Earlier this year Intel first revealed plans to offer notebook PC makers a new design called Ultrabooks. The new product was supposed to be an answer for Apple's popular MacBook Air notebook. This week Intel revealed more about its thoughts about the Ultrabooks project. However it looks like the prices for the first notebooks could be higher than what Intel first announced.
In a post on one of Intel's blog sites, team member Becky Emmett wrote, "This new breed of devices will combine best in class performance, responsiveness and security in thin and light, elegant form factors. Eventually you'll think of an Ultrabook as a tablet when you want it, a PC when you need it." As we have previously reported the Ultrabook design is supposed to be both light and thin with Emmett stating that it is designed to be "less than 21 mm thick - some much thinner than even that." The design is also supposed to have a long battery life, between 5 to 8 hours, along with being able to start up quickly. Emmett adds, "We are totally jazzed about all of this. It's a good time to be working in this industry and it's awesome time to be working at Intel. It's also a fantastic time to be a user of technology - never before have we had so many choices of devices to suit our personal needs and lifestyles. If you think today's variety of computing devices is exciting, you ain't seen nothing yet."
The first Ultrabooks are supposed to start shipping in September with a number of major PC makers already announcing plans to create notebooks based on Intel's design. However there may be a big fly in the Ultrabook ointment. Intel had previously said Ultrabooks would be priced below $1,000. However, Digitimes reports via unnamed sources that when Asus releases its Ultrabook-based products, they will have a price point of between $1,000 to $1,600. The article says, " ... yield rates for panels and key components are still lower than originally expected and therefore production costs are relatively high."
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