Mobility is a priority: TOP 5 best ultrabooks in 2021

The Acer Swift 3 SF314-511 is a stylish mid-range ultrabook with an excellent balance between price, quality, performance and features. For a little less than a thousand dollars, a potential buyer of the Swift 5 will have at their disposal a fairly thin and light device in a solid aluminium case with a productive stuffing, a capacious battery and advanced equipment.

The design of the model combines the severity of business laptops with the elegance of ultrabooks: a light and thin body made of brushed aluminium, strict colors, a minimum of decorative elements. It weighs a little over a kilogram, and the thickness of the case is only 16 mm. Carrying such a baby with you is a pleasure. In terms of build quality, this is a reliable and durable laptop with no frills. The screen is fixed on strong hinges, the keyboard and the central places of the case are practically not pressed through, it will be difficult to accidentally damage it in a bag.

Despite the miniature size, Acer engineers did not look for simple ways and stuffed it well. The heart of the laptop is an 11th generation 8-thread Core i5, which is complemented by 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB NVMe SSD traditional for modern ultrabooks. Interestingly, Acer engineers preferred the energy-efficient LPDDR4 memory to the classic DDR4 memory, which was also overclocked to 4266 MHz.

In addition to sensible internal equipment, the laptop is equipped with the latest fashion. For example, at the end there is a brand new USB4 port with support for the Thunderbolt 4 interface, fast charging and the ability to connect an external monitor. The motherboard works on the PCI-E 4.0 bus, which allows you to install a hyper-speed SSD with support for this bus. Communication modules are friends with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 standards, and the built-in sound card is friends with DTS. For a mid-range device costing just under a thousand dollars, this is excellent equipment. And what's even cooler, he has no weak points at all. In previous versions of Swift, the fingerprint scanner was buggy, but here there was no such problem. In general, there is an unequivocal medal, we recommend!

Xiaomi RedmiBook Pro 14 is a powerful and lightweight ultrabook that is equally suitable for entrepreneurs, students, designers, coders, etc. one charge (although according to the passport 16 hours are indicated). Plus, in the 2021 version, Xiaomi switched to Ryzen processors and fixed most of the flaws of previous Redmibooks.

For example, the cooling system has become noticeably quieter, the webcam has returned to its place, and 2 USB C 3.2 gen1 ports appeared on the side panel at once, the wireless module supports the Wi-Fi 6 standard, and the audio path is friends with DTS. However, the Achilles' heel of these ultrabooks has almost always been dim displays with limited color reproduction, after which Apple's Retina displays seemed something godlike. The new Redmibook also fixed this: the device has a bright 14-inch IPS display with QHD / 2K resolution, wide viewing angles and natural color reproduction.

But Xiaomi has never had problems with the filling and the 2021 model is as close as possible to the status of “top for your money”. Our modification has a 16-thread Ryzen 7 based on Zen 2 cores (Lucienne architecture), an important part of which is the moderately productive integrated Vega 8 video card. frames per second? In general, it pulls a little weaker than the discrete GeForce MX350. By modern standards, this is far from a gaming laptop, but it is quite possible to play on it. As for the memory, there is also complete order: 16 GB DDR4 (3200 MHz frequency) is soldered on the board, and a fast 512 GB NVMe SSD is used as storage.

Redmibook Pro 14 looks solid in all respects - the minimalist case looks expensive and presentable, reminiscent of one well-known laptop from Apple. The build quality is excellent, the parts do not play, and the lid hinges are moderately tight, but the display can be lifted freely with one hand. In general, this time it can really be called a worthy alternative to the MacBook. True, and it already costs almost the same money as the MacBook Air with an ARM processor.

The Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G3 is part of a new line of fashion ultrabooks that Lenovo sees as a more affordable and slightly simplified alternative to the fashion laptops from the ThinkPad series. With the same scrupulous attitude to the choice of materials and assembly, but at the same time more compact and without the proprietary trackpoint unnecessary for many.

Like his forefather ThinkPad, our today's hero has a strong temper and remarkable strength. It has a 12-thread Ryzen 5 5500U processor based on the Zen 2 architecture under the hood, which managed to score 2616 points in the CineBench R20 benchmark and 13726 points in the Passmark CPU Mark. In general, this is a rather serious processor, the capabilities of which go far beyond office applications. The performance of the laptop is also affected by the use of a fast NVMe SSD and 16 GB of DDR4 overclocking RAM. The integrated Vega 7 graphics card will also be useful, the performance of which is approximately comparable to the discrete MX 250.

Last but not least, it is equipped with the latest technology. For example, on the side faces there is a card reader and two USB C ports at once, which are friendly with fast charging and, if necessary, can display a picture on separate monitors. The latest Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 receivers are used to communicate with the outside world. The complex of protective measures includes a hardware encryption module, an anti-theft lock and a fingerprint. It is also a rare ultrabook with the ability to upgrade memory - the amount of RAM can be increased up to 40 GB, and another compact M.2 drive can be added to the existing SSD.

As a result, Lenovo has a well-balanced ultrabook with a comfortable keyboard, responsive touchpad and high-quality speakers. And despite its performance, it is quite quiet and cold. One could find fault with the display's color reproduction (note: only 45% coverage of the NTSC triangle), but this is compensated by the display's brightness margin, high contrast ratio (700:1) and TÜV Rheinland certification, which guarantees low eye strain due to reduced blue light emission and low flicker frequency.

The Asus ZenBook 14 is one of the most popular ultrabooks of 2021. This is a stylish, lightweight and at the same time powerful ultrabook that honors the traditions of the ZenBook series. Like its predecessors, it is equipped with a proprietary NumberPad touchpad, which is combined with a numeric keypad. And the proprietary ErgoLift hinge serves two purposes at once. When you open the lid, the back of the case automatically rises, tilting the keyboard to a more comfortable angle for your hands and freeing up space under the bottom for additional blowing of hot air.

Despite its ultra-rugged status, the ZenBook 14 UX425JA is a powerful laptop that can do a lot. The engine is a 10th generation 8-thread Core i7 processor with an integrated Intel Iris G7 graphics card. If earlier such solutions were only suitable for connecting an external monitor and running some fifteen-year-old game, then from now on everything has become much more interesting. For example, in GTA 5 at medium settings and 1080p resolution, it produces an average of 28 frames per second. In our opinion, this is very foolish. The processor is accompanied by a fast M.2 SSD with a capacity of 1024 GB and 16 GB of DDR4 memory overclocked to 3200 MHz.

With such a productive filling, it is also one of the thinnest and lightest models with a protected case: its thickness is only 14 mm and weighs 1.17 kg. Despite the diminutiveness of the laptop case is made of aluminium, it does not flex under pressure and does not creak, leaving the feeling of a gadget assembled to the conscience. The laptop has been successfully tested for durability during drops and work in harsh environments and received the US military-industrial standard MIL-STD 810G certification.

The list of advantages of the Asus ultrabook includes a Wi-Fi 6 module, USB C ports with support for fast charging and Thunderbolt 3 interface, a camera with a simplified Face ID analog, branded speakers from Harman Kardon, an efficient cooling system that is barely audible under load and capacious battery with an impressive 22 hours of operation! We are talking about working in a standard office mode with a browser, tables and texts with a display brightness of about 40% and a disabled touchpad.

You have probably already heard that Apple got into the processor race and immediately succeeded in this. And the 2020 MacBook Air was one of the company's first devices to be powered by the Apple M1 APU. This is a single-chip system that houses 8 processor and 8 graphics cores, a neural unit for machine learning, a video core and RAM. Despite the rawness of the software and the use of the emulator, the Rosetta M1 performs marvels of speed, providing performance on par with the Ryzen 7 5800H and Core i7-1185G7. The only negative is that Apple, as always, exorbitant prices for flash memory, so in our modification we had to limit ourselves to a 256 GB SSD drive.

At the same time, it is damn fast - Air with M1 turns on in just a few seconds, and the laptop itself wakes up from sleep faster than you have time to lift the display lid. But that's not all. Firstly, the chip boasts a Nordic character and heats up very little. So weak that the active cooling system was actually thrown out of the laptop, leaving a couple of passive radiators. Therefore, the MacBook M1 does not make noise from the word at all. Secondly, the chip inspired by mobile processors consumes very little energy, which significantly saves battery power: 15 hours of work in browser mode and 18 hours of video playback are normal for it.

Otherwise, it's still the same thin, sleek, and tidy MacBook Air with a brushed-aluminium chassis and a redesigned scissor-style keyboard that hasn't replaced the ever-breaking butterfly keyboards that Apple has been pushing through for years. The 13-inch Retina display is as beautiful as ever: brightness, contrast and color reproduction are at their best, and content in 2K resolution impresses with its detail. Image auto-calibration using the True Tone feature also works great, you rarely pay attention to it, but if you accidentally turn it off, your hand immediately reaches to return it to its place.

But the equipment has been somewhat improved in comparison with the Air models of the past and the year before last. For example, the webcam is equipped with three microphones for better voice transmission during video conferences, and the built-in speakers make friends with Dolby Atmos. The Force Touch touchpad is able to recognize the force of pressing. And on the side panel there are brand new USB4 ports that support all the goodies of the Thunderbolt 3.2 interface, including charging and the ability to transfer an image to an external monitor.