October 28, 2013 at 10:15MicroXperts U400-06. Aluminum Ultrabook Review
It is widely believed that an aluminum laptop is an expensive and status item. Not at all. It is a practical and comfortable workhorse. MicroXperts U400-06 is made of aluminum, similar to a MacBook, but it costs significantly less on Windows. The seed is quite decent. Let’s unwind, see, evaluate? Under the cut, an ultrabook of Russian assembly made of Chinese components was prepared.
Let's start with the clothes, as usual. Similarities with the device from Apple can be traced, but still this is not a complete clone. The platform is somewhat thicker, the ports are different, and the logo on the cover does not light up. The manufacturer of barebone is the Chinese company Topstar. The model is called TU131. All four surfaces are made of aluminum. An updated MicroXperts logo is engraved on the top cover with a laser. The screen is glossy with a resolution of 1366 * 768. The matrix is made using TN technology. No miracles can be expected from her. The usual budget matrix for a laptop made by Chimei
There is nothing on the front face, except for a protrusion for convenient opening of the cover. On the right are: SD / MMC card reader, HDMI, USB 3.0, LAN.
Left: power connector, USB 2.0, audio jack, and a hole for pressing the Reset button.
The bottom panel is mounted with 12 screws and has a perforation in the area of RAM slots. For an upgrade, you can torment one time, and still, not every day we crawl inside the laptop.
The power supply is small, of course, Chinese, does not heat up during operation. The plug is not angular, this is clearly not the most convenient solution, it's time to take it as a standard already (I will not insist on MagSafe 2 for all laptops).
The 83-key keyboard is an island type. The cursor keys are small, the up and down buttons are half-sized, but there is no inconvenience when working.
The power button is located where everyone is used to clicking Delete.
The delivery set is small but sufficient - a power supply, a manual, a driver disk.
The logo on the cover is clearly visible. The engraving is unobtrusive, but at the same time recognizable.
Of the keyboard moments that are uncomfortable for me personally: low Enter, often a message flies to Skype with a slash at the end =)
The touchpad is large, with support for gestures, but with a nuance. The upper corners of the touchpad go a little more than we would like and when pressed, a distinctly audible click is heard.
An interesting detail is the Reset button. It is not often found, but it is simply necessary for devices with a non-removable battery.
The Ethernet connector cover is made in such a way that when closed it does not violate the aesthetic feelings of the owner, and with the inserted LAN cable, does it really matter what the socket looks like?
Dissected interior. Half the battery, the other half electronics.
The upper right corner is reserved for storage systems. A SATA drive with a thickness of not more than 7 mm and an mSATA drive are installed here. In our case, a Corsair Neutron 256 Gb SSD.
The upper left corner is the Intel Core i5-3317U processor, one RAM slot, which is occupied by an 8 GB bracket.
Battery 45 W * h with an operating voltage of 7.4V. We'll talk about the duration of a single charge in the “Testing” section.
Here you can install an mSATA SSD disk and make a storage system of two disks - a fast mSATA for the system and a SATA HDD for data storage.
The previously announced "Testing" section.
Processor specifications: more than once found in ultrabooks Intel Core i5-3317U with a frequency of 1.7 GHz, two cores and 3 MB of cache.
The motherboard pretends to be the original Intel.
The memory operates in single-channel mode at a frequency of 1333 MHz with timings of 9-9-9-24-1T
Graphics: Intel GT2, aka Intel HD Graphics 4000, the fastest controller for Intel Ivy Bridge processors.
Corsair Neutron SSD supports SATA 6 Gb / s
“Blue” test - the memory speed is not fantastic, in which I will say that one channel does not drive, but there is only one memory slot.
Windows 7 rightly considers the weakest point in the system graphics.
Trying to test the freshest 3D Mark MicroXperts ultrabook, it became clear that this was true. So what to do, until now, integrated graphics have not learned to win the hearts of gamers, although playing Starcraft or Diablo is quite comfortable.
PC Mark 7 comprehensive test suggests that the performance of the ultrabook is at a decent level for its classmates.
The battery test shows a result of 2 hours 51 minutes. This is approximately equal to 6 hours in office mode and low screen brightness. Not a bad option, of course, a trip will need recharging, but in Sapsan you can work calmly and upon arrival at your destination do not worry about the last percent.
Another positive point: high-quality cooling system. The maximum temperature was only 68 degrees. There is a "fault" and the aluminum case, and a good, but noisy fan.
The final manifest. No, this is not a MacBook or a Zenbook. But, in my opinion, this is not Lenovo. The ultrabook aluminum is one of the key qualities, and no one offers this quality for such a price. The price in Yulmart of this modelka: 31 990 rubles . There is an easier option with 4 gigs and a 128 GB SSD drive. It will cost 5,000 rubles cheaper. Three years of warranty, again, do not lie on the road. In general, the option is quite worthy. I won’t lie that I would buy myself with a 100% probability, but I would definitely cling to this device when choosing my eyes.
Let's start with the clothes, as usual. Similarities with the device from Apple can be traced, but still this is not a complete clone. The platform is somewhat thicker, the ports are different, and the logo on the cover does not light up. The manufacturer of barebone is the Chinese company Topstar. The model is called TU131. All four surfaces are made of aluminum. An updated MicroXperts logo is engraved on the top cover with a laser. The screen is glossy with a resolution of 1366 * 768. The matrix is made using TN technology. No miracles can be expected from her. The usual budget matrix for a laptop made by Chimei There is nothing on the front face, except for a protrusion for convenient opening of the cover. On the right are: SD / MMC card reader, HDMI, USB 3.0, LAN.
Left: power connector, USB 2.0, audio jack, and a hole for pressing the Reset button.
The bottom panel is mounted with 12 screws and has a perforation in the area of RAM slots. For an upgrade, you can torment one time, and still, not every day we crawl inside the laptop.
The power supply is small, of course, Chinese, does not heat up during operation. The plug is not angular, this is clearly not the most convenient solution, it's time to take it as a standard already (I will not insist on MagSafe 2 for all laptops).
The 83-key keyboard is an island type. The cursor keys are small, the up and down buttons are half-sized, but there is no inconvenience when working.
The power button is located where everyone is used to clicking Delete.
The delivery set is small but sufficient - a power supply, a manual, a driver disk.
The logo on the cover is clearly visible. The engraving is unobtrusive, but at the same time recognizable.
Of the keyboard moments that are uncomfortable for me personally: low Enter, often a message flies to Skype with a slash at the end =)
The touchpad is large, with support for gestures, but with a nuance. The upper corners of the touchpad go a little more than we would like and when pressed, a distinctly audible click is heard.
An interesting detail is the Reset button. It is not often found, but it is simply necessary for devices with a non-removable battery.
The Ethernet connector cover is made in such a way that when closed it does not violate the aesthetic feelings of the owner, and with the inserted LAN cable, does it really matter what the socket looks like?
Dissected interior. Half the battery, the other half electronics.
The upper right corner is reserved for storage systems. A SATA drive with a thickness of not more than 7 mm and an mSATA drive are installed here. In our case, a Corsair Neutron 256 Gb SSD.
The upper left corner is the Intel Core i5-3317U processor, one RAM slot, which is occupied by an 8 GB bracket.
Battery 45 W * h with an operating voltage of 7.4V. We'll talk about the duration of a single charge in the “Testing” section.
Here you can install an mSATA SSD disk and make a storage system of two disks - a fast mSATA for the system and a SATA HDD for data storage.
The previously announced "Testing" section.
Processor specifications: more than once found in ultrabooks Intel Core i5-3317U with a frequency of 1.7 GHz, two cores and 3 MB of cache.
The motherboard pretends to be the original Intel.
The memory operates in single-channel mode at a frequency of 1333 MHz with timings of 9-9-9-24-1T
Graphics: Intel GT2, aka Intel HD Graphics 4000, the fastest controller for Intel Ivy Bridge processors.
Corsair Neutron SSD supports SATA 6 Gb / s
“Blue” test - the memory speed is not fantastic, in which I will say that one channel does not drive, but there is only one memory slot.
Windows 7 rightly considers the weakest point in the system graphics.
Trying to test the freshest 3D Mark MicroXperts ultrabook, it became clear that this was true. So what to do, until now, integrated graphics have not learned to win the hearts of gamers, although playing Starcraft or Diablo is quite comfortable.
PC Mark 7 comprehensive test suggests that the performance of the ultrabook is at a decent level for its classmates.
The battery test shows a result of 2 hours 51 minutes. This is approximately equal to 6 hours in office mode and low screen brightness. Not a bad option, of course, a trip will need recharging, but in Sapsan you can work calmly and upon arrival at your destination do not worry about the last percent.
Another positive point: high-quality cooling system. The maximum temperature was only 68 degrees. There is a "fault" and the aluminum case, and a good, but noisy fan.
The final manifest. No, this is not a MacBook or a Zenbook. But, in my opinion, this is not Lenovo. The ultrabook aluminum is one of the key qualities, and no one offers this quality for such a price. The price in Yulmart of this modelka: 31 990 rubles . There is an easier option with 4 gigs and a 128 GB SSD drive. It will cost 5,000 rubles cheaper. Three years of warranty, again, do not lie on the road. In general, the option is quite worthy. I won’t lie that I would buy myself with a 100% probability, but I would definitely cling to this device when choosing my eyes.