There is a lot of talk about Ultrabooks, not the least by ASUS who will be first to market. New reports says that Intel has won over several of the major notebooks manufacturers, unlike previously where most seem to doubt the concept due to the non-existing margins.
The market for notebooks continues to grow, while the desktops are taking a hit. Companies are more often buying notebooks for their employees and if there is need for higher productivity they can always get a docking station with a larger monitor. The Ultrabook concept builds on notebooks thinner than 0.8″/20mm, SSD or SSD cache, and high-end processor with low energy consumption together with battery times up to 10 hours – all this for less than $1000.
We earlier reported on ASUS having problems to stay within the frames for Intel’s Ultrabook concept. Some of the difficulties icnlude the requirement for a robust metal chassis with such a thin design, ultrathin panels and thin high density batteries, but also SSD and an expensive 17W Core i3/i5/i7 processor makes the company crumble when it tries to go below $1000.
ASUS was first design a Ultrabook and was also the example Intel has used to describe what an Ultrabook is. It has now gained support from HP, Acer, Dell and Lenovo, which was doubtful at first, which means we are most likely looking at price adjustments for processors and SSDs from intel, or some sort of package deal.
ASUS expects to ship 400,000 – 450,000 ultrathin computers per month, where of 100,000 will be Ultrabooks in the UX series. We lack a specific date for when the UX21 will arrive, but it is said to be this quarter. It looks like other actors will present their Ultrabooks in the near future, while mass production may start in September to be released in the fourth quarter.
We hardly believe only ASUS is having problems with meeting Intel’s strict requirements and we don’t believe there will be that many Ultrabooks this year. Intel will make an even bigger venture for Ultrabooks when Ivy Bridge is out, and then hopefully with lower prices, which is one of the major problems right now.
Source: Digitimes
