like Asus and Lenovo and some others seem to me right now to be putting more effort into their consumer ULV lines right now.

 

I would say the closest thing here would be the Z, but its the priced 2.5x more than a 13in CULV. So, yeah there isn't one that meets all those criteria(besides CULV).