Why Ultrabooks Are Falling Well Short of Intel's Targets

nk497 writes "When Paul Otellini announced Ultrabooks last year, he predicted they would grab 40% of the laptop market by this year. One analyst firm has said Ultrabooks will only make up 5% of the market this year, slashing its own sales predictions from 22m this year to 10.3m. However, IHS iSuppli said that Ultrabooks have a chance at success if manufacturers get prices down between $600 to $700 — a discount of as much as $400 on the average selling price of the devices — and they could still grab a third of the laptop market by 2016."

Comments

It's too bad Intel killed netbooks for this.

[pecosdave]

There's a lot of netbook haters out there, and I understand why. Truth is they weren't the right thing for everyone.

I found two great niches for them - children and physically active people on the go.

First of all - children. The first netbook I every bought was one of the 7" eeePC's on that was on Woot.com with a 4GB card SSD. The SSD was so small the included OS couldn't even run its own updates out of the box. I put an ultra small version of Linux and SNES on it (came with a heftier Linux), stuck in a 32 GB SD card - instant portable movie and game machine for my daughter. A couple of years later I upgraded her to a 10" Acer similar to mine and my niece and nephew now have the 7" one. You can fit a lot of movies on a 32 GB SD card if you use the PSP or iPod preset in Handbrake.

Second niche - myself. I bike places, as often as I can. I have a small backpack that's big enough to carry my bike tools, a netbook, and some accessories/other crap I need for my commute to work or just about anywhere else. I BMX a lot and I don't like to carry a bunch of extra garbage I don't need. For coffee shop Internet use - including work responsibilities when I'm consulting - every thing I have to do on the road can be done on my 10" Acer Aspire. I've had two chain related failures on my BMXes while this thing was in my backpack, I wound up tumbling down the road both time my little Aspire took the beating better than I did. Sure a tablet fills this niche for most people, but I like a keyboard and mouse. That being said if Google does come out with a Nexus 10 I'll probably get that and use my old mini Apple bluetooth keyboard on it.

I drool over Ultrabooks - I really want one. Fact is they cost too damned much and they won't fit my physically active lifestyle - I would have to switch to a bigger backpack for more than about a 12" screen, maybe a bit bigger but I don't want to push it too much. Intel's greed - not the kind that motivated them to release Ultrabooks but the kind that made them strong arm manufactures into killing netbooks to do it - is a large part of why they aren't taking off well enough.

If they stopped their excessive manipulation and gave control back to the manufacturers they may see a surge in Ultrabook sales.

Re:The reason is simple.

[smash]

This. The macbook air has a decent trackpad, keyboard and screen. You can get a decent keyboard and something close screen wise on a PC ultrabook but every trackpad I've used so far sucks.

It also looks pretty.

The PC Ultrabook is the same price. For me, its a no brainer. Even if I'm looking for a machine to run Windows on, I'd still buy a Macbook air rather than an Ultrabook PC.

Re:It's the price, stupid

[anethema]

I'm in the same boat somewhat. I keep trying to switch, and KEEP getting burned.

Decided I want a big slunker gaming computer. Bought the Asus G73 when it came out. Was working fairly well but within about 8 months it was having some issues, trackpad, screen etc. No problem, I'm used to the Apple support, Asus has a good rep, lets call.

What a disappointment. My only option was to send the laptop in so they could diagnose and repair it at their leisure. Reports online say it often takes a month. This is my primary and sole computer. I tried explaining that but nothing they could do. I offered to buy a nicer warranty, or buy the parts myself and replace them and agree my warranty would henceforth be void. Nope! Send it in.

I sold it for a steep discount to a buddy and bought a mac.

Know what Apple does in this situation? "No problem sir, your new computer is in the mail. Simply take a time machine backup, wipe it, place old computer in the box the new one came in, rip the shipping label off, drop it off for free shipping back to us, and restore the backup. Have a nice day."

It seems you cannot even BUY that kind of warranty from most PC makers. Some even seem to try to find excuses not to fix your device. Apple has even replaced my phone after I broke the screen. They said they normally don't but just this once they would.

They may have a terrible corporate attitude but they are hard to get away from since most other aspects of owning their products is so positive.