Gigabyte U2142 review

Unfortunately, the U2142’s 11.6in touchscreen won’t be able to get the best out of your photos, films and games due to its below average image quality. Its 1,366×768 resolution looks fine and its ten-point touchscreen was very responsive, but much like Gigabyte’s S1082 tablet, there’s a visible grain from the display coating that makes the screen look quite hazy and pixellated.

The screen has a matt finish, which is good for keeping reflections at bay, but this in turn makes the screen’s coating stand out even more by sapping the vibrancy out of its colours. Reds, greens and blues all lacked depth and richness and whites looked particularly grey in our solid colour image tests. Its black levels were reasonable, though, as were its contrast levels as we were able to see a good level of detail in most of our high contrast test photos. Its viewing angles are rather limited, as we could barely see anything onscreen when it was lying flat on our desk or when we tilted the screen backwards and forwards.

Typing on the U2142 was much more pleasant, although this too had its own issues. The Chiclet-style keys had a tendency to rattle a bit too much for our liking, but they’re well-spaced and gave plenty of feedback. We found the touchpad a little more frustrating, as our hand repeatedly caught the edge of it while typing. This made writing long word documents quite frustrating as our cursor was constantly being sent all over the page as we kept accidentally hitting the touchpad.

Luckily, one of its function buttons can disable the touchpad altogether, but this will mean you’re limited to the touchscreen for navigating the desktop. We were also disappointed that it didn’t support multitouch gestures or Windows 8 shortcuts, as this should be standard practice on all Windows 8 laptops.

The U2142’s battery life was more promising, as it lasted 6h 7m in our light use battery test with the screen set to half brightness. We’ve seen longer lasting laptops, but this is still quite good for an Ultrabook.

Another redeeming feature is its wide selection of ports. It has two USB3 and two USB ports, HDMI and VGA outputs, a SIM card slot for mobile broadband, an SD card reader, a Gigabit Ethernet port and separate headphone and microphone jacks. We’d recommend plugging in a pair of dedicated speakers for listening to music, as its integrated speakers are very tinny and produce no bass whatsoever.

Sadly, lots of ports and a decent battery life aren’t enough to save the Gigabyte U2142 as it has far too many systemic problems that affect its overall usability. At this price, you’d be much better off with the Best-Buy winning Samsung Series 7 Ultra.