HP Folio Hands-On: $899 Business Ultrabook Promises 9 Hours of Juice

HP is throwing its hat in the Ultrabook ring with the Folio, a svelte 13-inch laptop targeting the business crowd. Although it’s heavier than competing systems, the Core i5-powered Folio promises up to 9 hours of battery life, which would be best-in-class endurance if our testing bears that out. The notebook goes on sale December 7th for $899. Get our hands-on impressions, full specs, and gallery below.

Weighing 3.3 pounds, the Folio is a bit heavier than the other Ultrabooks–the Toshiba Z835 is almost a full pound less. Still, the Folio is just 0.7 inches thick, which means it’ll disappear inside your bag when traveling. Plus, HP found room for an Ethernet port for those who need to connect to wired networks. We also like that the Folio has a backlit keyboard; currently, the only other Ultrabook to have such a feature is the Toshiba Z835. The Folio straddles HP’s business and consumer lines, and as such, takes some of its visual cues from both. The brushed-aluminum lid and keyboard deck are reminiscent of the ProBook, while the touchpad and keyboard remind us of the Pavilion dm4 from 2010. 

Like other HP notebooks, the Folio incorporates CoolSense technology to keep the heat down, and a soft-touch bottom means this Ultrabook will be all the more comfortable on your lap. Other features include an HD webcam and TPM security.

There’s a 128GB SSD under the hood that starts Windows fast, but we didn’t see the near-instant wake capability from this machine that the Asus Zenbook and MacBook Air offer. The 1.6-GHz Core i5 processor should provide plenty of oomph for productivity on the go.

Click through for full specs, plus a gallery and hands-on video.

Folio ($899)

Display size/resolution: 13.3 inches/1366 x 768

Hard drive size: 128GB SSD

Processor/RAM: 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-2467M/4GB

Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Ports: One USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, HDMI, Ethernet, headphone, mic, SD card slot

Size: 12.5 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches

Weight: 3.3 pounds