Ultrabooks to replace netbooks and target Apple?

[Dos_Box]

My copy of PC Advisor dropped though the mailbox on Saturday, and one thing that did catch my eye was an article on 'Ultrabooks'.
Ultrabooks are the new form factor utilising new hardware that Intel is hoping will revive flagging netbook sales which have taken a large knock since tablet computers suddenly arrived on the scene catching them unawares. They are thinner, more powerful and slightly larger than netbooks, with another important difference. The price. They are expected to retail at around the £500 mark. However they do see to have the MacBook Air in their sights and as they have SSD drives and are powered with a battery providing up to 7hrs life, it may prove a cheaper alternative. Will the advent of tablets and now ultrabooks signal the death of the netbook I wonder?

You can see a video of a introduction of the first ultrabook by Asus on PC Advisors web site here: COMPUTEX: Intel introduces Ultrabook design - Videos (news) - PC Advisor

[ZeroHour]

Thats a sexy looking laptop.

[Dos_Box]

Here is some footage of other ultrabooks coming soon:

[Dos_Box]

The stange thing is, I can see the point of them now. I (now) never need more than 120GB laptop storage, almost all of my apps are installed via USB drive or net downloads, so an optical drives is almost surplus to requirements and good battery life is a must. Couple this with portability and performance they will be a winner. That is if the devices actually can perform in the graphics and usability stakes, as I want (need) a good keyboard and the odd bit of gaming (not high end) wouldn't go amiss either.

[SYSMAN_MK]

Taking the Acer Aspire S3 as an example you will be looking at £700.00 for the base model and £1050 for the high spec one. - Press

[Dos_Box]

I have no doubt that the prices will drop once more models hot the market, and it is often the case that 'announced' prices fall shortley after release, especially if demand at that price point is low.
If they intend to take on Apple they should be looking to undercut them to get any kind of market base, because MacBook air's still have the 'wow' factor behind them I think.

[SYNACK]

The intel reference platform for this kind of stuff has been around for some time, it was just adopted by Apple first like lightpeak/thunderbolt/EFI they adopted it a bit before the curve when the tech was either much more expencive or not fully developed.

I think that netbooks were an intermediary while we waited for the tech to come down in price and go up in speed enough to offer the kind of performance/size/price point required for something like this to go mainstream.

This kind of thing may still be more of a niche product for starters but as more stuff is moved centrally either with home NAS/Server/PCs or Cloudy rubbish these make even more sense and with more smarts built in to the hardware level doing things like reinstalling OSs or performing system repairs on stuff like this actually becomes viable.

I do wonder what form factors will survive as I think that there does need to be many different form factors to cater for everyone. Personally for my own use I'd like a phone/mini tablet about the size of the HTC Titan with a high res screen for remoting/ultra mobile stuff. A laptop/ultrabook fast enough to dev on with decent conectivity options USB,WiFi,Ethernet,Bluetooth,3G etc. along with a nice low power NAS/server box format.

[Soulfish]

I have the Toshiba R700 as my work laptop (predecessor to the R830). I really like it as a form factor, and having an SSD, DVD-RW + i7 CPU in a device that weighs <1.3kg is amazing. Great for travelling with

[Admiral208]

Thats a sexy looking laptop.

Really?? You've been working with computers too long my friend...

[markcuk]

PC Advisor a bit slow on the uptake on that one seen them ages ago

[ZeroHour]

Really?? You've been working with computers too long my friend...

Simply yes​