Intel's Ultrabook

[BeRoot ReBoot]

- LED Monitor (Large Price Increase, only to help the battery acheive the 3-4 hours.)

LED monitors also have better viewing angles and less reflection, meaning it'll look better if you plan on ever taking it outside your basement.

- Higher Capacity Battery (But this means a slight price hike, even though you still only get about 3-4 hours as per normal gaming laptop.)

The intel spec says 5-7 hours, though we've yet to see how much this amounts to in practical use.

- No CD-ROM Drive (Price Reduction unless a media card reader is placed, especially PC-CARD. Then no change. More than one USB Port increases the price.)

The only reason people still use optical drives is because PC companies are still selling them. It's as outdated as the magnetic tape, let it die already.

- SSD << A serious must for the battery. (Large price increase due to low demand. Same as LED Monitor above.)

SSDs also improve performance significantly, meaning I/O is no longer the bottleneck.


All in all, ME GUSTA. I'm probably getting one next year, once they start shipping models with Ivy Bridge.

[IWantFroyo]

The only reason people still use optical drives is because PC companies are still selling them. It's as outdated as the magnetic tape, let it die already.

Unless I'm missing something, CDs are still the best way to install an ISO image, which is the default.
I really do with .imgs were more popular, but while ISO is still the standard, optical drives will live.

[andras artois]

Unless I'm missing something, CDs are still the best way to install an ISO image, which is the default.
I really do with .imgs were more popular, but while ISO is still the standard, optical drives will live.

Yes and while people still use optical drives, people of the future will continue to facepalm into infinite because tape drives totally worked fine as well.

Infact I'm pretty sure pen, paper and filing cabinets worked fine as well, so better stick to those as well. While we're at it we might as well stop all technological progression because everythings fine right now.

[3rdalbum]

Yes and while people still use optical drives, people of the future will continue to facepalm into infinite because tape drives totally worked fine as well.

Optical drives are very useful. You can still burn DVDs for other people, give large files to others without worrying about getting your flash drive or HDD back, install multi-gigabyte programs and operating systems, watch or rip DVDs, etc.

Just because application delivery and broadband are getting better, doesn't mean that they're ready yet to replace ye olde optical drive.

I don't think the ultrabooks need a built-in optical drive, but on the same token I think a lot of people would need an external optical drive if their computer didn't already come with one.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, my external optical is how I watch movies, and it's still better and more dependable for doing a live boot than a flash drive.

[PhillyPhil]

I just wish there was a laptop on the market with decent battery life.

Are you including small laptops (netbooks)? Mine has an advertised life of 14 hours, and there are others with 13.5, 15, etc hours advertised.

10.1" isn't enough. and 1" isn't going to make a difference. I need at least a 12.5" screen or its too small.

12.4" would be too small?

- LED Monitor (Large Price Increase, only to help the battery acheive the 3-4 hours.)

Er, if you can find a new laptop *without* an LED screen (except for OLED screens etc on phones, an "LED screen" means an LCD with LED backlighting) I'll be very surprised.

[Copper Bezel]

Indeed. I was a little amused at the list, since they're all standard to a decent netbook.

To elaborate on the bit LowSky and I disagreed on, given the difference to me between a 9" screen (a dumb toy) and a 10" (a reasonably usable workspace,) I personally think that one more inch would help a great deal, but I'm not going to find fault in someone not wanting to go under 13", either.

[sanz]

I'm a bit amused at your being amused.
Netbooks are outdated already, and supposed to be replaced partly by xPad and paratly by UltraBook. And the difference between a Netbook and an Ultrabook is the "power". You can run almost all average programs for your daily use and work on UltraBook, without big difference of speed with common Notebooks. Imagine: Photoshop, AutoCAD, WarCraft...

[sanz]

Yeah, my external optical is how I watch movies, and it's still better and more dependable for doing a live boot than a flash drive.

How can you stand for the noise and heat generated by an CD-ROM while watching movie? Have you tried movie on USB-HDD or even USB flash disk?

Why it's still better and dependable with a CD-Rom? I'm really interested what makes you into such a judgement.

In fact, I do have CD-ROM/Writer on my laptop, but I pulled it out and throw it away long long ago, to save the weight, perhaps a bit power also. I've not touched a CD-ROM for several years.

[snip3r8]

LED monitors also have better viewing angles and less reflection, meaning it'll look better if you plan on ever taking it outside your basement.

LED monitors are also so bright it feels like looking directly at the sun when you are tired or have just woken up,I am the latter.