With the ultrabook laptops starting to gain traction in sales it’s normal for big brands to jump into the train, the latest to do so being LG with the X-Note Z330, an ultrabook 13 inch notebook that looks a lot like the Apple MacBook Air from profile.
And that’s not a bad thing, considering the MacBook Air is probably the best ultrabook out there, even if Apple doesn’t call it so. As size and weight we’re definitely into the ultrabook territory: 14.7mm (0.58-inches) in thickness, 1.21kg (2.67 pounds) weight. The design uses brushed aluminium everywhere and black on the screen bezel. It’s resembles the MacBook Pro a little bit more than the Air when you look at the inside.
Specs are at the same level as most ultrabooks: 1.6GHz Core i5 or 1.8GHz Core i7 paired with 4GB RAM and 120 to 256GB SSD drives. The screen is also 13 inches diagonal, but no resolution was mentioned, which makes me suspect it’s HD Ready (1366 x 768 px). As for ports you do get USB 3.0, HDMI out and Wireless HDMI for wire free connection to a big screen TV.
LG X-Note Z330 UltrabookAs with any ultrabook, the LG Z330 is proud to advertise a 10 seconds boot time, which on paper is excellent. We’ll have to see how it performs in real life after a few months of running Windows 7 and installing tons of programs. Battery life is rated at 6 hours, so expect somewhere around 4-4:30 hours of real life, which is pretty mediocre.
The price is the only thing that will make you think twice (or even three times) before choosing the LG Z330 ultrabook: it starts at $1500 and stops at $2300 for the high end model. That’s enough to buy three Acer Aspire S3 or Toshiba Z835 or two 11 inches MacBook Airs. My only hope is that the price for US market will be lower, as the one announced by LG is meant for Korea. We’ll let you know when we find out more.
LG Z330 makes good use of brushed aluminium