Ultrabooks

Sam Biddle, Gizmodo: Ultrabook: The New Most Meaningless Word in Tech

“The Ultrabook” is less a thing than a marketing idea carefully baked by Intel: let’s spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting a word (Ultrabook), and in turn, companies can use that word to sell thin, fast, light computers. Tablets (iPads) and the MacBook Air present enormous existential threats to Ye Olde Windows Laptop, and now that the HPs and Dells of the word finally have the means to fight them, might as well market the hell out of them.

Donald Melanson, Engadget: Editorial: Don’t call it an ultrabook

It’s actually Ultrabook, with a capital “U,” and a (TM). The name is a wholly-owned creation of Intel, and the hype you’ve seen for them at CES is only just the beginning. Intel is reportedly planning its biggest advertising push in eight years to promote Ultrabooks, and it’s clearly already done a decent job of bringing hardware manufacturers on board the bandwagon.

What exactly is an Ultrabook?

According to Intel it’s a laptop under 21mm thick with “ultra-fast start up,” extended battery life, etc. Basically, a MacBook Air. The shift to thinner, more efficient laptops isn’t just a smart thing. It’s a great thing. However, Intel is shooting themselves in the foot by placing these thinner laptops into their own categories, instead of driving the message home that this is the future of laptops. In Intel’s world, there are notebooks and there are Ultrabooks, even though the latter is technically a subdivision of the former — a subdivision that needn’t exist. Just make laptops better, and the rest will speak for itself.