Ultrabooks are a new category of notebook computers that seeks to fill the gap between lightweight laptops and tablets. Intel dubbed the ultrabook category when it announced it would be directing its mobile computing efforts towards a new class of laptops that would offer an extremely thin (less than 20 millimeters, or 0.8 inches) and lightweight profile to go along with high-powered, low voltage processors in the Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge families, long battery life, near instant-on and instant-resume capabilities, and fast storage, typically via solid state disk drives (SSDs), all in a sub $1,000 package.
Ultrabooks are distinguished from netbooks by offering more power in the form of faster processors and additional RAM, as well as better storage and larger screen sizes, features that also make these laptops significantly more expensive than most netbooks. Ultrabook prices are expected to come down, though, as Intel transitions to its “Hawell” system-on-a-chip (SoC) processors, at which point Intel predicts ultrabook prices will reach the sub $600 price range.
