Ultrabooks

Speaking at a technology conference, Intel's chief financial officer outlined a not-too-distant future when Ultrabooks take on the hallmarks of the tablet. He also touched on Windows 8 competition.

"Form factors in the notebook market have been somewhat stagnant over the last several years," CFO Stacy Smith said today at the Citi Technology Conference in New York City. New Ultrabook designs coming over the next 18 months, however, should change that, Smith said.

"You'll have the ability to have flip screen, it'll be touch mode in certain situations [then] you flip it back around … Read more

Ultrabooks will adopt lots of cutting-edge laptop technology, not unlike what Apple did to perfect the design of its MacBook Air, according to research from TrendForce.

The first Ultrabooks from Lenovo, Toshiba, and Asus already tap into some impressive technology. Lenovo's 0.6-inch thick U300s, for example, boasts a "breathable" keyboard to reduce heat and RapidDrive solid-state drive technology to deliver a 10.5-second boot time.

Apple's MacBook Air has been the highest profile example of a laptop that continues to push the envelope on design with novel display, battery, and motherboard designs. "Intel, along … Read more

Intel will put its large spotlight on Ultrabook laptops and Windows 8, among other technologies, at its annual developer conference next week.

In a keynote on September 14, Mooly Eden, general manager of the PC client group at Intel, will describe the "transformation of the PC" being driven by Ultrabooks at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), according to an overview of the forum CNET received from Intel today. IDF begins next Tuesday.

Ultrabooks are very light, very thin Windows laptops that compete with the MacBook Air. The core hardware includes Intel second-generation "Sandy Bridge" processors and … Read more

Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, and other PC vendors selling Ultrabooks--thin, light notebooks designed to evolve the trusty laptop--are playing it safe with inventory amid fears of weak demand.

According to Taiwan's DigiTimes, notebook manufacturers are keeping initial Ultrabook runs at 50,000 units. That unit total is enough to test the waters, but little else.

Last week, Lenovo and Toshiba unveiled their Ultrabooks. The devices look sharp and well designed, but expensive. Intel has touted its Ultrabook reference design, but prices appear to start above $1,000. That price tag isn't going to cut it with the mass market … Read more

The only way the new Ultrabook laptop category can top the MacBook Air is to get cheap fast. But that won't necessarily be easy, according to an IDC analyst.

Ultrabooks--for the uninitiated--are very light, very thin Windows laptops that compete with the MacBook Air. The core hardware includes Intel second-generation "Sandy Bridge" processors and solid-state drives. One of the best examples is the 13-inch Toshiba Portege Z830.

The Z830 has a magnesium alloy case, weighs about 2.5 pounds, and is 0.63 inches thick. Toshiba claims it will sell for less than $1,000.

By comparison, … Read more

Amid all the laptop news this week, much of it coming out of the IFA show, there were a few announcements that especially stood out: two major PC makers unveiled their entries in the new (and untested) Ultrabook category. Even better, we got a change to get our hands on working demo units of both models, the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s and the Toshiba Portege Z830. Those two new models join previously announced Ultrabooks such as the Asus UX21.

The Toshiba Portege Z830 has a strong lineage as a successor of sorts to the very popular Portege R835, which is one … Read more

It's a big week for laptops, thanks to the IFA going on in Europe right now, and Toshiba's addition is the Portege Z830 series. Toshiba says the system is part of Intel's new ultrabook platform, and at first glance it shares some common traits with the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s we saw earlier in the week.

The Portege Z830 has a magnesium alloy case and weighs around 2.5 pounds and is 0.6 inches thick -- Toshiba says that's about 20-percent lighter and 40-percent thinner than the Portege R835, which is one of our favorite current … Read more

Lenovo is expected to announce an Ultrabook and a 7-inch Android tablet in the coming weeks, CNET has learned.

The IdeaPad U300s would be Lenovo's first portable tagged as an Ultrabook--a category of sub-0.8-inch-thick laptops that has many of the hallmarks of Apple's MacBook Air. That is, weighing typically 3 pounds or less, constructed from special materials like aluminum or carbon fiber, powered by Intel Sandy Bridge processors, and priced--at least some models--below $1,000.

During Lenovo's earnings conference call last week, Chief Operating Officer Rory Read said that Ultrabooks would "reach mainstream price points...that were only 18 months ago in premium segments."

"The Ultrabook, like the tablet, is a legitimate member of the high-mobility class of devices," said Roger Kay, the principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies. The initial iteration of the Ultrabook is expected to hew to the traditional clamshell laptop design. "So, it's a very portable device that comes in a very useful form factor," Kay said.

A video of the U300s appeared in late May from the Computex show floor. Cosmetically, it resembles the 0.7-inch-thick IdeaPad U260 announced last November.

But that's not all Lenovo has in store. The 7-inch IdeaPad A1 tablet is also expected to be rolled out. A similar tablet has already gone on sale in China, according to Netbook News. The tablet for the China market is spec'd with a 1,024x600 display, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 3622 processor, 512MB system memory, 16GB storage, and micro-USB and microSD slots. … Read more

Ultrabooks are coming. The first wave of superslim laptops are expected to hit in force by the holiday season. Earlier this week, I spoke with Greg Welch, director of Intel's Ultrabook group, to get a better idea of what an Ultrabook is.

Though Intel won't make Ultrabooks, it will supply the core components, so it is intimately involved in the platform. And, as Welch, describes it, the Ultrabook is "an initiative to advance the state of the art of the notebook experience across several years."

Question: Can you talk about some of the new technologies Intel … Read more