Intel Details New Ultrabook Reference Designs

MojoKid writes "Earlier this year, Intel unveiled its plan to redefine the concept of a PC around an ultra thin-and-light chassis reminiscent of the Macbook Air and with a standard CPU TDP of just 15W. Intel has unveiled the reference specs for ultra-notebook products they're calling 'Ultrabooks.' The cheaper ultra-notebook model will be 21mm thick with a BOM (bill of materials) between $475-650. A second, thinner model (18mm thick) will have a BOM between $493-710. Unlike netbooks, Ultrabooks will target the full range of consumer notebooks with screen sizes ranging from 11-17 inches. Reports are surfacing that the new systems will eschew the use of module-based components in favor of directly soldering certain components to the motherboard. Other findings indicated that Intel and its partners have researched alternatives to an aluminum-based chassis with materials like fiberglass expected to dominate the segment."

Comments

standard CPU TDP of just 15W?

[human spam filter]

What exactly is "standard CPU TDP"? My 4+ year or thinkpad T61 has a (total, not just CPU) TDP of about 15W during light use.

Re:standard CPU TDP of just 15W?

[Vectormatic]

TDP = Thermal Design Power, as in the maximal power usage it is designed for.

Your T61 might have a power usage of 15W, but the cpu TDP for various T61 is around 35 W

Re:standard CPU TDP of just 15W?

[Sebastopol]

Hate to sound like Abe Simpson, but two things, one nit and one biggie:

The nit: TDP = thermal design POINT. There are many things that need to be considered at this point: power, performance, temperature, current...

The biggie: TDP power isn't maximum power, that is the entire reason why Intel started specing TDP values in 1995: the maximum power required a monster heatsink, and only a tiny %age of applications even get close to max power. Why force chassis designers to handle a huge theoretical peak that costs $$$? Instead, spec a thermal design point at which the power/temperature/performance tradeoff can be modified. The Pentium II / III SECC had a thermal diode that would shut the die off if it exceeded something like 120C. The Penitum4 could cut the clock in half and throttle performance if the TDP temperature rose past a fixed limit. This limit is generally ~70% below MAX power (temp and power are related by the thermal constant of the cooling solution, Psi). At this point, reducing the clock's duty cycle causes power/temperature to drop, once the thermal throttle sees this, the clock resumes. The TDP point is set for maximum thermal benefit and minimum performance loss so that the OEMs can use much cheaper heatsinks.

laptop - netbook - ultrabook

[vlm]

So... to help filter past the marketing filters:

laptop - dvd drive = netbook

netbook - plastic case + fiberglass case = ultrabook

"general public" who ignore the marketing materials, like my wife and sister in law, continue to refer to any clamshell design with a keyboard as a "laptop".

Re:laptop - netbook - ultrabook

[Amouth]

laptop - dvd drive = netbook

that i don't agree with, netbook in my idea is a sub class of laptop that has enough processing power to consume but not enough to effectively create.

aka you can browse the web and watch video - but really comping,encoding, or in general heavy work just isn't going to be exceptable.

to me
laptop - dvd drive = most "ultra light" laptop/notebooks

you can get an i7 in a 2.2lbs x220, there is no optical drive, and it surly isn't a "netbook"

Re:laptop - netbook - ultrabook

[moonbender]

Anyone with a longer than, say, 2 years upgrade cycle, would find the netbook specs to be an upgrade over their present full size laptop...

Hardly. Atom is slow. That's not to say you can't do work with them: many people who work with computers use them for the most trivial of tasks, light word processing, email, stuff like that. But beyond that, you'll hit the limits of a what a netbook can do very quickly, both because of the agonizing speeds and because of the limited resolution. The latter might be the bigger deal breaker: I can wait for stuff to finish (even if I hate it), but doing work in such a cramped environment seems almost impossible after using a large display (or even multiple).

Re:laptop - netbook - ultrabook

[CompMD]

An Ultrabook is an old Ultrasparc II based laptop. Way to be creative, Intel.

Recovering wha??

[UnresolvedExternal]

FTA:

Atom sales have fallen off sharply in the past year, thanks to a recovering economy

Erm... whose economy are we taking about here?

Re:Recovering wha??

[PybusJ]

I blame the netbook falloff on market saturation and faliure to upgrade the specs (along with maybe a little competition from tablets). I have a netbook from 2008, one of the first models with atom CPUs. I make plenty of use of it, and was thinking, as it passed 3 years old the other day, perhaps I should upgrade. I could find absolutely no reason in the specs of current models to upgrade. I was feeling that it was occasionally slow when browsing, but a new netbook with basically the same chip gives me zero benefit from a new model. Despite me being happy to pay for a new netbook, there's no point and I'll keep using my current model until it physically fails.

I think most people who want one have one. If this 'new' ultabook segment comes with a little more poke than a netbook, but similarly good battery life then I'd be all for one.

It's sad actually

[amn108]

Status-quo for PCs as of lately - the entire lazy uninspiring market just trails Apple, who, as much as I dislike the whole flashy iDesign, have been the only true innovators for years now.

As much as I like my Thinkpad, it often amazes me why if it's thin and light, has everything you need, then it has to run that iOS thing.

It looks like Apple are thinking, while everyone else just tries to profit riding the wave. Like rich estate owners who cannot be bothered to actually work anymore, because it's been so long they did, they have no understanding nor desire to do so, but they do want the money they lay claim to.

We are sold "business" laptops that are supposed to be our road warriors, that have gamer graphics cards in them for some idiotic reason, that get not just warm but burning hot in our laps (while we thought we could actually use them as well LAPtops you know), that come with a shitload of software crap someone either thinks we need or doesn't give a damn about, and on top we have Microsoft aggressively pushing Windows to us, which is at best a patch on a suit full of holes and stains. My point is: the PC industry as a whole is a mess, there is no direction and definitely no respect for the multititude of jobs people who work with computers these days do - it's like we are sold toys that we are supposed to use and throw out after a year. Everybody sings their tune, software is pushed to interpreted languages and the cloud which negatively affect one of the most important usability factors out there - latency. It's amazing we are not told that we shouldn't multitask because the new JavaScript OS is too slow to do that on todays Intel Core CPU.

All the while Apple at least is innovating. Maybe because that's what they long wanted to get away from - the messy juggernaut of the PC industry that is like a landfill of throwouts someone somewhere tries to fit together to give us the next best thing, for their 15 minutes of fame.

Gee, Intel, is it a coincidence you thought of finally shaving off a centimeter off the average laptop height 2 years after Apple, and probably half a decade after it began to be possible and the users began wanting it really badly after complaining of carrying five pounds of machine on average with them every working day?

Re:It's sad actually

[spire3661]

BULLSHIT. Go pick up a macbook air and tell me of ANY other notebook manufacturer that pays as much attention to build quality. Not even my Sony Vaio laptops with tungsten casings in their heyday came close to the fit and finish of an Apple machine. The best word to describe Apple is 'unapologetic'. They refuse to allow 30 years of laptop kludge into their designs, and I agree with them.

Re:It's sad actually

[amn108]

That's where you're wrong. You think you know what you're talking about but you don't. The innovation is not using different components, a child can do that with LEGO, doesn't mean they have innovated necessarily. Innovation lies within taking a different look on a thing everybody is looking at and producing a different product. It's producing things that seemingly come from fantasy alone that do their job, that do what people like and want. Innovation is when you ask the question "I thought this was not possible, how did they do that? Why doesn't everyone else do that?"

Like Apples patented magnetic power connector, like "unibody" aluminum cover, like backlit keyboard, like EFI/OFI instead of BIOS, like AirPort. And others.

There have been dozens of 13" PC models without an optical drive for several years now, none of them comes close to being as light and as thin as Macbook Air. And again, this is coming from a person who doesn't use Apples products, out of different reasons. Doesn't stop me from acknowledging the obvious.

Nobody prevents other manufacturers from striking darling contracts with Flash memory manufacturers and what not. Where there's will there's way. Instead they appear to be happily watching in mild jealosy as Apple sweeps customers off their feet time and again, growing with impatience until it runs out as they see their profits fall to the point it's obvious something has to be done about it. And they do. But it looks obvious - there's no denying it and no need to hide it - if it were the Olympics, we wouldn't be talking about them. Apple is the winner.

Heck, if Apple offered Macbooks with Windows preinstalled at Apple Store, it would wreak nothing short of a havoc in the bulky PC industry.

You have the logo issue the other way around. Indeed, people buy stuff with Apple logo on it - but it's because previously other people bought stuff with then unknown Apple logo on it and were pleasantly surprised and told their friends. Yes, that's why Macbook Air sells. Blame it on the logo.

Re:It's sad actually

[gman003]

Funny. I recall reading a report a few months ago about shockingly poor build quality on the new wave of MacBooks. I seem to recall the soldering being described as "what an amateur would do in shop class" and "surprised that the thing even works without frying itself or the user".

Apple outsources to the same company pretty much everyone else does. Their designs may be better (debatable), but your build quality is going to be identical to any other laptop.

Re:It's sad actually

[kiwix]

Status-quo for PCs as of lately - the entire lazy uninspiring market just trails Apple, who, as much as I dislike the whole flashy iDesign, have been the only true innovators for years now.

The netbook was a good innovation IMHO (small, light and cheap, with just enough power for daily needs), and it certainly didn't come from Apple.

Re:It's sad actually

[Anonymous Coward]

For the price an Apple computer costs it SHOULD be good quality. Sadly just because something looks good quality doesn't mean it is. It's not hard to find a litany of faults which have affected MacBook computers over the years. Expanding batteries, cracked casings, yellowing casing, overheating CPUs, warping, MagSafe shorting and fires etc. It's not surprising in some respect because Apple do push the limits of industrial design. But what looks nice does not always equate into good build quality or reliability either.

By any quantitative survey done, Apple's failure rate is no worse, and often better, than any other company in the industry
http://www.pcworld.com/article/211402/reliability_and_service_laptops.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384243,00.asp

You can Google up "hp laptop crack..." or "dell screen..." and watch the autocomplete and you'll find the same things. Computers all fail in the same ways, big surprise. The question is how often.

If your failure rate is 15% and you sell ten million computers a year, you'll have 1,500,000 angry users on the Internet complaining. (Also, Apple gives all its computers the same name. So "macbook cracking" generates a lot more hits than "hp1337asdfqwerrtyuiop cracking")

aah, the market

[roman_mir]

Ah, how beautiful it is to observe market space competition, falling prices relative to dollars, (which are also falling BTW.). Just how much would all and any of this cost to the end consumer if there was no inflation caused by government money printing? How much electronics would cost today without any government regulations, taxes, subsidies altogether I wonder? 100 bucks for a fully loaded top quality laptop? One can only dream of a world where there is more competition in everything else, from healthcare, to education, to insurance, to travel, to energy, to food, etc.etc. arrrgh.

Re:So

[Lord Byron II]

This is Intel's effort to reclaim some of the profit margin they gave up when netbooks became popular. The idea is to create a premium form factor that offers enough perks to make them attractive compared to a netbook, while keeping the price under that of the entry level MacBook Air (currently $999).

Don't get too excited about a $475 BOM, though. That number comes from Intel and the purpose is to convince manufacturers that they can produce a retail $999 ultrabook and still make a profit. Manufacturers have been expressing doubts about the form factor.

Re:Not componentized, not good

[Alkonaut]

The whole point of not making it modular is to make it smaller and cheaper. You can still buy a componentized notebook which has twice the thickness as these, or choose a product from this segment which is a lot thinner. You can probably buy an ultrathin componentized notebook as well if you want to, but you will have to shell out three times the money. I'm happy with soldered parts if the size and prize is right.

The old segment isn't going away because there are more air-clones, just like notebooks weren't replaced by netbooks. More product segments actually offers more choice which is usually good for us measly consumers!

Re:So

[tverbeek]

Who cares about "popular"; the key word is "profitable". Getting 5% of the market at low, low prices isn't worth much. 10% of the market (which is where Apple actually is these days) at mid-to-high prices, is a very attractive niche.