14 DAY TRIAL // We keep hearing about how PC makers are doing their best to make ultrabooks cheaper than the previous ones, and a new rumor to that effect has arisen.
Digitimes says that marketing conditions have forced PC makers, particularly those in Taiwan, to explore new means of driving ultrabook costs to $600 (456.48 Euro).
The reasons in question are mainly the cost of components, which continues to be high (for SSDs especially), and the delay of Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs.
Currently, the most cost-additive features of ultrabooks are the hollow hinges and the metal cases.
We aren't going to hold our breath for any of this, regardless of how much we hope the desired price to be attained.
It isn't that we doubt the intent of companies to accomplish this goal, but after repeatedly reading reports about cheaper ultrabooks, only for later ones to crush new hopes, we are leaning more towards cautious optimism than ever.
One might say that this is the same situation as on the hard disk drive market, where prices continue to be huge even despite a rapid recovery in production channels.
Sure, Western Digital still has it hard, but we find it difficult to stomach that prices will keep being very high for months even now that production capacity is already back at 80%.
At any rate, we will believe that ultrabooks are becoming affordable when we see it, especially now that even touch support is being considered.
In fact, Intel has a reference design for a touch-enabled super-thin laptop on display at CeBIT 2012, in Hannover, Germany.
We mentioned it here and we can't imagine it will lead to any price reductions, even after the final arrival of the Ivy Bridge CPUs.
At this point, there is little chance that ultrabooks will truly reach the aforementioned average price before the late third or fourth quarters of the year, when Windows 8 shows up.