Cream of the crop
Future Ultrabooks will, according to Intel, include face tracking and voice recognition. "We are raising the bar on more natural interaction," said Tom Kilroy, an Intel senior vice-president, during a keynote speech at the recent Computex show.
Touchscreen Ultrabooks, using Windows 8’s support for multi-touch, are on the way too. Acer and Asus have already announced Windows 8 Ultrabooks with touchscreens.
Toshiba's skinny-yet-capable Portégé Z930
In the meantime, Dell, LG, Samsung, Sony and others are updating their Ultrabooks or releasing new models with Ivy Bridge processors. Dell announced its first Inspiron Ultrabook at Computex. Known as the Inspiron 14z, it ships as standard with a Core i3 Sandy Bridge processor but can be upgraded to an Ivy Bridge chip.
Outside the Ultrabook niche, Dell has added two Ivy Bridge 15in notebooks and two 17in models to its range. Dell has also upgraded its Alienware gaming notebooks with Ivy Bridge processors.
Sony, meanwhile, has upgraded its entire Vaio range to Ivy Bridge, although very little else about the notebooks has changed. Sony has not announced plans for an Ivy Bridge Ultrabook. The new Ultrabook Vaios shown off by Sony recently all had Sandy Bridge chips.
Apple's MacBook Air line is now powered by Ivy Bridge
Toshiba is not hanging around, however. Its Portégé Z930 Ultrabook features a Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor. It also has a 13in screen, up to 12GB of RAM, 512GB of solid state storage, and weighs 1.1kg. It is 8.3mm thick at its thinnest point and has two USB 2.0, one USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA and Ethernet ports.
Like every Ultrabook shipped to date, however, it is weighed down by its price tag. At $1,249, it is outside Intel’s wished-for price range and in the same ball park as Apple’s MacBook Air.
The new Ivy Bridge Airs due any day could make it tricky for Ultrabook manufacturers. Apple is expected to revamp its entire notebook range with Ivy Bridge chips this month.
Samsung's sexy Series 9 is getting Ivy Bridge
Samsung’s Series 7 notebooks, including the 17in Core i7 Gamer, have already been updated to Ivy Bridge, and those were joined recently by two Series 5 models.
The 15.6in Series 5 features a 2.3GHz Core i7, 8GB RAM and 750GB hard drive, along with Nvidia’s GeForce GT 630M graphics, while the 14in Series 5 500 has a 2.5GHz Core i5 chip, 8GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive. It also uses the GeForce GT 630M.
Samsung has said that it will add Ivy Bridge to its Series 3, Series 5 and Series 9 notebooks. ®
Ultrabook makers take the Ivy Bridge path
COMMENTS
Touch screen on laptops?
I mean, why? What possible reason would you have for touch screen when you have a keyboard and mouse/touchpad instead? Just to get grimy finger marks on the display?
I can see why touch-screen is good for a tablet - more display for a given overall size since the display doubles up as input - but not for something with a permanent keyboard, etc.
What is Intel thinking?
Do they think end users go in the shop, point their trembling fingers to a laptop and ask in anticipation "ooooh, is it an Ultrabook?"
Or do they think businesses ask for laptops which are to Ultrabook specifications?
They are truly deluded!
Re: Touch screen on laptops?
Not only grimy finger smears on the screen (its bad enough when showing someone some drawings and they insist on prodding the screen) that puts me off touchscreen, but the poor ergonomics of reaching that far forward, too.
A scaled-down Microsoft Kinect might be better suited- (might be, with the right software) to interacting with laptops, as it doesn't merely replicate what the mouse does, doesn't leave smears and doesn't require me to lean forwards.
outdated screens, not enough conenctors
1,600 x 900 is a little less insulting at the price point than x768, but it's still nowhere near good enough for the 2nd octile of the 21st century. We've been building typewriters with LCD screens for decades now, is this really still the best we can do?
of course not. It is still possible to buy a netbook for something like a quarter of the price, so why are these machines still so poor.? OK, posh CPU. Which of us stresses our CPU to the ultimate? Screens, connectivity, storage, are all inadequate. if they want to take a thousand currency units off me, it better be worth 1000. Why not stick a wireless DVD drive in the box with it at that price?
Intel HD Graphics 4000 is still a stinking pile of crap for graphics...
...I will never understand why Intel is keep peddling their utterly useless PoS integrated graphics.
Yes, it's faster than the previous one which was behind the curve by at least ~6 years last year, so this updated piece of crap (Intel HD 4000) is now only 3-4 years behind AMD's or Nvidia's mobile graphics chip performance, awesome...
...it is not.
It's downright embarrassing and when you pair it with awful panels with laughable display resolutions you immediately see why most people think Ultrabooks are nothing special except another take on selling boring and crappy laptops in a thinner body - but waaaaaaay overpriced!
In other words it's just another stupid, arrogant ripoff attempt by Intel '50% margin' Corporation - do not buy it.
