Acer has just announced that it’s going to ditch netbooks and focus on Ultrabooks, citing that making cheap tat isn’t getting it anywhere. Ultrabooks could well be its saviour, but it’s completely insane that it’s taken Intel to tell manufacturers how to make them. Read more
Morning. It’s Monday again. We know, we’re sorry. There’s not a lot we can really do about it, but what we can do is offer to fill you in on some of the important tech news that you might have otherwise missed. Read more
Acer’s Iconia A200 tablet marks the second coming from Acer in terms of Android Honeycomb tablets. Confusingly, the A200 is the sequel to the Iconia A500, which we rated in May with a middling score. Have the specs improved for the A200?
Still pining for an ultrabook, but put off by the prohibitively high price? Well, good news is afoot. See, major ultrabook players, including Acer, Asus and Toshiba, look set to cut costs by up to 10 per cent at the start of 2012. And that’s after they’ve slashed prices below the $1,000 mark in the US by the end of the year.
Today’s news that Lenovo is working towards a cheaper ultrabook is by and large good news. Intel’s new laptop standard, meant as a riposte to the MacBook Air and an attempt to claw back falling market share as tablets surge ahead, has had a difficult first few months on shelves. Reports emerged last week that Acer and Asus were slashing orders after global sales failed to match expectations.
Asus has since told us that its ZenBook ultrabook is in “high demand”, with an unnamed UK retailer asking for more units ahead of Christmas. It also says it’s “performing very well” on these shores. But without hard figures, it’s difficult for us to judge. Anecdotally, it seems, the ultrabook category is already doomed to failure. Here’s why.
Asus and Acer have slashed their ultrabook orders by a whacking 40 per cent, just weeks after the superslim laptop range was officially rolled out. Word is that high prices are to blame, with first month sales well below expectation. The question is, can the Ultrabook, billed by Intel as a laptop saviour, survive? Read on to get all the details.
Ultrabooks, a new category of super thin, but not underpowered laptops that’s being pushed through by Intel, have been all the rage this week at IFA 2011. Laptop manufacturers are falling over themselves to show off stupidly skinny rivals to the quite frankly peerless third-gen MacBook Air, and we’ve got them all right here for you in our guide.
