Porsche automobiles are known for their premium design… and price tags. And so are Porsche Design electronics.
In addition to partnering with Huawei to offer pricey versions of the Chinese phone makers flagship phones, Porsche Design launched a $2500 2-in-1 notebook a few years ago.
Now the company is back with the Porsche Design Ultra One, which seems like a bargain with prices starting at just $1,350. But while the laptop does indeed have some premium features, in a lot of ways it looks like you get less than you’re paying for with this premium, fanless, thin and light laptop.
The Porsche Design Ultra One is up for pre-order now and set to ship in December.
First, let’s talk about the good stuff — the laptop features a 15.6 inch, 1080p touchscreen display, a magnesium case, and a compact design. It measures just 0.54 inches thick and weighs about 3.3 pounds.
While there are lighter 15.6 inch laptops, that’s not bad — especially when you realize that the notebook uses passive cooling, so it needs enough room for heat to dissipate without the use of fans.
The Porsche Design Ultra One I7 also features Hamran Kardon audio, a fingerprint sensor. It sports two USB Type-C ports, two USB Type-A ports, a headset jack, and an HDMI port, and the laptop charges via USB-C.
Porsche Design offers two pricing/configuration options:
But… the notebook is powered by an 8th-gen Intel Amber Lake Y series processor. These are 5 watt, dual-core processors designed for low-power computers where energy efficiency is more important than performance.
For general purpose computing, it’s fine. But $1800 is a lot to spend on a laptop with performance that’s just “fine.”
Notebook Check also recently reviewed the Core i7 version and found that battery life was only about 7 hours for web surfing… which sort of defeats half the purpose of opting for a Y series chip rather than a more powerful U-series processor.
At least the laptop is thin and fanless… although Notebook Check notes that the SSD is surprisingly noisy, which kind of defeats the other half.
How is an SSD noisy? I mean if you can hear coul whine that close to NAND than it’s already pretty bad and would’t wager for a very long service time. Let me guess: it’s integrated to the motherboard too? I also find the rather large chin on the screen a bit last-gen design for something like Porsche. I get it that the size of the rest of the machine is a given, but then use a 16:10 or a 3:2 panel instead! Let’s be honest here: the design is ‘iconic’, but not because Prosche made it.
Aside from the price, the i5 would be my ideal next laptop – there are just no better/cheaper fanless laptops out there at the moment.
Buuut we’ll have to see if they will ever be available at a discount in secondary markets.
Congratulations for the design, it’s a f**king macbook!