It’s no secret that Intel is pushing its ultrabook platform hard… and that customers are more likely to buy the thin and light laptops the cheaper they get. But how do you offer premium features such as a super-fast solid state disk without charging an arm and a leg?
One way is to use hybrid storage devices that pair a small solid state disk with a large hard drive.
A handful of companies already offer ultrabooks with hybrid storage. For instance, the Acer Aspire S3 is available with a 320GB hard drive and 20GB SSD which helps keep the price at $800 or less while offering more storage space than you get with most ultrabooks.
But DigiTimes reports that later this year most ultrabook vendors will start using hybrid storage in order to reduce prices. The company also suggests that Intel could offer its upcoming Ivy Bridge processors to ultrabook for as much as $70 off.
All told, these moves could mean that we’ll see ultrabooks for less than $700 before the end of 2012.
DigiTimes has a way of reporting rumors as if they were facts, so I’m taking this news with a grain of salt. But the Taiwanese news site does have sources in the companies that actually build most of the world’s computers.
Pricing is problematic, but SSD capacity is too, probably even more. Most people are just not ready to go back to 64 GB or 128 GB drives.
SSD capacity isn’t as much a issue as it use to be, with hard drive prices presently high due to the manufacturing shortages, and the high demand for SSD solutions from all the mobile devices up to Ultrabooks, means a much greater push for SSD solutions that in turn should start making them cheaper as they increase production.
While SSD technology is already at the point that we will soon see another doubling of capacity. So won’t be much longer, maybe as soon as the end of this year, before we see 512GB SSDs and 256GB as the affordable solution.
Though even if we don’t, external hard drives are a easy solution for added capacity and now you can get wireless models.Â