Report from test drive of HP Folio 13 Ultrabook

Last month, HP approached me about testing out a new Folio 13 Ultrabook laptop, and reporting on the experience.

Hewlett-Packard was my very first client when I started consulting 16 years ago in Palo Alto, California, so I considered it a wink from the universe, and gave it a try.

They gave me a unit to test, and then said something that got me excited: In addition to my own, they would give away a brand new laptop to one of my lucky readers (might that be you?).

It had been years since I had worked on a Windows-based machine, so I was curious how it would feel.

After a bit of searching around for the right buttons, it fired up really quickly.

I took it on a plane on my trip to speak at the International Coach Federation Meeting in San Francisco. And I captured this live action, slightly dark video:

The things I liked best about it were:

• 9 hours of battery life. Yes, this made me insanely jealous, as I grumble about my Mac battery life all the time. It can handle a really long plane ride, or a whole day of working without being plugged into an outlet.
• It is really light – One of my first business laptops I bought 10 years ago was an HP, but it felt like carrying a pile of bricks when I hauled it around airports for my consulting business. The Folio 13 was so easy to carry, both in weight and in size.
• It starts up really quickly, compared to my Mac. I get really annoyed while waiting for my laptop to fire up in the morning, and this started up much quicker.
• It has a backlit keyboard for those times when you are typing a blog post in bed, trying not to disturb anyone with the light on. And the keys are really nice to type on. As someone who types a lot, that felt good. 🙂
• It survived my 4 and 7-year old’s hacking. Neither of them have every worked on a Windows machine, and they very figured out how to use it in about 3 minutes.

My husband’s criteria for a laptop is that it can fall off of a work truck into the dirt, be picked up and dusted off and still function. We did not put this Folio through that test, but maybe it will be in Phase 2. 🙂

While I will still continue to work on my Mac, I really enjoyed my time with the Folio. For those of you who lean more toward a Windows environment, you can find detailed product specifications here:

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/folio13/index.html?jumpid=hpr_r1002_usen#.T86Pu79B7Ro

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 Now it is your turn

Are you interested in winning one of these bad boys for yourself? Join me and Karl Staib on Thursday night, June 7 at 5pm Pacific  for a Twitter party (a live conference call that you can dial into, in addition to a lively discussion on Twitter while the call is going on.) We are going to be talking about small business marketing in great detail, and giving away prizes as the call progresses. In addition to the laptop, we will have online classes, Amazon gift certificates, and 2 tickets to Power Boost Live, the live small business marketing event I am holding here in Phoenix in October.

Power Boost Live Twitter Party Details

Thursday, June 7

5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern

Call details and call-in information here:

http://partybizconnect.com/power-boost-live-teleseminar-and-twitter-party/

The hashtag on Twitter will be #powerboostlive

You must be present to win the prizes!

Good luck to everyone. I will post the picture of the lucky Folio 13 winner here on this post on Friday morning. 🙂

Thanks again HP for your generous donation to the Escape from Cubicle Nation community!