ultrabook

More details have emerged on Intel's first system-on-a-chip for mainstream PCs.

That chip, codenamed Haswell, is due by 2013 and will be the first high-performance Intel processor to approach the same level of integration used in smartphones and tablets. Today, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Nvidia are the major suppliers of smartphone and tablet SoCs (system-on-a-chip) derived from the ARM design.

What does Haswell mean for future Macs and PCs? Even more powerful ultraslim MacBooks and laptop PCs will emerge--as well as hybrid laptop-tablet designs.

Imagine, for example, a future 15-inch MacBook Pro as skinny as a MacBook Air but … Read more

If you believe Digitimes, Asus and Acer have cut ultrabook orders by 40 percent due to sluggish demand for the ultrathin laptops.

Of course, Digitimes is often wildly wrong, so take this news with the requisite grain of salt.

Digitimes claims that Asus and Acer planned to order a combined 250,000 to 300,000 ultrabooks by the end of 2011. However, "due to the unsatisfactory sales during the initial month after their launch," the companies have revised 2011 shipments down to between 150,000 units and 180,000 units, the site reports.

Neither Acer nor Asus immediately responded to CNET's request for comment on the Digitimes report.… Read more

Our latest Prizefight pits one of the new generation of superthin Ultrabook laptops, the Asus Zenbook UX31, against the system it was clearly designed to emulate, Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air.

The Prizefight scoring system is as follows: Each judge rates on a zero to five scale. At the end of each round, we will take an average of the three judges' scores. The final score for each laptop will be an average of all five rounds. … Read more

Ultrabooks will capture more than 40 percent of the laptop market by 2015, becoming, in effect, a counterweight to tablets like Apple's iPad, according to market researcher IHS-iSuppli.

In a research note titled "Ultrabooks to Deliver Ultrafast Growth," iSuppli sees these svelte Windows laptops that run on Intel processors taking 43 percent of the laptop market by 2015.

Currently, Windows 7-based ultrabooks from vendors such as Acer and Asus compete with Apple's MacBook Air. But new designs based on Windows 8 and future Intel processors in the coming years are expected to make them attractive alternatives … Read more

Barclays Capital has slashed its PC growth forecast for the fourth quarter due to the shortage of hard disk drives and continued weakness in the PC market, according to reports.

The investment bank cut its global PC growth forecast for the fourth quarter to 4.3 percent from 7.2 percent "due to continued weak demand and a shortage of hard drive disks (HDD) resulting from the flooding in Thailand," according to a number of Asia-based outlets such as the China Post, citing a Barclay's research note.

And the bank didn't stop there, lowering its full-year … Read more

Earlier this year, we were bombarded with news about Ultrabooks, a new category of laptop given a new name by Intel--these machines were meant to be improvements on the laptop as we've come to know it, with smartphone-like startup speed and wafer-thin, future-sexy designs.

So far, so good: the first few laptops we've seen that categorize themselves as Ultrabooks have all been excellent products. The Acer Aspire S3, the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, and the Asus Zenbook UX31 all lived up to expectations, and all provide valid alternatives to the MacBook Air.

And yet, there's a problem. In my eyes, at least. And it's a big one. … Read more

After Hewlett-Packard made it official today that it is staying in the PC business, it also went on the record with its entry into the Ultrabook market.

"Ultramobile is a notebook category of sub-17 millimeter notebooks. We're very focused on having a suite in that ultramobile space. And you'll see that very soon," Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group, said in a conference call today.

HP (along with Dell) will be one of the last major PC makers to enter the market for these sub-0.8-inch, 3-pounds-and-under laptops that compete with … Read more

Within the space of a few short weeks, we've seen the first wave of Ultrabook laptops come to life, making good on Intel's promise to create an entirely new laptop category with the unstated, but unmistakable goal of unseating Apple's MacBook Air as the king of ultrathin laptops.

We've taken plenty of shots over the past several months at the entire Ultrabook concept, calling it an Intel marketing push, rather than an organic new product category; joking about the $300 million investment Intel is said to be making with hardware partners to develop systems; and even making fun of the name (why not "superbook" or "skinnytop"?)

But then a funny thing happened. We got our hands on the first three Ultrabooks across the finish line, from Acer, Lenovo, and Asus, and they were all more than pretty good. In fact, we were downright impressed. None was a perfect product, and there needs to be some more-aggressive pricing (the Acer gets it right, coming in at $899, admittedly with some corners cut), but there's a good chance that the next year or two will see a wholesale change in what consumers expect from laptops, with sub-1-inch systems becoming the norm, and anything larger looking terribly old and clunky.

We've rounded up the first wave of Ultrabooks, as well as the MacBook Air, for you to peruse below. As of right now, the general office consensus is that among the Ultrabooks, the Lenovo wins for design, the Acer for price, and the Asus for overall value. But none outclasses the MacBook Air, and our advice to Ultrabook makers is simple. You can't create a laptop that's just about as good as a MacBook Air and just about as expensive. You need to either make something that's significantly better, or significantly less expensive. … Read more

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the MacBook Air should be positively blushing right around now. A sudden onslaught of Ultrabooks--the Intel-coined term for thin, MacBook Air-esque Windows laptops with fast boot times and sleek, high-end designs--has hit just in time for the holidays, and one of the most highly hyped ones we've seen is the Asus Zenbook UX.

The product doesn't shy away from an Apple-like design whatsoever, and that's not such a bad thing. Who doesn't want a thin, unibody metal lightweight laptop that starts fast and has a great battery life?

The 13-inch Asus Zenbook UX31E-DH52 has a starting price of $1,099, which includes 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD drive. That's $200 less expensive than the equivalent MacBook Air. Smartly, the Zenbook gets that part right: when competing with a product as singularly well-known and highly rated as the MacBook Air, your product has to be either better or cheaper. … Read more