Having to lug around bulky accessories and peripherals with your Ultrabook or tablet PC kind of negates the whole idea behind thin and light form factors. At the same time, some people find an external optical disc drive (ODD) to be an essential companion, and if you're one of those people, you may want to slap Samsung with a high-five for announcing its new SE-218BB external DVD writer.
When is an Ultrabook not really an Ultrabook? Whenever Intel says so, that's when. For consumers, the answer might not be so cut and dry, and as notebook makers look to deliver thin and light notebooks at lower price points, you'll have to ask yourself how much you really care about buying a notebook with an official Ultrabook designation versus buying one that's nearly identical but lacks Intel's full blessing.
Sick of hearing about Ultrabooks yet? If so, you'd better grab some Pepto Bismol. PC manufacturers have jumped onto Intel's slim n' fast bandwagon with almost astonishing vigor; the first Ultrabooks didn't even hit the streets until the end of last year, and a whopping 21 variations have dropped in the scant 5 months since. That's just the tip of the iceberg, however. Intel says that there are a full 75 more Ultrabooks already in development, and that lower price points and stricter standards are also coming.
Western Digital has begun shipping its new WD Scorpio Blue 7mm hard drive line, the newest edition to its mobile HDD family and the one with the lowest power consumption. These 2.5-inch drives are fully compatible with industry-standard 9.5mm slots found in mainstream notebooks and slimmer laptops, but they're really designed to shine in Ultrabooks as an alternative to costly solid state drives that fall short on storage space.
Intel’s biggest marketing campaign in nearly a decade is now underway. “A New Era of Computing,” as the campaign is called, will see Intel spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a bid to lure consumers around the world to ultrabooks. Hit the jump and tell us what you make of the first commercial in this campaign.
Ultrabooks haven’t really been flying off store shelves as Intel and its PC vendor friends had hoped. The underwhelming performance of first-generation ultrabooks notwithstanding, they are unlikely to abandon the whole idea anytime soon. An obvious way of making these ultra-thin and -light laptops more inviting to buyers is to lower their prices. While vendors are currently having a hard time keeping ultrabook prices under $1,000, Acer Global President Jianren Weng has already started talking about sub-$500 ultrabooks.
Intel's Ultrabook iniative is an attempt make notebooks sexy again, inside and out. Ultrabooks compete with Apple's MacBook Air and are designed to be both ultra stylish and ultra responsive, and of course feature Intel's Sandy Bridge platform inside. There are certain specifications vendors must meet to call a system an Ultrabook, some of which are not cheap to implement. For this reason, notebook makers are working on lower cost alternatives they can sell for around $600 and still flip a profit.
The highly contagious ultrabook virus has claimed yet another victim, with Gigabyte becoming the latest company to announce an ultrabook. The Taiwanese company has announced two 14-inch ultrabooks at the ongoing CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany. Hit the jump for more.
Japanese vendor Fujitsu has shown no urgency whatsoever in joining the ultrabook fray. In fact, it remained mum on its ultrabook plans until it published its product roadmap for 2012 last month. The roadmap lists two ultrabook models, both scheduled for May. We now have a few details about one of its upcoming ultrabooks.
Dell has begun shipping its first ultrabook, making it the latest PC vendor to jump on the ultrabook bandwagon. Announced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Dell XPS 13 is now available on the company’s website from $999. To sweeten the deal, Dell is offering a complimentary T-Mobile 4G Hotspot device to early adopters. Hit the jump for details. pters. Hit the jump for details.
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