The 13-inch laptop has gone on leaps and bounds recently, thanks massively to Intel’s Ultrabook specifications. At the moment, all Ultrabooks feature 13-inch screens, with 14 and 15-inch models incoming later this year. In many ways, a 13-inch laptop is the perfect size for a portable PC; they’re not as fiddly and squint-inducing as netbooks, but not as heavy and awkward as a full-on notebook. The price of these machines is higher than netbooks though, so if your wallet’s feeling the strain we recommend you take a look at our guide to the 15 best netbooks in the world today. 1. [...]

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This year’s laptops are set to be all about one word: Ultrabooks. The term Ultrabook is actually pure marketing, dreamt up by Intel for a new generation of portable PCs featuring its technology. Like Centrino but unlike Viiv, it’s starting to stick as a catch-all term for thin and light laptops, or ultraportables as they’re sometimes classified. The best way to think of an Ultrabook is a MacBook Air that isn’t made by Apple, a netbook that isn’t underpowered or a laptop that’s been on a crash diet. Ultrabooks all feature a Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, plus fast [...]

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In a couple of days that saw the announcement of a raft of Intel Ultrabooks here at IFA 2011, the Lenovo U300 S looks to set the bar high, with incredible power and a great design to boot. The slim 13.3-inch body measures just 14.9mm at its thickest point, making it one of the thinnest ultrabooks we’ve seen. Only yesterday, Toshiba announced its Portege Z830 which measured just 15.9mm, and the pace at which manufacturers are releasing, means it’s likely we’ll see thinner again. The whole package weighs 1.3kg, which in ultrabook terms is heavy. Acer has managed to get its ultrabook [...]

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We had some hands-on action with Acer’s new Aspire S3 Series Ultrabook this morning, in a packed and sweaty Berlin hall at IFA 2011. The Taiwanese giant has really impressed us with its great value laptops this year, so we were keen to check out this ultra-slim lapt top, which is just 17mm at itshickest point, and 13mm at its thinnest. This makes it slightly slimmer than the Samsung 9003X, which was already impressively slender. The metal chassis looks reassuringly solid, constructed from a lightweight aluminium/magnesium alloy. We were impressed at just how light the Aspire S3 feels when [...]

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Intel is aiming to take on the MacBook Air in the superthin laptop category, with a new, surprisingly affordable range of Ultrabooks. Intel claimed at Computex back in May that it thinks Ultrabooks “will make up 40 per cent of the market by the end of 2012.” Sub-$1000 sweet spot And that’s no idle boast, if the latest news on the pricing plans for Ultrabooks are anything to go by, with strong suggestions that Intel is set to hit that all-important sub-$1,000 sweet spot price point. The latest news on Ultrabook manufacturing costs comes from Digitimes, which claims that Intel’s [...]

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