As it turns out, Ultrabooks rarely have “ultra” resolutions

Aug 1, 2012 10:08 GMT  ·  By

We didn't think it would be this hard to find an ultrabook whose display had Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) instead of HD (1,366 x 768), but here we are.

As the folks at Maximum PC noticed, Vizio's Thin + Light laptop is one of the very few ultrabooks with Full HD liquid crystal displays.

Even though many such ultraportables measure 15.6 inches in diagonal, they usually settle for HD, because of cost issues.

That doesn't mean Vizio's laptops is the only 1080p ultrabook out there, but it is one of those already shipping, if not the only one.

The hardware beneath the keyboard revolves around the Core i3-3217U central processing unit from Intel (1.8 GHz clock speed, HD 4000 integrated graphics).

The short list is as follows: 4 GB of DDR3-1333 RAM (random access memory), a solid-state drive of 128 GB, an HDMI output, 802.11n dual-band Wi-Fi, two USB 3.0 ports and a 1.3 megapixel camera.

There is one disadvantage though: the price. The size of the notebook (15.6 inches versus 13.3 inches), the SSD and the display type led to a minimum tag of $950 / 771 Euro.

Meanwhile, 14-inch Vizio Ultrabooks, with 1,600 x 900 resolution and SSDs, ship for $900 / 730 Euro.

We can't really speculate on how many people will go out of their way to buy one of these things, but we suspect the number will be somewhat low.

After all, even though tablets are already going beyond Full HD, notebook and monitor buyers still care about price very much. There is also the matter of ultrabooks having to reach the $699 / 570 Euro price point.

Nevertheless, if there are people who don't mind spending their cash on gadgets of convenience, there will definitely be buyers for Vizio's Thin + Light, as well as the stronger configurations (Core i7 3517U + 256 GB SSD storage at $1,250 / 1,015 Euro).