AllThingsD » Ultrabook

Flip, Slide and Touch: New Machines for a New OS

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:03:40 +0000

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To take full advantage of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system, which integrates touchscreen functionality, a variety of PC manufacturers are offering new touch-enabled devices that are designed to run it.

I broke the machines down into four categories: Traditional laptops with touch screens; laptops that convert into tablets by repositioning their screens; laptops that convert into tablets by detaching their screens; and slate-like tablets, including Microsoft’s much-anticipated Surface, which will challenge Apple’s iPad.

Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook has a screen that flips around, converting it from a laptop to a tablet.

You’ll still be able to use Windows 8 without a touch-enabled device. Touch-pad gestures and the traditional cursor will work, though not as easily across the entire operating system. The new environment of Windows 8’s Start-screen tiles are especially designed for touch. People can do things like swipe left from the right edge of a screen to display function icons, or swipe up from the bottom of a screen to display navigation icons.

The Touchscreens

If you aren’t quite ready to make a dramatic change in your PC hardware, buying a laptop or desktop that has a touchscreen is a more conservative solution than a convertible laptop-tablet device or a slate. Though reaching across the keyboard to tap on a screen may feel unnatural after a lifetime of using a mouse and keyboard, people who use touchscreen smartphones and tablets may already be touching their computer screens out of habit.

The keyboard of the Asus’ VivoTab RT detaches, turning the screen into a tablet.

Acer will sell three categories of touch-capable laptops: the S7 starts at $1,200 and weighs as little as 2.29 pounds; the M5 series is exclusive to Best Buy and starts at $800; and the V5 series laptops start at $750 ($700 in Microsoft stores). Samsung will offer the Notebook Series 5 Ultra Touch line, which starts at $810.

Asus’ VivoBook S400 line will cost $700 for a 14.1-inch screen, and Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart Ultrabook series will include the Spectre XT, a $1,400 device with a 15.6-inch screen. Pricing for Dell’s Inspiron 15z Ultrabook is still to be determined, while Toshiba’s Satellite P845t will start at $796 with a 14-inch screen. Sony will extend touch displays to its T and E Series Vaio models, which will start at $670 and $450, respectively.

The Screen Shifters

Can’t decide between the familiarity of a laptop and the flashy new feel of a Windows tablet? Instead of buying two devices or just settling for one, several manufacturers offer in-between options by way of hybrids, or convertibles. Each computer has its own way of transforming from laptop to tablet without disconnecting — though they all usually become relatively thick tablets compared with Apple’s iPad.

Toshiba’s Satellite U925t Ultrabook Convertible flips all the way back, so the screen can slide over the keyboard.

Take Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook, which starts at $1,200. This looks like a regular laptop, but from its opened clamshell position the touchscreen pops out of the screen frame, flipping around to act as the tablet’s touchscreen when the laptop is closed. The screen of Toshiba’s $1,150 Satellite U925t Ultrabook Convertible opens in a clamshell position and flips all the way back, so the keyboard and screen are both parallel. Then the screen slides over the top of the keyboard.

Lenovo’s Yoga 13 and Yoga 11 models, $1,100 and $800, respectively, might scare people the first time they see them because their screens open, bend all the way back and keep going until the laptop lid is touching the bottom of the keyboard.

Asus avoids flipping and sliding by offering two 11.6-inch touchscreens on its Taichi 21 (starting at $1,300): One screen where you expect to see a screen and the other on the laptop lid, activated when the laptop closes.

The Detachables

People who don’t like the thick tablets that come from transformed convertible laptops may want to pull their laptop screens off altogether.

Many models offer touchscreens that completely detach for ultimate tablet portability. Samsung’s $1,200 ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T has optional mobile broadband. The tablet half of H-P’s Envy x2 (pricing not yet available) offers an 11.6-inch display while the 10.1-inch Iconia W510 sells as a standalone tablet for $500 or with a keyboard dock and extra battery for $750.

The Slates

Ready to toss out the laptop keyboard altogether? Asus’s $600 VivoTab RT, Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet 2 ($649) and Dell’s XPS 10 (pricing to be determined) offer some keyboardless options.

But of course, Microsoft’s own Surface RT tablet, which will start at $499 for a 32 gigabyte version, is sure to get a lot of attention because it’s made by the company.

Some of these devices are radical new designs, made to match Microsoft’s dramatic new Windows 8 operating system.

Consumers have a lot of choices to make about how they use Windows in this new era of computing.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Consumers: Wait, What's an Ultrabook?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:29:18 +0000

If Intel’s Ultrabook concept is going to reinvigorate PC sales, the company is going to have to do a better job marketing it. Because machines meeting the branded ultrathin laptop spec haven’t yet won over consumers the way the smartphone and tablet have.

In a report today titled “Dude, You’re Not Getting An Ultrabook,” IHS iSuppli drastically cut its forecast for 2012 Ultrabook shipments. Previously, the research firm had expected PC manufacturers to ship 22 million units. Now it expects fewer than half that: 10.3 million.

Why the sudden reduction? IHS says consumer awareness of the Ultrabook is simply far too low. “So far, the PC industry has failed to create the kind of buzz and excitement among consumers that is required to propel Ultrabooks into the mainstream,” IHS analyst Craig Stice explained. “This is especially a problem amid all the hype surrounding media tablets and smartphones.”

And then there’s the issue of the Ultrabooks’ generally prohibitively high pricing. According to an August Sterne Agee survey, 75 percent of the Ultrabooks available at Best Buy cost more than $950. And of those, several commanded prices of more than $1,300. Add this to the general lack of consumer awareness of the device and it’s no surprise that mass-market acceptance has so far evaded the Ultrabook.

That said, the devices do have a chance at gaining some more traction following the debut of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system. But only if PC makers drop those heady prices. Said Stice, “With the economy languishing, Ultrabook sellers may have trouble finding buyers at the current pricing, especially with fierce competition from new mobile computing gadgets such as the iPhone 5, Kindle Fire HD and forthcoming Microsoft Surface.”

Intel has not yet replied to a request for comment.

Toshiba’s Widescreen Ultrabook: Good for Movies, Multitasking

Lauren Goode — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:00:41 +0000

Let’s face it: Most Ultrabooks look alike. When browsing through rows of these tapered, lightweight laptops in a Best Buy, many consumers wouldn’t see much of a difference between models.

So, in an effort to stand out from the pack, Toshiba has introduced an eye-catching, ultra-widescreen Ultrabook. Its display is much wider than it is tall, with a 21 by 9 aspect ratio — wider than even the rectangular, 16 by 9 aspect ratio that has become standard for most HD TVs. Called the Toshiba Satellite U845W, this laptop, with its extra screen real estate, is aimed at heavy media consumers and multitaskers.

It measures 14.5 inches by 7.9 inches, and is .83 of an inch thick. At four pounds, it’s substantially heavier than the 2.96-pound MacBook Air, but in line with some other Ultrabooks. It felt surprisingly lightweight when it was open and resting on my lap.

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The Satellite U845W hit the market in late July. The base model, which has a mid-level Intel chip, comes with a 500 gigabyte hard drive plus 32GB of solid-state drive and retails for $1,000. The model Toshiba sent me for testing costs $1,500, and has a faster, 256GB solid-state drive and Intel’s third generation Core i7 chip. Both machines are built with 6GB of RAM. While the Satellite U845W was designed with Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system in mind, it’s currently running Windows 7. And, unlike some upcoming Windows 8 laptops, this one lacks a touchscreen.

Overall, it’s a solid laptop, with fast processing and boot-up speeds and terrific speakers. I did find the widescreen display to be useful for multitasking, because I was able to view a couple of Web pages side by side on the screen, such as a live video stream next to my Twitter feed.

But the design is a little too awkward for my taste. The wide screen feels lopped off at the top, and the laptop doesn’t fit some of my larger purses as well as other Ultrabooks do. Plus, I couldn’t find a ton of video content with a 21:9 aspect ratio to fully enjoy the widescreen experience.

The laptop’s color is called “midnight silver,” but it actually has a coppery sheen to it, which I liked. The chassis of the laptop is made of machined aluminum, with a thick, black, rubberized strip running along the long side, which gives it a distinguished look.

The underside of the laptop is made of a combination of polycarbonate plastic and aluminum, and is covered entirely with the same textured black rubber, for keeping a good grip on the laptop.

The keyboard is backlit, with an extra-large trackpad. Another benefit of such a wide-sized computer: My fingers had a little extra room and didn’t feel at all cramped while typing. The keys themselves were a little flat, without the kind of spring I usually prefer.

In terms of ports, the Satellite U845W has an HDMI port, three USB ports and an expandable Ethernet port, as well as a headphone port and a microphone input. It also has an SD card slot.

It does not have a DVD drive. While a lot of newer, thinner laptops are lacking optical disc drives, a drive would be particularly handy with this one — since it’s targeted at movie buffs.

The 14.4-inch, glossy display has a resolution of 1,792 by 768. While I’ve seen more luminous laptop displays, most movies and video clips looked pretty crisp, with good color quality.

I wasn’t able to watch a lot of video content optimized for this sort of screen because it’s just not widely available. I more often watched 16:9 videos, which appeared with black bars on the right and left sides of the screen because of the extra-wide display. This included shows on Hulu, a movie on Netflix and the livestream of President Barack Obama’s convention speech on YouTube.

The only full-screen media I watched was several new movie trailers that were in 21:9 — “The Hobbit,” for one — which were suggested to me by Toshiba. The few clips I found did feel a little more cinematic, but ultimately, I didn’t get a lot of out of the video-watching experience.

I found this laptop to be more useful for browsing multiple Web pages at once. I could snap two browser windows side by side and get a good-sized view of both of them, so I could monitor work email while watching a movie, or see the commentary from Twitter while watching livestreamed videos from the conventions.

Among the standout features of the laptop were its battery life and its speakers. Toshiba says this laptop has a battery life of nine hours; in my test, which involved turning off sleep mode, playing iTunes on a loop and running an email application, all while the display was on full brightness, the battery lasted just under five hours.

This is weaker than the battery life of the MacBook Air, according to our previous tests at AllThingsD, but beats out some other Ultrabooks, including the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, the Dell XPS 13 and the Sony Vaio T13.

And, as with other premium Toshiba laptops, the Satellite U845W comes with two powerful Harman Kardon speakers that offer full, clear sound for both music files and movies.

Despite these features, the Toshiba U845W is still a niche product that, for now, will likely appeal to only true cinephiles or multitaskers.

Ultrabooks Still Racking Up Infra Sales

John Paczkowski — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:01:49 +0000

Intel

Ultrabooks have been on the market now for nearly a year, but they haven’t made much headway toward mass-market acceptance.

According to new research from Barclays, Ultrabooks accounted for only about 5 percent of all laptops sold in the second quarter. That’s not even half of what the PC manufacturers who make them had been expecting. Clearly, Intel’s Ultrabook concept — which was supposed to prop up the PC market and win over consumers to whom Apple’s MacBook Air and iPad appeal — isn’t gaining quite the sort of traction the chip giant had hoped for.

And that traction isn’t likely to show up until PC manufacturers are able to lower their prices. According to Sterne Agee analyst Vijay Rakesh, 75 percent of the Ultrabooks currently available at Best Buy cost more than $950. Of those, several command prices of more than $1,300.

Those are heady prices, and they have been putting consumers off.

Said Rakesh, “We believe overall the high price points continue to be a challenge for the PC manufacturers and also consumers. This has held back [Ultrabook penetration], well below the expectations of the PC market.”

Of course, this could all change in the months ahead. Ultimately, component costs will drop and Ultrabooks will become more affordable. And with Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system in the offing, consumers may have one more good reason to look to the Ultrabook as they consider their next PC purchase. Certainly, that’s the way Intel sees things playing out.

“When we first introduced the Ultrabook concept we were clear that the designs would be evolving,” Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy told AllthingsD. “As the category of Ultrabook devices evolves and new features are added over time, we expect the volume to go up and then volume economics will kick in and help drive system costs down.”

Intel Teases Tech for Using Laptop to Wirelessly Charge a Phone

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:32:36 +0000

Imagine being able to charge a nearly dead smartphone battery just by putting the phone next to a laptop.

Well, it turns out that feature is on the drawing board. Intel said on Wednesday that it is working with fellow chipmaker Integrated Device Technology to bring wireless charging capabilities to future Ultrabook laptops.

“Within an hour, you have recharged your smartphone sufficiently to make it through the afternoon,” Intel said in a blog post.

Of course, today you can charge a phone by plugging it directly into a laptop. But Intel and its partners reckon that if you are the type to let your smartphone battery get that close to death, you might also be the type who doesn’t carry around a USB cable.

Intel says the wireless tech should charge a phone at roughly the same rate as with the no-longer-needed cable.

The technology is on the horizon, but not imminent. Intel first talked about the idea — then a labs project — back in 2008.

IDT says that it should have samples of all the necessary parts by the first half of next year, but there is no estimate of when the wireless charging abilities will make their way into shipping laptops.

Sony's First Ultrabook Targets the Budget-Conscious

Bonnie Cha — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 13:00:12 +0000

If you’re shopping for a new laptop, you might find the term “Ultrabook” popping up a lot during your research. An Ultrabook is thinner and lighter than a regular laptop, but it doesn’t sacrifice such features as a full keyboard, and it uses a different kind of memory instead of traditional hard drives to offer speed and good battery life, so you can use it as your main computer for everyday tasks like browsing the Web and working on documents. After a trend started by Apple’s MacBook Air, Windows PC makers such as HP, Dell and Samsung offer them, and now Sony has joined the fray.

Over the past week, I’ve been testing the Sony Vaio T13, the company’s first Ultrabook, and what makes it stand out from the pack is its affordable price tag. The cost of Ultrabooks still hovers in the $1,000 range but the Vaio T series starts at $770. By comparison, the similarly featured Dell XPS 13 costs $999 and up, while the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,199.

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For the price, the Vaio T13 offers Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors, a plethora of ports and four gigabytes of memory. To keep costs down, there are some tradeoffs, such as a lower resolution screen, but overall, I found the Vaio T13 to be a speedy machine. It’s a good value to be sure, but there are some downsides, such as a subpar keyboard and loud fan, that holds it back from excellent.

The Vaio T13 measures 12.7 inches wide, 0.71 inch thick and weighs 3.54 pounds, so it’s heavier than a number of ultrabooks on the market. For example, the Dell XPS 13 is 2.99 pounds and the MacBook Air weighs 2.96 pounds. That said, I didn’t find the extra weight to be a huge problem. I was able to carry it around in my backpack without it weighing me down.

Also, while it’s thicker than the Air, I appreciated the selection of ports available on the Vaio. This includes an Ethernet jack, two USB ports, HDMI and VGA ports if you want to connect to a TV or monitor and a Memory Stick Pro Duo/SD card slot.

The Vaio T has a 13.3-inch display with a 1,366 by 768 pixel resolution. Colors looked a bit dull, and pictures and videos weren’t overly bright or sharp. The lower resolution also means you have to scroll a bit more to see what’s onscreen, but you do get a decent-size touchpad that supports multitouch gestures to help you navigate various pages and switch between tasks. It worked well in my tests as I was able to return to the desktop by swiping down on the touchpad with four fingers and move between Web pages and photos by swiping left or right with three fingers.

But I didn’t like the Ultrabook’s keyboard. There’s plenty of spacing between the keys, so it doesn’t feel cramped. But the buttons are stiff and squishy, so I really had to punch at the keys. It’s something I got used to after a while, but it led to a lot of mistakes and frustration at the beginning. I also wish the keyboard was backlit for easier typing in darker rooms.

The $799 Vaio T13 I reviewed is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor and features a combined 500GB hard drive and 32GB solid-state drive. (You can configure the ultrabook with a faster i7 processor and up to 8GB of memory.) A number of Ultrabooks feature only solid-state drives — or flash memory — that improve speed and battery life but limit storage capacity. They are also more expensive, which is why Sony used this hybrid option.

Even so, I found the Vaio T13 to be a responsive computer and you get the bonus of extra storage capacity. It took the Ultrabook 29 seconds to boot up from a cold start and seven seconds to wake up from sleep mode. The MacBook Air started up in 15 seconds and awoke in five seconds, so there isn’t that much of a difference in the latter test.

At one time, I had at least a dozen tabs open in my Web browser, streamed a YouTube video and downloaded an album from the Google Play Web store while working on a Word document. The Vaio T13 was able to handle all those tasks without slowing down. However, its fan does tend to make a lot of noise. It’s annoying, but I suppose it is doing its job, as the Ultrabook never got warm, even when I was viewing entire TV shows on Hulu.

Sony estimates the Vaio T13′s battery life to be around seven hours and 30 minutes with power-saving mode on. In my tests, where I turned off all power-saving features and left Wi-Fi on, set the display to full brightness and looped a music playlist while running an email application in the background, the Vaio delivered four hours and 20 minutes of battery life.

The battery performance is middle-of-the-road compared to some of the other Ultrabooks we’ve tested at AllThingsD, with the Dell XPS 13 being the worst at under four hours and the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s being the best at five hours. With more normal usage, I expect you should get about an additional hour of battery life from the Vaio T13.

The Vaio runs Windows 7 and comes preloaded with a starter edition of Microsoft Office 2010, which offers basic versions of Word and Excel, and a 30-day trial of Kaspersky Internet Security. There are also various Sony apps, such as the company’s Music Unlimited store and PlayMemories multimedia gallery — all of which you can access from a pull-down menu at the top of the desktop screen.

For those on a budget, the Sony Vaio T13 is certainly worth a consideration. It’s fast and offers a good amount storage. But if possible, I’d definitely recommend going into a store and trying out the keyboard to see if it’s to your liking.

Dell Boosts Battery Life in Newest Ultrabook, the XPS 14

Lauren Goode — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:01:11 +0000

Lately there has been so much focus on Windows 8 that it’s easy to forget that PC makers still have a whole summer and back-to-school season to get through with those, you know, Windows 7 computers.

Dell XPS 14 Ultrabook

Lest we forget, manufacturers like Lenovo and Dell have been marketing thinner, lighter laptops with extra features like mobile broadband services and, in Dell’s case, longer battery life.

Dell today introduced two new models to its XPS family: The XPS 14 Ultrabook and the XPS 15, which adds some premium features but doesn’t fall within the Intel-driven specifications of an Ultrabook.

The XPS 14 Ultrabook measures 13.2 inches by 9.2 inches, with a super-bright 14-inch diagonal display, and is just .81-inch thick. It’s made of machined aluminum, while the display is coated with Corning Gorilla Glass. It’s got two USB ports, an HDMI port and a mini DisplayPort with a built-in card reader.

In terms of its guts, the XPS 14 comes with either a third-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, as well as optional Nvidia graphics, four gigabytes of memory and solid-state drive options of up to 512 gigabytes.

And the XPS 14 weighs 4.6 pounds — heavier than even some of the bulkier Ultrabooks out on the market.

But where it’s really meant to stand out is in battery life. AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg reviewed the predecessor to this Ultrabook, the XPS 13, in February of this year, and found that its biggest drawback was “subpar battery life.” In Walt’s test, it fell an hour short of another Ultrabook he tested, and two hours short of the 13-inch MacBook Air. The problem with super-slim laptops is that they often sacrifice substantial battery life for size. With the XPS 14, Dell is clearly looking to bridge that gap, claiming more than 11 hours of battery life, compared to the XPS 13’s claim of nine hours.

On the heels of Lenovo’s announcement that the China-based PC maker is adding mobile broadband service to its computers, Dell is offering something similar, called Dell NetReady. So, when Wi-Fi is in short supply, users can rely on cellular service provided through the laptop (at a cost, through a pay-as-you-go plan).

The XPS 14 Ultrabook goes on sale today, at a starting price of $1,099.

The XPS 15, meanwhile, will start at $1,299, with specs similar to those of the XPS 14 — made of machined aluminum with a Gorilla Glass display, Core i5 or i7 chips and optional Nvidia graphics — but it’s a bigger beast, with a 15.6-inch display, a .91-inch thick body, and a starting weight of 5.8 pounds. It also boasts more memory — and a shorter battery life of eight hours and 11 minutes — than the XPS 14. And, of course, it’s not technically an Ultrabook.

Acer Aspire S5, "World's Thinnest" Ultrabook, Launching in Late June

Bonnie Cha — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:00:42 +0000

Introduced back in January at CES 2012, Acer announced today that its Aspire S5, the “world’s thinnest” Ultrabook, will finally be available in the U.S. for $1,400, starting the last week of June.

Though it feels as though tech companies claim they have the “world’s thinnest” this or that every other week, the Aspire S5 is incredibly slim, measuring just 0.59 of an inch at its thickest point.

The MacBook Air comes in at 0.68-inch thick, and the Fujitsu Lifebook UH75H, which the company also claims is the world’s thinnest Ultrabook, is 0.61-inch thick.

Made from magnesium alloy, the Aspire S5 is also lightweight, at 2.65 pounds, and offers a 13.3-inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display.

Acer was able to achieve such a streamlined design by tucking away the Ultrabook’s various ports (HDMI, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt) just below the hinge, in a hideaway panel it calls MagicFlip I/O. Whenever you need access to the ports, you can press the dedicated MagicFlip key, and the panel will pop open.

The Aspire S5 is also Acer’s first product in the U.S. to ship with its AcerCloud service, which gives users access to the data on their Ultrabook from an Android smartphone or tablet.

At $1,400, it’s not cheap, putting it in the same category as the HP Envy Spectre 14. The S5 comes with Intel’s latest Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor and a 256 gigabyte solid-state drive, as well as a 1.3-megapixel Webcam and up to 6.5 hours of battery life.

The Aspire S5 will be available for purchase from Acer’s online store and major electronics retailers nationwide.

Microsoft, PC Industry Will Need Windows Upgrade Offer More Than Ever

Ina Fried and Lauren Goode — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:20:54 +0000

As expected, Microsoft will offer those who buy a new PC in the coming months the ability to get a heavily discounted upgrade to Windows 8.

The news was reported by CNET earlier this month, with additional details, including the cost, trickling out in recent days. Our sources confirm that Microsoft will offer $15 Windows Pro 8 upgrades to those buying a new PC with Windows 7 Home Basic or higher.

Redmond has offered these kinds of coupons with the past several releases, so it is not a shocker.

But with Windows 8 coming this fall — possibly as late as November — and with current license sales slowing, and Microsoft losing share to both Macs and iPads, the upgrade program could be even more important this time around.

Redmond and the PC makers are hoping that the promise of a guaranteed and easy upgrade will convince back-to-school shoppers to stick with Windows, rather than head to the competition.

The upgrade program is important for another reason: Microsoft needs Windows 8 to get off to a fast start in order to convince developers to write new Metro-style apps that only run on Windows 8. Getting more Windows 7 users on the new operating system would help that cause.

A big change this time around is how the program will operate. In the past, Microsoft has been the driving force behind the cheap upgrades, but the company left it up to computer makers to handle the specific pricing, timing and fulfillment. With Windows 8, Microsoft will handle all of those items, sources say.

Microsoft declined to comment on its upgrade program plans.

The other piece of preparing for Windows 8 is what is taking place on the hardware side. Windows 8, with its Metro user interface, is tailor-made for touch devices, though it will also work with a keyboard and mouse.

So far, this summer’s laptop offerings are punched-up versions of the same PCs that have been on the market for months, with upgrades to Intel’s Ivy Bridge chip line, and PC makers all trying to put their stamp on the trend toward thinner, lighter laptops.

Lenovo has announced more consumer-friendly versions of its business-minded ThinkPad laptop. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, has expanded its Ultrabook line and has slapped the term “Sleekbooks” on another set of new laptops that fall into the ultra-thin-and-lightweight category but have innards that don’t meet Intel’s specifications for Ultrabooks. Sony’s new Ivy Bridge-equipped Vaio laptops will be made with lightweight materials, include larger displays, and offer optional accessories such as an extended battery.

But PC makers will clearly be gearing up for Windows 8 so that they can start pitching the new operating system as soon as it is ready.

This fall, some hardware makers will introduce convertible PCs that function as both tablets and laptops, as noted here, or will add things like touch sensors to existing displays, in order to bridge the two operating systems.

One company that has already announced a Windows 8 laptop is Lenovo. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January of this year, the China-based PC maker showed off the IdeaPad Yoga, a laptop with a 10-finger touchscreen and a full range of motion at the hinge so when fully folded it turns into a 13.3.-inch tablet.

Overall, one can expect a lot of Windows 8-ready machines to be part of the back-to-school lineups. But expect most PC makers to hold off on design overhauls for the Windows 8 launch.

Permission to Procrastinate: Wait to Get a New Laptop

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:13:10 +0000

If you’re thinking of buying a new laptop this spring, my advice is to think again. Unless your laptop is on its last legs and you have to move quickly, there are compelling reasons to wait until at least the summer, and probably the fall, to buy a new machine, especially if you are looking for a Windows PC, but even if you are in the market for a Mac.

[ See post to watch video ]

That makes this annual spring buyer’s guide a bit different. People always worry that buying tech products today carries a risk of obsolescence. Most of the time, that fear is overblown. But this spring really is a bad time to buy a new laptop, because genuinely big changes are due in the coming months.

On the PC side, Microsoft is set to introduce Windows 8, the most radical new version of Windows in years, probably in the fall. PC makers will be introducing new laptop designs to take advantage of it. While Windows 8 will work with a mouse or touch pad and a keyboard, it will be heavily oriented toward tablet-type touch-screen navigation. Many PC makers are planning convertible Windows 8 models for the holiday shopping season that can act as either tablets or regular clamshell laptops.

If you buy a traditional Windows 7 laptop now, Microsoft says it will very likely be upgradable to Windows 8, but you won’t find the new styles of laptops on store shelves now. Even if you buy one of the rare touch-screen laptops now, Microsoft says it will likely work with the touch features of Windows 8, but it may not be optimized to do a great job with the new software. Also, in my view, it is always better, especially with Windows computers, to buy a new machine if you want a new version of Windows.

On the Mac side, Apple also is bringing out a new operating system, this summer. Called Mountain Lion, it won’t be as big a change as Windows 8, partly because Apple already has integrated a lot of touch gestures and tablet-type features into the Mac using the touch pad, and has given no indication it plans touch screens.

While current Macs will most likely be upgradeable to Mountain Lion, you risk missing out on new hardware if you buy a machine now.

However, Apple is overdue for redesigned laptops, especially in its MacBook Pro line, and it is a good bet that new, possibly heavily redesigned, models will begin appearing later this year. Current Macs will likely be upgradable to Mountain Lion, but if you buy now, you’ll miss out on the likely new hardware.

There is another factor that calls for waiting. Intel, whose processors are used by most Windows PC makers and by Apple, is on the verge of introducing a new family of chips, called Ivy Bridge, which the chip maker claims will offer much faster graphics performance without sacrificing battery life. While some Ivy Bridge laptops will be available very soon, the new chips won’t show up in large numbers of consumer laptops until around June. So, even before Windows 8 appears, many consumer laptops you buy now will be outclassed by similar machines that will be introduced this summer.

There is a silver lining. If you watch prices carefully, you may find bargains on Windows 7 laptops running the current Intel processors — which are plenty capable — as the newer models get closer. And PC makers are likely, at some point, to offer free upgrades to Windows 8.

With all of that in mind, here is a cheat sheet to choosing a laptop now, if you must. As always, these tips are for average consumers doing common tasks — email, Web browsing, social networking, general office productivity, photos, music, videos and simple games. This guide isn’t meant for corporate buyers or for serious gamers and media producers.

Tablet or laptop

Tablets can reduce your reliance on a laptop and allow you to wait to buy a new one. Tablet users often find they use their laptops less often for daily tasks like email, Web browsing, or social networking.

Windows 8, the most radical new version in years, will likely be out this fall, accompanied by new PC designs.

Price

Windows PC makers are trying to nudge up the price of their laptops, since they feel they make too little profit on them. You can buy a stripped-down Windows laptop for under $300 and an adequate model for around $500. But a well-equipped model typically runs between $600 and $900. The cheapest Mac laptop, the 11-inch MacBook Air, costs $999, and prices quickly climb to $1,200.

Windows vs. Mac

Windows 7 laptops offer more variety in styles, and often more ports and larger hard disks, at less cost. But Apple laptops are sturdy, sleek and offer better built-in software. They have excellent customer support and can even run Windows, at an extra cost.

Also, Mac users have only the rare virus to contend with, while Windows users must worry about hundreds of thousands of potential attacks. Finally, Apple’s slim, light, speedy MacBook Air, which starts at $999, is a gem. It isn’t only a great traveling machine, but it can be used as your main machine.

Ultrabooks

Nearly every PC maker now has a MacBook Air-type model called an Ultrabook. I have yet to find one that is quite as good as the Air, especially on my battery tests. But I like the ultrabooks a lot, and think most consumers will, too. The main downsides to the ultrabooks are that they are relatively pricey — some top $1,000 — and have less storage. Like the Air, most use fast solid-state drives instead of hard disks, and these top out at just 256 gigabytes.

Memory

Get at least 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new Windows computer. On a Mac, you can get away with 2 gigabytes, but 4 GB is better.

Processors

Intel’s chips — even the new ones coming soon — are called the i3, i5, and i7. An i5 is fine for most consumers, and even an i3 will do. But a laptop with chips from AMD is also fine.

Graphics

Usually cheaper machines have weak graphics hardware and costlier ones have better graphics. Better graphics can make a machine faster.

Hard disks

A 500 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, except bargain and very light models. As always, be wary of sales pitches and don’t buy more laptop than you need.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

AllThingsD Reviews HP's Ultrabook, the Envy Spectre 14, on WSJ "Digits"

Lauren Goode — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:41:50 +0000

If you’ve been shopping for a laptop in the past six months, you’ve probably heard a lot about Ultrabooks. In this week’s product review on AllThingsD, I took a close look at the HP Envy Spectre 14, an attractive, glass-coated Ultrabook that weighs more — and at $1,400, costs more — than other Ultrabooks, but also comes with some features that laptop lovers might appreciate. Here, I bring the laptop on The Wall Street Journal’s “Digits” show to discuss some of the pros and cons of the Ultrabook.

[ See post to watch video ]

HP Envy Spectre 14: A Premium Ultrabook, at a Premium Price

Lauren Goode — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:00:04 +0000

Over the past six months in the personal computing world, there has been much ado about Ultrabooks — thin, lightweight laptops with Intel-determined technical specifications that compete with Apple’s MacBook Air. Windows PC makers like Dell, Lenovo, Asus and Acer have all introduced Ultrabooks, and Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer maker, has gotten into the game as well.

This week, I’ve been testing the HP Envy Spectre 14, a glass-covered laptop that falls into the Ultrabook category. The Envy Spectre hit the market in February, and the base model currently retails for $1,400.

I liked the Envy Spectre. It’s eye-catching, lighter than the laptop I usually carry, and zippy in terms of its processing power. But compared to other Ultrabooks, it’s heavier and more expensive. It’s really more of a premium product, rather than an ultra-light laptop. Also, there were a couple elements of its design, such as the fact that it wasn’t tapered and the lid was hard to open, that might prevent it from being my main laptop squeeze.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Envy Spectre 14 is 20 millimeters thick — just over 0.79 inches — and has a 13.3-inch-wide body with a 14-inch-diagonal LED-backlit display. It weighs just shy of four pounds. In comparison, the Dell XPS 13, which AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg recently reviewed, is, at its largest point, 0.71 inches thick and just under three pounds. The 13-inch MacBook Air, which at its largest point is 0.68 inches thick, also weighs in at 2.96 pounds.

Despite its thickness, the HP Envy Spectre 14 is an attractive laptop. Its aluminum body is covered with Gorilla Glass, the thin, chemically-strengthened glass that makes up the displays of many smartphones and tablets. The glass is layered over three areas of the laptop: The lid, the 1600 by 900 pixel display screen and the palm rest. The trackpad is coated with chemically etched glass, which gives it slightly more traction than the cool-to-the-touch, super glossy Gorilla Glass.

The glass is scratch-resistant — I threw my keys into my laptop bag a few times, and the laptop wasn’t scratched — but it’s definitely not smudge-resistant. As with my smartphone and iPad, it was only a matter of time before the Spectre was covered with cloudy fingerprints. Fortunately, HP has included a protective case with the laptop.

The Spectre comes with a 128 gigabyte solid-state drive, 4GB of memory, runs Windows 7 and is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, with the option to upgrade to a faster i7 processor for an extra $200. For an additional $300, you can also get a 256GB solid-state drive.

When I fired up the Envy Spectre for the first time, I noticed how quickly it booted up and how fast it was compared to my regular laptop, a fully loaded MacBook Pro. I downloaded iTunes, purchased a new album, installed a new Web browser and ran multiple Web pages at once, including a video-streaming site; even with all that going on, the Envy Spectre didn’t seem to slow down at all.

HP claims 9.5 hours of battery life with the Envy Spectre, provided that the user has the laptop set to HP’s recommended power-saving settings. In my test of the Spectre, which involved turning off power savers and setting the display to full brightness, connecting to Wi-Fi, playing an iTunes playlist nonstop and running an email application, the battery lasted just over five hours. With more normal usage, I estimate you’ll get about an hour more.

After a week with the Envy Spectre, there were a couple of elements of its design that bugged me. The first is that it’s actually difficult to open. There’s a barely-there lip on the lid of the laptop, and every time the device was shut, I had to dig my nails around the edges to pry it open.

I also noticed that the Envy Spectre’s screen doesn’t recline as far back as some other laptop screens do. This laptop has a dropped hinge so the bottom of its display butts up against the keyboard, physically preventing it from going back further. I compared the Spectre to an Asus Ultrabook and even a MacBook Pro, and both laptops opened up wider than the Spectre does. For users who prefer a wide range of motion with their laptop screens, this could be a drawback.

But there were aspects of the hardware that I liked. The LED-backlit keyboard is a nice touch, and the keys had a velvety feel to them. The keys also have proximity sensors that sense when the user has stepped away from the laptop for an extended period, dimming the backlighting and acting as a minor battery-saving mechanism. While some people are used to function keys performing common shortcuts — such as F5 for refreshing a Web page — I liked that the Spectre’s function keys adjusted display brightness and controlled music playing.

There’s an easy-to-access volume-control wheel on the right-hand side of the keyboard. This is part of HP’s Beats product, offered in select computers, which is supposed to produce better-sounding audio. While Beats audio isn’t going to replace the sound system in your home or apartment anytime soon, the music tracks I listened to through the laptop sounded fuller with Beats, especially when heard through headphones.

Unlike the MacBook Air, the Envy Spectre comes with an expandable built-in Ethernet port, along with two USB ports, an HDMI port and a Mini Display port.

There are also some other sweeteners that HP threw in with the Envy Spectre 14, including Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements (which photo and video hounds will appreciate), a two-year warranty for the price of one year and a two-year Norton AntiVirus software package.

I would recommend the HP Envy Spectre 14 — but as a premium laptop, not as an Ultrabook. For consumers who want a super slim, lightweight laptop, there are options with similar technical specifications that weigh in at under three pounds and cost less.

Forget the Ultrabook -- Go With the New Commodore!

Lauren Goode — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 23:18:55 +0000

Why buy a modern computer with a standard operating system, keyboard and display, when you can buy a Commodore Amiga?

Commodore USA, the Florida-based start-up company that has been producing replicas of the popular Commodore computers of the 1980s, has introduced a new Commodore Amiga Mini, a 7.5-inch by 3-inch computer with an Intel i7 quad-core processor. Unlike the much, much earlier Amiga models, this one features two Wi-Fi antennae and Bluetooth capabilities.

This is clearly a product for, shall we say, enthusiasts. As with the original Amiga, the new version doesn’t come with a keyboard or display screen. It runs a Linux OS, and ranges in price from ~~$1,995 to $2,495~~ (see update below).

Commodore USA says it plans to serve up more nostalgia in aluminum housings. It will put out more Amiga models in the next month or so, timed around the anniversary of the release of the Commodore Amiga 1000 in April 1985.

In addition to the Amiga, the company has announced a new “supreme” C64x, with 4 gigabytes of memory, an Intel D27000 dual core processor and an Nvidia GeForce GT 520 graphics card for “enhanced gaming capability.” This one comes with a mechanical keyboard, WiFi and Bluetooth capablilities, and HDMI and USB ports, so there are some modern touches to this retro piece.

In 2010, Commodore USA put out a replica of the popular Commodore 64 computer due to “high demand” and lots of emails from C64 fans, Commodore USA CEO Barry Altman said at the time.

Update: A day after Commodore USA announced the new Amiga Mini, it lowered the price of the computer due to “overwhelming outpouring of customer comments, along with those posted on the major tech blogs”. The starting price point of the Amiga Mini is now $1495. At the high end, however, an Amiga with a 600 GB solid state drive and 16GB of memory will still cost $3000.

How Will PCs Sales Grow in 2012? Sloooooowly.

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:00:35 +0000

The worldwide business of PCs is still growing but it’s growing a lot slower than it used to, says the market research firm Garnter, in a forecast out today.

While 368 million units — the number Gartner reckons will be sold this year — seems like an awful lot, it amounts to growth of only 4.4 percent over 2011. The economy — Europe is still weak amid ongoing sovereign debt problems, plus supply chain troubles brought on by the flooding in Thailand where most of the world’s hard drives are made — is weighing the market down, Gartner says.

What will save it? Windows 8 and Ultrabooks, but not before 2013, when Gartner says to expect sales of 400 million PCs. They might stimulate renewed interest among consumers and businesses. But it’s hard to say.

What about Apple’s iPad and other tablets running Android eating into PC sales? There’s no question that they do. But that impact is relative: Gartner last sized up the scope of the tablet market last fall, and pegged it at 64 million units in 2012, which is probably conservative, seeing as how Apple sold 15 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011.

What has often happened with forecasts like this is that chipmaker Intel gets batted around a bit in a negative way, as financial analysts work the forecasts into their own expectations for the stock. If PC sales are slowing, the thinking goes, then Intel, which supplies most of the world’s PC microprocessors, will no doubt suffer.

Intel has tended to do well despite these forecasts, and cites growth in certain developing markets, like Brazil, India and Russia, where Gartner and other research firms have more limited visibility, as keeping demand for its chips growing.

Gartner tries to address that point in a summary of its forecast: Emerging markets will be key to driving growth, says its analyst, Ranjit Atwal, and most of the growth in the PC business will come from these countries through 2016. But the upshot is that if all you can think about is buying a new iPad and not a new PC, you’re not exactly alone in the world.

Dell Goes on Ultrabook Diet With Slimmed-Down Laptop

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:03:02 +0000

As 2012 rolls on, consumers shopping for a PC will be seeing more of the thin, light, quick-starting Windows laptops called ultrabooks.

Big names like Lenovo and Toshiba already have entered this new category, and on Tuesday, Dell will introduce its first ultrabook, the XPS 13, starting at $999.

[ See post to watch video ]

Dell has had difficulty lately attracting consumers. At one time, it was the go-to brand for many people looking to buy a computer. But, in recent years, its consumer business has faltered as individuals, especially in the U.S., have flocked to Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and even once obscure brands such as Acer and Asus.

Now, the Texas tech titan is making a renewed push for the affections of consumers and the XPS 13 is an important weapon in that push. Like other ultrabooks, it’s an attempt to emulate Apple’s popular MacBook Air by offering a thin, light laptop with good power that has a full-size screen and keyboard, starts up and resumes quickly, uses a solid-state drive and claims decent battery life.

The XPS 13 uses a thinner screen border and a full-size keyboard.

However, Dell’s entry offers an interesting twist: It packs a 13-inch screen into a footprint that is closer to that of models with just an 11- or 12-inch display. This makes it easier to fit in a briefcase or on an airplane tray table in coach. When placed atop a MacBook Air with the same-size screen, the Dell is noticeably smaller.

Dell uses edge-to-edge glass for its screen and leaves much less of a bezel, or border, around the screen, than the Apple does. The XPS 13 isn’t smaller than its competitors in every dimension. It’s thicker and a tad heavier than the comparable MacBook Air. And, like the Apple, it’s significantly heavier than Toshiba’s ultrabook. But the shorter width and height are a nice touch.

I’ve been testing the Dell XPS 13, and there is a lot to like about it, even beyond its compact dimensions. I found it to be solid and well built, speedy and with a good, backlit keyboard, a bright screen, and good looks. It emerged from standby mode quickly and reliably. But this machine has a major downside: subpar battery life. In my standard test, it fell about an hour short of the longest-lived competing ultrabook I’ve tested and two hours short of the 13-inch MacBook Air.

Like other ultrabooks, the XPS 13 isn’t a bargain computer. It’s costlier than the typical, bulkier Windows laptop, which can be had for $400 to $700. But, at $999 with 4 gigabytes of memory and a 128 gigabyte solid-state drive, the Dell is $300 less than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the same specs. Both machines use Intel’s midrange i5 processor. Dell offers an otherwise identical model with double the solid-state storage for $1,299, and a model with double the base storage and a more powerful processor for $1,499.

The model Dell sent me for testing was high end. But based on my tests of other ultrabooks—all designed to tight standards promulgated by Intel—I have no reason to doubt the base model with the midrange processor also is speedy, and no reason to recommend the costlier chip.

The XPS 13, which runs Windows 7 and is part of Dell’s premium consumer line, has a silvery aluminum top and a base made of carbon fiber. It rests on two long rubber runners. The battery is sealed and ports are minimal. There are two USB ports—one is the faster USB 3.0 type—and a video-out port called a Mini Display Port.

The spacious keyboard has nicely separated keys. The touch pad is large, with no physical buttons. But I found it required tweaking in its buried settings screen before it felt right for me.

I was annoyed that, out of the box, the top row of function keys that is commonly used to adjust things like brightness and volume also requires you to hold down a special key to get to these controls. But this can be changed in a settings panel and Dell says it’s considering changing the way this works.

The 13-inch screen fits nicely in a smaller footprint than the Mac’s, but has a lower resolution than the Apple screen of the same size. So, an identical Web page in the identical browser displays more on the MacBook Air than on the Dell XPS 13.

Dell says this is because it had to use the lower-resolution panel for a special manufacturing process it employed on the new ultrabook. It says it will increase the resolution later this year.

Dell’s ultrabook comes with a standard suite of Microsoft and Dell software, including the Windows Live Essentials consumer package, which includes email, and a photo and video program. A starter edition of Microsoft Office contains somewhat stripped-down versions of Word and Excel.

The computer easily handled other programs I installed, including the Google Chrome browser, and Apple’s iTunes.

But Dell still clings to the bad old habit of loading in software you may not want, for which it presumably gets paid. In particular, it has added a Dell-branded Bing toolbar to the Internet Explorer browser.

As noted above, battery life was disappointing. In my test, where I use full brightness, disable power-saving software, leave on the Wi-Fi, and play a loop of music, the battery on the XPS 13 lasted just under four hours, the worst I’ve seen on an ultrabook.

By contrast, in the same test, the longest-lived ultrabook I’ve tested, the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, got nearly five hours, and the MacBook Air almost six hours. I estimate you could likely get five hours on the Dell in a more normal usage pattern.

Ultrabook shoppers looking for a well-built, unusually compact 13-inch model should consider the Dell, but the relatively poor battery life might be a deal breaker for some.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

HP’s NFC-Equipped Ultrabook Comes to Market

Lauren Goode — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:46:03 +0000

You might recall that at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, Ultrabooks were all the rage.

You might also remember that a couple of those laptops managed to stand out from the crowd — including Hewlett-Packard’s Envy Spectre 14, which goes on sale today.

Showgoers were abuzz about the glossy, Gorilla Glass-coated Spectre — despite the fact that at almost four pounds, it weighs slightly more than some other ultra-thin, Intel-driven Ultrabooks. At $1,399, it’s 20mm thin with a 14-inch screen, supports up to 256 gigabytes of storage and boasts up to nine and half hours of battery life. It also has a backlit keyboard and “proximity sensors” that light up when a user is approaching the laptop and, naturally, it has HP’s Beats Audio built in.

Another notable feature is that it incorporates near field communication technology, like the kind we’ve been seeing in mobile phones for quick, one-tap payments. HP says that the NFC tech in the Spectre, which is built into the left side of the palm-rest area, will be compatible with NFC-enabled Android phones.

So, how will it work, exactly?

After downloading the HP Touch to Share app from the Android Market, Spectre owners that have an NFC-enabled Android phone will be able to transfer URLs from the Android phone to the Spectre using NFC. For example, if you’re browsing the Web on your phone, you can then tap your screen and transfer that page to the laptop’s Web browser.

You can’t currently share photos, music or other media this way, an HP spokesperson confirmed. And while NFC is often associated with e-commerce, that’s not the usage we’re talking about here. (Since the laptop isn’t a payment terminal, you can’t, for example, browse Amazon.com, see something you’d like to buy, open up a wallet app on your phone and tap the screen with your phone to pay.) But it is a way for smartphones to “speak to” the laptop without using wires or cloud apps.

The NFC market for mobile is expected to grow dramatically over the next few years, with IHS iSuppli forecasting 544.7 million NFC-equipped cellphones to be shipped by 2015 (from 93.2 million last year); it’s likely that we’ll see this tech coming to more devices outside of mobile phones and tablets.

Nintendo, for one, recently said it plans to bring NFC to its long-awaited Wii successor, where it will be used to transfer gaming data.

Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a "Me-Too" Cloud Service

Lauren Goode — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:37:26 +0000

Aside from unveiling an ultra-thin Ultrabook, Acer underwhelmed at CES today with its presentation of another skinny laptop and a suite of cloud services that looked a lot like … Apple’s cloud services.

First, Acer introduced what it is touting as “the world’s thinnest ultrabook” (it will be interesting to see if Acer can still lay claim to that title by week’s end): The Aspire S5, which measures just 15mm at its thickest point. It weighs less than three pounds and comes with a 13.3-inch LCD display screen. It also comes with an interesting “MagicFlip” port panel that’s hidden below the hinge of the laptop. Users can open the hinge to reveal a panel of ports, including HDMI, USB 3.0 and a 20 gigabyte Thunderbolt port.

The Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook

The Aspire S5 laptop has an Intel Core processor, a solid state drive, extended battery life and a chiclet keyboard. It’s expected to ship in the second quarter of 2012; the expected price is still TBD.

With its Aspire Timeline Ultra laptops, Acer says it is expanding on the Ultrabook it rolled out in September. The Timeline Ultra is available in 14-inch and 15-inch models; the laptops are 20mm thin, boast eight hours of battery life, have solid state and hard disk drive options, as well as HDMI and USB 3.0 ports. They feature an Intel Core processor. So again, not totally different from other Ultrabooks we’ve seen and are expecting to see more of. The Timeline Ultra does, however, have a DVD-Super Multi optical drive, which some Ultrabooks do not have, depending on their thinness and innards. The Aspire Timeline Ultra is expected to ship this quarter.

But Acer’s cloud service offerings looked a lot like a “me-too” to what Apple showed off at WWDC last June. Due to a technical glitch during the press event — and the greatest ironies of tech conferences, aside from dependably terrible cellular and Wi-Fi service, are the technical glitches — we weren’t able to get a good look at Acer’s cloud media service for syncing music and other entertainment files.

Acer’s PicStream (demonstrated via a slide that looked like Apple’s iCloud slide), promises to share photos seamlessly from smartphones to Windows-based PCs and other devices; AcerCloud Docs is designed for syncing and sharing personal and professional documents via the cloud (although it seemed Acer was mainly targeting professionals with this service). Acer stressed that these services will support Windows-based and Android devices.

Lastly, in an odd but not uncommon press conference move, Acer’s Campbell Kan quickly showed off one more tablet and offered just two bits of information about it — it has a quad-core processor and a 1080p display — before concluding the event. Last week, my colleague Ina Fried wrote about Acer’s efforts to remain relevant in the tablet market by introducing a budget-priced, 10-inch, Android-based tablet, the Acer Iconia A200.

MORE CES NEWS:

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HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet

Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)

What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)

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Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)

Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question

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Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There

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BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8

Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon

Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways

Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D

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Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV

Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV

Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share

Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)

Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile

AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works

LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way

LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum

Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia

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Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops

Ina Fried — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:49:46 +0000

As the Consumer Electronics Show kicks off next week, chances are you will start hearing a ton more about Ultrabooks.

If this is the first you’ve heard the term, it refers to Windows PCs that resemble the MacBook Air — computers that are thin and light, use a flash drive rather than a traditional hard drive and can boot up rather quickly.

Intel plans to make sure that if you haven’t heard of Ultrabooks, you soon will. The chipmaker, which has trademarked the name, is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into both the manufacturing and the marketing of Ultrabooks.

Well, I have another word for them. I call them laptops.

The fact of the matter is this is just the direction that laptops are going. They are getting thinner and lighter, faster and sleeker, and booting up quicker than they did before. And that DVD drive, it’s going away to save money and weight.

This isn’t a revolution, but rather the continued evolution of a product that once had floppy drives and modem ports.

Some companies’ devices have already hit the market, while others, including Dell, are expected to introduce models at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In many ways, the Ultrabooks are the PCs belated answer to the MacBook Air.

While netbooks offered light computers at a low cost, their cramped keyboards and small displays made them no match for the Air. Traditional laptops, meanwhile, were slow and bulky and often delivered poor battery life.

The MacBook Air has seen its sales skyrocket while the overall PC market has gained just 2 percent worldwide. According to Gartner, MacBook Air sales from October 2010 to September 2011 were five times those from a year earlier as the product moved from a high-end niche to the mainstream of Apple’s laptop lineup. That laptop alone makes up nearly 2 percent of global PC sales.

It has also picked up many of the aspects that have made the iPad a hit, including easy access to apps, multitouch gestures and the ability to nearly instantly resume from sleep.

While once it was an oddity, the MacBook Air is no longer a separate category of Mac. In fact, many outsiders think it will someday soon be the only laptop Apple makes.

PCs will probably retain a bit more diversity. People like things bigger and smaller, cheaper and pricier. Plus, the Ultrabook doesn’t meet all needs. Those with big storage needs will likely want a bigger hard drive, for example, since flash drives get prohibitively expensive over 256 gigabytes.

That’s not to say there isn’t value in what Intel is doing. First of all, it will provide a badly needed marketing boost to the PC industry, which has suffered mightily in the prestige department.

Also, Intel has a history of speeding up transitions in the computing market. Today, it is almost impossible to find a PC that doesn’t have Wi-Fi built in. But that wasn’t the case before Intel started its massive marketing push behind Centrino — introducing the notion of Wi-Fi to the masses and providing a lift to computers that packed the technology inside.

The company has big plans for the segment; it has invested $300 million in a fund to help lower the cost of the components that go into making the thin laptops, and that is just the start.

It plans ads of its own and to help fund marketing campaigns with individual PC makers. Intel isn’t saying just yet how much it will spend on the Ultrabook endeavor, but it is believed to be far more than the company spent on Centrino. Intel may well put a dollar figure to all those hundreds of millions when it talks about its Ultrabook plans at a press conference at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

For all its efforts, Intel has predicted that, come December, Ultrabooks will make up 40 percent of all consumer laptops sold. Others are less bullish about the segment.

In a forecast released on Wednesday, NPD DisplaySearch predicts Ultrabooks will make up just 8 percent of all laptops sold next year and 14 percent of total notebook shipments in 2013.

While there will be much debate over how many Ultrabooks will be sold, I have a different set of questions.

I have no doubt the PC industry will reach this level at some point. The question for me is whether the arrival of Ultrabooks helps the Windows PC win back share against Apple or grow the PC market as a whole or offer the industry higher profit margins.

Unless the answer to one of those question is yes, then the Ultrabooks will have transformed the laptop without improving life for those that make the products.

MORE CES NEWS:

Complete coverage

HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet

Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)

What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)

Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market

Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.

Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES

Inside the CES Lost & Found

FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!

Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber

Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different

Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)

Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question

T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service

Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)

Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year

Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game

More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone

Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”

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Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There

Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It

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Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways

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Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote

Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV

Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV

Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share

Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)

Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile

AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works

LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way

LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum

Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia

CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret

Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?

Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service

There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!

CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!

Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2

RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES

Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops

At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch

Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month

Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show

Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month

Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year

Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

Microsoft Office on iPad

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:37:09 +0000

Which app do you recommend for using on the iPad 2 for opening Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint?)

If you literally just want to open the documents to read them, you don’t need any apps. The iPad comes with built-in viewers for Microsoft Office files. However, for opening, storing and editing the files, I like two products. One is called Quickoffice Pro HD, which costs $20 and handles all three types of files you cite, and more. The other is the tablet version of Apple’s iWork suite, which is sold as three separate apps for $10 each—Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets and Keynote for presentations.

This also would be a good place to note that there are reports, unconfirmed by the company, that Microsoft is considering releasing an iPad version of Office itself. I have no evidence this will happen.

Do any of your recommended Ultrabooks run Office?

All Ultrabooks run Microsoft Office. While Ultrabooks are thin and light, they are full-blown Windows laptops running the latest Intel processors, and in my tests, they ran Office very well, just as well as many heavier, thicker laptops I’ve reviewed.

My son was told by an Apple phone representative that the iCloud service cannot handle our full iTunes library of 6,000 songs, and it will only sync with your hand-held, wireless devices.

That’s inaccurate. ITunes Match handles 25,000 songs and syncs with Macs, PCs (if they’re running iTunes), the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Walt is on vacation and his Personal Technology column will return Jan. 5. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Viral Video: Walt Mossberg Demos Tangle-Resistant Ear Buds, an iPhone Beer Meter and More!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:44:14 +0000

AllThingsD tech-reviewer kingpin Walt Mossberg also showed off his favorite fun gadgets at the annual Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley earlier this week.

Among his picks: Tangle-resistant ear buds; an Apple iPhone beer-bottle opener and consumption tabulator; a wireless USB drive; and the latest Ultrabooks to compete with the MacBook Air.

Here’s the video of his presentation:

Ultrabooks Bring Speed and Light to Windows

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:03:14 +0000

Rejoice, Windows users!

If you envy Apple’s sleek, speedy MacBook Air laptop, and yearn for something like it that comes with the Microsoft Windows operating system, your wish has been granted. It’s a new type of Windows laptop called Ultrabook. A handful already are available, and more are likely to arrive in the new year.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Ultrabook concept, which is being driven by giant chipmaker Intel, is governed by a set of specs covering everything from thinness to battery life to start-up times. But it is basically an effort to emulate the MacBook Air, which has been a hot product in a challenging market despite selling for double what some bulkier, but capable, Windows laptops fetch. (Apple doesn’t disclose sales of specific Mac models.)

Ironically, the MacBook Air, which came out in 2008 and now starts at $999, uses the same Intel processors Ultrabooks do, and can, if its owner wishes, run Windows capably along with the Mac operating system. But it now will have much more competition.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, with a sturdy aluminum body, has a superb keyboard and roomy touch pad.

I’ve been testing a couple of the new Ultrabooks, from Lenovo and Toshiba, to get a feel for the category, and I’m a fan. I love the idea of a machine that combines low weight with good speed and battery life, yet doesn’t compromise on keyboard and screen size.

I found some drawbacks to both machines, and to Ultrabooks in general. For instance, like the Apple, they lack internal DVD drives and removable batteries, things that will bother some folks. And, at least for now, the Ultrabooks mostly tend to cluster at around $1,000, which rules them out for shoppers on a tight budget. But, overall, I think the advent of the Ultrabook is a good thing for consumers.

In general, I preferred the Lenovo, but the Toshiba has some advantages as well, and you won’t go wrong with either. In my tests, neither did as well as the Apple in such measures as battery life or start times. But both cost less than the comparable Apple model.

Toshiba’s Portege Z835 is lighter and has more ports, including an Ethernet port, than the comparable Lenovo IdeaPad or MacBook Air.

The idea behind the Ultrabook is to make a light, thin laptop that has a full-size screen and keyboard—unlike a cramped netbook—yet also gets strong battery life, starts up and resumes quickly, and is powerful enough to handle a wide variety of common consumer tasks. It is meant to be good enough to be your main computer, but it isn’t aimed at those who need extra horsepower for things like hard-core gaming.

To be clear, there have been thin and light Windows laptops for many years, but these machines have typically been so expensive that few people could buy them, and they often had poor battery life and other serious compromises.

I tested the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s and the Toshiba Portege Z830, and also compared them with the latest, comparable MacBook Air. Both have 13-inch screens, are made of metal, weigh under three pounds, and use a solid-state drive—storage chips—instead of a hard disk. This improves speed, reliability and battery life, but limits storage capacity.

The Lenovo starts at $1,095 with a 128 gigabyte drive, 4 GB of memory, and Intel’s mid-range i5 processor. The Toshiba starts at around $900 for a model with the same specs except for the processor, which is a less powerful chip called an i3. However, both Toshiba and Best Buy have recently put this machine on sale, and I found it on Best Buy’s website for $700.

By contrast, the 13-inch MacBook Air with the same amount of solid-state storage and memory, and the i5 processor, costs $1,299.

Beyond their price and processor differences, I found each machine had its strengths and weaknesses.

The Toshiba weighs just 2.47 pounds, versus 2.91 for the Lenovo and 2.96 for the Apple. It also boasts the most ports, including three USB ports versus two for the others and an Ethernet port the others lack. But I found its magnesium body felt more fragile than the other two, which are aluminum and sturdier.

I also disliked the fact that on Toshiba’s keyboard, using the keys for common things like brightness and muting required you to hold down a second function key. And the Toshiba came in last among the three in my tests of battery life, cold start-up time and reboot time. Plus, Toshiba has pre-loaded an annoying Best Buy promotional app that pops up at launch.

The Lenovo feels sturdy and has a keyboard I found superb, and a roomy touch pad. Unlike the other two, it isn’t tapered at the edges, and my test unit sported an orange color, though it also comes in gray. Also, like the Apple, but unlike the Toshiba, Lenovo offers a roomier, 256 GB solid-state drive for extra money.

However, the Lenovo froze once during my tests; the others didn’t. And, unlike the others, it lacks a slot for memory cards.

Both Ultrabooks did fine at all the common tasks I threw at them. But their screen resolution is less than the Mac’s, meaning less material can be seen without scrolling. The Mac also felt sturdier to me than even the Lenovo.

Both Ultrabooks claim battery life of up to eight hours or so. In my battery tests, where I turn off all power-saving features, crank the screen brightness up all the way, leave the Wi-Fi on, and play a continuous loop of music, they fell well short of that. The Toshiba lasted 4 hours and 36 minutes and the Lenovo 4 hours and 50 minutes.

Still, these are respectable numbers in my harsh tests, and suggest to me that in more normal use with power-saving on, you could get six hours or so easily on these machines. However, the MacBook Air did much better, lasting 5 hours and 51 minutes on the same test—suggesting users would likely achieve Apple’s claimed seven hours of battery life in more normal use.

The two Ultrabooks booted up and rebooted much faster than most Windows laptops I’ve tested in the past, reaching a ready-to-use state, with Wi-Fi fully connected, in about 30 seconds when booting from scratch and under a minute on a reboot. They recovered from sleep in under 10 seconds. But the Mac beat them handily on all three measures.

For Windows shoppers who can afford to spend a little more this season, I believe Ultrabooks are a great choice.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com.

Samsung Launches Series 5 Ultra Ultrabooks

Lauren Goode — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:02:25 +0000

The ramp-up toward The Year of Too Many Ultrabooks continues: Now Samsung is getting into the game.

Today, on its Web site, the Korean electronics company unveiled the Series 5 Ultra, a 14-inch, 20.9mm aluminum laptop that’s large enough to accomodate an optical disc drive. It offers up to a terabyte of hard disk space, as well as solid-state drive storage options, reports The Verge.

It’s not the most lightweight of ultrabooks, though, in an emerging category of laptops known for thinness and portability: It weighs 1.8 kg, compared to the standard 1.5 kg. But the Series 5 Ultra comes equipped with both HDMI and Ethernet ports, as well as an option for a Radeon HD 7550M GPU.

The 14-inch model costs $1,345; Samsung is also offering a 13-inch Series 5 Ultra, just 14.9mm thick, for $1,300. The laptops are launching first in Korea, and are expected to ship in late December. No word on when these will become available in the U.S., but with the annual Consumer Electronics Show coming up in January, more info can’t be far behind.

Acer CEO: We're Going to Stop Selling Cheap, Unprofitable Crap

John Paczkowski — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:10:01 +0000

Acer CEO J.T. Wang has settled on a turnaround strategy for the company, one that will return it to profitability after two consecutive quarters of net losses. Acer is going to pin its hopes on the ultrabook.

And it’s going to stop peddling affordable but poorly made hardware.

“We will shift our strategy to improving profitability from pursuing market share blindly with cheap and unprofitable products,” Wang told Dow Jones. “Ultrabooks will become our key growth driver next year as customers want a lighter, thinner notebook with longer battery life. Selling more ultrabooks will also help improve our profit margins as they command higher prices.”

If things play out the way Wang hopes, Acer’s ultrabooks will drive a 10 percent increase in notebook PC sales next year and perhaps even return the company to profitability.

Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

John Paczkowski — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:01:40 +0000

If 2011 was The Year of Too Many Tablets, 2012 may well be the year of Too Many Ultrabooks.

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist and Director of Research for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), says we’ll see a flood of Ultrabook unveilings at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

How many? More than anyone can reasonably keep track of.

“We expect to see 30 to 50 new Ultrabooks launched at CES,” he told PC Pro.

That’s a lot of Ultrabooks. ’Course, that number will still be dwarfed by 2012′s deluge of tablets, which is once again expected to be around 100.

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Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile

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RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES

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Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month

Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show

Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month

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Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

Hewlett-Packard Dons Its Ultrabook Suit

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:11:23 +0000

It’s been about three weeks since Hewlett-Packard announced its decision to keep its PC division, formally known as the Personal Systems Group, or PSG. Today marked the first serious batch of new PC introductions from HP since that decision.

The one getting all the attention is an offering in the Ultrabook category that’s priced at $900. It’s called the HP Folio¹³, and aside from its price, its headline feature is that it delivers a full nine hours of battery life.

The Ultrabook is a concept primarily being pushed by Intel, so much so that Intel even owns the trademark rights to the name. Inside the Folio¹³ are the latest Intel Core processors. It represents the hopes of a PC industry that has seen anemic sales with little sign of a bounceback, though that depends on whom you ask.

Major challenges have been the continued popularity among consumers of Apple’s iPad, and to a lesser extent other tablets, and the impressive sales of Apple’s MacBook Air, which now accounts for nearly a third of Apple’s notebook sales. It may not be an Ultrabook technically, but conceptually the similarities are substantial: Thin, light, sporting solid-state drives and speedy boot-up times.

And while the MacBook Air is a big winner for Apple, there’s as yet little evidence that there’s much demand for a similar product running Windows. Last month, it emerged that Acer and Asus expect to sell only 100,000 each by the of 2011, which would amount to between one third and one half of what they originally hoped.

Yes, it’s early days for Ultrabooks — machines that support Intel’s full design vision won’t be on the market for another several months. And the industry is just now starting to bang the drum seriously for the Ultrabook. Asus Chairman Jonney Shih talked about the category in an interview with Walt Mossberg at AsiaD last month.

In its press releases, HP expressed the hopes of an entire industry when it quoted IDC analyst Crawford Del Prete saying he expects PC makers — including HP — to sell 95 million Ultrabooks by 2015. At their current levels, there’s nowhere to go but up.