Fujitsu was the biggest promoters of Ultrabooks at CeBIT this year and although there were no new products announced they proved that there’s still development and marketing going on. The Fujitsu Lifebook T904 is one of the most desirable business-focused Ultrabooks out there and with its Wacom digitizer, removable battery, docking port and fantastic screen it has features that many of us would love to have on lower cost devices. I took a closer look at the T904 and focus on the digitizer that many of you have asked me about. In short I can tell you that it’s very responsive and would make an impressive tool for digital artists.
It’s one of the most Ultraboooky Ultrabooks out there. The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro sits with the Sony Vaio Pro 13 and the Samsung ATIV Book 9 as showcase devices that are fast, light, stylish and very very usable. The Yoga 2 Pro, however, differs in that it’s a convertible. You wouldn’t know it at first glance though because it’s under 16mm thick and weighs just 1400 grams / 3 pounds. You can’t tell an Ultrabook from it’s thickness and weight though so let’s get into the full review of the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro
We’ve known about the sleek-looking MSI S20 Ultrabook convertible as far back as June of 2012. With Windows 8, MSI couldn’t launch the S20 until the official Windows 8 release date on October 26th. But in an Asus-like fashion, MSI left the S20 linger and left any details regarding its release date and price up in the air. Earlier this month, some 7 months after the first announcement, MSI is finally dropping details on when you can get your hands on the S20 Ultrabook and how much it will cost. Additionally we’ve got a fresh gallery of what is likely the final renders of the S20.
Dell may be looking to reboot it’s screen-flipping netbook in Ultrabook form. The Inspiron Duo was a netbook offering from Dell which featured interesting convertible mechanics, wherein the screen flips around right inside of the bezel, allowing the device to function as a standard clamshell or tablet device. The netbook version of this didn’t sell very well, but the convertible concept might not have died with it. With Windows 8’s vastly improved touch functionality just around the corner, we’d love to see the XPS 12 from Dell.
There’s a lot of interest in the Lenovo Yoga. It has a few issues that will limit its use as a tablet but the starting price isn’t bad considering the design, the touch capability, Windows 8 and the fact that it’s the first Ivy Bridge Ultrabook pricing we’ve seen so far.
Unlikely to be a true Ultrabook but definitely part of a developing trend towards the convertible Ultrabook design is this Teso K116 ‘ultrabook’ spotted on Alibaba, the global trade portal, today by Netbooknews.
The detachable screen is designed in a similar way to the relatively successful Asus Transformer.
The Ultrabook news category got a little over-excited yesterday on news that Asus would be showing a touch-capable convertible Ultrabook at CES, despite the fact that it sounds like Intel put it together as a demonstrator and that it may not actually be that useful.
Tech journalists love stories that cut across multiple categories, especially a fledgling one and the keyword-stuffing that some editors did was interesting. Windows 8, iPad and MacBook Air were mentioned but very few people gave thought to whether this combination of all-round capability would be more, or less, than the sum of its parts. My opinion, below, is that the traditional convertible won’t be that successful and it might be better to focus on ‘ultraslates’ rather than ‘ultra-convertibles’ although I’m also proposing a very interesting alternative too that could be a breakthrough for Windows tablets.
