Acer Aspire S3

Today’s ultrabooks are thin and light laptops which weigh around 3 pounds or less, have the latest Intel processors, solid state disks, and quick-boot and fast resume technology. Most of them have screens that are 13.3 inches or smaller.

Next year that will change. We’ve Samsung is already planning to build an “ultrabook” with a 13 inch screen and optical disc drive. Now DigiTimes reports that Acer is planning to launch an ultrabook with a 15 inch display.

Intel coined the phrase ultrabook to define a new class of thin, light, and powerful computers. In a lot of ways they’re what netbooks would have been if the MacBook Air had hit the market before the Eee PC. They offer the power of a full-sized laptop combined with the portability of a netbook.

They’re cheaper than the ultraportable notebooks of 2005, but with prices ranging from $700 to $1500 they’re not exactly comparable to a $300 HP Mini.

But Intel has also said that it expects the category to grow and change in the coming years. Future ultrabooks could look more like tablets than laptops. Personally, I expect that the category consists of little more than a buzzword and a reference platform.

I doubt we’ll be talking about ultrabooks at all next year. We’ll just be talking about laptops, tablets, and other computing devices. And with luck, some of them will weigh less than 3 pounds and sell for $700 or less.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

4 replies on “Ultrabooks and notebooks to become indistinguishable next year”

  1. I hope ultrabooks bleed into netbook territory. 10.1″ screen with a Core i5 CPU.

  2. Actually, the Samsung Series 3 is really an Ultrabook in disguise. It weighs so so light and small and its super thin as well. And its going for $350.
    Yes, Samsung made a real mistake launching this and you cannot really see any substantial difference between this unit and an ultrabook. An added bonus would be the super fast full core processor and the expensive to put on matte screen.

    I have one of these (the 350 with 12.5 screen) and I get around 6 hours usage with wifi on.

    https://liliputing.com/2011/12/deals-of-the-day-12-21-2011.html

  3. So I guess the next “buzzword” with regards to mobile computing would be hi-rez (retina) displays.

    Okay, that settles it!! I’m not buying a new note/net/ultrabook until someone gives me something with one of those high resolution displays, fanless operation, 24hr battery life and a carbon fibre chassis (aluminum is too naff, too passe, too Apple) for under US$1000…. oh, and most importantly, NO touchpad/multitouch. I’m a nipple (them red thingies on ThinkPads) fondler.

    Now get cracking!!

Comments are closed.