Tag: ultrabook

The Dew Review – Intel Haswell Ultrabook Review – Part 3: A Developer’s Best Friend

Welcome to my third and final review of Intel’s latest generation Ultrabook prototype hardware, powered by the Haswell processor. You can read my previous reviews here:

Hiccups

I have had a couple of hiccups in the last few weeks, neither of which changes my overall impressions of these Ultrabooks. First, I had a hardware issue with the display. A 1px vertical green line was omnipresent on the screen about an inch from the right edge of the display. I returned the unit and Intel’s support quickly sent a replacement. The second issue could be hardware, driver or Windows 8.1 related. It’s impossible to know for sure. The Windows was inactive for 10 minutes and put the hardware to sleep. When I tried to wake it up, nothing worked. Closing/opening the lid did nothing, and pressing keyboard keys or the power button only made the backlit keyboard flash. Plugging in a USB thumb drive finally woke it up, but Windows had crashed and restored itself to default settings. I had to re-install all of my drivers and software. Despite this bumps in the road, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend an Intel Haswwell powered Ultrabook to any Windows developer. It’s just the nature of testing prototype hardware not intended for retail sale.

Windows 8.1

I have been using the release version of Windows 8.1 from MSDN on this Ultrabook. I installed it shortly after my second review. The little changes in the OS really make a big difference for the PC. I do not use all of the enhancements. For example, I do not boot directly to my desktop, and I have yet to press the start button on the desktop. I suspect I might use the start button if I didn’t have a touch-enabled device. I do like the changes to the start screen a lot. Not having every new app’s icon placed on my start page is my favorite change. It’s also nice to have SkyDrive more tightly integrated with the OS.

.NET Development

I have been doing all of my personal development projects on this machine, with all of the code checked in to TFS Online and backing up on SkyDrive. Because the Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate has a Go-Live license, I have been using it as my main IDE, developing projects for Windows Desktop (WPF), Windows Phone 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Azure and the web. Other tools I have been using on this PC include ReSharper 8, WebStorm 7, WebMatrix and Icenium Graphite. I also plan on installing Xamarin Studio to do some cross-platform mobile development.

Most of my personal development time has been spent doing Windows Phone 8 and WPF development. It is really great to have a touch-enabled Ultrabook to run and test my apps. It makes interacting with the Windows Phone emulator feel more natural, and it is very likely that my WPF apps will be used by others on touch-enabled PCs. Any modern development really should be done on a PC with a multi-touch screen.

Other Tidbits

I haven’t run into any issues with performance while running multiple instances of Visual Studio, Blend, emulators and other applications at the same time.

I have not given the battery a proper torture test, but it is never something I have to think about when I am away from my power supply for a few hours.

The screen looks amazing. The resolution is true HD (1920×1080), and everything looks crisp and clean.

Tip: If you use Google Chrome on the Desktop and don’t like the blurry look on high resolution, open chrome://flags and change the “HiDPI Support” flag from Default to Enabled.

I would like to thank Intel for the opportunity to review this Haswell Ultrabook. It has been a great experience. If you have a chance to buy one, like maybe a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch, you will not be disappointed

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

 

The Dew Review – Intel Haswell Ultrabook Review – Part 2: Daily Use

This is part 2 of a three part series of reviews. You can read part 1 of my review here.

Introduction

With the background and first impressions out of the way, let’s talk about what really matters. How does this machine hold up during daily life of a .NET developer? I have run into some good scenarios over the past few weeks:

  • Traveling to another office, which leads to:
    • Connecting to unfamiliar Wi-Fi hot spots in airports, hotels, restaurants and on the plane.
    • Stuck in all-day meetings in a conference room far from the cubicle where I left my power cable.
    • Accessing corporate resources from a machine that does not belong to the domain.
    • Testing out my new on-ear Bluetooth headphones.
  • Speaking at a local user group meeting. The potential horrors:
    • Availability of power source.
    • Availability of Wi-Fi
    • Connecting to the projector
    • Getting through my talk on a keyboard & touchpad I have been using for two days.

Traveling

First, I was pretty happy to discover that this Haswell Ultrabook is nearly the name form factor as the Ivy Bridge Ultrabook I reviewed last year. Thus, I was able to use the neoprene sleeve I purchased last fall for this trip. I love how small the power brick is for this Ultrabook. It doesn’t create a huge bulge in the sleeve’s pocket like most other bricks would.

I had no issues connecting to Wi-Fi anywhere during my trip. I always had a good signal, even in my hotel room which I find to be a rare occurrence. If you have the need to be connected and cannot count on Wi-Fi always being available, there is a SIM card slot in the Haswell Ultrabook, which I believe would be functional if I had one to try. It shows up in the network sidebar in Windows 8.

image

Battery life has been fantastic. I have not done any exact, timed tests of the battery, but in an all-day meeting using OneNote, Outlook, Google Chrome and Visual Studio 2012, I did not have to go seek out the power supply that I left on my desk. I did put it to sleep over lunch and for a quick afternoon cake break.

As far as getting access to company resources while on the road, that’s not a problem because it’s Windows. I have VPN, Lync, Outlook and access to SharePoint through the awesome GimmalPoint Windows 8 SharePoint client app.

The Bluetooth 4.0 on-ear headphones I use connected to my Ultrabook without any problems. I listened to my music collection on the plane while reviewing some technical design documents for the first day’s meeting.

Presenting

As I mentioned in my first review, two days after the Ultrabook arrived, I presented a session on APIMASH Starter Kits at the First State .NET User Group in Wilmington, DE. The Wi-Fi there was very slow, but I was prepared for that and had planned to do all of my essential demos locally. Had the connection been better, I was planning to demonstrate coding in the cloud with an Azure Virtual Machine set up with Windows Server 2012 and Visual Studio 2012. I have been running this on a medium VM instance recently. It performs great and doesn’t come close to using my monthly MSDN allotment as long as I remember to shut down the VM instance every time I finish using it.

Connecting to the project went smoothly. The Ultrabook has a microHDMI port but adapters for VGA and HDMI were included, along with a USB Ethernet adapter. The VGA adapter did the trick and I was up and presenting.

I am still getting used to the clickable multi-touchpad. It’s very hard to break my habit of resting my left index finger on the bottom of the pad when I am doing a lot of mouse intensive work. I normally rest it on the button down there to click as needed. I am getting better and don’t blame the hardware for this one. It’s all me… getting old and set in my ways, I suppose.  Smile

Developing

Ninety percent of the development work I have been doing on the Haswell Ultabook to this point has been either personal Windows Phone and Windows 8 Xaml app development or some sample applications I have been creating while evaluating controls that I have been asked to review. In both of these situations, the Ultrabook has done the job.

I have run three instances of Visual Studio 2012 at some times, along with an instance of Expression Blend without noticing any performance issues or slow-down. With only 4gb of RAM, I wouldn’t recommend running any local virtual machines. I will continue to leverage Windows Azure to host and run my VMs.

I have to say, the 1920×1080 resolution is a joy in which to code. The screen is crisp and looks great. I have used it for coding in Visual Studio and WebStorm for over 10 hours straight on a couple of occasions.

The Last Word

That’s it for the review, part 2. I am enjoying my Haswell experience immensely. Stay turned for part three next month when I get into some coding examples with the built-in sensors. I also did this with the Ivy Bridge Ultrabook last year. We will see if anything has been added or improved for the Ultrabook developer in the last year.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The Dew Review – Intel Haswell Ultrabook Review – Part 1, Initial Impressions

On Tuesday, I received a package I have been anticipating for several weeks. I had been asked to use and review a new generation of Ultrabook from Intel with a shiny new Haswell processor inside. This is the first of three articles about the unit. I have had a few days to unbox and take it for a spin.

The unboxing process is always a great time. Here are a few shots of the Ultrabook being removed of it’s musical box. Yes, like a Hallmark card, the box plays a little jingle when you open it. In this case, the Intel jingle of course.

The BoxFront of the BoxOpening the LidWhat Lies BeneathAccessoriesKeyboard and Touchpad

Inside the box, I found:

  • The Ultrabook
  • The power cord, with a pleasingly small brick
  • A 16gb thumb drive containing drivers and software
  • A quick start guide
  • A spec sheet
  • A USB to Ethernet adapter
  • A micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter
  • A micro-HDMI to VGA adapter

The specs on the machine are pretty impressive. I may have added more RAM if I were building it myself, but beggars can’t be choosers.  Smile

  • CPU: Intel Haswell i5
  • 180GB SSD Hard Drive
  • 4GB RAM
  • Accelerometer/Magnetometer/Gyro meter/Ambient Light Sensor
  • GPS Sensor
  • NFC
  • 1.3MP WebCam
  • MultiTouch Pad
  • (2) USB 3.0 Ports
  • Micro HDMI
  • SIM and SD Card Readers
  • MultiTouch Screen (1920×1080 resolution)

I quickly got Visual Studio 2012, Xamarin Studio, and a host of other development software installed. Visual Studio runs great. In fact, I presented at the First State .NET user group meeting on Thursday night and decided to use the Ultrabook to do the presentation. It worked great and became a part of the Q&A at the end of the session. Everyone there noticed it and wanted to know all about it.

The only thing I am still adjusting to is the clickable multitouch pad. I have gotten into the bad habit of resting my left index finger on the left button when using touchpads on my other laptops. When I do that with this Ultrabook, my finger is resting on the corner of the touchpad. I ended up doing a bit more pinching and zooming than I intended over the last few day. I think I will be able to break that habit pretty quickly.

All in all, I am loving this machine so far and plan to use it as my primary machine outside of work. Stay tuned for review part two in a few weeks. I will have a little more time with the Haswell unit at that time and will spend more time talking about the development experience on the machine.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.