Were you wondering when the low-end Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks would start to appear? Right about now is the answer.

Intel have launched the Core i3-3217U. There’s no Turbo Boost but it comes with a handy 1.8Ghz base clockrate.

The Core i3-3217U also comes with all the Intel Quick Sync Video and HD4000 goodness you’d expect from an Ultrabook and together it forms a huge improvement over the 2nd Gen Core i3 option which was only clocking at 1.3 or 1.4Ghz. In fact, in long-term high-power scenarios, there may not be any difference between the Core i3 and Core i5. Take the Samsung Series 9 under battery power for example. The Core i5 CPU is locked at 1.8Ghz max in this mode – exactly what the Core i3 would deliver.

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Three new Ultrabooks have appeared at Amazon US in the last week. The Lenovo U310, Lenovo U410 and Acer Aspire S5

Starting with the Acer Aspire S5-391 you can pre-order for $1399.99. [Amazon link] It sounds expensive but as is often the case, the high-end version is being made available first. Core i7-3517U at 1.9-3.0Ghz with 4GB RAM and a healthy 256GB SSD. Be aware though that the screen is 1366×768. At this price it could be a difficult sell don’t you think?

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Shown at CES and presented as ‘back to school’ Ultrabook solutions, the Lenovo U310 and Lenovo U410 were never going to have the best specification list but at a target price of $699 with Ivy Bridge they are definitely worth watching.

A few images and a user manual has appeared at the FCC clearing-house which gives us confidence they they are preparing for launch. We’ve gleaned a few more specifications too.

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At the CES Unveiled event in Las Vegas this evening, Lenovo was showing off two new Ultrabook, official Ultrabook, notebooks. The U310 and U410 are said to more mainstream 13” and 14” Ultrabooks which I take to mean ‘cheaper with more storage.’ I hope this doesn’t mean the start of the end of SSD-based Ultrabooks!

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