Ultraportable Laptop Disadvantages: Are They Really Worth The Money?
Ultraportable laptops have been selling in huge numbers since the release of the Apple Macbook Air. These laptops boast a range of impressive features, with an extremely attractive design to match, but are they really worth the price tag? To help you make your decision, here are 6 ultraportable laptop disadvantages to consider.
1) High Price: Let's start with the obvious drawback: the price. This is one of the biggest ultraportable laptop disadvantages simply for the fact that it prices many people out of the market, and means you've got to worry about a much more expensive piece of equipment if you do take it out traveling with you. Compared to a chunkier laptop with similar specs, you're paying a lot more for the portability.
2) Fewer Ports: Because ultraportable laptops are so thin, manufacturers have gotten rid of any extra ports they can. These means there are fewer USB inputs, and in some cases ports such as Ethernet are missing altogether. This isn't a huge deal as there are often adaptors available if you really need them.
3) No Optical Drive: As with the ports, manufacturers of ultraportable laptops may do away with the DVD drive to save space and help improve the weight of the device. This could be one of the biggest ultraportable laptop disadvantages if you're someone who likes to watch movies or play lots of games on your laptop. However, you can connect an external drive if you need to, and most buyers have found that they actually use the DVD drive a lot less than they thought they did.
4) Small Keyboard: One of the benefits of ultraportable laptops when compared to netbooks is that they don't feel so cramped. However, they are still smaller than standard laptops, which can mean more tightly packed keyboards. This can present a learning curve for some users who need to get used to typing on their new device.
5) Storage Space: The top ultraportable laptops make use of the newest storage technology known as SSD. This comes with a number of benefits, most noticeably the fact that it means your data will load up super-quickly. However, such speed comes at a price, and most ultraportables will come with fewer GB of storage space as a result.
6) Less Powerful: Although included on the list of ultraportable laptop disadvantages, the performance is also an advantage of this class of laptop. When compared to netbooks, ultraportables are much quicker to work with, and can handle multitasking pretty well in most cases. However, in proportion to standard laptops, you have to pay a lot more for the same kind of CPU power, and you won't be able to play games that require decent graphics cards.