Ultrabooks vs. tablets

There was little doubt that the Ultrabook going up against the Tablet was the main theme at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), last week, while we reviewed the tech show that normally establishes tech trends for the year. Intel Corp, with a number of PC manufacturers, created a storm over their superslim notebooks at the show, which was seen as a move to take on Apple\'s dominant position in the ultraslim notebook arena with its MacBook Air, as well as a handful of tablet PCs that have invaded traditional PC territory. The Ultrabook concept, with its ultrathin and light, tabletlike laptops, powered by Intel\'s newest chipset, was coined by the Santa Clara, Californiabased chip giant in May last year at the Computex computer show in Taipei. Since then, Intel has wasted no time in popularizing what its Vice President Sean Maloney claimed during the Computex show that Ultrabooks, \"will bring about an exciting change in personal computing over the next few years,\" according to the Taipei Times. It will take time to see if the Ultrabook will be the next big thing. Regardless, one can get excited with this week\'s tech page which features a few of the Ultrabooks and tablets which were showcased at the CES. Global Times Dell XPS 13 Dell, another US giant PC manufacturer, has finally jumped into the Ultrabook camp with the announcement of its first Ultrabook product  the XPS 13. The 13.3inch gadget is a lighter option, weighing in at slightly less than three pounds, with a maximum thickness of 18mm. Sporting an aluminum lid and carbon fiber chassis, the device will sell for a starting price of $999 with a configuration of a Core i3 processor, 4gigabyte of RAM and a 128gigabyte solid state drive. The XPS 13 is expected to hit the market at the end of next month. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga Domestic Chinese computer giant Lenovo is also actively pushing the Ultrabook trend, as it unveiled a device at the show  the IdeaPad Yoga, in addition to its IdeaPad U300s which was announced in September of last year. The 13.3inch new Ultrabook model from Lenovo features Windows 8, and weighs around 3.5 pounds with a thickness of 17mm. What makes the device different is its doublehinged design. The gadget\'s screen can go into tablet mode when flipped back, and the notebook keyboard is disabled when in this mode. It is expected to hit the market during the second half of the year, and will initially offer Windows 7 before selling it with Windows 8 when the new platform ships. The Ultrabook will be priced in the high range, according to the company, however it did not reveal the exact price tag. Fujitsu M532 Japanese company Fujitsu also maintained a highprofile at the show. In addition to its surprise unveiling of the world\'s first quadcore Tegra 3 smartphone, Fujitsu also unveiled its quadcore tablet  the M532 which comes with a Tegra 3 chipset. The tablet runs on the Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and is expected to include the Ice Cream Sandwich when it supposedly hits the market in May. The device sports a display packing in 1280 x 800 pixels with 16gigabytes of internal memory. It has a 3megapixel frontfacing camera as well as an 8megapixel shooter at the rear. The M532 is rumored to have a 499 euro ($639) price tag, but so far there has been no confirmed information on its actual price. Asus MeMo 370T Tablet device manufacturers are by no means willing to become lackluster in the face of hyping the Ultrabooks that flooded the show. Taiwan PC manufacturer Asus showcased its first 7inch tablet device powered by Nvidia\'s quadcore Tegra 3 processor. The device, which has an IPS screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800, runs on the latest Android 4.0 operating system, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. It also features a rear camera of 8 mega pixels, and the device comes with 1gigabyte of RAM and a minimum storage of 16 gigabytes. The new gadget will hit the market during the second quarter of the year, retailing for $249, according to the company. HP Envy 14 Spectre In addition to the Folio 13, the first Ultrabook gadget introduced in November, the US PC giant Hewlett Packard unveiled a new Ultrabook model with its Envy notebook lineup at the CES  the Envy 14 Spectre. The 20mmthin HP Spectre is a rare Ultrabook product with a 14inch screen inside a 13.3inch body, while most Ultrabooks boast a 13inch display. Powered by the latest Intel Core processors, the device, which has up to 256 gigabytes of storage, weighs less than four pounds. It features Intel Rapid Start Technology and support for two ultrafast mSATA solid state drives that allows for quick boot and resume times. It also boasts a ninehour battery lifespan. The HP Spectre\'s highdefinition HP Radiance Display offers some of the industry\'s highest resolution and richest color for better brightness and wider viewing angles than traditional notebook displays. The new device is expected to hit the US market in February, with a starting price of $1,399.99, according to the company. At this time there is no confirmed information about its China launch.