14 DAY TRIAL // One of these days, people won't really know anymore what the difference between ultrabooks and tablets is, because it seems like even the former are adopting the idea of keyboard docks.
That is to say, while tablets mostly sell with keyboard docks, or can use one sold separately, ultrabooks have begun to use the idea of detaching from the keyboard too.
Toshiba is the culprit, and the Intel Developer Forum trade show (IDF 2013) was the place where it all happened.
In the photo above you can see a product called Portege Z10t, as shown and described by SVP Kirk Skaugen.
With a huge hinge sleeve, the convertible laptops featuring Windows 8 can become a tablet when necessary, as the core hardware is placed behind the screen, rather than in the lower half.
This is a great departure from regular notebook construction, which packs the CPU, memory and storage components below the keyboard.
It is really surprising because the top half doesn't seem all that heavy, which is good because then it would have trouble not tipping back.
To be fair, we don't know for sure whether this is really the Portege Z10t, but as noted by Engadget, that laptop passed through the FCC last month and has the vents, camera and logo on the back in the same places as here.
That said, the newcomer measure 10 inches in diagonal, making it more of a Windows 8 tablet than ultrabook really.
Among the hardware are a full-size SD card slot, a USB 3.0 port, micro-HDMI (all on the right-hand side of the tablet), a power socket, headphone jack, power button and volume control.
The CPU is, obviously, an Ivy Bridge (with vPro embedded security), backed by 2 GB RAM and an SSD, or some other storage part. Sales will start this quarter (Q2 2013), but the price is unknown still.