Vizio 15.6-inch Thin + Light (CT15-A1)

Vizio has made a name for itself by selling high -quality HDTV at reasonable prices . With the 15.6 - inch Thin + Light ( CT15 - A1 ) , the company is hoping to take advantage both quality / price on the ultrabook market . The Thin + Light ( CT15 - A1 ) is sleek and attractive, and the price - $ 999 direct , is decent . Unfortunately , issues with the keyboard , touchpad , battery life and it keep it from being a system we can wholeheartedly recommend .

Design and Features
The CT15 - A1 has an aluminum unibody design , with its almost silver coloring giving it an attractively minimalist monochrome look and the wedge profile in recent trends for Ultrabooks . One of the few touch of color bezel surrounding the 1080p , 15.6 - inch screen : It is black , but accented with silver stripes running along the bottom that makes it appear like the MacBook Pro 15 - inch . Befitting reputation as an HDTV maker Vizio , the screen is bright and clear ; visual and text it is smooth , and watching videos online is a joy .

Vizio made ​​some smart moves with the keyboard : The row of function keys at the top of the keyboard defaults to their more useful functions ( brightness , volume , etc. ) rather than F1 - F12 . Users need F1 - F12 can switch to those settings using a utility accessible to V - key Vizio 's . The keyboard is not backlit , but Vizio says it is working on a future version with backlight . The lack of a backlit keyboard is okay in an ultrabook priced $ 899 or less , but expect one worth $ 1,000 or more , such as 11 - inch MacBook Air and Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A - R5102F .

Unfortunately , the keyboard is far from perfect in other respects . It uses a floating key design , as opposed to the chiclet style becoming increasingly prevalent in the laptop . It is beautiful to look at , but the flat keys and short travel means typing can be uncomfortable - the key to give more than a touch - screen virtual keyboard , but not by much . The touchpad is also problematic . It tends to treat dragging and swiping motion as drag - click . The touch -to - click functionality of the touchpad is overactive as well : I found a swipes to scroll text instead chose the entire page . The touchpad also had problems during the minute kind of movement you would use to select a small area of ​​the screen , such as a checkbox button . The touchpad on a separate , but similar CT15 - A2 system also exhibited the same problems with tracking . Although Vizio says it is working on updated drivers to alleviate this issue , the latest version available on the company website did not help .

The CT15 - A1 weighs 3.87 pounds alone and 4.64 pounds with the AC adapter . It is a good for a 15 - inch system , only a smidge heavier than the Samsung Series 9 15 - inch ( NP900X4C - A02US ) ( system weight 3.6 pounds , 4.3 pounds travel weight ) . It feels solid in your hand , though the shape wedge - cutouts on the sides make it feel smaller than it ( HWD ) dimensions 0.68 -by - 15 -by - 10 - inch . The CT15 - A1 is thinner and lighter than the HP Envy Sleekbook 6 - 1010us , with a lower resolution ( 1366 -by - 768 ) 15.6 - inch screen .

The CT15 - Signature prep A1 is Microsoft , which is a service that ensures the system comes out clean and ready to boot quickly - except for the minimum software preloaded Microsoft : Bing Toolbar , Windows Live Essentials ( Mail , Writer , Movie Maker ) , Zune music software , and Microsoft Security Essentials ( antivirus and anti - malware ) . Third - party software is limited to Skype , which you can find in the Start menu . Instead of using plain boring wallpaper , the system is set to display random images from a catalog Bing .

The system 128GB solid - state drive ( SSD ) is somewhat loose : It has about 77GB free . It is better than the Samsung SSDs NP900X4C - A02US ( about 53GB free ) and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon ( 54GB free ) . Both the Samsung and Lenovo Ultrabooks will come with 128GB SSDs as well , and all three have recovery partitions that cut into the total free space . On the plus side , the CT15 - A1 wakes up from sleep almost as fast as you can turn the screen .

The CT15 - A1 have very little I / O port . Two USB 3.0 ports are on the side of the system , one left and one right . Ultrabooks such as the Lenovo X1 Carbon have one USB 2.0 port and a USB 3.0 port , which can cause confusion if you plug your external drive quickly toward slower USB 2.0 port . The CT15 - A1 has a full - size HDMI port , so you can hook up the system to a larger monitor or HDTV . The headset jack on the left side of the system supports Skype - certified headset ( including the one that probably came with your smartphone ) .

System lacking an SD card reader , which means that you can connect your camera via USB or Wi - Fi if you want to move the picture . Speakers Wi - Fi , the CT15 - A1 has dual - band 802.11a/b/g/n Wi - Fi , so it's compatible with most consumer and business hotspots , even with less- crowded 5GHz band . The CT 15 A1 also has Bluetooth headset for smartphone and connectivity . The Vizio Thin + Light Ultrabooks missing Ethernet , however, can be problematic for some business users .