Systems

Utopia Computers SABRE-13 Review

vortez
August 6, 2014 10 Min Read
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A compact, lightweight gaming notebook which comes armed with impressive hardware from Intel, NVIDIA, Crucial, Samsung and more!


Product on Review: SABRE-13
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Utopia Computers
Street price: £1,545.41 inc. VAT

Utopia Computers was established back in 1993 and is based in Kilmarnock, Scotland. Their intention is to provide customers with custom built, bespoke computer systems and having reviewed a number of their systems already, we can confidently say they are a rising force within the UK.

There are a number of exclusive features which Utopia include with their prebuilt systems such as an outstanding 10 year warranty and lifetime technical support but one which is certain to turn heads is the option to stylish the finish of a notebook in a customised tone – in fact today’s sample is presented in Utopia Metallix® KTM XBow Orange.

SABRE-13 is Utopia’s most recent notebook release which targets the gamer. As its name suggests, SABRE-13 features a 13” screen and carried with it a whole host of impressive hardware from brands such as Intel, Crucial and Samsung.



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Utopia on their SABRE-13
Introducing the all new SABRE-13 – A compact, extremely lightweight custom gaming laptop with fantastic battery life and enough power to play the latest game titles. Utilising Intel®’s blisteringly fast 4th Generation CPUs, the latest NVIDIA®’s GeForce™ GTX 860M graphics chip & Creative®’s new Sound Blaster™ Cinema™ HD Audio; it offers unmatched performance and customisation for its size.

The SABRE-13 comes as standard with a stunning Full HD IPS 1080p 13.3″ LED back-lit display, that comes fully equipped with an ultra-sharp matte finish that offers an incredible cinematic & gaming.

If Full HD 1080p just doesn’t cut it for you, we now offer an ultra high-quality 3K QHD+ screen upgrade option. This allows the SABRE-13 to offer the most incredible, immersive visual experience over any laptop in its class.

Technical Specifications


Utopia give you the choice to customise the hardware specification for SABRE-13 but our review sample today consists of the following:

CUSTOM PAINT OPTION:
Utopia Metallix® Premium Custom Paint Finish Full Chassis
SCREEN UPGRADE:
FREE LIMITED TIME UPGRADE: 13.3″ QHD+ 3K Glossy IPS Screen (3200×1800) (SABRE13QHD+)
CUSTOM PAINT EXTERIOR FINISH, FULL CHASSIS:
Utopia Metallix® KTM XBow Orange
KEYBOARD:
White LED Premium Backlit Chiclet Keyboard
CPU:
Intel® Core™ i74810MQ Quad Core 2.8GHz [6MB Cache, up to 3.8GHz]
MEMORY:
16GB Crucial® Ballistix™ Sport DDR3 1600MHz (2x8GB)
GPU:
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 860M 2GB DDR5 Video RAM DirectX 11
BOOT DRIVE(S):
2x 250GB Samsung EVO mSATA SSD (540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) (MZMTE250BW) in RAID 0
STORAGE DRIVE:
1TB Seagate ST1000LM014 SSHD Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
SOUNDCARD:
Creative® Sound Blaster™ Cinema HD Audio
NETWORK CARD:
Intel® Gigabit LAN & WiFi N7260 (300Mbps) + Bluetooth
OPERATING SYSTEM:
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64bit inc. DVD + License
WEBCAM:
2.0 MegaPixel Webcam
UTOPIAN NOFAIL GUARANTEE:
FREE! 30 days NoFail Confidence Guarantee
UTOPIAN WARRANTY:
10 Years The longest in Europe! (2 Years Return to Base Part Replacement w/ 10 Years free labour) 30 Days FREE Collect & Return + FREE Lifetime tech support

Packaging & Bundle



Unique Utopian packaging



More packaging


To protect SABRE-13 during transit, Utopia encase the notebook and all its parts within “Utopian Transit Armour” which consists of a robust wooden crate. This exclusive packaging is available for other systems and is a wonderful idea.

Within this box there is another double-reinforced package for the actual notebook and bundle.


Foam padding for extra protection



Bundled items accompanying SABRE-13


Inside this cardboard box, the notebook is further padding for even more protection. Having so many layers will ensure SABRE-13 arrives without any physical damage to the system. Usually when you buy a notebook you will simply receive the product inside a cardboard box – this highlights the extra lengths Utopia go to, in order to provide a better service.

As part of the bundle users receive a user manual, software CD with all drivers and the Windows 8.1 DVD with license.

Closer Look



SABRE-13 lid


System Spec
CPU:
Intel® Core™ i74810MQ Quad Core 2.8GHz [6MB Cache, up to 3.8GHz]
MEMORY:
16GB Crucial® Ballistix™ Sport DDR3 1600MHz (2x8GB)
GPU:
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 860M 2GB DDR5 Video RAM DirectX 11
BOOT DRIVE(S):
2x 250GB Samsung EVO mSATA SSD (540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) (MZMTE250BW) in RAID 0
STORAGE DRIVE:
1TB Seagate ST1000LM014 SSHD Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
SOUNDCARD:
Creative® Sound Blaster™ Cinema HD Audio
NETWORK CARD:
Intel® Gigabit LAN & WiFi N7260 (300Mbps) + Bluetooth
OPERATING SYSTEM:
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64bit inc. DVD + License


SABRE-13 is available with Utopia Metallix® custom paint – meaning you can select the colour of the notebook from a supplied list. Our sample has been coated in Utopia Metallix® KTM XBow Orange which is certainly very eye-catching.

The lid features the Utopia logo in the centre and the overall quality of the paintjob is great.


The underside of the notebook


Over on the reverse of the notebook there are a variety of locations for ventilation and a series of rubber feet to help cushion SABRE-13, preventing it from slipping on smooth surfaces. The underside contains serial numbers and the genuine Windows 8.1 label.

SABRE-13 uses a 6-cell battery which is 5600mAh.


The left side of SABRE-13



Plenty of USB 3.0 ports


On the left side of SABRE-13 there is a section of ventilation for assisting with flushing our unwanted heat from the GPU inside the notebook. Also on the left is a single USB 2.0 port and the headphone and microphone jacks.

Over on the other side, there are a trio of USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and VGA for video out and a Gigabit LAN port for network connectivity with a DC-in immediately next to it for charging the notebook.


3K screen with 2.0 MegaPixel Webcam


Opening the lid on SABRE-13 we are met by a 13.3″ QHD+ 3K Glossy IPS Screen which is capable of up to 3200×1800. At the very top of the screen there is an integrated 2.0 MegaPixel webcam for use with such applications as Skype.


Stylish keyboard with LED backlights


Utopia has given SABRE-13 a rather stylish LED backlit keyboard which uses a condensed layout.

The touchpad and power button are almost indistinguishable due to their design.

Temperatures, Battery Life & Bootup Speed


Temperatures may be important to some users so we’ve captured the CPU and GPU temperatures by benchmarking SABRE-13 with Heaven 4.0 and 3DMark FireStrike. We use RealTemp and GPU-Z to log maximum temperatures during the tests






Battery life is fundamental for portable devices, especially notebooks. To obtain the maximum uptime, we disabled power saving and charged the unit up to 100% and then unplugged – leaving the notebook to run out of battery whilst idle in Windows.




To obtain the Windows 8 bootup time, we switched the notebook off and used a digital stopwatch to monitor the bootup duration after hitting the power button.


2D Benchmarks – Cinebench R15 & x264 HD 4.0


CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor is.





Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. We think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently






3D Benchmarks – Unigine Heaven 4.0 & 3DMark FireStrike

Unigine’s benchmark is to showcase the benefits of DX 11 and the use of tessellation as opposed to normal rendering techniques. The demo has impressive visuals that give an insight into what we can expect from gaming in the future.



Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.

Gaming Benchmarks – Tomb Raider, THIEF, Battlefield 4


Throughout the gaming benchmarks we use cutting-edge gaming titles which are renowned for both popularity and complex rendering styles. This helps to establish how well the system can handle 3D processing






Conclusion


From the packaging right through to the actual product itself, SABRE-13 is a brilliant notebook.

We’ve been impressed by Utopia’s presentation of products in the past and experiencing the same robust ‘Utopia Transit Armour’ is still as impressive as our first encounter. Adding extra protection to the shipping of sensitive products like a notebook is valued by the customer and we think it’s a fantastic idea.

Whilst the colour of today’s SABRE-13 may not be to everyone’s taste, customers aren’t locked to just a single option – Utopia allow you to choose from a wide selection of different and exciting colours to reflect your own style.

Inside SABRE-13 we have a catalogue of trusty hardware which consists of Intel’s Core™ i74810MQ, 16GB Crucial® Ballistix™ Sport DDR3 and NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 860M. Furthermore, Utopia include two Samsung EVO SSDs in RAID 0 to not only enhance transfer rates but also significantly improve the Windows 8.1 bootup time too.



By far and away, one of the most significant benefits to SABRE-13 is the option to take advantage of the super sharp and vibrant 3K IPS screen. For a limited time, Utopia are offering a free upgrade to this specification of display – so customers should strike while the iron is hot!

On the performance front, SABRE-13 tackled the various tests we threw at it with gracefulness. Since the native resolution is 3200×1800, the notebook did struggle in some titles with the detail settings at “high” which possibly hints at the need for a slightly more powerful GPU.

Utopia has priced today’s specification of SABRE-13 at £1,545.41 which is a hefty sum on the face of it. The only qualm we would have with this is the GPU – for the cost we would expect something a little more powerful, especially since the 3K resolution almost certainly demands it.

SABRE-13 is another example of Utopia’s consistent endeavour to create impressive products. Their bundled features strengthen an already exciting notebook and the entire package gets our seal of approval.

VIDEO REVIEW – VORTEZ TV


Pros
+ Good performance
+ Extra protection for packaging
+ Custom paint job available
+ Sharp & vibrant 3K screen
+ Good for gaming and video editing
+ Up to 5 hours battery life
+ Backlit keyboard
+ Great aftercare benefits (Free lifetime tech support etc)

Cons
– No top-mounted speakers
– Expected stronger GPU for cost



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