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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."
Nope. Not even close.
When I was shopping for an ultrabook, I found the MacBook Air was quite competitively priced. I wasn't terribly impressed with the competition either -- the Samsung Series 7, for example, is not only more expensive for the same specs, but it's made of plastic!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I'd go as far as to say MacBook Air.
If the price is the same, I'm going with the easy purchase, even if it's just to run Windows/Linux (though I suppose after-market Windows license messes the price some).
They really need good screens though, as someone that wants to actually do work, I want higher res screens, I'm perfectly content to move my face closer to see the details, I want to read full pages in the height of a monitor, I really need at least 900px of height.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I'm at the point that unless I get the same specs as apple for like half the price i will buy a Mac.
All the crap pc makers lost my trust a long time ago
I spent $1100 on a 13"Mbp last year and the closest pc counterpart was about $1000.
Apparently, it's a trademarked Intel name, because the article referenced in the summary said:
Devices such as HP's $579 Sleekbook - which runs AMD's chips, so can't be called an Ultrabook
I always thought Ultrabook was a generic term for a more powerful netbook (or a notebook in a smaller formfactor), but apparently it's Intel specific.
Running linux on apple products is no longer an easy thing to do.
Many of the products are a fucking bastard to get working well (much harder than similar PC products).
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I don't think anyone is looking forward to Windows 8 outside Microsoft HQ.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Hey Charlie, if you're on Slashdot, would you like to comment on your blistering excorication of Ultrabooks?
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.
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That is correct. They have to have certain Intel processors in addition to meeting height, weight, battery and storage performance guidelines.
It's what happens when marketing people want to say "MacBook Air clone".
when are people going to realize that virtualization is not the same as running linux on the hardware? There are many situations where you solution won't fix anything.
They really need good screens though, as someone that wants to actually do work, I want higher res screens, I'm perfectly content to move my face closer to see the details, I want to read full pages in the height of a monitor, I really need at least 900px of height.
Actually, the 13" MacBook Air does have 900px of height--it's 1440x900. Kind of interesting, because the 13" MBP is only 1280x800.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
I don't understand how the crappy pc manufacturers still haven't learned that just because Apple can do it doesn't mean they can try and make a shitty copy and actually sell it.
They've keep trying.. tablets that flop, ultrabooks that flop, all-in-ones that flop..
Over and over they make shitty copies of apple products, price them the same, and then are bewildered when they don't sell.
I'd say probably the Tablet. The MacBook air is typically considered an ultrabook, and they've been out for a long time. My understanding from talking to quite a few people is that they understand ultrabooks to be basically low-powered laptops for quite a bit more money, much like a more powerful netbook. I imagine those who really want to reduce weight that much just opt for a tablet. Laptops can be had that are more powerful and are reasonably light ( 6 or 7lbs) for a lot less money.
VirtualBox, while I love the open source concept, isn't quite as generally stable as something like VMWare. Aside from that, what would be the point of having a OSX/Linux combo? Macports works well enough on OSX. Why not just save a bundle and get a standard laptop to put linux on if you don't need to run OSX software?
I think that what he meant to suggest is that both products are overpriced, but that Samsung isn't going to be able to sell their products that way.
I think what he meant to say was: "I hate Apple, do you like me now?"
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
It's also hard to install a Yugo drivetrain in a BMW. But it doesn't really matter because, why would you want to?
Terrible analogy, as it's well understood that the guts of a Macbook aren't necessarily any higher in quality than those of many typical namebrand PC laptops.
Now, the bodyshell of a BMW compared to that of a Yugo... you might have been onto something, if you'd gone that route.
You are completely correct.
PC manufacturers are in a constant race to the bottom. They don't value their products, so neither do consumers.
> sure its not as slim or as light
Well, umm, there you go. Small and light costs money. This has been the case for the past 15 years with laptops.
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
When I was shopping for an ultrabook, I found the MacBook Air was quite competitively priced. I wasn't terribly impressed with the competition either -- the Samsung Series 7, for example, is not only more expensive for the same specs, but it's made of plastic!
Not that I'm an expert, but as far as I can tell from some brief Googling, the Samsung Series 7 is:
1. Made of metal not plastic,
2. Not an ultrabook,
3. Cheaper than the Air.
Specs appear generally better than the Air since it's a "full" laptop rather than ultrabook. More memory, more pixels, faster CPU, 1TB HDD vs 128GB SSD on Air, and of course thicker and heavier.
I'm basing this largely on specs here and here.
I was in the market for an Ultra Light laptop since I was tired of lugging mine around for 3 hours everyday. I have never been a huge Apple fan so I looked at the Asus ZenBook but it maxes out at 4GB of RAM, I looked at the new Lenovo carbon fiber ultra book but it was hundreds of dollars more expensive. I checked out a few other UltrBooks but they all just looked and felt cheap. When the new MacBook Air's came out I weighed the pro's and con's, sure the RAM is not replaceable but neither is the RAM on the ZenBook and the MBA can take 8GB. The HDD will eventually be upgradeable whenever a third party makes one and the battery is much more replaceable than the Retina MBP. The USB 3.0 supports SCSI over USB protocol and there are a number of other hardware advantages. Although I wanted to punch a hole in the wall when I had to buy a Thunderbolt cable for $50 0_o, there is no reason they should be that expensive but that is Apple pricing for you. Coming from Linux it took me a while to get used to OSX and its limitations but overall I am pretty happy with my purchase and would make it again. You can't find an UltraBook for that price with the same specs and build quality.
"Don't Panic!"
"Running linux on apple products is no longer an easy thing to do."
I just stuck in a vanilla Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 (32-bit) on a USB flash stick on a rMBP for the first time and it booted right up. I've also used VirtualBox with Ubuntu for years (which is probably more practical/useful in most cases).
Ubuntu is certainly easier and faster to run these days on a Mac than how I remember Yellowdog Linux was. (Ahh, those were the days.)
Yup let's see (you forgot the PC, Power PC processors)... G5 based Macs were discontinued in August of 2006, And Apple ceased supporting them with the release of Snow Leopard in August of 2009. But hey three years of life out of a multiple thousand dollar machine isn't bad!
Let's also not even bring up the fact that OS X is nearing end of life, and who knows how Apple will handle it's successor. It also happens to be a bit of a clunker compared to many other modern *nix based OS's. Sure Aqua sitting on top of it gives you the impression of riding along in a Ferrari, until you pop the hood and see the small old diesel sitting in the engine compartment.
But Hey a quick look at the "have useful lives longer" poster's profile reveals a pattern of pro-Apple, anti-MS, posts... including a rather extremely ignorant post about "anyone who has ever shopped at newegg.com", probably means that bringing up any sort of valid point that contradicts his own will probably be pointless.
They are nice machine. I would have bought one if I instead on a competing 'ultrabook' if they weren't behaving like they wanted to show Microsoft and Oracle how Evil is *really* done. Giving money to Apple these days is funding the end of open computing.
It was one of those quick 5-minute tests, but I'm willing to reboot and check some more things for giggles. I can tell you that audio worked, trackpad worked, keyboard, WiFi hardware was recognized but needed the firmware file downloaded and copied into place (been through that before with other Broadcom WiFi stuff), video wasn't horrible VGA res but I didn't try to up it. Let me reboot and post a reply in a few! :')
A "so called" Retina Macbook Air 13"
No need to imply that the Macbook Air 13" falsely claims to have a Retina Display. No one is saying it does. The only one that has that option is the 15" MacBook Pro.
You are complaining about high-priced Apple hardware. Apple hardware used to be expensive 10 years ago, when it was still manufactured in the US. In those days, everyone complained about the high price.
Nowadays, Apple hardware is competitively priced, and people complain that it is made in China, and they would be willing to pay an extra X% if it were built in the US. In general, these people are naive, "Buy Made USA" campaigns have been a failure since the 80s. It doesn't motivate people to buy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Back but forgot to try hardwired ethernet, oh well. The Live Ubuntu works in a pinch, I would say, but I'd recommend using something like VirtualBox or installing on partition and taking the time to fiddle to get things tweaked out. No backlight on the keyboard and can't tell you about if the video was accelerated (probably not).
I don't know how the Samsung Series 7 goes, but metal isn't always better. Apple makes their iPhones out of aluminium and glass because they're cool, sleek and sexy. My Nexus S is largely plastic, but is far, far more durable than my friends' iPhones. My phone once took a meter-long parabolic flight into tiles (damn dog). It's back came off and the battery popped out, but within 5 seconds it was as good as new. All but one of my iPhoner friends has had the screen replaced at least once from everyday knocks. One of them's gone through three.
I like the nice, cold, heavy feel of an iPhone's premium construction materials as much as anyone, but premium's not always the same as practical.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
> I'm just waiting for netbooks to die. I've used netbooks on and off for 20 years.
> They just wern't called that until recently, but last year's laptop was a netbook.
There is a legitimate market for netbooks. Not everybody needs one as a desktop replacement or as a gaming machine; then again, not everybody needs a Mercedes. I went on a trip recently, and brought along a 3-year-old 11" netbook http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347366,00.asp I used it for two things...
1) cursory check of my email every day
2) offloading pics from my camera's card onto disc (250 gig drive), and a backup copy onto a 16 gig USB key.
A lightweight $300 netbook is perfectly sufficient for my needs in this situation. It's maxed out at 2 gigs ram, and is 32-bit-only. The Vista Home that came with it absolutely crawled. I run optimized Gentoo linux with ICEWM (no KDE or GNOME), and it's half-decent. A reverse-engineered opensource Poulsbo video driver for linux has been available in the main kernel since January, 2012, so I can get the full 1366x768 resolution. It'll keep up with Youtube 720p videos in "large-player" mode, but stutters in fullscreen. As for 1080... fuggedaboutit.
For regular computing, I have a desktop machine with a 24 inch monitor.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
did you do to Virtual Box to make it unstable. I do all the Linux development for my Firefox Plugin in a Virtualbox VM (which means lots and lots of flash and HTML5 video) and I've never once crashed it.
:P So not a fair comparison.
Now, getting OSX into a VirtualBox takes an act of God, but then again you're not suppose to do that in the first place
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I wonder how many of the fanboys who modded me down have had to do a reflow on a Macbook logical board... :p
This week I installed Windows 7 Pro, Office 2010 Pro Plus, and a slew of other business software on a 40GB SSD with room to spare. Amazing what you can do without porn.
This week I installed Windows 7 Pro, Office 2010 Pro Plus, and a slew of other business software on a 40GB SSD with room to spare. Amazing what being without porn can drive you to. [FTFY]
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
There were lots of Windows machines sold right before Vista's launch that couldn't run it. But hey, three months life out of a computer isn't bad!
Summary: you're cherry picking.
Ordinary "netbooks" like the EeePC 1000 are quite competent computers for $275. How much computer do you need to carry around? I run Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, LTSpice and Autodesk 123D on mine. It will play video. What more do you need?
Uhh, Linux ALWAYS takes tweeking to get working 100%, regardless of how standardized your components are.
Simply not true, but that's the impression people get. Whenever I have bought a system which was dedicated to Linux everything has worked great. If you bought a PC and then complained that the OS/X install was difficult people would think you were crazy. If you bought an Amiga and then complained that getting Windows 7 working was difficult they would laugh in your face. For some reason, however, people continue to recommend running Linux on hardware which wasn't set up for it. That's fine for yourself if you are a hobbyist. It's not fine if you are telling other people what to do. I think this is probably the thing which does the most damage to the reputation of Linux overall.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
They would have fixed it completely with a hippopotamus break-dancing on Saturn.