Floppy drives are dead and the computer industry seems to have its sights set on the CD drive as the next victim. The vast majority of Ultrabooks ship without an optical drive, and as someone now using an Ultrabook as my primary computer, I can tell you that I’m honestly no missing it. There seems to be little room, or little need, for an optical drive in an Ultrabook.

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Last year I ran a series of articles about mobile video editing. I covered smartphone, netbook and ultrathin solutions before settling on a  low-cost , low weight set-up.. The Samsung NP350 worked well with its 2.2Ghz Core i3 but by moving up a notch in performance and efficiency, lowering the weight and, yes, increasing the cost by well over 100%, I’ve found a solution that’s quite stunning. I’m not just talking about looks!

The Toshiba Z830 Ultrabook weighs less than most netbooks but packs a 1.7Ghz Core i5 that can Turbo boost to 2.7Ghz. It’s got 6Gb of RAM and a great 128GB SSD that, although it isn’t the fastest at sequential speeds, knocks the socks of a hard drive solution and works perfectly with Cyberlink PowerDirector 10. The difference between the NP350 and Z830 solutions is huge!

I demonstrated the solution at VideoCamp Germany in Düsseldorf a few weeks ago and learnt a few things too so after a few days thought, I put together a tutorial article and behind the scenes video that shows exactly how I get those product launch videos up in record time.  10 minutes from camera-on to YouTube-ready!

The article is over at Ultrabooknews.com and it shows the hardware, software, method and results.

Are you doing mobile, quick-shot video work? A video journalist perhaps? Let us know your process and hardware in the comments below.

Intel’s vision for Ultrabooks is to bring consumers high performance laptop computing in a sleek package with good battery life. So far we’ve seen just that, but the price component is important as well. Intel’s target price for Ultrabooks is around $1000. Thus far, the distribution of prices has been somewhat significant. Here I’m going to do a quick survey of Ultrabook prices so that we can follow the overall pricing of the category and see how it changes over time. I’ll also be looking to see how the prices of existing Ultrabooks have fallen since their release. To do this, I’ll be looking at top-end configurations of Ultrabooks from six major companies. A little while down the line I’ll take another look so we can get a grip on how prices in the Ultrabook market are changing.

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We’re once again working closely with the great team over at Netbooknews.com. Sascha, Nicole, Roland and Andrzej have put of some great CeBIT content for their English and German audiences so, after you’ve checked out our Vodcast below, head over to Netbooknews.com or Netbooknews.de to check them out.

In the vodcast  Nicole Scott and I take the chance to talk about Touchscreen Ultrabooks, Windows 8, applications and app stores. We’ve also got the Intel touchscreen reference design and give you a little overview of that. Enjoy!

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With such a short amount of time it’s really impossible to say anything definitive about the new Samsung Series 5 Ultrabooks but I’ve had a chance to have some uninterrupted time with the two devices at the Samsung Media Lounge here at CES and the devices do seem well-rounded. I’m especially impressed with the keyboard, ports and Wi-Di . If you’re thinking about the Acer S3, I would advise to wait for the NP530.

More images and two overview videos below.

As you can see on the underside, there’s HDD and Memory access making it easier to upgrade to an SSD if required.

Full gallery set is available here.

The 13” and 14” Series 5 devices compared:

Samsung Series 5 13” Video Overview

Samsung Series 5 14” Video Overview

I’m focusing on Ultrabooks this week at CES though if I’m lucky I’ll have time to take a look at some netbooks and tablets. It’s more hectic than ever here and press day has been brutal so far. Events go on well into the evening tonight and then I’ll be up at 5am to head over to an Intel booth preview where I hope to get a good overview of their latest mobile products.

Give me a few days on the floor and by Wednesday I’ll have a good idea of where things are heading although the Ultrabook marketing has been so strong today that it’s clear that’s where Intel are heading.

Ultra mobile fans need to keep focus on the tablet market for any sub 1lb product news but i’m of the opinion right now that the tablet market needs something other than a hardware boost. It’s time for the software on Android to come of age and get serious and I hope Ice Cream Sandwich will give us that. For me, there won’t be any new products in my stable until I see proof that ISVs are investing. Gaming appears to be moving along well but there’s a lot of work to be done in the productivity area.

As I mentioned above I’m focusing on Ultrabooks at CES so if you’re interested in the new Samsung Series 9, the new Acer Aspire S5, the Lenovo U310 and U410 and other new devices, check out the action at Ultrabooknews.com

If I find any interesting ultra mobile PC solutions i’ll be posting the information here.

Looking very complete but weighing a touch more than the average Ultrabook is this Wistron-designed Ultrabook was shown on stage at the Ultrabook press event today.

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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?

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