Why Ultrabooks Are Falling Well Short of Intel's Targets 513
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."
It's the price, stupid (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I think I may know the problem... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:I think I may know the problem... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:4, 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.
Re:iSuppli ignores recent history (Score:5, Informative)
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 [amazon.com] and here [amazon.com].
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:4, Informative)
"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.)
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:4, Informative)
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! :')
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:4, Informative)
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).
Re:iSuppli ignores recent history (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:The reason is simple. (Score:2, Informative)
I wouldn't call the nexus 7 a flop. Me and millions of others like it.
Helpful hint for you. When you have compound subjects including yourself, drop the 'and others' and see how it sounds. For example:
"Me and millions of others like it." OK, drop the '... and others'
"Me like it." Nope, sounds retarded...
"I like it." Much better, so now lets put in the other subject...
"I and millions of others like it." Getting closer... now to be technically correct, other subjects go before yourself...
"Millions of others and I like it." There you go. Now you don't sound like a 2nd grade dropout!
Intel thinks they can determine prices. (Score:5, Informative)
Ordinary "netbooks" like the EeePC 1000 [centralcomputers.com] 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?