The HTC One Remix is the Verizon Wireless version of the HTC One Mini 2. It's a smaller, lower spec version of the venerable HTC One M8, but it retains the elegant unibody aluminum casing and chic design. In fact, at first glance, you might mistake the Remix for the first HTC One M7 because it shares so much design DNA and is similar in size. The One Remix and Mini 2 have a 4.5" display and HTC's BoomSound speakers, so they're not small phones, despite the Mini name. Yes, they're a bit smaller than the fairly large One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5, but they're still considerably larger than the iPhone 5s.

The HTC One Remix is available now exclusively from Verizon Wireless. It's priced at $49 with a 2 year contract and $450 full retail. For those who are going with 2 year contract or Verizon Edge pricing, it's not priced so differently from the HTC One M8 that Verizon is currently discounting to $99 on contract, and we expect that those who choose the Remix prefer the smaller size and traditional 13 megapixel rear camera vs. the 4 Ultrapixel camera on the M8.

The Remix has midrange specs including the 1.2GHz quad core Snapdragon 400 processor with Adreno 305 graphics and a 1280 x 720 Super LCD 2 display. That resolution might seem low, but given the smaller screen size it results in 326 PPI pixel density, which is the same as the iPhone 5s' Retina display pixel density. I wouldn't say the One Remix's display is as pleasing as the iPhone 5s or HTC One M8: it's extremely bright and fairly sharp, but it doesn't have the same superb color saturation or contrast. Still, it's a nice enough display that's easy on the eyes and it's plenty bright enough to combat sunlight.

The rest of the specs are better than midrange, with 1.5 gigs RAM (sandwiched in between mid tier 1 gig and flagship 2 gigs) and it has 16 gigs of storage vs. the paltry 8 gigs on some midrange phones. The front 5 megapixel camera is clearly better than most in terms of resolution. It's also sharp, less noisy and handles low light fairly well thanks to a BSI (backside illuminated) sensor. The front and rear cameras can record 1080p video. The Android smartphone runs Android 4.4 KitKat with the clean and light HTC Sense 6 UI. HTC Sense and Motorola's software on phones like the Moto X are some of our favorites, and they're refreshing if you find the heavy skins on Samsung and LG phones overbearing.

Business Ultrabooks don't have to be homely. In fact, they don't even have to run Windows 8, if Windows 7 is your company's cup of tea. The HP EliteBook 820 is a good looking Ultrabook that shares a hint of design DNA with HP's attractive consumer Ultrabooks like the Spectre 13. Unlike consumer models, the EliteBook is extremely easy to upgrade--heck it's designed to be opened up for upgrades. No need to fiddle with obscure tiny screws or adhesive strips. It also has more ports than you'll find on the average consumer 12.5" to 13.3" Ultrabook. Even better, while business machines are often priced much higher than consumer models, a decently equipped 820 costs just $874. So what's the catch? Like many business laptops, the screen lacks the boldness and clarity of consumer models, and there's no touch screen on most models (HP does list it as a build to order option). We get the feeling that HP aims the 820 at Windows 7 users, so the lack of a touch screen isn't the end of the world, but we'd love to see better looking displays on business laptops. Since this is a business model, HP includes security features like HP Trust Circles that will only allow assigned contacts access to files on your PC and HP SureStart, which offers BIOS protection and healing. The laptop also has a fingerprint scanner and TPM.

The EliteBook 820 is a surprisingly attractive Ultrabook with a tapered design, contrasting lid and side colors and a magnesium casing. The laptop passed a number of MIL-STD 810G tests for things like dust, drops and vibrational shock. It feels solid and it should appeal to those who feel that ThinkPads are dull matte black blocks. 

 

Perhaps the most enchanting thing in a sea of similarly spec'd and sealed Ultrabooks is the removable bottom panel. This grants easy access to all internals including the battery, socketed WiFi + Bluetooth card, 2.5" SATA HDD/SSD drive bay, a flash cache slot (optional for HDDs to speed them up) and a WAN card slot. HP offers 3G HSPA+ and 4G LTE broadband cards for $109 and $229 respectively. Even better, there are two RAM slots (most 13.3" and smaller Ultrabook RAM is soldered on board and is thus not upgradable). For do it yourself types and IT departments, this sort of easy repair and upgradeability is rarer than platinum and every bit as valuable. Note that the CPU is still soldered on board, as is the case for most all laptops except some big gaming rigs.

The HP has ample ports by 12.5" laptop standards. It has a VGA port (still popular in business settings where old equipment like VGA projectors hang around forever), a DisplayPort for driving modern, greater than full HD monitors, three USB 3.0 ports (two on the right and one on the left with charging), Ethernet RJ-45, a smart card reader, docking port, SD card slot and a 3.5mm combo headphone-mic jack. The laptop has dedicated buttons for wireless and audio mute above the keyboard

This isn't the happy part of our review. The display is somewhat washed out and murky compared to today's sharp and clear consumer oriented panels on similarly priced laptops. When you get close to $1,000, we expect lots of clarity and a wide color gamut... something that the Acer Aspire S7 (both generations), HP Spectre 13, Sony Vaio Flip 13 and Flip 13, Dell XPS 12 (often selling for $799 or less) and the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga and Yoga 2 13" give us. Granted the EliteBook is about $100 cheaper than the $1,000 average for Ultrabooks with great screens, but we do wish that HP offered a good upgrade option. The display resolution is 1366 x 768, and while that might sound low to those accustomed to 1080p Ultrabook screens, for a business laptop I have no complaints: text, graphics and icons are all readable without display scaling and at 12.5", the resolution is perfectly adequate. Viewing angles are limited, but business users might count that as a plus given the privacy it offers, and we love that this is a matte display.

HP makes a good keyboard, though not as good as Lenovo ThinkPads and Dell XPS models in terms of tactile feel. Still, it's more tactile than the Spectre 13 and Sony Vaio laptops, to name a few. This is a standard keyboard with a normal layout and for those who are defecting from ThinkPad land, there's a TrackPoint style eraser stick pointer embedded in the keyboard. The keyboard is water resistant with drain holes and it has very even backlighting. The trackpad is pleasant and predictable and it has mechanical buttons top (for the pointing stick) and bottom (for the trackpad). Those of you who hate the now more common buttonless trackpads will no doubt enjoy HP's more "traditional" trackpad design. We like that the buttons don't require lots of force, as do some buttonless trackpad underlying click mechanisms.

The EliteBook 820 is a standard Ultrabook that runs on Intel 4th generation Haswell ULV Ultrabooks CPUs. It's available with the 1.7GHz Core i3-4010U, 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, 2.9GHz Core i5-4300U and 2.1GHz Core i7-4600U CPUs, all with Intel HD 4400 integrated graphics. There are two standard SODIMM RAM slots (1600mhz DDR3 RAM required) and you can order it with 4, 8 or 16 gigs of RAM. Note that if you order it with Windows 7 32 bit, you can only order 4 gigs of RAM since 32 bit operating systems can't address more memory. Go with Windows 7 64 bit or Windows 8 64 bit if you intend to install more than 4 gigs of RAM.

Storage options are unusually versatile with the EliteBook 820. The laptop is available with conventional spinning 2.5" SATA HDDs in varying capacities (both 5400 and 7200 RPM drives are available) and a 32 gig caching drive is optional. Alternatively you can order it with an SSD drive (again in a variety of capacities), or get a 120 gig M.2 solid-state drive plus an HDD. The laptop has both a 2.5" SATA drive bay and an M.2 slot for a caching drive or M.2 SSD.

Performance on our fairly middle of the road Core i5-4200U with 4 gigs of RAM and a 180 gig SSD was par for the course among current generation Ultrabooks with Intel HD 4400 graphics. Honestly, there's little difference among Intel Haswell 4th generation Ultrabooks equipped with a Core i5 and SSD. You're buying the design, display, ports and features rather than a performance edge. HP's software load on business machines is minimal, so the EliteBook isn't plagued by bloatware that might slow it down. Likewise, it's a fairly cool and quiet machine. You'll hear the fan ramp up when plugged in and doing demanding tasks like HD video export, but otherwise it's fairly quiet.

Yes! The EliteBook 820 has a removable battery, another rarity on an Ultrabook. Our review unit has the larger 46 Wh battery, and it averaged 7 to 7.5 hours on a charge with average use and brightness set to 50%. We tested in a mix of tasks including email, web browsing, working in MS Office, social networking and streaming a 45 minute episode of House of Cards via Netflix. That's average among Ultrabooks where the MacBook Air lasts the longest at 12 hours and the Sony Vaio Pro and Acer Aspire S7 manage 6.5 hours.

The Dell XPS 11 is one of the sexiest Windows 8.1 2-in-1 convertible Windows tablet-Ultrabooks on the market. Looking at it will inspire a strong case of geek lust: it's super-slim with clean lines and a very attractive and classy looking carbon fiber and metal casing. Open it up and you're greeted by a 2560 x 1440 Sharp IGZO 11.6" display that's bright and has wide color gamut. And the keyboard--it looks so cool, and at first blush you might think it's a normal keyboard because each key is defined by a matte surface separated by what looks like a gloss black bezel. Ah, but those backlit keys don't actually move; like the Surface Touch Cover, they're capacitive touch sensitive keys. Futuristic? Yep. Great for typing? Nope. Hence Dell positions the XPS 11 as a tablet first, despite the permanently attached keyboard. At 2.5 lbs. it's similar in weight to the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 with keyboard cover, but the Dell looks and feels more like a laptop. At 11.6", it's also not as cramped as the 10.6" Surface Pro 2, but it is smaller than the 12" Surface Pro 3.

The XPS 11 runs on 4th generation Intel Haswell Y series dual core CPUs, the lower power relative to the U series CPUs used in Ultrabooks and Surface Pro 2. Most Windows tablets with Intel Core CPUs run on the Y series since it sips less power and runs a bit cooler. The machine is available with your choice of a Core i3 ($999) or a 1.5GHz Core i5-4210Y ($1,249). Both models have 4 gigs of DDR3L RAM soldered on board and a 128 gig mSATA SSD as well as dual band Intel 7260AC WiFi 802.11ac. There's a $1,499 model that upgrades the SSD to 256 gigs, but 4 gigs of RAM is the max available. Performance is relatively quick among Windows 8 tablets running on the Core i5 Y series and Intel HD 4200 graphics, falling at the top of the pack, but still below Surface Pro 2 running on the U series Core i5-4200U with HD 4400 graphics. The Dell is significantly faster than the 11" Lenovo Yoga latest generation that runs on Intel Cerleron and Pentium CPUs. In terms of footprint and convertible design, the Yoga 11 would be a direct competitor, but the latest generation targets the budget segment with those slower CPUs, single band WiFi 802.11n and a 1366 x 768 display. It does have one advantage: a normal keyboard.

Build quality is excellent and Dell manages to fit quite a few ports in this extremely thin and compact laptop: two USB 3.0, full size HDMI, an SD card slot (even the bigger XPS 12 and XPS 13 don't have an SD card slot!) and 3.5mm audio. Like the Lenovo Yoga Windows convertibles, the Dell works as an Ultrabook, a tablet, in tent mode, in presentation position and open flat on a table. Again like the Yoga, the keyboard faces outward when in tablet, presentation and tent modes, but given the flat capacitive keyboard it doesn't feel really weird and there are no moving keys to break nor crevices to pick up crumbs.

The display is simply lovely, not only thanks to the high resolution but wide color gamut and good viewing angles. The Sharp IGZO panel displays 98% of sRGB and 77% of Adobe RGB, putting it in top company with the best laptop displays on the market for wide color gamut. Brightness is also better than average and color calibration is good from the factory.

Battery life averages 6.5 hours with moderate productivity use with brightness set to 50% and WiFi turned on. The battery is sealed inside, though it's not that hard to remove the bottom panel should it require service.

The HP ZBook 15 is a mobile workstation, and that means a powerhouse laptop that can stand in for a desktop. The 6.2 pound 15.6" ZBook we look at has a quad core Intel Core i7 CPU clocked at 2.7GHz, NVIDIA Quadro K2100M graphics, 16 gigs of RAM and a phenomenal wide gamut full HD DreamColor display. It's not cheap at $2,799 though; HP's business and professional line workstations aren't for the budget conscious.

In a world where Ultrabooks, those super thin and light laptops with few upgradable parts, are the new norm, the ZBook line is old guard. It's upgradable, rugged and significantly more powerful than Ultrabooks. It uses the full mobile CPU line from Intel rather than the ultra low power U series Ultrabook line of CPUs, and it packs workstation graphics for CAD professionals, architects and engineers. As a bonus, Quadro graphics can handle some demanding gaming too, though it's designed more for 3D design, engineering and video production. Clearly, if you just work in MS Office and edit a few photos in Photoshop this is overkill. But if you're a professional who needs serious computing and graphics power, this is your kind of machine.

The ZBook is available in three sizes: 14, 15 and 17 inch. We look at the middle child, which is the most interesting in terms of delivering the most computing power in the smallest package. The ZBook 15 and 17 use the same fourth generation Intel Haswell full mobile CPUs with 4 core CPU options, and they're both available with HP's DreamColor displays and relatively powerful NVIDIA Quadro graphics. The ZBook 17 is available with Quadro K610M or K3100M graphics, while our 15 inch model is available with Quadro K610M, K1100M or K2100M graphics, making both models powerful workstations. The 14" model uses AMD Firepro M4100 graphics with dual core Intel full mobile M series CPUs, making it portable but less powerful.

As you'd expect from a business oriented HP laptop, the ZBook meets MIL SPEC 810G standards, and it has a spill resistant keyboard, a fingerprint scanner with TPM and HP's security software. HP offers the laptop with Windows 8.1 Pro with downgrade rights to Windows 7 Pro. The 15.6" ZBook 15 feels solid with no creaking panels and the hinges are firm. Note that a touch screen isn't available. The top and bottom panels are metal and a generous rubbery area rings the edges for better grip. Slide a single latch on the bottom and you can remove the 8 cell, 83 wHr battery. Slide another latch and you have easy access to internals including a 2.5" SATA drive bay, four RAM slots and three PCI-e slots for caching drives, WiFi and WAN cards.

The ZBook 15 starts at $1,499, but that price nets you a less impressive 2.5GHz dual core i5-4200M, 8 gigs of RAM and Quadro K610M graphics with 1 gig VRAM. 

For graphics and video professionals or anyone who enjoys looking at an anti-glare, highly color saturated and accurate display, I highly recommend the DreamColor full HD option. This RGB LED backlit display is one of the widest color gamut displays you'll find in a laptop, with an impressive 99% of Adobe RGB and 100% of SRGB. Compared to the better panels on the market that typically reach 75% of Adobe RGB, the ZBook 15 with DreamColor display rivals high quality desktop monitors. 

 

Our review loaner shipped with the quad core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-4800MQ CPU, NVIDIA Quadro K2100M graphics with 2 gigs DDR5 VRAM, 16 gigs of DDR3 RAM, a DVD burner (Blu-Ray is available too) and a conventional 7200 RPM HDD. It has HP's very wide color gamut 1920 x 1080 DreamColor display, a standard backlit keyboard and dual band Intel 7260AC WiFi 802.11ac with Bluetooth 4.0 and lists for $2,799. Yes, that's a lot of money, but I suspect individuals rarely purchase mobile workstations; rather companies buy these for the engineering, design and multimedia employees.

As you'd expect from a professional machine of this size, ports are abundant. The ZBook 15 has a Thunderbolt port (nice!), full size DisplayPort, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, an SD card slot, SmardCard slot, ExpressCard/54 slot, lock slot, 3.5mm audio and a docking connector on the base.