14 DAY TRIAL // Wanting to venture into the Ultrabooks market, Epson, Onkyo, Viewsonic and a series of other smaller companies have reportedly contracted Taiwanese laptop makers to build such ultrathin notebooks for them, which could help drop the starting prices of these devices to $599 (456 EUR).
According to unnamed sources cited by Notebook Italia, the companies mentioned above together with some other smaller PC makers have contracted Pegatron Technology and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) to build their Ultrabooks.
Pegatron in particular plans to start mass production of no less than five Ultrabooks in April and May this year, while ECS is said to begin shipping two such ultra-thin machines until the end of the second quarter.
No details were released so far about the actual specifications of these Ultrabooks, but Notebook Italia reports that their prices will be set between $599 and $649 US (456 to 494 EUR).
Right now, the cheapest Ultrabook on the market is the Toshiba Portege Z835 that retails for $799.99 (594 EUR), but this is a Best Buy exclusive deal, as the regular selling price of the ultra-thin is actually set at $929 (689 EUR).
Intel has developed the Ultrabooks concept in order to counter the ever-increasing popularity of tablets, which are eating away into the PC market.
However, the high costs associated with both manufacturing and the hardware components required for such ultra-thin laptops have kept Ultrabooks from becoming as widespread as Intel has hoped for.
Advancements in manufacturing technology, such as the introduction of fiberglass cases, are expected to make Ultrabooks $50-100 (38 to 76 EUR) cheaper than comparable unibody aluminum models, but the first super-thin notebooks to be manufactured using such materials won’t arrive until Q2 2012.