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Lenovo IdeaPad 730S review: Thinner, lighter MacBook Air alternative
Lenovo IdeaPad 730S review: Thinner, lighter MacBook Air alternative
At 2.4 pounds (1.1 kg) and 11.9 mm thick (0.5 inch), the 13.3-inch Lenovo IdeaPad 730S is lighter and thinner than the current MacBook Air. Its quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, faster 2,400MHz memory and speedy Samsung PCIe solid-state drive give it better performance than the Air, too. Plus, it's less expensive, starting at $825, although the configuration reviewed here is just $770 at the moment.
I know what you're thinking, though: There's no alternative to a MacBook Air (or any Apple computer for that matter) because the others don't run MacOS. That is certainly true, so if you're looking for an apples-to-apples alternative -- no pun intended -- this won't do the trick. Nor will any other Windows laptop, really.
However, if you're not tied to MacOS for one reason or another, the IdeaPad 730S with Windows 10 ($144 at Amazon) is one of the best alternatives to a MacBook Air you'll find.
Lenovo IdeaPad 730S
Lenovo IdeaPad 730S (81JB0004US)
Price as reviewed
$999
Display size/resolution
13.3-inch 1,920x1,080-pixel display
CPU
1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8265U
PC memory
8GB DDR3 SDRAM 2,400MHz
Graphics
128MB Intel UHD Graphics 620
Storage
256GB PCIe SSD
Networking
802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless; Bluetooth 4.1
Operating system
Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
Clean and simple
The IdeaPad 730S started life back at IFA 2018 as the Yoga S730 as part of Lenovo switching its Yoga brand from strictly convertibles to being its premium line and adding an S and C to the names for "slim" clamshells and "convertible" two-in-ones. In fact, in the UK it's still the Yoga S730 and starts at £899. It's not currently available under either name in Australia.
That's the long way of saying the 730S has a more premium look and feel than Lenovo's entry-level IdeaPads. The iron-gray aluminum body is understated, as is the Lenovo branding, which is reduced to nothing more than a small tag on the lid's edge and a barely visible stamp at the bottom left of the bright and colorful full-HD display.
The keyboard is comfortable with a nice pop to the keys (and I doubt a little dust will shut it down). The silky-smooth touchpad is responsive as well without sending your cursor skittering across the screen from an errant palm. Even the speakers sound more full than you'll find on competing ultraportables due in part to the Dolby Atmos audio tuning. And despite the thin bezels around the display's top and sides, the webcam is above the display.
The 730S keyboard has two levels of backlighting.
Sarah Tew/CNET
It's all dongles these days
Like a lot of superslim laptops, the 730S only has a combo headphone jack and USB-C ports: two USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 (one with always-on charging) and one USB-C 3.1 Gen 1. Unfortunately that means you'll need to buy dongles or a dock if you need a USB-A port, a memory card reader, an external display or whatever else.
On the upside, you can charge the laptop through any of the USB-C ports. You can also enable Lenovo's Rapid Charge feature to get your battery up to 80 percent in an hour, which works and it's great. Battery life is overall good, too, coming in at 8 hours and 8 minutes in our streaming video test. This is where the Air comes out ahead, running for 10 hours and 46 minutes in the same test. But that comes at the cost of a less powerful processor.
Video playback battery drain test (streaming minutes)
Microsoft Surface Laptop 2
Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, 2018)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
Highly portable productivity
Sarah Tew/CNET
The IdeaPad 730S isn't built for extreme performance and doesn't necessarily have the speed to handle everything. For everyday use for work and school, though, it doesn't disappoint for the price.
The 730S works fine for day-to-day tasks like web browsing, word processing and streaming video. Basic photo and video editing? Sure, no problem, but anything more demanding and you'll want discrete graphics, a faster processor and something with a more efficient cooling system.
To get this laptop so thin, Lenovo designed the cooling fan to pull air in through the keyboard. Under continued heavy load it struggled to stay cool even with the fan going full blast. But again, for basic use that's not really an issue and overall the design choice pays off.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 730S proves you don't need to spend more than $1,000 to get some of the benefits of an upscale ultraportable. Especially one that's light enough and small enough that you'll forget it's even in your bag.
Geekbench 4 (multicore)
Lenovo IdeaPad 730S
Microsoft Surface Laptop 2
Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, 2018)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
Cinebench R15 CPU (multicore)
Microsoft Surface Laptop 2
Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, 2018)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
System configurations
Lenovo IdeaPad 730S
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8265U; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 2,400MHz; 128MB dedicated Intel UHD Graphics 620; 256GB SSD
Asus db31 review asus db310 asus db31 review asus db3110 asus db31 review asus db31 00636a asus db31 review asus db31 connector asus db31 review asus db312a asus db31 review asus db31 00445b asus db31 review asus db31 00649c asus db31 review asus e210mao asus db31 review asus et12
Asus DB31 review: Asus DB31
Asus DB31 review: Asus DB31
The Asus Zenbook was one of the first entrants in the new ultrabook category when it launched in late 2011. We liked that original system, despite a few serious flaws, as the all-metal design marked it as a direct competitor to the MacBook Air.
Since then, ultrabooks have become both more common and less expensive. Asus now makes several UX variations, including three that we are reviewing, the UX31A, UX32A, and UX32VD. At $779, the Zenbook UX32A is the least expensive of the current crop, but for good reason.
The UX32A still has a previous-generation Intel Core i5 CPU. That generation of chip is known by the code name Sandy Bridge, as opposed to the latest generation, released in the second half of 2012, and known as Ivy Bridge. The UX32A is also missing other Intel improvements, most notably the HD 4000 integrated graphics, which offer improved gaming performance in other notebooks.
By way of comparison, the 13-inch Asus Zenbook UX32VD comes alluringly close to being an ultrabook without compromise. For $1,299 it includes an Intel Core i7 CPU, a full HD 1,920x1,080-pixel-resolution display, and a discrete Nvida 620M GPU. That model is the closest hybrid of a 13-inch ultrabook and a full-power mainstream laptop to date, and easily my favorite of this collection of Zenbooks, despite its higher price.
The UX31A is a more upscale design variant, thinner with a more unibody chassis, which skips the GPU, but keeps the high-res screen and Ivy Bridge internal hardware. But at about $1,079, it doesn't make the most compelling value case.
If you just love the Zenbook look and feel, then this third version, the UX32A, is a way to get it for under $800, albeit with outdated components and some performance compromises. If your ultrabook needs are that basic, there are many other worthwhile options out there to consider at around the same price.
Asus Zenbook models compared
CPU
GPU
Storage
Display
Price
UX32VD
1.7GHz Core i7-3517U
Nvidia GeForce 620M
500GB HDD/24GB SSD
1,920x1,080
$1,299
UX32A
1.4GHz Intel i3-2367M
Intel HD 3000
320GB HDD/32GB SSD
1,333x768
$779
UX31A
1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U
Intel HD 4000
128GB SSD
1,920x1,080
$1,079
Asus Zenbook UX32A specs
Price as reviewed
$779
Processor
1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2367M
Memory
4GB, 1,333MHz DDR3
Hard drive
500GB 5,400rpm / 32GB SSD
Chipset
Intel HM76
Graphics
Intel HD 3000
Operating system
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD)
12.8x8.8 inches
Height
0.2 - 0.7 inch
Screen size (diagonal)
13.3 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter
3.3 pounds / 3.8 pounds
Category
13-inch
The look and feel of the Zenbook line has changed little since last year. The tapered aluminum design of the original Zenbook was both minimalist and the most Air-like of the early ultrabooks (at least until the Dell XPS 13 came around). But it also had a few design miscues. The lid on the original Zenbook was notoriously hard to open. That's been fixed in the UX32A, and the touch pad also feels more responsive than the older models', especially after a last-minute software update from Asus, although it's still one of the system's weak points.
The original Zenbook was thinner and lighter than this version, but both the more tapered Zenbooks (such as the current UX31A) and this one have a sharp front lip that can be murder on the heels of your hands, depending on your typing style. Ergonomics aside, the solid-feeling aluminum body is not as streamlined in its construction as a MacBook, but the parts fit together well, with minimal screws and seams.
The keyboard was a weak point on the original Zenbook, with shallow, clacky keys. The UX32A and UX32VD both have a slightly thicker and heavier body, and that extra depth lets the keyboard have a little more space. Keystrokes on the UX32A feel more like they do on a standard laptop than on the thinner, more tapered UX31A (which is more like the original 2011 Zenbook). The keyboard is also backlit, a must-have feature on any modern ultrabook.
The large but finicky clickpad on that original UX31 was one of our main problems. If you make sure to install the latest touch-pad drivers (version 1.0.26), which are available via Asus Live Update if not preinstalled on the system, the touch-pad experience is much improved, but it's still nowhere near as intuitive or responsive as a MacBook trackpad -- a Windows-wide problem. There is, however, a decent set of multitouch gestures, demoed and controlled by the Asus Smart Gesture software app. One nice feature is that you can set a two-finger tap to indicate a right-click, a very Mac-like move that I've seen popping up in a few Windows laptops lately.
In the UX32VD and UX31A models, the display has been upgraded to an IPS screen in full HD, with a 1,920x1,080-pixel native resolution. In this less-expensive model, you're still stuck with a 1,366x768 native resolution. Most 13-inch laptops, including some very expensive ones, have 1,366x768-pixel screens. That's fine for $800 or so, so it's not out of place in this configuration. That said, an upscale ultrabook could really benefit from at least a 1,600x900-pixel display, which feels to me like the sweet spot for a 13-inch laptop. The screen itself looked decent, and was thankfully not excessively glossy, which often causes annoying glare from nearby lights.
Audio through a speaker grille at the very top of the keyboard tray was predictably thin, despite the Bang & Olufsen ICE Power branding (which you'll find on all three Zenbooks). Audio volume controls are mapped to alternate F-key functions, so you'll need to hit, for example, Fn+F10 to mute the sound.
Asus Zenbook UX32A
Average for category [13-inch]
Video
HDMI, Mini-DisplayPort (plus VGA via dongle)
HDMI or DisplayPort
Audio
Stereo speakers, headphone jack
Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data
3 USB 3.0, SD card slot
2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, SD card reader
Networking
Ethernet via dongle, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional mobile broadband
Optical drive
None
DVD burner
With dual video outputs and three USB 3.0 jacks, the UX32A makes good use of its slightly thicker body to fit in more ports. Going all-3.0 is especially impressive considering the $779 price (thank the Intel HM76 chipset). Ethernet is still relegated to an external dongle, but this system does include Intel's Wireless Display feature, which enables you to send the screen image to a TV or other monitor via a $99 sold-separately receiver box.
The other two Zenbook laptops we're reviewing for summer 2012 have made the jump to Intel's third-generation Core i-series processors, but not this one. That puts the UX32A at a considerable disadvantage. The $1,299 UX32VD has a 1.7GHz Intel Core i7-3517U along with a 500GB hard drive/24GB solid-state drive (SSD) combo drive, and Nvidia GeForce 620M graphics. The $779 UX32A has a previous-generation 1.4GHz Intel i3-2367M CPU, 320GB HDD/24GB SSD, and Intel HD 3000 graphics, and the $1,079 UX31A has a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U CPU, 128GB SSD, and Intel HD 4000 graphics, plus a slightly thinner body.
Of those three, the UX32VD is the most expensive, but also by far the most universally useful. It was also much faster at running our benchmark tests, beating out the other two Zenbooks, but falling behind an Intel Core i5 MacBook Air. In everyday use, I found all three to be more than responsive enough for common computer tasks, from social networking to working in Microsoft Office to running Photoshop. But there's definitely a difference between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge performance.
If you're at all interested in gaming, the UX32VD is the Zenbook for you. Even then, the Nvidia GeForce 620M GPU is an entry-level part, and not great for high-detail settings at full 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution. The Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics in the UX32A ran our very forgiving Street Fighter IV test at 1,366x768 pixels and only 19.9 frames per second, making it not very well suited for anything beyond simple casual games and maybe a few vintage games.
All three of the Asus Zenbook models we tested had solid battery life, to varying degrees. The UX32A ran for 5 hours and 16 minutes -- decent if not spectacular -- in our video-playback battery drain test, while the UX31A ran for 6 hours and 16 minutes. The UX32VD has higher-end components, so it may be forgiven for only running for 5 hours and 13 minutes. Some other ultrabooks can run for 1 to 2 hours longer, but all these times should get you through a full day if you close the lid and put the laptop to sleep when not actively using it.
Asus offers a one-year mail-in warranty on each of these ultrabooks. The Asus Web site can get a little confusing to navigate, but 24-7 phone support is available at 888-678-3688. The simplest way to find the Asus support section for your specific model is to ignore the frustrating pop-up navigation menus and simply type the model number into the support page search box.
The Asus Zenbook UX32A shares a chassis with the UX32VD model we also reviewed, but little else. It's stuck with an older CPU, lacks the graphics and battery-life advantages of Intel's new Ivy Bridge platform, and has a lower-resolution screen. That said, if you love the look and feel, which is nicely MacBook-like, this model is about $500 less.
Find out more about how we test laptops.
System configurations:
Asus Zenbook Prime UX32A Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2367M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 320GB Hitachi 5,400rpm
Acer Aspire S5-391-9880 Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 128MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 256GB Lite-On IT SSD (2x RAID 0)
Asus Zenbook Prime UX32VD Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 620M / 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm
Apple MacBook Air 13.3-inch (Summer 2012) OS X 10.7.4 Lion; 1.8GHz Intel Core i5; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 384MB (Shared) Intel HD 4000; 128GB Apple SSD
Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 128GB Adata XM11 SSD
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Living with Chromebook: Can you use it to actually get work done?
Living with Chromebook: Can you use it to actually get work done?
In the first part of our Living with Chromebook series, I outlined the initial hardware and account setup required to use a laptop running Google's Chrome OS. In this second installment, the focus is on productivity.
For my long-form Chromebook test-drive, I'm spending most of my computing time with the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook. Like the smaller 11- and 12-inch Chromebooks we've reviewed, it operates almost entirely within the Chrome Web browser, which looks and feels the same as the Chrome Web browser you may be using right now on your Windows or Mac OS computer.
That makes for a familiar experience in some ways, as many of us have already moved large swaths of our lives online, into Web-based tools such as Gmail, Facebook, and Netflix. More than most, I've embraced cloud services for as many things as possible, primarily because reviewing laptops means moving into a brand-new, fresh-from-the-box PC at least once or twice a week.
Working in the cloud If you're anywhere near as invested in cloud services as I am, then the transition to a Chromebook should hypothetically be fairly painless. Most of the things you want to do -- send e-mail, share via social-networking services, stream online video -- are available on a Chrome OS device, and largely work the same way as on a traditional OS.
That said, there's still a natural resistance to this type of Web-only setup. Maybe the idea that in a traditional PC there's a desktop lying underneath it all is a comforting one. Perhaps traditional folders-and-file systems are a security blanket, because despite having used Chromebooks before this, I found being locked into a browser-only world still felt confining, especially for office work -- documents, spreadsheets, and folders of files nestled within each other.
That's no doubt why the Chrome OS now has a more pronounced (if still rudimentary) file system than the very first Chromebooks did, making it possible to save and easily access files. This Hewlett-Packard model only includes 16GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage, but Acer's C7 Chromebook includes a standard 320GB platter hard drive. In either case, photo, music, and video files can all be stored and sorted there, by downloading online or sideloading from a USB drive or SD card. Consider it all to be backups for the versions "in the cloud," for those times when you can't get online.
Image and video files on the Chrome OS hard drive.
Do you need always-on Internet? While the original pitch for the Chromebook was that this would be an always-on device, connected to either Wi-Fi or mobile broadband, that idea seems to have fallen by the wayside. The HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, for example, does not include a 3G antenna, something found in the original Google Chromebook, as well as the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550. Google's high-end Pixel model even offers a 4G LTE version. But the bundled wireless service always comes with an asterisk; in the case of the 4G Pixel -- which is $250 more than the Wi-Fi-only version -- it's this: 100MB per month for two years of mobile broadband from Verizon Wireless. In other words, it's way too paltry to do anything substantive.
Perhaps sensing that always-on broadband isn't going to always work for sub-$400 laptops, Google now emphasizes the offline capabilities of Chrome, which are largely tied in to the offline modes that have been built into Google's various tools, such as Google Docs, over the years.
The offline-ready apps in the Chrome Web Store.
A few other Chrome-compatible Web tools also work offline, and Google has set aside a section of its Chrome Web Store (really just a dressed-up set of links to Chrome OS versions of web sites) to make them easier to find.
Google Drive as office suite I'll let you in on a little secret. I've been using Google Drive (nee "Google Docs") as my main word processor for a few years now, and it's such a useful, well-maintained online tool that the benefits far outweigh a few significant shortcomings. For that reason, using Google Drive on a Chromebook was a natural transition for me, and one of the elements of Chromebook use that felt the most comparable to using a non-Chrome OS laptop.
Like nearly all writers, I spent years using Microsoft Word on both Windows and OS X systems. It's still the default for word processing, and DOC and DOCX are still universal file formats (fortunately, Google Drive allows you to open and export these formats).
But, reviewing new laptops all the time, I was setting up a new system once or twice a week at least, which often made using these new laptops for writing a pain. Microsoft now has an ad-supported "free" version of Word that comes preinstalled on some (but not all) laptops, but previously, if you were lucky you had a trial version, or else nothing at all. Very often, I ended up either installing OpenOffice (a free, if clunky, office suite), or digging up an old install disc for Office 2003. Even under the best of circumstances, I had to remember to e-mail myself the latest version of my Word doc, or sneakernet it around on a USB stick. (Nowadays, I'd store the documents on Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, or the like, but I'd still be stuck installing the word processing software itself.)
So many of the work tools we use now are online and collaborative that it's hard to remember when that wasn't the norm, but when I started using Google Drive in earnest in 2009 it was a major change to my workflow. Even now, on the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, I can open any document I've been working on from another laptop, add some text, and then seamlessly switch back to the first laptop at any point. It's also easy to share docs with anyone else via a few button clicks -- and multiple authorized users can access and edit a document in real time (which is something you may or may not want).
Working on a document in Google Docs.
Google Drive works best for simple text-based documents with minimal formatting. You can add images, tables, and other design elements, but these are not as full-featured as in Microsoft Office, and don't always translate as one might expect when exporting to a DOC file.
Another thing that drives me crazy about Google Drive is the lack of a "show hidden characters" command in its word processor. That's not something everyone uses, but for writers, especially those who got their start in print publishing, being able to see every tab, paragraph break, and even the spaces between characters is important. I've learned to live without it, but it's still my least favorite part of the Google Drive experience.
The presentation and spreadsheet apps included with Google Drive are somewhat less successful. My needs for XLS files are limited, but even then I've run out of available columns and been forced to start a new tab in a spreadsheet. In fact, all the Google Drive apps have size and complexity limitations, and you can find more details about that here. Those are limitations to the actual Google Drive platform, not something specific to Chrome OS or the Chromebook.
Another option for Microsoft Office purists is Office 365, the cloud-based version of Office. It's a paid service, not all features work in Chrome OS, and it doesn't facilitate the easy sharing that Google Docs does with anyone who has a free Gmail account.
It may be something you'll need to use every day, but I've had good luck exporting Google Docs files into the PDF format (it's a setting built right in to Google Docs under File > Download as), and the file browser in Chrome OS can open PDF files for easy reading.
One handy thing to keep in mind is that most Google Drive files can be accessed even when your Chromebook (or other PC) is offline. But, you have to set up the offline mode for your account first by following the instructions here. Gmail also has an offline mode, and you can find more apps and features that work on an offline Chromebook in this special section of the Chrome Web Store (of course, you'll have to be online to see this list).
Using a mouse, printer, and other peripherals One of the big problems I had with the less-expensive Chromebooks from Samsung and Acer has been the terrible touch pads built into those systems. I don't care if your laptop cost less than $200, if the touch pad is unusable, you're just not going to be productive on it.
The touch pad on the $329 HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook is a bit better, but still not even as good as the touch pads found on budget Windows laptops. It was passable for basic Web surfing, but if you plan on using your Chromebook for more than a couple of hours at a time, an external mouse is recommended.
Fortunately, despite not having any way to install drivers or dive into the deeper functions of pointing devices, I had good luck getting external devices to work. Both the wireless Microsoft mouse and the external Logitech touch pad I tried worked instantly, both via USB dongle (a second wireless mouse, from Targus, did not work).
Printing is a little more complicated. You'll need to use a service Google calls Cloud Print. That works one of two ways. The less likely scenario is that you already own one of a handful of Cloud-Print-ready printers, in which case you should be able to connect easily if you're on the same network. More likely, you have what Google generously refers to as a "classic printer," in which case, you have to run a Cloud Print app on a separate Windows or OS X machine, and from there, connect to your Chromebook.
This is about as far from the simple, stripped-down appeal of Chromebooks and the Chrome OS as one could imagine.
That said, when I followed the steps outlined in this support doc from Google, the Cloud Print feature worked the first time I tried it.
Workaround apps If your job involves only e-mail, text documents, and simple spreadsheets, moving to a Chromebook may well be a very simple transition for you, especially if you already make use of Google's online tools.
If, however, you have occasional need for programs such as Photoshop, you're going to have to find a workaround. There actually are a few basic image-editing features built into Chrome OS, but if you need to do more than adjust the rotation or brightness and contrast of an image, you'll hit a wall very quickly.
I've always used a Web-based tool named Pixlr for emergency photo edits. It's a cloud-based image editor that looks and feels a lot like Photoshop. You upload an image, edit it, then download the resulting file. It works well enough in a pinch, although if you're a heavy Photoshop user, a Chromebook just isn't for you.
I found Pixlr listed in the Chrome Web Store, but "installing" the app really just takes you to the Pixlr Web site. Similar online tools, including some basic video editors, can be found in the Creative Tools section of the Chrome Web Store. One caveat, especially if you're working with big images: remember that you'll have to both upload and redownload the image file, so make sure you have the time and bandwidth to work that way before you count on an online app such as Pixlr.
You can be productive on a Chromebook, sometimes As an on-the-go system for catching up on e-mail (especially if you use Gmail or Google's corporate e-mail services), and creating or editing basic office documents, a Chromebook works, and works well considering the less-than-$250 investment (for the Samsung Chromebook Series 3, the most affordable Chromebook CNET can recommend).
That said, it does not excel in any particular area, and even a budget Windows laptop offers more flexibility and the ability to run more software. Even if you only need a particular app once in a great while, unless there's an online version that works in the Chrome browser, you're out of luck.
Here's what worked:
Google Drive/Google Docs works the same as it does on non-Chrome PCs
Having cloud-based documents makes it easy to share and access documents on multiple PCs
Many mice and other accessories are plug-and-play
Offline access to some features helps the Chromebook be more universally useful
Here's what didn't:
You're stuck with second-rate online alternatives to programs such as Photoshop
Setting up a printer is a hassle
Google Docs lacks many of the bells and whistles of Microsoft Office
In the next Living with Chromebook installment, we'll look at entertainment options in Chrome OS, from streaming video to games.
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Living with Chromebook: Can you use it to actually get work done?
Living with Chromebook: Can you use it to actually get work done?
In the first part of our Living with Chromebook series, I outlined the initial hardware and account setup required to use a laptop running Google's Chrome OS. In this second installment, the focus is on productivity.
For my long-form Chromebook test-drive, I'm spending most of my computing time with the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook. Like the smaller 11- and 12-inch Chromebooks we've reviewed, it operates almost entirely within the Chrome Web browser, which looks and feels the same as the Chrome Web browser you may be using right now on your Windows or Mac OS computer.
That makes for a familiar experience in some ways, as many of us have already moved large swaths of our lives online, into Web-based tools such as Gmail, Facebook, and Netflix. More than most, I've embraced cloud services for as many things as possible, primarily because reviewing laptops means moving into a brand-new, fresh-from-the-box PC at least once or twice a week.
Working in the cloud If you're anywhere near as invested in cloud services as I am, then the transition to a Chromebook should hypothetically be fairly painless. Most of the things you want to do -- send e-mail, share via social-networking services, stream online video -- are available on a Chrome OS device, and largely work the same way as on a traditional OS.
That said, there's still a natural resistance to this type of Web-only setup. Maybe the idea that in a traditional PC there's a desktop lying underneath it all is a comforting one. Perhaps traditional folders-and-file systems are a security blanket, because despite having used Chromebooks before this, I found being locked into a browser-only world still felt confining, especially for office work -- documents, spreadsheets, and folders of files nestled within each other.
That's no doubt why the Chrome OS now has a more pronounced (if still rudimentary) file system than the very first Chromebooks did, making it possible to save and easily access files. This Hewlett-Packard model only includes 16GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage, but Acer's C7 Chromebook includes a standard 320GB platter hard drive. In either case, photo, music, and video files can all be stored and sorted there, by downloading online or sideloading from a USB drive or SD card. Consider it all to be backups for the versions "in the cloud," for those times when you can't get online.
Image and video files on the Chrome OS hard drive.
Do you need always-on Internet? While the original pitch for the Chromebook was that this would be an always-on device, connected to either Wi-Fi or mobile broadband, that idea seems to have fallen by the wayside. The HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, for example, does not include a 3G antenna, something found in the original Google Chromebook, as well as the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550. Google's high-end Pixel model even offers a 4G LTE version. But the bundled wireless service always comes with an asterisk; in the case of the 4G Pixel -- which is $250 more than the Wi-Fi-only version -- it's this: 100MB per month for two years of mobile broadband from Verizon Wireless. In other words, it's way too paltry to do anything substantive.
Perhaps sensing that always-on broadband isn't going to always work for sub-$400 laptops, Google now emphasizes the offline capabilities of Chrome, which are largely tied in to the offline modes that have been built into Google's various tools, such as Google Docs, over the years.
The offline-ready apps in the Chrome Web Store.
A few other Chrome-compatible Web tools also work offline, and Google has set aside a section of its Chrome Web Store (really just a dressed-up set of links to Chrome OS versions of web sites) to make them easier to find.
Google Drive as office suite I'll let you in on a little secret. I've been using Google Drive (nee "Google Docs") as my main word processor for a few years now, and it's such a useful, well-maintained online tool that the benefits far outweigh a few significant shortcomings. For that reason, using Google Drive on a Chromebook was a natural transition for me, and one of the elements of Chromebook use that felt the most comparable to using a non-Chrome OS laptop.
Like nearly all writers, I spent years using Microsoft Word on both Windows and OS X systems. It's still the default for word processing, and DOC and DOCX are still universal file formats (fortunately, Google Drive allows you to open and export these formats).
But, reviewing new laptops all the time, I was setting up a new system once or twice a week at least, which often made using these new laptops for writing a pain. Microsoft now has an ad-supported "free" version of Word that comes preinstalled on some (but not all) laptops, but previously, if you were lucky you had a trial version, or else nothing at all. Very often, I ended up either installing OpenOffice (a free, if clunky, office suite), or digging up an old install disc for Office 2003. Even under the best of circumstances, I had to remember to e-mail myself the latest version of my Word doc, or sneakernet it around on a USB stick. (Nowadays, I'd store the documents on Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, or the like, but I'd still be stuck installing the word processing software itself.)
So many of the work tools we use now are online and collaborative that it's hard to remember when that wasn't the norm, but when I started using Google Drive in earnest in 2009 it was a major change to my workflow. Even now, on the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, I can open any document I've been working on from another laptop, add some text, and then seamlessly switch back to the first laptop at any point. It's also easy to share docs with anyone else via a few button clicks -- and multiple authorized users can access and edit a document in real time (which is something you may or may not want).
Working on a document in Google Docs.
Google Drive works best for simple text-based documents with minimal formatting. You can add images, tables, and other design elements, but these are not as full-featured as in Microsoft Office, and don't always translate as one might expect when exporting to a DOC file.
Another thing that drives me crazy about Google Drive is the lack of a "show hidden characters" command in its word processor. That's not something everyone uses, but for writers, especially those who got their start in print publishing, being able to see every tab, paragraph break, and even the spaces between characters is important. I've learned to live without it, but it's still my least favorite part of the Google Drive experience.
The presentation and spreadsheet apps included with Google Drive are somewhat less successful. My needs for XLS files are limited, but even then I've run out of available columns and been forced to start a new tab in a spreadsheet. In fact, all the Google Drive apps have size and complexity limitations, and you can find more details about that here. Those are limitations to the actual Google Drive platform, not something specific to Chrome OS or the Chromebook.
Another option for Microsoft Office purists is Office 365, the cloud-based version of Office. It's a paid service, not all features work in Chrome OS, and it doesn't facilitate the easy sharing that Google Docs does with anyone who has a free Gmail account.
It may be something you'll need to use every day, but I've had good luck exporting Google Docs files into the PDF format (it's a setting built right in to Google Docs under File > Download as), and the file browser in Chrome OS can open PDF files for easy reading.
One handy thing to keep in mind is that most Google Drive files can be accessed even when your Chromebook (or other PC) is offline. But, you have to set up the offline mode for your account first by following the instructions here. Gmail also has an offline mode, and you can find more apps and features that work on an offline Chromebook in this special section of the Chrome Web Store (of course, you'll have to be online to see this list).
Using a mouse, printer, and other peripherals One of the big problems I had with the less-expensive Chromebooks from Samsung and Acer has been the terrible touch pads built into those systems. I don't care if your laptop cost less than $200, if the touch pad is unusable, you're just not going to be productive on it.
The touch pad on the $329 HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook is a bit better, but still not even as good as the touch pads found on budget Windows laptops. It was passable for basic Web surfing, but if you plan on using your Chromebook for more than a couple of hours at a time, an external mouse is recommended.
Fortunately, despite not having any way to install drivers or dive into the deeper functions of pointing devices, I had good luck getting external devices to work. Both the wireless Microsoft mouse and the external Logitech touch pad I tried worked instantly, both via USB dongle (a second wireless mouse, from Targus, did not work).
Printing is a little more complicated. You'll need to use a service Google calls Cloud Print. That works one of two ways. The less likely scenario is that you already own one of a handful of Cloud-Print-ready printers, in which case you should be able to connect easily if you're on the same network. More likely, you have what Google generously refers to as a "classic printer," in which case, you have to run a Cloud Print app on a separate Windows or OS X machine, and from there, connect to your Chromebook.
This is about as far from the simple, stripped-down appeal of Chromebooks and the Chrome OS as one could imagine.
That said, when I followed the steps outlined in this support doc from Google, the Cloud Print feature worked the first time I tried it.
Workaround apps If your job involves only e-mail, text documents, and simple spreadsheets, moving to a Chromebook may well be a very simple transition for you, especially if you already make use of Google's online tools.
If, however, you have occasional need for programs such as Photoshop, you're going to have to find a workaround. There actually are a few basic image-editing features built into Chrome OS, but if you need to do more than adjust the rotation or brightness and contrast of an image, you'll hit a wall very quickly.
I've always used a Web-based tool named Pixlr for emergency photo edits. It's a cloud-based image editor that looks and feels a lot like Photoshop. You upload an image, edit it, then download the resulting file. It works well enough in a pinch, although if you're a heavy Photoshop user, a Chromebook just isn't for you.
I found Pixlr listed in the Chrome Web Store, but "installing" the app really just takes you to the Pixlr Web site. Similar online tools, including some basic video editors, can be found in the Creative Tools section of the Chrome Web Store. One caveat, especially if you're working with big images: remember that you'll have to both upload and redownload the image file, so make sure you have the time and bandwidth to work that way before you count on an online app such as Pixlr.
You can be productive on a Chromebook, sometimes As an on-the-go system for catching up on e-mail (especially if you use Gmail or Google's corporate e-mail services), and creating or editing basic office documents, a Chromebook works, and works well considering the less-than-$250 investment (for the Samsung Chromebook Series 3, the most affordable Chromebook CNET can recommend).
That said, it does not excel in any particular area, and even a budget Windows laptop offers more flexibility and the ability to run more software. Even if you only need a particular app once in a great while, unless there's an online version that works in the Chrome browser, you're out of luck.
Here's what worked:
Google Drive/Google Docs works the same as it does on non-Chrome PCs
Having cloud-based documents makes it easy to share and access documents on multiple PCs
Many mice and other accessories are plug-and-play
Offline access to some features helps the Chromebook be more universally useful
Here's what didn't:
You're stuck with second-rate online alternatives to programs such as Photoshop
Setting up a printer is a hassle
Google Docs lacks many of the bells and whistles of Microsoft Office
In the next Living with Chromebook installment, we'll look at entertainment options in Chrome OS, from streaming video to games.
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Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070 Ti gaming GPU crushes at 1440p
Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070 Ti gaming GPU crushes at 1440p
Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is literally the most middling GPU of the past year, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. On almost every gaming performance test I've run, the 3070 Ti delivered the median score in a field of RTX 3000 series and AMD Radeon RX 6000 series cards, more or less.
Nvidia positions the starting-price $599 (£529, AU$979) GPU, which excels at 1440p and entry 4K gaming, as the natural upgrade from the RTX 2070 Super. But if you're looking to save a little money (or potentially a lot, given the state of GPU supplies) even the cheaper RTX 3070 will give you a big performance lift over the previous generation under most conditions. You'll be able to buy it, in theory, starting June 10.
Read more:Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti stock checker
The design of the 3070 Ti is different from that of the 3070; it's about an inch longer and there's a fan on either side of the card, in contrast to the 3070, which has both fans on one side. It still vents out the back of the card. In fact, though it's about 0.5 inch shorter than the RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti, the 3070 Ti bears the most resemblance to the 3080, with the exception of some cosmetics.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
Memory
8GB GDDR6X
Memory bandwidth (GBps)
608.06
Memory clock (GHz)
1.188
GPU clock (GHz, base/boost)
1.58/1.78
Memory data rate/Interface
19 Gbps/256 bit
RT cores
48
CUDA Cores
6144
Texture mapping units
192
Streaming multiprocessors
48
Tensor Cores
192
Process
8nm
TGP/min PSU
350W/750W
Max thermal (degrees C)
199F/93C
Bus
PCIe 4.0x16
Size
2 slots; 7.94x4.3 in (202x110 mm)
Launch price
$599
Launch date
June 10, 2021
On the inside, it has exactly 4.35% more of everything than the 3070: RT cores, CUDA Cores, texture mapping units, streaming multiprocessors and Tensor cores -- almost like the product was designed by an algorithm asking "What GPU can we sell at $599, midway between the RTX 3070 and 3080?" rather than to answer "What do gamers need now?" A bigger difference is the upgrade to higher-bandwidth (by about 30%) GDDR6X memory. The price you pay is a 16% increase over the RTX 3070 in power requirements, as well as the bigger size.
It delivers excellent 1440p performance, but there are very few situations in which it delivers a significant advantage -- in other words, worth the price premium -- over the cheaper RTX 3070 for gaming; it's typically around 6%-8% faster, with the occasional bump to about 10%. Similarly, AMD's competing Radeon RX 6800 delivers the same or slightly better performance in many games, as long as you don't care about the ray tracing, for a little less.
There were some cases, on Watch Dogs: Legion and Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmarks in 1440p, for example, where my CPU bottlenecked frame rates occasionally in 1440p. It's an 8-core Core i7-10700K (not overclocked), though, which from a price/performance perspective should be an appropriate match for the RTX 3070 series. GPU performance can be extremely configuration dependent (although the synthetic benchmarks bore out the results), and all I can really say is that for my test configuration, it's no slam dunk.
But there are some notable exceptions. On 3DMark's Mesh Shaders test -- a new feature in DirectX 12 Ultimate that more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, handles rendering of complex geometry -- it was more than 1.5 times faster than the RTX 3070 and only a little slower than the RTX 3080 Ti, which means you should see at least some lift in frame rates once it's implemented. As far as I can tell, there aren't any PC games shipping now which support mesh shaders, and Unreal Engine 5, the next version of the popular game development platform and which should help broaden the use of mesh shaders, is still in early access.
Lori Grunin/CNET
The higher-bandwidth memory also gives it a boost on some creative applications, thanks to the higher-bandwidth memory, extra CUDA cores and more.
This is such a weird time to shop for a graphics card, especially midrange ones; chip production delays, combined with GPU-hungry cryptocurrency miners snapping up all available inventory and manufacturers and distributors jacking up prices to take advantage of the demand bubble, has turned buying a GPU into a boss battle of epic proportions.
Despite Nvidia's introduction of cryptomining-optimized cards (its CMP HX) and throttling the mining performance of gaming GPUs (now retronymmed LHR for low hash rate), things still don't look especially promising. The RTX 3080 Ti launched last week and it's already out of stock -- even Nvidia's own cards. Try buying a PS5 instead: you've got a better chance of snagging even that ludicrously hard-to-find console than a current GPU, especially at a reasonable price.
Far Cry 5 (4K)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060 Ti)
iBuyPower Element CL (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
Origin PC Chronos (RTX 3080)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance (fps)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider gaming test (1440p)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6700 XT)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Origin PC Chronos (RTX 3080)
MSI Aegis RS (6800 XT)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider gaming test (4K)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti with DLSS)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Origin PC Chronos (RTX 3080)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS)
3DMark Time Spy
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MSI MEG Trident X (RTX 2070 Super)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6700 XT)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
Maingear Turbo (RTX 2080 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6800 XT)
Origin PC Chronos (RTX 3080)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MSI MEG Trident X (RTX 2070 Super)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6700 XT)
Maingear Turbo (RTX 2080 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
Origin PC Chronos (RTX 3080)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6800XT)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
3DMark Variable Rate Shading (4K)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MSI Aegis RS (3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6700 XT)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6800)
MSI Aegis RS (6800 XT)
Maingear Turbo (RTX 3080)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS)
SpecViewPerf 2020 SolidWorks (4K)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
MS Aegis RS (6700 XT)
MS Aegis RS (3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6800 XT)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
Maingear Turbo (RTX 3080)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS)
SpecViewPerf 2020 Medical (4K)
MSI Aegis RS (3060 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
Maingear Turbo (RTX 3080)
MS Aegis RS (6700 XT)
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
MSI Aegis RS (6800 XT)
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS)
Test configurations
Maingear Turbo (RTX 2080 Ti)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (2004); 3.8GHz Ryzen 9 3900XT; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,600; 11GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti; 1TB SSD + 4TB HDD
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060 Ti)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (2004); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,000; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3060)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (2H20); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,000; 12GB EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC Black Gaming; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 FE)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,000; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3070 Ti)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (21H1); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,200; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RTX 3080 Ti)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (21H1); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,200; 12GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RX 6700 XT)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (2H20); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,200; 12GB AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RX 6800 XT)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,000; 16GB AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT; 1TB SSD
MSI Aegis RS (RX 6800)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,000; 16GB AMD Radeon RX 6800; 1TB SSD
MSI Trident X (RTX 2070 Super)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); (oc) 3.8GHz Intel Core i7-10700K; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,932; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super; 1TB SSD
Origin PC Chronos (RTX 3080)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home (2004); Intel Core i9-10900K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,200; 10GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (EVGA); 1TB SSD + 500GB SSD
