ultrabook

Ultrabook and MacBook Air shipments numbers will grow by about 7 million units in 2013, according to market researcher Gartner.

"We are looking at about 5 percent of total mobile notebook shipments in 2012. That includes Apple's MacBook Air, which is a big portion of that five percent," Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner, told CNET.

Kitagawa went on to say that "big" does not necessarily mean more than 50 percent but would not get more specific.

Gartner describes the combination of ultrabooks and the MacBook Air as "ultramobile notebooks." Typically, ultramobile laptops … Read more

Online game retailer Steam is running a big summer sale right now, which makes it a great time to build out your Mac OS X game library, thanks to heavy discounts on some recent and not-so-recent games.

As we've noted previously, the Steam sale "offers daily deals, multiple random flash sales, and a unique community choice vote where voters choose on the next heavily discounted game (which revolves every eight hours)." While most of the games on sale are Windows-only, there is a healthy selection of Mac games. But more importantly, those Mac games are significantly less expensive than they are on Apple's own Mac App Store. … Read more

Blame it on Windows 8.

Analysts this week cited "waiting for Windows 8" as one reason for flat shipments of traditional PCs.

But I would submit that's an excuse rather than a reason. Instead of waiting, consumers are buying MacBooks, iPads, Google's Nexus 7, and large-screen Android phones.

In other words, what Intel CEO Paul Otellini likes to optimistically call -- in the case of tablets -- "additive" devices, or machines people buy in addition to a PC. But I think they're what consumers actually buy instead of a PC.

Does that portend … Read more

For many years, the laptop served as the de facto anchor for techies on the go. Then the tablet came along.

These days, it's possible to use a tablet as the main portable squeeze, since it (usually) delivers incredible battery life and apps that can do just about anything (within reason). In a column today, CNET's Marguerite Reardon addresses the question, "Could I really ditch my laptop for an iPad?" And that got us thinking more about the subject.

Does the ever-increasing functionality of the tablet make you second-guess bringing a laptop along? It did for … Read more

Economy ultrabook pricing is starting to take hold at $699 and below, where the thin and light Windows notebooks offer a substantial price advantage over Apple's MacBook Air.

The 13-inch Acer Aspire S3 (model S3-391-6616) is now $648 at Walmart.

The model listed on Walmart's site includes a 1.40GHz Intel Core i3-2377M processor, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB hard drive combined with a 20GB solid-state drive, 13.3-inch HD LED-backlit display (1,366x768), two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, a three-cell lithium-polymer battery rated at 5.5 hours, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition.

And, like all ultrabooks, it's thin and light at 0.68 inches and three pounds, respectively. … Read more

Sales of pricey ultrabooks are up at retailers, a market research firm said, indicating that skinny laptops may be competing directly with Apple's MacBook line.

First, the bad news: the overall Windows market for notebook PC sales at retail fell by 17 percent in the first five months of the year, according to Stephen Baker, an NPD Group analyst, who published a research note Thursday.

The good news: sales of ultrabooks -- thin, light laptops that compete with the MacBook Air -- are up in the premium market segment. Those priced at more than $900 jumped 39 percent compared … Read more

The new MacBook Pro with Retina display has many noteworthy features, from a unique 2,880x1,800-pixel screen to new Nvidia graphics to large SSD storage options. But, the most surprising may be the multiple video outputs -- something not seen on a MacBook before now.

The last several generations of MacBook have had either a mini-DisplayPort or combo Thunderbolt/DisplayPort jack. HDMI has been on our most-wished-for lists for years, so Apple finally adding HDMI (which is found on pretty every other current laptop) is a big move, especially when combined with a second Thunderbolt port.

The initial review of the Retina Pro … Read more

How big can an ultrabook be before it stops seeming like one? Back at CES, the Acer Timeline Ultra M3 looked like a lot of other Acer Timelines: thin and full-featured, but not particularly "ultrabooky."

A few months later, we got some in-depth hands-on time with the Acer Timeline Ultra M3-581TG, featuring impressive Nvidia graphics and last-gen Intel processors. It turns out that that M3 won't see the light of day in the U.S., but its successor -- the Timeline Ultra M5 -- will, and it'll be available to order by the end of June.

Read our first take of the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5.… Read more

Seeing all the attention (and unexpectedly lavish praise) heaped on Microsoft's just-announced Surface tablet reminds me of all the great Windows tablets I've tested and reviewed over the years.

Wait, that's not right. The vast majority of Windows-powered tablets I've tried have been terrible. Some hit minimum levels of functionality, but nearly all were underpowered, lacked touch-centered software, were too expensive, or had terrible input hardware.

It's interesting to note that many of these examples date from the pre-iPad era. Once Apple's tablet hit the scene, there was a sharp drop-off in Windows tablets. … Read more