5. Acer Aspire S7-391

• Reviewed on: 1 April 13
• RRP: £1250 inc. VAT
• Rating:

There's room for improvement in battery life, but the slim, light design of the S7 is hard to beat if you're looking for a really portable laptop that has enough power to handle some serious work when you're away from the mains.

4. Sony Vaio T13 Touch

• Reviewed on: 2 April 13
• RRP: £739 inc VAT
• Rating:

There’s no single feature of the T Series 13 that is particularly eye-catching or innovative. However, it does provide you with an ultraportable design with good performance and battery life for well under £800, which – regardless of what you think about touch-screens on laptops – still makes it good value for money when compared to many of its ultrabook rivals.

3. Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon

• Reviewed on: 23 August 12
• RRP: TBC
• Rating:

Lenovo's X1 Carbon offers an understated look and exotic chassis material, but the LCD panel display quality could be better.

2. Apple MacBook Pro 13in with Retina display

• Reviewed on: 7 December 12
• RRP: £1699 inc VAT
• Rating:

The essential specifications of the 13in Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display closely follow the groundbreaking original 15in version. Reduced size here necessitates integrated-only graphics, as well as a more efficient dual-core rather than quad-core processor. But this choice of components really delivers, and crucially in a state-of-the-art 13in notebook that takes the second-finest laptop display money can buy – beaten only by the 15in Retina model of the Apple MacBook Pro.

1. Apple MacBook Air 13in (Mid-2012)

• Reviewed on: 9 October 12
• RRP: £1249 inc VAT
• Rating:

This revised 13in MacBook Air is a little bit faster in general speed, a lot faster in graphics speed – if only catching up with 2010’s Air – but with approaching an hour of extra battery life. We also appreciate the even quieter fan. This is the original ultrabook, and with extra details and quality touches it still beats all Ultrabooks we’ve seen so far.