14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has officially provided an update on the state of its table and ultraportable laptop marketing endeavors, and it seems quite proud of itself too.
Then again, we suppose the company does have some reason to be, after essentially carrying a whole new product type on its back.
And by that we mean that ultrabooks would not have taken off at all if the Santa Clara, California-based company hadn't so constantly and relentlessly advertised them.
Speaking of which, the corporation continues to push the laptop type forward. At the moment, there are supposedly 140 different models in production, or at least development stages. For comparison, the wave in 2011 had 110.
Of the 140, 40 are touch-enabled and 12 or so are convertible (they are tablets as much as they are notebooks). More importantly, some of them are supposed to have the coveted price of $699 / 577 Euro.
“Ultrabooks continue to build momentum, and achieved our volume goals in the first half. We are very pleased with the level of innovation and invention being brought into this category, and are now tracking over 140 Ivy Bridge-based designs in the pipeline,” said CEO Paul Otellini.
“Of those, more than 40 will be touch-enabled, and a dozen will be convertibles. With visibility into this many designs, we are confident that we'll see $699 systems at retail this fall.”
In addition to ultrabooks, the CEO has once again confirmed the number of Wintel slates in the making: 20.
All of them will boast the Windows 8 operating system, low power requirements and low prices. These benefits come with the territory of being based on the Clover Trail Atom CPU generation.
“We are also tracking more than 20 Windows 8 tablet designs based on our low-power and low-cost Clover Trail Atom SOC, in addition to a number of Core-based tablets,” Mr. Otellini said.