HP may beat Asus to market with an “ultrabook”

Asus may have shared the stage with Intel when the chip-maker introduced the idea of a new thin, light, and affordable class of computers called “ultrabooks” recently, but it looks like Asus may not be the first company to bring an ultrabook to market. Digitimes suggests that HP may launch at least two laptops fitting the description of ultrabooks soon — possibly even before the Asus UX21 notebook ships.

The HP laptops will feature new Intel Core i7 processors designed for thin laptop computers. Aside from the CPU, there’s not really much information at this point though. DigiTimes is getting its information from “sources” at Taiwanese parts suppliers. Foxconn is reportedly building the notebooks for HP and is said to already be shipping products to Hewlett Packard.

The Asus UX21 will come in 11.6 inch and 13 inch varieties. The smaller model weighs just 2.4 pounds and measures between 0.12 and 0.67 inches thick. It will have a solid state disk and an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processor. While Asus hasn’t announced an official launch date for its first ultrabook, word on the street is that it will ship in September. That would mean that HP may be targeting a July or August release for its new thin and light laptops.