Hands on: LG Z330 and Z430 Super Ultrabook review

CES 2012: LG joins the Ultrabook party with some tasty efforts

Not renowned for their PCs, Korean behemoth LG has released two Intel Ultrabooks here at CES 2012. And these aren't just Ultrabooks, the press release refers to them as Super Ultrabooks.

We're not quite sure why this is, but we'll go along with it. After all, we're in Las Vegas, where everything is supposed to be Super.

There are two models, the Z330 and the Z430 and as you can see the chassis of this model looks very nice indeed – what's more, they're among the slimmest and lightest Ultrabooks on show.


The 13-inch Z330 is the model shown here. LG has gone for the top of the pile with these models (and therefore they will be highly priced) and features the top-line Core i7 processor.


As with many other Ultrabooks, LG says it has managed to get the 13-inch display into a compact 12-inch chassis. Rather than being tapered at one end, the Z330 is 14.7mm thick across the whole chassis – gven that many Ultrabooks are 17-18mm thick, the Z330 really appeals. It's also among the lightest Ultrabooks around 1t 1.21kg.

We also really liked the keyboard on the model we saw, although the trackpad was a bit slippy for our liking.


As you can see, the 13-inch model pictured here has HDMI out and three USB ports - you only get two and mini HDMI with a lot of the tapered Ultrabooks. There's a drop down bit for the Ethernet port and one USB 3.0 port.



According to LG, the Z330 requires less than 10 seconds to complete booting and has a latest-class SATA3 SSD, too.


The 14-inch Z430 weighs 1.5kg is equipped with SSD and HDD, meaning storage capacities of up to 500GB. This is similar to the Series 5 from LG's great rival Samsung. But unlike that model, it's not clear if the Z430 can be bought with just SSD, or whether it comes with the two drives as a default.


January 12, 2012
By Dan Grabham
http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/hands-on-lg-z330-and-z430-super-ultrabook-review-1054095

Category: Feature , Laptops