Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus review

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The Novatech nFinity 2637 Plus is a budget Ultrabook, which brings the benefits of Intel's powerful tech on a shoestring, along with a slim profile

Intel's Ultrabook brand has produced some excellent laptops over the last year, from the super-slender Asus Zenbook UX31, to the black glass-clad HP Envy 14 Spectre. However, with both of these luscious laptops costing in excess of £1000, you'd be forgiven for keeping your credit card firmly holstered.

If you haven't heard of 'Ultrabooks', they are slender, lightweight laptops that pack superb build quality, top performance and long battery life. The Novatech nFinity 2637 Plus brings all this, into a package that costs just £600. Of course there are pay-offs, but read on to see if this cut-price Ultrabook is worth the money.

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus: Features

The Novatech packs in all the great tech of the Ultrabooks, enabling top performance, a lightweight 1.7KG body, thin build, near instant resume from sleep and long battery life, but in a £620 package.

The pay-off comes in the build and while most Ultrabooks are ultra-sleek, the Novatech feels a bit bargain-basement. The metal lid opens to reveal a plastic body, the Ethernet port is covered by a rubber bung, and there's a bit of flex in the chassis. It's not as desirable as other Ultrabooks, but it gets the job done.

Inside is a low voltage 1.4GHz 2nd Generation Intel Core i3 processor, which is still capable of most day-to-day tasks, and the chip still managed competitive scores in our graphics tests.

There's no dedicated graphics chip, and it relies on the integrated Intel HD 3000 system, but it's more than capable of editing pictures and video, and a few basic games as well. There's also a 128GB SSD drive that keeps the whole system responsive and fast.

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus: Screen

The screen is particularly unspectacular, and we found the panel to be dull and lifeless. Screens have been particular differentiators between the extremely similarly specced Ultrabook models, and the nFinity's is one of the weakest in the line-up. The 1366 x 768 resolution glossy panel fails to bring movies to life, but the matte coating does make it easy to use in direct sunlight.

Blacks were made to look grey and noticeably pixelated. All this makes the Novatech a good Ultrabook for work tasks, but certainly not the right choice for those who love movie watching and photo editing.

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus: Performance

The Novatech nFinity 2637 Plus achieved a score of 6237 in Cinebench, which is a solid if unspectacular benchmark score. It puts it behind most other Ultrabooks, but will still make light work of most tasks, and the lag will only be noticed if you start encoding huge files, or edit RAW photos.

Elsewhere, there's a lowly 3548 in 3D graphics tests, again, placing it near the back of the Ultrabook grid. This puts games and intensive graphical programs off-limits, but HD graphics and rich-web experiences should be well within the capabilities of the built-in Intel HD 3000 graphics core.

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus: Battery

Despite the nFinity's slightly budget build, it has plenty to shout about. It aced our battery scores with an excellent 258 minutes of looping HD video, which equates to over 5 hours of light use.

This outstrips big-name Ultrabooks like the Acer Aspire S3 and Dell XPS 13, and still manages to be £300 cheaper. This again highlights that the Novatech is a functional Ultrabook, which ditches the polished frivolities in favour of a solid, good-value offering.

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus: Verdict

Ultrabooks and great value don't go hand in hand, as the high-end spec of most of these machines drives up manufacturing costs. Therefore, we decided extra marks for value.

The Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus lacks the style of other Ultrabooks, it wasn't quite as portable, or as powerful as more expensive modesl, but at £625, its price is almost irresistible. Its battery life was astounding as well, and there's no additional software from the manufacturer to slow it down.

For a general workload of web browsing, writing documents or tinkering with spreadsheets, it doesn't disappoint, either. However, look out for price drops on better models in the wake of the 3rd Generation Intel laptops hitting the shelves.

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus Availability: Available now

Novatech nFinity 2367 Plus price: £625

Link: Novatech