Are Notebook Manufacturers Unhappy With The Ultrabook's $1000 Price Tag?

Posted 08/12/2011 at 10:11am | by Brad Chacos

7

Comments

Print

Intel's pumped about its Ultrabook concept. How pumped? So pumped that earlier this week, the company created a $300 million fund to help spur on the development of the powerful, low weight, long lasting laptops. The companies that are actually making the Ultrabooks, though, are apparently a little less enthused. You see, Intel wants companies to sell Ultrabooks for less than $1,000 – probably to make them competitive with the MacBook Air. That number's making a few manufacturers shift uneasily in their seats.

Computer makers estimate they'll need to spend $700 on materials alone for an 11.6-inch Ultrabook, DigiTimes reported today. At $1,000 retail, that doesn't leave much meat on the bone after other costs, like marketing and distribution, are factored in. DigiTimes' (as always) anonymous sources said that the magic $1k number would be much easier to swallow if Intel would sell Ultrabook-bound CPUs to OEMs at a greater discount. The same unnamed sources say some notebook makers want Intel to hand out a $100 marketing subsidy for each Ultrabook sold.

While these rumors align with some others that we've heard recently, it's always good to take anonymous sources with a grain of salt, especially when the same DigiTimes article says that Asus, Acer and Lenovo all plan on releasing sub-$1,000 Ultrabooks by the end of the year.