When I first had hands-on with the Toshiba U940 I was a little worried that it might be built too cheaply. The casing and styling weren’t exactly top-of-the-range but it turns out that Toshiba have put together quite an honest package here. Don’t judge an Ultrabook by the cover because the Toshiba U940 has some unique features and good all-round performance. Read-on to find out more.
We don’t know why but Germany is the country to watch for early release details on Ultrabooks this week. The Lenovo Ideapad U310 (MAG6JGE) is showing up for €599.99 which is just about the cheapest Ultrabook there is right now. If you’re working in dollars, note that this price includes the 19% sales tax in Germany. The pre-tax price in US dollars is $629. Again, look for a $599 price war starting in about 6 weeks.
There was a lot of talk about new Ultrabooks at Computex this week but we shouldn’t forget that there are going to be a number of first-gen models that will get an Ivy Bridge upgrade. Given that they have all been well tested, it could be worth taking a closer look at some of these. In fact, keep an eye out for offers. We’ve already seen one or two coming in at low prices.
We’re gradually getting more and more information on the ASUS S46 and S56 Ultrabooks and it’s looking like they will be the budget offering this back-to-school season. DVD is included along with a range of ports, a mainstream screen and that might even be a replaceable cylindrical cell battery pack on the back there. Starting price - a new record low of $599. Is that the sound of AMD’s ultrathins being crushed?
The range goes up from $599 but it sounds like the 15” model will start at $799
There was a brief report a few days ago that hinted at new Celeron CPUs being offered for Ultrabook products. I don’t believe it. Not only does this source appear on my personal ‘blacklist’ but there are good reasons why this report is wrong.
Update: The news item was updated with a response from Intel. We were right, Celeron CPUs are not going into Ultrabooks.
Ultrabook prices are falling fast. The Novatech nFinity 2367 Ultrabook is on offer in the UK for £358 before tax, with SSD storage.
18mm thin with SSD – You’ve got two of the most important Ultrabook specifications covered. There’s a 14” screen too. The price is a UK pre-tax offer equating to around £430 after sales tax which smacks of great mainstream value. Where’s the catch?
Stepping away from the Ultrabook brand means Vizio are unlikely to get marketing support from Intel which makes us think that two laptops that will ‘exceed Ultrabook specifications’ are not true Ultrabooks. Does it matter though?
The Acer Aspire S3 is just about the lowest cost route into sub 1.5kg (3.3lb) laptopping there is, at least if you want an unrestricted Core processing platform. The 1.6Ghz Core i5-based Aspire S3 with Turbo Boost to 2.3Ghz, a hybrid (fast boot, fast resume) 320GB drive, 13″ screen, ultra-fast resume and a good suite of full-size ports, including a full+size SDHC card port, is significantly cheaper than other Ultrabook and Ultrabook-like options. Over the next week I’ll be giving it the full suite of Ultrabooknews tests for you. You won’t find this detail anywhere else: Unboxing and overview, first impressions, battery power analysis, live review with Q&A and of course a full detailed review.
