Ultrabooks

A fresh crop of ultrabooks sporting Intel's latest "Ivy Bridge" Core processors will start to go on sale next month, including 30 models with touchscreens, Intel said Thursday.

Intel will officially announce the Ivy Bridge chips at the Computex trade show in Taiwan next week. Some of the touchscreen ultrabooks will be convertible, meaning the screen can fold back to turn the laptop into a tablet, said Intel spokeswoman Becky Emmett.

Windows 8 and ultrabook laptops are expected to take center stage at the Computex trade show in Taipei next week, as industry giants Microsoft and Intel try to develop products that can compete better against Apple's iPad.

Microsoft, Intel and local PC vendors such as Acer and Asus all are expected to show off tablets with the upcoming Windows 8 OS, as well as thinner and lighter ultrabooks running Intel's latest processor, code-named Ivy Bridge, said Thomas Huang, the manager in charge of organizing Computex.

What's this? An unannounced 14-inch Ultrabook called the Dell XPS 14 has popped up on Amazon. The specs suggest this superthin laptop will give other Ultrabooks a run for their money--it's got an Ivy Bridge processor, Nvidia discrete graphics, an HD+ display, and 12 hours of battery life.

Dell XPS 14 (2010 Version)Dell released an XPS 14 in 2010 in an attempt to revive the XPS laptop line, but discontinued the 14-inch premium laptop last year. The old XPS 14 would have never qualified as an Ultrabook, with its 1.4-inch thickness.

The Asus Zenbook Prime Ultrabooks have knockout, full-HD IPS displays and other notable upgrades from the Zenbooks that launched last year. But how do these premium Ultrabooks stack up against the growing competition? Here's a quick look.

Gorgeous Display

Let's get straight to it: The new Zenbook Prime Ultrabooks have the best displays of any Ultrabooks introduced so far. The Zenbook Prime 11-inch UX21A and 13-inch UX31A and UX32VD all offer optional full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixel) displays. This is a big update from the last year's screen resolutions -- 1366 by 768 pixels on the 11-inch UX21, and 1600 by 900 pixels on the 13-inch UX31. More pixels means you'll see sharper text and images, and you won't have to scroll as often.

If you think people couldn’t stop talking about Ultrabooks a few months ago, just wait until June. That’s when Intel will make available the dual-core version of the Ivy Bridge CPUs, ushering in a whole new wave of slim laptops. One such Ultrabook will be the new Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A, successor to the Zenbook that launched with the first Ultrabooks at the end of last year. We liked that system a lot, save for a few issues. With the Zenbook Prime UX31A, Asus seeks to address some of those.

I got my hands on a pre-production system that is nearly up to the quality standards of the final shipping units, or so I’m told. It’s really very nice. Much like the original Zenbook, it’s all metal with a very solid and rigid feel. The 13.3-inch UX31A weighs a little less than 3 pounds, and has a very small and light power adaptor. The left side provides access to a USB 3.0 port, headset jack, and SD card slot. The right has the power plug, another USB 3.0 port, mini-VGA, and mini-HDMI. As with other exceptionally thin Ultrabooks, you’ll have to use the included mini-to-VGA dongle to plug into a legacy display or projector. Asus supplies a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor for those needing wired connections, but the dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n radio should provide good wireless throughput.

Lenovo claims that its ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the world's lightest 14-inch Ultrabook, with a weight of just under 3 pounds. It's an easy claim to make, though, because the company doesn't have much competition in that size.

So far, PC makers have put most of their Ultrabook efforts into 11-inch and 13-inch models--the same sizes as Apple's MacBook Air. Asus hasn't gone any larger, and Samsung's only 14-inch Ultrabook, the Series 5, has a bulk-inducing DVD drive. Acer's Aspire M3 Ultrabook with a 15.6-inch display, but the company doesn't offer anything comparable in size to Lenovo's new ThinkPad X1.

HP announced a slew of refreshed and new HP laptops on Tuesday that should be shipping to retailers this summer. Among the newcomers are several HP Envy models and a business-oriented Ultrabook.

Premium Ultrabook: HP Envy Spectre XT

HP Envy Spectre XTHP offers the new Envy Spectre XT as an "ultra-stylish" extension of the HP Spectre line, which already looks pretty sleek thanks to its glass top. The XT will have an all-metal chassis (like similar premium Ultrabooks) and a slim bezel (like the Envy 14 Spectre) to pack a larger display in its small 13.3-inch footprint.

When Sony recently announced its first Ultrabooks, the Vaio T13 and Vaio T11, details for only the 13-inch model were provided, with no mention of pricing or Ivy Bridge processor availability for either model. Now German websites, including Sony’s official German site, fills in those blanks.

Detailed Specs, Pricing

The Vaio T13 and T11 are both now available for advance order and configuration at Sony.de. The main difference between these two laptops is the display size: The T13 has a 13.3-inch screen while the T11’s screen is 11.6 inches. Both are glossy displays with 1366-by-768-pixel resolution.

Dell XPS 13Lately I've been changing things up a bit. For several months I used a little Lenovo ThinkPad X220 running Windows 7 and had a great experience -- it felt rock solid and responsive, with fantastic battery life. Then I switched to a MacBook Pro, and now that I've gotten used to it, I actually find it more or less a wash between the two (sorry, Apple fanboys).

So it was with considerable excitement that I decided to take my first Ultrabook, the Dell XPS 13, for a spin. As you know, Ultrabooks are the Wintel world's answer to the MacBook Air. But there are no hard-and-fast specs for what an Ultrabook should be other than thin and light and cool-looking, so each manufacturer has its own interpretation.

Wait until the second half of this year, and you might be able to get a super-thin and lightweight Ultrabook for just $599. These lower-priced Ultrabooks, however, will use plastic materials for the chassis, rather than the more pricey aluminum used today.

Despite their sleek and slim profiles, Ultrabooks are still a tough sell for laptop buyers because of the high prices. Current Ultrabooks have starting prices from around $800 to over $1,000--significantly higher than average Windows laptop prices of just $507 in March (per NPD/Laptop).