Intel Says Both Dell and HP are Working on Ultrabook Designs

Dell and HP are some of the few major notebook makers that haven't announced any plans to introduce ultra-thin notebook following Intel's specifications for Ultrabooks, but both of these companies are currently working on such designs which will be ready the next year.

"All the major brands. Going into next year, you'll see new designs come out from Dell and HP," said Intel's CEO Paul Otellini in an interview cited by Cnet.

"And then when we introduce Ivy Bridge, our next processor, there's 60 more designs [that] are coming out," continued the company's CEO.

Rumors regarding Dell and HP's plans to introduce Ultrabooks have been circulating around the Web for quite some time now, but this is the first time that these have been confirmed by a company involved in the design of the ultra-thin laptops.

Intel defined the Ultrabook as a laptop that combines high performance, excellent responsiveness and security in a slim and elegant chassis, all for sub $1000 US (although manufacturer have troubles reaching this last target).

Until now, such designs have been announced by Asus, with the Zenbook UX-series, Acer, with the Aspire S3, as well as by Lenovo and Toshiba.

In addition, both the Acer and Asus models are already available for purchase with prices starting at $899 (651 Euros) and $999 (723 Euros), respectively.

Right now, Dell relies on the XPS 14z notebook, that features an ultra-thin aluminum chassis with a height of 0.9 inches (about 22.8mm), to counter these designs, while HP has only the Pavilion dm1 powered by AMD APUs..

Right now we don't know when Dell's and HP's ultra-thins will come into the market, but most probably they will arrive until the launch of Ivy Bridge, probably at next year's CES fair.