Could Ultrathin Value Notebooks Threaten the Success of Ultrabooks?

If you use a Windows laptop, it is time to get excited. users have known the joy of having a really lightweight yet fully functional laptop for a few years now and thanks to the , PC users will be getting laptops in similar form factors. And these new models are stunning.

I have been using the for some time now and it is so sleek and well-designed that I sometimes forget it is a Windows PC. Dell and many others are using Intel's Ultrabook spec to design some of the best laptops we have ever seen in the Windows space and the good news is that these designs represent the future of all clamshell-based laptops.

But these new Ultrabooks come at a steep price. Because of Intel's Ultrabook spec, most of these new thin and light laptops will be priced anywhere to $1,199. The $699 versions will be pretty stripped down models and the top of the line models will be the most powerful in terms of processing power and battery life. But make no mistake; these are exciting new laptops that will really shake up the portable computing market.

What if you can't afford an Ultrabook? Well, some of the PC vendors are planning something for you, too. While they may not have the specs of an Ultrabook behind it, their new laptops will be sleek and relatively thin compared with today's clunkier laptops. These new models are loosely called "ultrathin value notebooks" and should be priced somewhere in the $349 to $599 range.

Intel has trademarked the term Ultrabook so vendors can't use it unless their laptops conform to the established specifications, which include an Intel chip inside. A company like AMD, for example, and those behind ARM processors cannot, at least in legal terms, create Ultrabooks. Still, they know that there will be pent up demand for cool, ultrathin, and low cost notebooks and thus these folks will be championing this new low-end design. This is especially interesting because laptop volume sales today are in the $299 to $599 price range. In fact, laptops at these price points represent 70 percent of all laptops sold around the world.

You may be tempted to think that these new ultrathin value notebooks will be more like glorified netbooks but that will not be the case. Many of the designs I have seen, especially ones with certain AMD processors in them, are actually pretty powerful. And while they may be a bit thicker than the Intel Ultrabook's maximum of 22mm, their designs will be vast improvements over today's thicker laptops. You might not get the battery life you will get in Ultrabooks, but it will be similar to what you get in most value notebooks today.

The crowd also wants in on the ultrathin value notebook action. Although most WOA deployments will be in tablets initially, we will see a few clamshell-based models by the end of the year. applications for use on WOA machines will be scarce at first, but Microsoft will include a full version of Office to help jumpstart demand for Windows laptops using ARM processors. We expect these WOA ultrathin laptops to be in the value notebook category and be priced no more than $599. Also, since it uses ARM processors, the battery life of these will be even better than those using x86 processors.

But with sleek, low-cost ultrathins coming out about the same time as Ultrabooks, could the former threaten the success of the latter? Intel is shooting for Ultrabooks to become 40 percent of the notebook market over the first year they are available but I am not sure that will happen. For a lot of people, the value notebooks they already have are good enough for their purposes. If this holds true, then perhaps these ultrathin value notebooks could pick up a lot of the new market demand for lightweight and sleek laptops that the Ultrabook is targeting.

Of course, Intel will have chips for low-cost ultrathins as well. Their partners could use versions of their Atom processor or the low-end Core i3 in similar types of low-cost notebooks. But in a sense, this is counter to Intel's upper-end Ultrabook program. Yet, if this market takes off, Intel will be forced to play in this space, as well.

I have been lugging around clamshell laptops since I first used the Tandy TRS 200 in the mid-1980s. With each new generation of laptop designs, I have been thrilled to see that they have become more powerful and often thinner and lighter. This latest generation of Ultrabooks and ultrathin value notebooks, however, has really pushed the envelope when it comes to portable computing design.

Very soon, users will have the best laptops ever to choose from. I would recommend first among all the new designs, if you can afford one. It is an amazing feat of engineering. If it's too costly, the vendors will also have some less expensive models that, while not as powerful as the Ultrabooks, will be equally well-designed. I believe these will meet the needs of the broader portable computing market that demands lower-cost laptops.