Haswell Windows 8 Laptops Recently Announced

Sept 13, 2013

Last month I said you should wait until fall to buy a Windows 8 laptop because that’s when the Haswell processor laptops will be released, with up to 50% better battery life. Well, a few companies have recently announced a number of such laptops, most of them due out in October or November. Following is a list of recent announcements with reviews from CNET.com.

Laptop, Hybrid, or Tablet?

Many of the laptops in the list below are also hybrids—they can convert to large tablets. And of course, I just posted about the new iPad-sized Bay Trail tablets coming out in a few months. So which should you get, a larger laptop (perhaps hybrid) or an iPad-sized Bay Trail tablet? I think, if you work on the road a lot, you should have one of each—a good business laptop (13 or 14 inch screen), and an iPad-sized tablet for one-handed use. They serve two different functions, as I wrote about here. So this article focuses on laptops, some of which may convert to large tablets, but, I think your focus should be on their laptop capabilities.

Here’s a list of upcoming Haswell laptops (recently announced):

Two different Lenovo Yoga’s, one for business, and one for consumers:

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-yoga-2/4505-3121_7-35827161.html

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-yoga/4505-3121_7-35827163.html

The Asus Zenbook in the past was the best Window’s competitor to the Macbook Air 13. Here’s a Haswell update to that Zenbook:

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/asus-zenbook-ux301/4505-3121_7-35827208.html

A Haswell hybrid from Asus:

http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/asus-transformer-book-t300/4505-3126_7-35827199.html

Here’s a Haswell hybrid from Asus that runs both Windows 8 and Android. It’s a bit small for use as a business laptop though:

http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/asus-transformer-book-trio/4505-3126_7-35827211.html

Here’s an innovative hybrid from Sony. The hinge is really cool, and it includes the option of up to 15 inch screens and a pen, which attracts my attention:

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/sony-vaio-flip/4505-3121_7-35827157.html?autoplay=true

No doubt many more will be announced in the coming weeks/months.

By the way, notice I am not listing the new Surface Pro 2 due out this year, which will be a Haswell device. In my mind it’s too small to be a good business laptop, and too big to be a very good tablet. Again, I think you need one of each.

Michael Linenberger