Gigabyte X11 review

For a £1,000 Ultrabook, we couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed with the 1,366×768 display. It uses a TN panel with distinctly average viewing angles, a glossy finish that creates distracting light reflections and a fairly limited tilt range meant we sometimes found it difficult to find a position we could comfortably work in out of the office. Inside it fares a little better, but only when you aren’t sat under overhead lighting. Brightness is reasonable and colours look fairly accurate, but it’s nowhere near the standard we’ve seen from the likes of the Asus ZenBook Prime.

Performance is fairly run of the mill, with an Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5-3317U running at 1.7GHz, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. In our multimedia benchmarks, the X11 scored 53 overall, which is behind the fastest Ultrabooks we’ve seen but still quick enough for all your everyday tasks such as word processing and web browsing. It did reasonably well in our battery test, lasting a little over six hours, but it can’t compete with the likes of HP’s ten hour Envy 6.

There’s no room inside for dedicated graphics, so Intel’s HD 4000 takes over – it’s fine for HD video and light gaming, but not for playing newer titles, as the frame rate in our Dirt 3 benchmark shows. The X11 scraped an almost playable 21fps, but you’ll need to drop anti-aliasing and detail settings to achieve a playable frame rate.

Considering its competition, we think Gigabyte has been a little too ambitious with the X11. It’s a great size and incredibly light, but the plastic appearance, basic screen and merely average battery life make it tough to recommend when you could buy the gorgeous Samsung Series 9 for a similar amount, or the fantastic HP Envy 4 for nearly half the price. If you insist on an 11in screen, the Asus ZenBook UX21 or even Apple’s MacBook Air are more appealing alternatives.