Intel labels Ultrabooks a “Failure”

[Fjodor2001]

http://semiaccurate.com/2013/10/02/intel-labels-ultrabooks-failure/

"In an absolute shock Intel has deemed the Ultrabook a failure and canceled it according to documents seen by SemiAccurate. It isn’t a shock because the program failed, it is really shocking only because Intel actually admitted it.
[...]
The term Ultrabook may still have some legs but as far as the money funnel and MDF kickbacks go, game over.
[...]
What is going to replace the smashing success of Ultrabooks? According to sources at Intel the new term is “Two-In-One” also known as detachable screen notebooks."

 

[Pheesh]

Man it's really hard to take that site seriously when it sounds like it's written in the tone of a teenager. Where does he get the wild idea that touch is a feature people didn't want in their ultrabooks? The reason Intel is pushing towards that is that the few models that did incorporate touch were the most popular. Not sure how 2 in one will be a less useful form factor..he doesn't even try to substantiate his 'analysis'. Ultrabooks were a failure but so is this article.

 

[kevinsbane]

In documents secretly obtained by kevinsbane, there has been talk inside semi accurate itself that shows that semiaccurate authors themselves know that they are full of it and are laughing their butts off when people give any credence to their articles. In secret emails, semiaccurate staff talk about that they make up statistics out of whole cloth, compete for the most outrageous lure they can get people to believe and write articles using a random number generator.

According to secret sources, of course.

 

[CHADBOGA]

Chuckles needs to spend less time dancing in the aisles.

 

[frozentundra123456]

In documents secretly obtained by kevinsbane, there has been talk inside semi accurate itself that shows that semiaccurate authors themselves know that they are full of it and are laughing their butts off when people give any credence to their articles. In secret emails, semiaccurate staff talk about that they make up statistics out of whole cloth, compete for the most outrageous lure they can get people to believe and write articles using a random number generator.

According to secret sources, of course.

In other internal memos semi-accurate internally admitted that "semi-accurate" is an gross overstatement.

 

[blackened23]

Lol. Semiaccurate. Just so you know, OP, semiaccurate has a reputation, and it is not a good one. That is not where go to find objective news - that is where you go to find live or die for AMD fanboy news. Nobody takes Charlie D. seriously.

 

[Idontcare]

In documents secretly obtained by kevinsbane, there has been talk inside semi accurate itself that shows that semiaccurate authors themselves know that they are full of it and are laughing their butts off when people give any credence to their articles. In secret emails, semiaccurate staff talk about that they make up statistics out of whole cloth, compete for the most outrageous lure they can get people to believe and write articles using a random number generator.

According to secret sources, of course.

That was good and deadly accurate.

Kinda like how Apple has bought a fab, a materially significant change in assets and cash/liabilities, and yet they failed to mention anything about it in quarterly CC (something that would be an SEC violation)...

Ultrabooks may not be going anywhere in N.America, can't say because I'm not there, but here in Asia they are quite popular.

Ultrabooks are a tough sell because they lack the integrated features that people want in a mobile form-factor.

What makes smartphones and the larger Samsung "Note" form-factor popular? Communication and data acquisition features. The ability to call someone, text them, and capture high quality photos and video.

Ultrabooks are lacking those features (I don't rate the integrated webcam as a high-quality video capture or photo feature).

Personally I won't buy an ultrabook until it can do everything my iphone can do, until then I'll keep my iphone and my larger (17" LCD) laptop.

 

[BrightCandle]

I think largely people buy ultrabooks as an alternative where they don't want an Apple Air. They are very light thin, not very high performance but credible laptops. The recent Sony Vaio Pro is pretty decent, nice touch screen, 1.6-1.8Ghz dual core Haswell Processor, 4-8GB of RAM and an SSD - its a decent enough machine. Its not a high end laptop, you aren't going to be gaming on its 4000 series but for the basics of a laptop it does it all quite well.

I wouldn't call them a failure really, its just the form factor costs a lot of extra money because of how thin and light it is. You can spend half the money and get a faster machine, but it will be 50% heavier and thicker.

 

[erunion]

Charles think Intel has settled on two-in-one as a brand for convertible/detachables. That's good. They need a coherent name for the category.

 

[Revolution 11]

I never thought Ultrabooks were a good value TBH. If you really wanted a high-cost, high-quality laptop that is focused on weight, size, and portability while having enough power to not feel slow, get Apple.

That's the problem (in North America). Apple still has the prestige factor, their products are better quality than most Ultrabooks, and their marketing efforts are more focused and coherent. I don't see them as good value products either and my budget is not unlimited, but at least they are visible, desired, and look good.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I never thought Ultrabooks were a good value TBH. If you really wanted a high-cost, high-quality laptop that is focused on weight, size, and portability while having enough power to not feel slow, get Apple.

That's the problem (in North America). Apple still has the prestige factor, their products are better quality than most Ultrabooks, and their marketing efforts are more focused and coherent. I don't see them as good value products either and my budget is not unlimited, but at least they are visible, desired, and look good.

The PC industry has trained its customer base too well to expect cruddy but cheap. They can't throw ultrabooks at them and expect them to sell just because it has a faster CPU than Apple at $100-200 less.

 

[BrightCandle]

The Apple Air screen is pretty bad. A friend went into PC world (of all places!) to play with different laptops and found the screen on the Sony to be better along with the keyboard. I think the main thing I really like about the Apple hardware is the track pad, but Sony has one that feels very similar now. So all in all from a hardware perspective for less price you can get an all round faster more capable machine with better components in an ultra book than you can with the current Apple Air.

The problem is people still think the Air is better when it isn't really the case. The OS is a different matter of course, I am not a great fan of Windows 8 but at the same time on a touch screen it makes more sense. The friend really liked the touchscreen aspect of the Haswell Ultrabook and it makes it easier to use in certain places in the house. What they disliked was the disjointed nature of the two worlds in Windows 8 where they end up in the new UI when they doesn't want to. But that isn't a hardware issue its a software one and has by and large been fixed now by installing software in the desktop mode to handle common file types.

My friend came to the conclusion that the ultrabook was what was wanted having played with the various machines on offer. Initially they thought a £400 machine would do the job, but they only come in two types. They are either bug and heavy or really slow (AMD E series CPUs). So while big and heavy is and cheap and faster is definitely possible they are still big and heavy. My friend really wanted something lighter so it came down to ultrabooks + Apple Air and we both played with both side by side and the Sony was the better machine hardware at a cheaper price. Of course supports Windows which is a much large ecosystem of software out of the box.

So I don't agree with the sentiment that Apple is better, having played with a really wide range of laptops recently and looked at all the specs I think the ultrabooks have a clear place in the market. If people actually go and play with the machines properly and pick the darn things up you can see the very clear trade off that they make. I don't personally think for my own work laptop an ultrabook is a good call, I need faster CPUs with more cores than they offer but I can see if you don't do really CPU heavy work they are lovely machines. There are a lot of ones to choose from and by and large we don't care much for all the new form factors, my friend wanted a laptop not a fridge magnet.

 

[bullzz]

@BrightCandle - agree with u there. todays ultrabook are in many cases better than MBA. but they were the first to get the design right. and ultrabooks still have crappy touchpads. not to mention the "cool" factor associated with the brand
i dont think intel will be complain when people compare MBA with ultrabook. they win either way

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Ultrabooks are just now hitting their stride. To call them a failure is premature.

High res 1080p+ screens, speedy ssd storage, fast processors, and cloud integrated services. This is the future for most folks. We want thing, light, powerful, and integrated. Tablets are woefully insufficient for a lot of tasks. Ultrabooks will always have an important place going forward IMHO.

 

[jkauff]

Ultrabooks are too expensive. They come with Windows 8. A touch screen really only works on a flat surface like a tablet on a desk--otherwise you just get a tired wrist and forearm. Loser concept from the get-go.

 

[Shivansps]

If it was a failure why Intel decided to give the Ultrabooks the better IGP on the more limited TDP margins? the HD5000/HD5100 are Ultrabooks only.

It does not make sence to me. Well, lot of things that Intel do doest make sence.

 

[Mgz]

The PC industry has trained its customer base too well to expect cruddy but cheap. They can't throw ultrabooks at them and expect them to sell just because it has a faster CPU than Apple at $100-200 less.

In many case, it is actually more expensive to get an ultrabook vs MBA... for example Sony VAIO Pro 13 vs Macbook Air 2013... Sony has better screen (full HD IPS) while MBA is 50$ cheaper and has stronger GPU and longer battery life. -> I went with MBA and bootcamp Windows 7, the best of both world

 

[Eug]

I hereby declare SemiAccurate shall be renamed "InAccurate".

---

BTW, the Air's form factor is great, but the screen does truly suck. The decent Apple laptop screens are only in the MacBook Pros. Plus the Air's screens all have different resolutions than the Pros. Too high for older eyes wanting decently sized text for extended work sessions IMO, but too low for Retina.

So, while I want a Mac ultrabook, I'm not buying one, because the only ones available are the gimped Airs. I'm waiting for the new MacBook Pros, which I suspect will finally get rid of the optical drive, thereby pushing them into near-ultrabook category.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I wouldn't pay $1,000 for a "real" Ultrabook. For the $299 I paid for each of my three ASUS X202Es (w/1.8GHz IVB i3), it's real enough

 

[Eug]

I wouldn't pay $1,000 for a "real" Ultrabook. For the $299 I paid for each of my three ASUS X202Es (w/1.8GHz IVB i3), it's real enough

Hmmm... That thing gets bad reviews. The screen is poor, like my Acer, which would put it even below the MacBook Air, which already has a poor to at best mediocre screen. Plus the thing doesn't even have a full sized keyboard, which to me is an immediate deal killer.

 

[beginner99]

The average consumer is clueless and the main thing that decides are price and maybe the design. So most buy laptops with crappy 1366x768 TN panels, 5400 rpm disks and bad battery life which weight double than they actually should.

Ultrabooks mostly have an ssd (expensive), better screen(expensive) and are lightweight (expensive). The thing is most laptop buyers would be better of with a cheap desktop because they don't actually carry the thing around...and then being lightweight is irrelevant.

Personally I think ultrabooks are great. I don't own one because I bought mine just before they started appearing and I had a great deal on a very expensive thinkpad.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Ultrabooks are great, but too expensive. What we need are Bay Trail/Kabini systems with good build quality.

 

[Shivansps]

Personally im looking forward to Dell Inspiron 11 3000, only if there where benchmarks on 2955U...

About OP, Intel is teh last one i may imagine to say "Ultrabooks are a failure"... as i said earlier, they have a entire mobile lineup for Ultrabooks alone, and these carry the best igp parts.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Ultrabooks are great, but too expensive. What we need are Bay Trail/Kabini systems with good build quality.

What we need is a flat out better overall market where design is actually important. If the companies would just quit trying to sell crappy $300 notebooks, then they could dedicate more production to decent products and in the process actually bring the prices down on more premium items. Focus on ubiquity and quality across product lines.

17.3" Notebooks are just a waste of production resources. 11.6", 13.3" and 15.6" are the only sizes we really need. 13.3" essentially covers the 14.1" market.

A 13" Ultrabook class type notebook with an i3 + HD 4000, 8 GB DDR3, hybrid HDD, and 1080p screen shouldn't cost more than $600.

Build quality machines and you're bound to get repeat customers. Samsung for example I know does make some low end notebooks, but I always tend to think of Samsung Series 9s or my stepmom's Series 7 Samsung with it's quad core i7, Radeon 6750 and nice 1600 x 900 screen. It's gorgeous even though it's two years old.

 

[dastral]

Ultrabooks are great, but too expensive. What we need are Bay Trail/Kabini systems with good build quality.

Ultrabooks should have been designed as the EEE-PC v2 : 500$ good enough in every way, but never great.
Instead they went for 1400$+ abominations which were worse than the Air in every single way.

Something like this : http://www.materiel.net/ordinateur-portable/asus-vivobook-s200e-ct182h-92014.html
But NO touchscreen, No Bloatware, Decent 720p LCD, 128Gb SSD, +250G of Battery, 5 different colors and it would be perfect.
With all the other stupid requirements "max width, max weight, min shutdown/restart, etc etc" they just killed it.

It was just a project designed to sell overpriced 300$+ ULV chips in 1200$ Laptops, to offer a windows alternative to Apple.