In a report issued yesterday, iSuppli is predicting that 45 million SSD, cache SSD and Hyrid HDD solutions will ship for Ultrabooks and ultrathins in 2013 indicating a huge 4X jump over 2012. Isuppli is predicting that despite a contraction of the PC market but that a flattening off of interest for ‘superthins’ will ‘take-off’ in the second half of 2013.

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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 focus on Ultrabooks here but also keep a close track on what’s happening in the ultra mobile PC space through our work with UMPCPortal. For some people it’s more important to be mobile with all-day, all-scenario capability at the expense of processing power or speed. For others, the most important thing is to be able to carry desktop power and that’s where a Core-based Utrabook comes in. But how big is the difference in platform performance? I’ve had a Atom-Clovertrail based tablet convertible for a few weeks now and so I took the chance to test it alongside an Ultrabook convertible – the Lenovo Thinkpad Twist. Both devices have strengths, and weaknesses.

Intel have just published a video showing the differences between hard drives and (Intel) solid state drives. It’s actually an advert for the latest Intel SSDs and there’s a bit of humor in here, a lot of tight editing and a possible shot in the foot for Ultrabook hybrid hard drives which, under most of these test scenarios, would be just as slow as the standard hard drives. 

“The speed you need at the price you want.” says the advert.

The reason I ‘m highlighting this video though is because I know a lot of it is true. I’ve done exactly the same tests myself with the same software used in the video and there’s a huge difference. Joking aside, Intel didn’t need to dramatize and editize (!) this video. I could show you exactly the same effect between the Acer S3 and the Toshiba Z830 and the Toshiba is not even carrying a class-leading SSD. Watch the video below though because it’s an easy one to forward to your friends as an explanation.

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While the rest of the world waits for confirmation of specs and availability, the guys down under have already reviewed the Toshiba U840 Ultrabook. It’s a product that won’t be confused with the Toshiba Z830 but there are questions to be asked about the price. The U840 appears to be built for the mainstream market and yet the price is higher than the Z830. We hope that’s just early pricing that will drop quickly.

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‘Shocking thinness and price” says the advertising for the new Lesance NB S3431 Ultrabook.  While 19mm might not be a shock to anyone that reads Ultrabooknews, the price of $725 (59980 Yen) is pretty impressive.

Yes, this is a Japan-only model (although expect it to reach other countries under other brands – this looks like one of the first 2nd-tier OEM Ultrabooks to hit the market) and the specs are so-so when compared to other Ultrabooks but for the mainstream market this price is a good indicator.  Continued…

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There are rumors and indicators that Ultrabooks are moving more towards hybrid HDDs and the Lenovo U300e is another indicator in that area. The nasty side effect is that the SSD model, the U300s now only seems to be available with a Core i7 and a $1499 price.

The U300e is launching with a 500Gb hard drive, Core i5 and 4GB RAM – No change from the original U300s that we saw apart from the storage. The price comes in at $1199 at the Lenovo US store though which is shockingly high considering the Samsung Series 5 13.3 is $869 at Amazon.com right now.

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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.