Friday, 09 March 2012 10:33
Vendors to integrate ultrabook-like features on cheap notebooks
Written by Fudzilla staff
$600 sweet spot with some trade-offs
Notebook vendors are planning to offer ultrabook-like features on affordable notebooks that could cost as little as $600.
According to Digitimes, the prohibitive cost of building proper ultrabooks has prompted vendors to look into cheaper alternatives. The use of expensive metal chassis, SSDs and lightweight hollow hinges tends to push ultrabook production costs too high to turn a profit, even with $1,000 retail prices.
The vendors’ cunning plan is to use cheaper components and offer slimmed down notebooks at $600 to $700, but these models will not meet Intel’s ultrabook requirements. There is obviously a lot of room for savings, hybrid drives or mechanical drives instead of SSDs, cheaper batteries with lower power density and so on.
Acer’s recently announced 15-inch Ultrabook M3 could be a sign of things to come. It offers some ultrabook features, including hybrid storage and fast resume times for just €599. The whole effort could also be great news for AMD, as affordable thin-and-light designs could be perfectly suited to new Trinity ULV parts.
More here.
Published in
Notebooks
Latest from Fudzilla staff