14 DAY TRIAL // One would think that the expected pricing policy of ultrabooks would raise more eyebrows, but at least some companies expect this new laptop type to play a major role next year.
Although companies have been advertising the Ultrabook product concept left and right, recent rumors and reports haven't exactly been that favorable.
While the performance and versatility merits have not been questioned, pricing is leaving much to be desired.
Granted, Acer's September-bound model might strike a more or less low mark ($769 was given as a lower limit), but the fact remains that Intel hasn't relented after OEMs asked it to cut CPU prices.
This made it difficult to actually keep everything to under $1,000, a problem that ASUS is already known to be facing.
Nevertheless, while this did lead to some concerns, at least one company expects Ultrabooks to distinguish themselves.
According to Digitimes, Wistron predicts that the ultra-thin laptops will make an excellent pair with Microsoft's Windows 8 Operating System. In fact, they might even drive the growth of the notebook segment next year.
White the company's target of 30 million notebooks for 2011 has remained unchanged, the outfit hopes (and expects) the third and fourth quarter to show single-digit increases over the first two ones.
Come 2012, things should improve further, with Ultrabooks accounting to 10 to 20% of the total notebook shipments for the entire year.
The $300 million investment on Intel's part (announced a while ago) serves to show that the aforementioned Santa Clara, Calfiornia-based chip maker Intel shares this view at least to some extent.
On the flip side, there are those who see things in a light quite contrary to this one, like Acer, whose opinion is that the hype ultrabooks have right now (and the hype tablets have as well, for that matter) is a short-term thing.