You know, I'm not at all sold on this obsession with thin laptops. I'd rather have a slightly thicker Aspire S3 with a 6-cell battery that can last 10+ hours than the current 3-cell design. That's not to say this is a bad or good laptop -- I'll withhold judgement until we can review it -- but there's a point where getting much thinner just doesn't matter. For me, anything less than an inch thick with a 4 pound weight limit is enough.
I disagree. You can take a 3lb, .68" thin notebook almost anywhere. Even with a neoprene sleeve, it will fit inside the front pocket of a briefcase or suitcase, while a 1" thick 4lb unit might be just a bit too big. Also, we have had those 4lb ultraportables before. For the most part they didn't sell. Apple's$999 MacBook Air (specifically starting with the 2010 version) was the first ultraportable that sold like a mainstream PC, and so there's a good reason why Intel promoted the platform's size and pricing specs to equal or improve upon the Air.
Battery life will get significantly better with Ivy Bridge and then Haswell, as will graphics performance. At that point, there likely will be little reason to have notebooks larger than ultrabooks, except for hard core gamers or those looking for true workstation replacements. The other 90-95% of us will have all we need.
3 cell Ultrabook with 6 hour battery life, or 6 cell 1" 4 pounder with 12 hour battery life?
With the battery life getting better in Ivy Bridge and then Haswell, you have to ask yourself a new question:
3 cell Ultrabook with 10 hours of battery life, or 6 cell 1" 4 pounder with 20 hours of battery life?
Jarred's argument still applies after Ive Bridge and Haswell. Although in 3-4 generations assuming we don't see applications demand more cpu power (we've been in a bit of a lull for a few years it seems) it's reasonable to expect battery life to get to a point where you don't need more than a ~20Wh battery.
At some point, it becomes irrelevant. A notebook with a 10 hour life will last throughout the average workday. Whether it lasts for 10 hours or 20 hours probably doesn't matter to most people. Heck, at the office, most people have their notebooks plugged in, so battery life is most important while on the road. 10 hours is enough to fly trans-Atlantic.
The question then becomes: 3 cell Ultrabook with 10 hours of battery life on 1.6GHz processor, or 3 cell Ultrabook with 6 hours of battery life with 2,2 GHz processor? There is a limit when performance is good enough, but in one year and a half the 1.6GHz Sandy Bridge might not really cut it for most.
The question is whether MacBook Air sold because it was something people really wanted, or whether it was just something with the Apple logo. I know a few people that bought one because the thin factor sounded so awesome, only to return it a couple weeks later because they found it wasn't fast enough, or just didn't really fulfill a need.
Your point that we've had thin laptops before is exactly what I'm getting at. Ultrabook is nothing new; it's just thinner with a minimum feature set mandated by Intel. I suspect a lot of Ultrabooks will end up looking like MacBook Air "me too" attempts, and just like the iPad has sold a ton of units while Honeycomb tablets aren't doing nearly as well, Ultrabooks won't sell as fast as MBA.
I have a Dell Vostro V131 for testing right now. Outside of the missing SSD and non-ULV processor, this is basically an "Ultrabook" in every other way. Even as their inexpensive business line, it's probably still built better than most of the Ultrabooks, and it comes with a larger battery, the result being slightly higher weight -- but more performance as well, and a lower price. Get a 60GB SSD in it and you still have a ~$900 price point with the i5-2430M. Of course, the LCD is pretty mediocre (matte but low contrast and poor color), so if Ultrabooks come with better LCDs that would be something to consider.
Anyway, I'm interested in testing some Ultrabooks and seeing how they actually feel and work in practice, but as with tablets replacing laptops, I'm skeptical Ultrabooks will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Jarred, I think you're missing the forrest for the trees here. The Macbook Air was an underpowered 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo that tended to clock down a lot more than one would have liked and with low-end non-user replaceable RAM and SSD (I feel so spoilt having written that - in 2006 the e6300 was blazing fast). Core iX + 4GB are overkill for Vista, and these ultrabooks are only going to get faster, while Win7 runs lighter than Vista and 8 is supposed to be lighter still. These ultrabooks aren't a compromise as far as 90% of users are concerned. - overkill versus lots of overkill isn't a compromise.
I also take issue with "just like the iPad has sold a ton of units while Honeycomb tablets aren't doing nearly as well, Ultrabooks won't sell as fast as MBA". I know everyone loves to crow about Microsoft being dead and all, but they still have 90+% of the computer market, while Apple has <5%. These ultrabooks will sell in numbers that Tim Cook could only dream of.
I just fired up a 1080p youtube video and checked how much CPU % is being used (I'm running an i5-2537 @ 1.4ghz). Even though the GPU is offloading most of the load, flash + firefox is still using up 20-25%, basically using a full core. I haven't seen too many slowdowns that can be attributed to CPU speed in firefox and other low demand apps, but there is still some room for improvement.
CULV Sandy Bridge is fast enough for most users, but it isn't really fair to call it overkill. I seriously wouldn't call a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo overkill, in a lot of cases I might actually call it slow.
Then there's the argument for people who do more than youtube and facebook..
The way I see it theres two reasons to buy a notebook with a CULV CPU, battery life or size. Jarred is right, once you get to a certain point with size it becomes irrelevant - though everyone might have a different opinion on what that size is lol... However with battery life, I'd say we're probably several days worth of battery life away from it getting to a point where it's no longer an issue. I imagine there are a tonne of people out there who would love to be able to travel without bringing their AC adapter.
That's a tired, overused argument. The MacBook Air did NOT sell well despite the logo from January 2008 to October 2010. In fact, many analysts thought Apple was going to drop the Air altogether before they released the October 2010 revision. That version, which came with a price drop and improved performance (because they solved the overheating issues) was the first to sell well, and the July 2011 version is the first that has an up to date processor that performs nearly as fast as larger notebooks.
You are forgetting the focus on SSDs. Few ultraportables had SSDs prior to the MacBook Air, and most consumers haven't used them. Even the Core 2 Duo MacBook Air in 2010 seemed so much faster because for most people, the CPU is no longer the bottleneck. It's the HDD.
I think people prefer smaller, but the focus group-dominated OEMs kept insisting that people wanted or needed things like built-in optical drives, or weren't willing to pay extra for a smaller design. The MacBook Air didn't sell well until the starting price hit $999. Obviously, for Windows PCs, the sweet spot will be lower than $999, but it sounds like Acer and ASUS realize that, and will be targeting prices even lower than $899. Perhaps it will be $699 or $799 that triggers a rush of Ultrabook sales.
Regarding tablets, the success of the Kindle Fire shows that manufacturers just needed to find the right price point, removing features as necessary to get there. Kindle Fire will do very well at $199, even though it lacks much internal storage and a camera. Similarly, a $699 Ultrabook ought to sell well.
@JarredWalton -- I actually bought a MacBook Air because I was looking for an ultraportable, and nothing else could beat it in terms of overall features and price, and it had NOTHING to do with the fact that there was an Apple logo on it. Why? Because I've been a die hard PC supporter ever since I had a 486 when I was 13. The Samsung Series 9 was nice, but was more expensive, had a lower res screen, and only offered USB 3.0 over the Air (not a feature I need right now for a laptop). This Acer Aspire S3 is nice for the price, but again, the screen res is too low for me (I know much higher res screens are supposedly coming for these "Ultrabooks" sometime in the near future though). Plus OS X gets better battery life. I'm not a huge fan of OS X, but if I know I'll need the extra battery life, and only need to use things like MS Office and web browsing, I'll use OS X...otherwise I'll just use Windows 7 on the dual boot I set up.
"I disagree. You can take a 3lb, .68" thin notebook almost anywhere. Even with a neoprene sleeve, it will fit inside the front pocket of a briefcase or suitcase"
I see your point but for me, there are 2 thoughts on mobile computing. Either I want a smartphone that fits in my pocket, so I need not carry anything at all. or , since I have to carry it in a case, or bag or sleeve, like any laptop, netbook, or tablet (because it wont fit in my pocket), I may as well go bigger since I am hindered with a case of some sort.
If I were a chick, or secure enough to carry a man-purse I might change my mind though LOL
I mostly agree, when we bought my wife's Dell E1505, their first Core Duo laptop, I was blown away that that amount of power fit in a sub 5 pound chassis's, now it feels like a lead weight and it's easy to tell when something in the 3 pound range is in my bag than when the E1505 is in there.
I think this will end up being a trickle up scenario. Right now the market for $900 smaller, lighter laptops is high so it's an easy one to target. The next logical step is to spread these advances to other sizes, and so I think we'll find larger laptops with larger batteries before too long. The question is how will the pricing shake out. If all you do is make the chassis a little thicker and double the battery, then should the device be priced higher because of the battery premium or cheaper because of the weight and thickness deficit? I don't know where it'll hit, and I think Acer and company don't know either, so they'll target the easy bet and test the waters with alternate chassis's on the same technology when they don't feel quite at risk of being replaced by tablets.
And anyone that thinks that tablets are the future at the exclusion of laptops: show me one person that writes that has gotten rid of the laptop and only uses a tablet.
I hope that as companies address the ultrabook market, they add the slice battery similar to the sony z series. That way you could have your 6 cell all-day battery life in a 4lb form, or the half-day 3lb form.
"Acer's Ultrabook will feature not just an SSD, 20GB in size, but also a 320GB HDD for expanded mobile storage. It's unclear whether the SSD will serve as a boot drive or exclusively to store sleep state. "
20GB is a bit of overkill to handle 4GB sleep state. Hopefully the SSD will be a standard drive with the OS on it and the option to put other applications on it (like Office, Photoshop).
I still question the value of the ultrabook concept, and I think Intel is trying to keep people from going over to tablets running ARM, as well as an attempt to head ARM off at the "ultrabook" space. Still, the Ultrabook's specs aren't too enticing for the price range. People are either going to get the tablet, or go cheaper for a fatbook that has more storage, an optical drive for movies, and a faster CPU, and maybe longer battery life.
20GB is a bit small for the OS + apps, though. Just looking at my C:\Windows folder, it is currently 24GB in size. If it's page file + hibernation file, plus maybe a few other tidbits, you could easily fill the 20GB. Especially if you have a laptop with 8GB RAM (8GB paging file and 8GB hibernation file would be pretty typical in such a system).
Agreed. The configuration to set-up the SSD as the page file and hibernation file location is not for the average PC user so hopefully the installation doesn't come with too much bloatware. Formatting and reinstalling would be a little more involved.
They make something like this with a flip around screen for a tablet interface, keeping everything else the same (at least near-term future) and I'll be interested.
Actually looks nice and has good specs and not too high a price. I need at least 3 USB ports however. Only 2 USB suck and often you can only use one of them at a time do to badly designed products which take up too much space if the ports are right next to each other.
You guys planning on reviewing any of the new Samsung Series 7 laptops? I think that's one particular model that fits very well into the discussion of ultrabooks vs something slightly beefier. The 13/14" model has a higher res panel than most ultrabooks, a beefier battery, yet it costs the same and isn't much thicker. Other than ASUS UX line, the Series 7 is looking like one of the top choices for my next system.
I am delighted to finally see a contender to the MacBook Air... It seems like PC makers finally understood there is a market for a device in between a laptop and a stupid netbook. Let's hope it is also comparable to the MBA when it comes to the user experience. Full review on my website nicolasvovan.com
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JarredWalton - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
You know, I'm not at all sold on this obsession with thin laptops. I'd rather have a slightly thicker Aspire S3 with a 6-cell battery that can last 10+ hours than the current 3-cell design. That's not to say this is a bad or good laptop -- I'll withhold judgement until we can review it -- but there's a point where getting much thinner just doesn't matter. For me, anything less than an inch thick with a 4 pound weight limit is enough.KPOM - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
I disagree. You can take a 3lb, .68" thin notebook almost anywhere. Even with a neoprene sleeve, it will fit inside the front pocket of a briefcase or suitcase, while a 1" thick 4lb unit might be just a bit too big. Also, we have had those 4lb ultraportables before. For the most part they didn't sell. Apple's$999 MacBook Air (specifically starting with the 2010 version) was the first ultraportable that sold like a mainstream PC, and so there's a good reason why Intel promoted the platform's size and pricing specs to equal or improve upon the Air.Battery life will get significantly better with Ivy Bridge and then Haswell, as will graphics performance. At that point, there likely will be little reason to have notebooks larger than ultrabooks, except for hard core gamers or those looking for true workstation replacements. The other 90-95% of us will have all we need.
HibyPrime1 - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
The question now is:3 cell Ultrabook with 6 hour battery life, or 6 cell 1" 4 pounder with 12 hour battery life?
With the battery life getting better in Ivy Bridge and then Haswell, you have to ask yourself a new question:
3 cell Ultrabook with 10 hours of battery life, or 6 cell 1" 4 pounder with 20 hours of battery life?
Jarred's argument still applies after Ive Bridge and Haswell. Although in 3-4 generations assuming we don't see applications demand more cpu power (we've been in a bit of a lull for a few years it seems) it's reasonable to expect battery life to get to a point where you don't need more than a ~20Wh battery.
KPOM - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
At some point, it becomes irrelevant. A notebook with a 10 hour life will last throughout the average workday. Whether it lasts for 10 hours or 20 hours probably doesn't matter to most people. Heck, at the office, most people have their notebooks plugged in, so battery life is most important while on the road. 10 hours is enough to fly trans-Atlantic.Calin - Friday, October 14, 2011 - link
The question then becomes:3 cell Ultrabook with 10 hours of battery life on 1.6GHz processor, or 3 cell Ultrabook with 6 hours of battery life with 2,2 GHz processor?
There is a limit when performance is good enough, but in one year and a half the 1.6GHz Sandy Bridge might not really cut it for most.
JarredWalton - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
The question is whether MacBook Air sold because it was something people really wanted, or whether it was just something with the Apple logo. I know a few people that bought one because the thin factor sounded so awesome, only to return it a couple weeks later because they found it wasn't fast enough, or just didn't really fulfill a need.Your point that we've had thin laptops before is exactly what I'm getting at. Ultrabook is nothing new; it's just thinner with a minimum feature set mandated by Intel. I suspect a lot of Ultrabooks will end up looking like MacBook Air "me too" attempts, and just like the iPad has sold a ton of units while Honeycomb tablets aren't doing nearly as well, Ultrabooks won't sell as fast as MBA.
I have a Dell Vostro V131 for testing right now. Outside of the missing SSD and non-ULV processor, this is basically an "Ultrabook" in every other way. Even as their inexpensive business line, it's probably still built better than most of the Ultrabooks, and it comes with a larger battery, the result being slightly higher weight -- but more performance as well, and a lower price. Get a 60GB SSD in it and you still have a ~$900 price point with the i5-2430M. Of course, the LCD is pretty mediocre (matte but low contrast and poor color), so if Ultrabooks come with better LCDs that would be something to consider.
Anyway, I'm interested in testing some Ultrabooks and seeing how they actually feel and work in practice, but as with tablets replacing laptops, I'm skeptical Ultrabooks will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
MrDiSante - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
Jarred, I think you're missing the forrest for the trees here. The Macbook Air was an underpowered 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo that tended to clock down a lot more than one would have liked and with low-end non-user replaceable RAM and SSD (I feel so spoilt having written that - in 2006 the e6300 was blazing fast). Core iX + 4GB are overkill for Vista, and these ultrabooks are only going to get faster, while Win7 runs lighter than Vista and 8 is supposed to be lighter still. These ultrabooks aren't a compromise as far as 90% of users are concerned. - overkill versus lots of overkill isn't a compromise.I also take issue with "just like the iPad has sold a ton of units while Honeycomb tablets aren't doing nearly as well, Ultrabooks won't sell as fast as MBA". I know everyone loves to crow about Microsoft being dead and all, but they still have 90+% of the computer market, while Apple has <5%. These ultrabooks will sell in numbers that Tim Cook could only dream of.
HibyPrime1 - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
I just fired up a 1080p youtube video and checked how much CPU % is being used (I'm running an i5-2537 @ 1.4ghz). Even though the GPU is offloading most of the load, flash + firefox is still using up 20-25%, basically using a full core. I haven't seen too many slowdowns that can be attributed to CPU speed in firefox and other low demand apps, but there is still some room for improvement.CULV Sandy Bridge is fast enough for most users, but it isn't really fair to call it overkill. I seriously wouldn't call a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo overkill, in a lot of cases I might actually call it slow.
Then there's the argument for people who do more than youtube and facebook..
The way I see it theres two reasons to buy a notebook with a CULV CPU, battery life or size. Jarred is right, once you get to a certain point with size it becomes irrelevant - though everyone might have a different opinion on what that size is lol... However with battery life, I'd say we're probably several days worth of battery life away from it getting to a point where it's no longer an issue. I imagine there are a tonne of people out there who would love to be able to travel without bringing their AC adapter.
KPOM - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
That's a tired, overused argument. The MacBook Air did NOT sell well despite the logo from January 2008 to October 2010. In fact, many analysts thought Apple was going to drop the Air altogether before they released the October 2010 revision. That version, which came with a price drop and improved performance (because they solved the overheating issues) was the first to sell well, and the July 2011 version is the first that has an up to date processor that performs nearly as fast as larger notebooks.KPOM - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
You are forgetting the focus on SSDs. Few ultraportables had SSDs prior to the MacBook Air, and most consumers haven't used them. Even the Core 2 Duo MacBook Air in 2010 seemed so much faster because for most people, the CPU is no longer the bottleneck. It's the HDD.I think people prefer smaller, but the focus group-dominated OEMs kept insisting that people wanted or needed things like built-in optical drives, or weren't willing to pay extra for a smaller design. The MacBook Air didn't sell well until the starting price hit $999. Obviously, for Windows PCs, the sweet spot will be lower than $999, but it sounds like Acer and ASUS realize that, and will be targeting prices even lower than $899. Perhaps it will be $699 or $799 that triggers a rush of Ultrabook sales.
Regarding tablets, the success of the Kindle Fire shows that manufacturers just needed to find the right price point, removing features as necessary to get there. Kindle Fire will do very well at $199, even though it lacks much internal storage and a camera. Similarly, a $699 Ultrabook ought to sell well.
FlyBri - Thursday, October 13, 2011 - link
@JarredWalton -- I actually bought a MacBook Air because I was looking for an ultraportable, and nothing else could beat it in terms of overall features and price, and it had NOTHING to do with the fact that there was an Apple logo on it. Why? Because I've been a die hard PC supporter ever since I had a 486 when I was 13. The Samsung Series 9 was nice, but was more expensive, had a lower res screen, and only offered USB 3.0 over the Air (not a feature I need right now for a laptop). This Acer Aspire S3 is nice for the price, but again, the screen res is too low for me (I know much higher res screens are supposedly coming for these "Ultrabooks" sometime in the near future though). Plus OS X gets better battery life. I'm not a huge fan of OS X, but if I know I'll need the extra battery life, and only need to use things like MS Office and web browsing, I'll use OS X...otherwise I'll just use Windows 7 on the dual boot I set up.retrospooty - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
"I disagree. You can take a 3lb, .68" thin notebook almost anywhere. Even with a neoprene sleeve, it will fit inside the front pocket of a briefcase or suitcase"I see your point but for me, there are 2 thoughts on mobile computing. Either I want a smartphone that fits in my pocket, so I need not carry anything at all. or , since I have to carry it in a case, or bag or sleeve, like any laptop, netbook, or tablet (because it wont fit in my pocket), I may as well go bigger since I am hindered with a case of some sort.
If I were a chick, or secure enough to carry a man-purse I might change my mind though LOL
JasonInofuentes - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
I mostly agree, when we bought my wife's Dell E1505, their first Core Duo laptop, I was blown away that that amount of power fit in a sub 5 pound chassis's, now it feels like a lead weight and it's easy to tell when something in the 3 pound range is in my bag than when the E1505 is in there.JasonInofuentes - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
I think this will end up being a trickle up scenario. Right now the market for $900 smaller, lighter laptops is high so it's an easy one to target. The next logical step is to spread these advances to other sizes, and so I think we'll find larger laptops with larger batteries before too long. The question is how will the pricing shake out. If all you do is make the chassis a little thicker and double the battery, then should the device be priced higher because of the battery premium or cheaper because of the weight and thickness deficit? I don't know where it'll hit, and I think Acer and company don't know either, so they'll target the easy bet and test the waters with alternate chassis's on the same technology when they don't feel quite at risk of being replaced by tablets.And anyone that thinks that tablets are the future at the exclusion of laptops: show me one person that writes that has gotten rid of the laptop and only uses a tablet.
jdonnelly81 - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
I hope that as companies address the ultrabook market, they add the slice battery similar to the sony z series. That way you could have your 6 cell all-day battery life in a 4lb form, or the half-day 3lb form.MonkeyPaw - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
"Acer's Ultrabook will feature not just an SSD, 20GB in size, but also a 320GB HDD for expanded mobile storage. It's unclear whether the SSD will serve as a boot drive or exclusively to store sleep state. "20GB is a bit of overkill to handle 4GB sleep state. Hopefully the SSD will be a standard drive with the OS on it and the option to put other applications on it (like Office, Photoshop).
I still question the value of the ultrabook concept, and I think Intel is trying to keep people from going over to tablets running ARM, as well as an attempt to head ARM off at the "ultrabook" space. Still, the Ultrabook's specs aren't too enticing for the price range. People are either going to get the tablet, or go cheaper for a fatbook that has more storage, an optical drive for movies, and a faster CPU, and maybe longer battery life.
MonkeyPaw - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Also, a picture of the back would be helpful, since all I see is a headphones jack and a card reader slot!JarredWalton - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
20GB is a bit small for the OS + apps, though. Just looking at my C:\Windows folder, it is currently 24GB in size. If it's page file + hibernation file, plus maybe a few other tidbits, you could easily fill the 20GB. Especially if you have a laptop with 8GB RAM (8GB paging file and 8GB hibernation file would be pretty typical in such a system).JasonInofuentes - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Agreed. The configuration to set-up the SSD as the page file and hibernation file location is not for the average PC user so hopefully the installation doesn't come with too much bloatware. Formatting and reinstalling would be a little more involved.Jason
JasonInofuentes - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
The details mention the back features 2 USB ports and a full-size HDMI port.pcgeek101 - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Only a 1366x768 display resolution? LOL!JasonInofuentes - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Leave it to Sony to slip a 1080p 13" screen into a similar chassis. For 2.5 times the price.InsaneScientist - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Agreed. I honestly stopped reading after that.What is it going to take to start getting reasonable resolutions in these things!?
seamonkey79 - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
They make something like this with a flip around screen for a tablet interface, keeping everything else the same (at least near-term future) and I'll be interested.Fastidious - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Actually looks nice and has good specs and not too high a price. I need at least 3 USB ports however. Only 2 USB suck and often you can only use one of them at a time do to badly designed products which take up too much space if the ports are right next to each other.Impulses - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
You guys planning on reviewing any of the new Samsung Series 7 laptops? I think that's one particular model that fits very well into the discussion of ultrabooks vs something slightly beefier. The 13/14" model has a higher res panel than most ultrabooks, a beefier battery, yet it costs the same and isn't much thicker. Other than ASUS UX line, the Series 7 is looking like one of the top choices for my next system.etamin - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
I'm also seriously looking to pick up the Series 7 $1149 model. It's the first laptop that has everything I want in at a very reasonable price.steven75 - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
No SSD and 4.3+ lbs isn't really the same class laptop anymore.etamin - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
Subpar screen and lack of USB 3.0...suddenly lost interest.tanayab01 - Monday, October 17, 2011 - link
of all these commentsi m dropping my decision to buy it :(
nicosonline - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
I am delighted to finally see a contender to the MacBook Air... It seems like PC makers finally understood there is a market for a device in between a laptop and a stupid netbook. Let's hope it is also comparable to the MBA when it comes to the user experience. Full review on my website nicolasvovan.com