IDC: Only 500K Ultrabooks Sold So Far

[pelov]

I own Asus Zenbook UX31 and I totally love it. I am so happy with this laptop in both the quality and performance. It is so nice to be able to whip it out and have it up and running in seconds.

I love that thing and was about to pay for it but the OS DPI scaling issues threw me off. I guess that's not so much your fault as it is Microsoft

Chris, are you guys going to make any changes to the Ultrabook requirements in the coming year? Like maybe weight? I know the standardization of the batteries should help decrease overall cost, but are there any other planned cost saving measures?

I love the idea of it. I don't think there's a need for such big and heavy notebooks anymore considering the rise of browser-based apps and the lack of any real stressful applications people would run on a CPU (outside of some casual gaming). But Haswell brings with it more SoC style improvements, chief among them the engulfing of the VRMs and chipset, which should decrease PCB size and supposedly a hefty increase in graphics performance. So more room for a better heatsink and maybe bigger batteries as well!

In its current iteration, Ultrabooks just don't do it for me yet. They don't seem to be worth the price they're targeted for.

 

[grkM3]

No one bought a sandy ultra book because they were waiting on the ivy bridge to launch.Ivy's just started selling and I can bet my laptop on it that this time next year the sales will be a lot higher.

I could of bought the acer s5 and almost did many times but I held back waiting for ivy bridge to come out.

Ram being soldered should not be an issue and of the 6 laptop over the past ten years have never had an issue with the ram needing to be replaced.

Your right it throttles as I ran Intel burn test and would hit 3ghz then 2.5 then 2.8 then 2.3,2.0 act.but who in there right mind would ever load the CPU that hard during normal usage.

Ran 3d 01 and saw very little throttle and max core temp was 73c

 

[Phynaz]

I wonder if the OP would like to post in the AMD financial results prediction thread?

 

[Abwx]

I don't think so. Acer has already complained that they are unable to make profits on some of the models. Would explain why they would price so close to Apple, it's obviously not ideal for them because it has never worked before.

Of course with 250/300$ CPUs...

Otherwise the rest of the build has nothing more than a 500$
notebook , quite the contrary , it use slower memory , smaller
screens and so on...

 

[pelov]

Ram being soldered should not be an issue and of the 6 laptop over the past ten years have never had an issue with the ram needing to be replaced.

Your right it throttles as I ran Intel burn test and would hit 3ghz then 2.5 then 2.8 then 2.3,2.0 act.but who in there right mind would ever load the CPU that hard during normal usage.

Ran 3d 01 and saw very little throttle and max core temp was 73c

The throttling isn't necessarily due to the heat issues, though it can be but that's based on the manufacturer's HSF. The throttling is due to the TDP constraints the chip is under. If you're paying for $300 for a chip you'd expect that chip to provide $300 worth of performance, otherwise why not opt to buy an i3 or an i5? The Turbos in the 35W chips and the 17W ULVs (and LVs) act differently. The Turbo in a 35W chip can give you a consistent boost in clock speeds whereas the 17W ULVs will give you sporadic performance and persistent throttling. This has to do with the chip being too fat to fit into the 17W TDP. Unfortunately, the cost between an i7 ULV and a base i7 quad isn't much different -- and you can grab a quad with 8threads at 35W so the performance is a significant boost. In essence, if you grab an i7 in an ultrabook then you're paying for something that promises performance that it can't quite deliver in TDP headroom where it won't fit and it costs the same as a 35W CPU. If the format were much smaller then I'd sort of understand, but you can find full-figured curvy i7 quad's in 13.3" notebooks weighing the same as a 13.3" ultrabook alternative. So what exactly am I getting? It's more expensive (as a whole), performs worse, it's the same size and it's got worse battery life.

Just because you've never had an issue with RAM doesn't mean others haven't. I don't need to tell anybody here about the issues with RAM throwing up errors. Having a single stick soldered and going bad, hamstringing your entire Ultrabook so you can't replace it and can't use dual channel is horrible. I'm hoping eDRAM comes soon

To shed a little bit of light on the price issues.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile..._Pricing_to_Popularize_Ultrabooks_Report.html

Another way to reduce the costs of notebooks is to reduce profit margins of actual manufacturers. This is not easy to do, given the fact that gross margins ODMs nowadays are below 7%, according to IHS iSuppli market tracking firm

All-in-all, Intel has reportedly decided to reduce the prices of its ultra low-voltage Core i3 "Ivy Bridge" central processing units in order to make ultrabooks more affordable without further cutting ODMs' profitability or using cheap cases that may eventually crack and returned to stores, which will damage reputation of ultrabooks and PC suppliers. The reduction on Core i3 ULV chips will be in $25 - $27 range, said Cody Acree, an analyst with Williams Financial Group, citing Chinese-language Commercial Times news-paper.

At present Intel has only one mobile Core i3 chip with 17W thermal design power that is suitable for ultrabooks: the model i3-3217U with two cores, 1.80GHz clock-speed, 3MB cache and Intel HD 4000 graphics core. Right now Intel sells the chip for $225, hence the $25 - $27 slash will be over 11%, which seems to be a rather significant, yet not a dramatic price-cut that changes everything.

I believe I read elsewhere that prices were also decreasing on i5 ULVs as well, so obviously Intel is well aware of the current issues with pricing and Ultrabooks, but 10-15% decrease in the chip's cost doesn't equate to a significant decrease in the overall cost of an Ultrabook. They're just too expensive at the moment and while that is changing, there haven't been significant cost cuts. If I can buy a 17W i5 for $XX and the same (and lower) price I can grab an i5 35W laptop with the same weight and better battery life, why would I opt for the Ultrabook?

I'd like to see smaller and thinner notebooks with less processing power but instead of selling them as fashion accessories like the MBA at roughly the same price, maybe we should be seeing cheaper Ultrabooks less focused on competing with Apple. The Ultrabook manufacturers won't win against Apple if they're priced too close to them. Something like a netbook 2.0 with better graphics, more horsepower and the price of a regular 35W laptop, ~$500-$700.

 

[piesquared]

I doubt that ultrabooks will ever really sell in any significant volumes. This is just intel grasping desperately for Apple's coattail, just like they tagged their processor line as i(somethingmeaningless) cuz Apple made small i's cool. Products in this price range are sold by Apple, it's ingrained in society. intel means nothing to consumers, Apple does. Viral marketing, forum trolling will make zero difference and the PC's are dying on intel's watch.

 

[piesquared]

I wonder if the OP would like to post in the AMD financial results prediction thread?

Why would I, is this an investor board or an enthusiast board? I'm not an investor, i'm a PC hobbyist that likes to build my own wares and tech sites like this used to be about hardware. It is the day traders and short selling swine that have completely trashed the tech community by attempting to move stock prices for their own gains. The community that used to be is now just a vehicle used by individuals and a group to push an agenda.

 

[Phynaz]

Why would Intel be grasping at Apple, when Apple uses Intel chips already?

Oh, and what happened to your prediction about Apple not using Ivy Bridge?

 

[grkM3]

Pelov my ultrabook was 900 + shipping and tax with the higher priced i7 and its running dual channel ram.

You say your looking to buy an ultrabook but will still have all the issues either way you look at it.

I bought it because its finally what I think portable computers are really portable and get enough battery life to actually use them.

You can get the HP for 979 and use the 150 dollar coupon code and it will come out to about 850 shipped.

The same specs on an Mac book pro would cost you 2500 bucks.

 

[Ferzerp]

push an agenda.

Are you claiming you don't "push an agenda"? HAH.

 

[pelov]

You say your looking to buy an ultrabook but will still have all the issues either way you look at it.

I do want an Ultrabook but I can't overlook the glaring issues with the current iteration. Like I said, I was an inch away from pulling out my CC and buying a new Asus Zen Prime with IPS or a Sony Vaio T but when I sat down and thought about it I realized I can get a 13.3" Toshiba with long battery life, replaceable parts and more horsepower for less money and it would still weigh just as much. The only thing I'd be losing are the looks, and who cares? Unless Intel is guaranteeing me that it'll get me laid, I don't care -- if i wanted to get laid by a hipster I'd be buying Apple anyway.

The current flock of Ultrabooks aren't cheap enough or don't provide any significant benefit. They're stuck in some weird middle ground where they're too close to Apple and thus consumers won't buy them, or they're too close to regular notebooks that offer better performance, battery life and cost less.

 

[Vesku]

I'm impressed with their ambitions at least, they are basically trying to shift the entire notebook market from cost-conscious to style-conscious. It's a valiant effort to stem Average Selling Price decline.

 

[piesquared]

Why would Intel be grasping at Apple, when Apple uses Intel chips already?

Oh, and what happened to your prediction about Apple not using Ivy Bridge?

What happened to it? What do you mean what happened to it, isn't it fairly obvious, I was wrong. Just like intel's predictions about ultrabooks selling in any significant volume.

 

[Idontcare]

From one IDC to another, we can't forecast crap, I would take IDC's estimates of H1 ultrabook volumes with a grain of salt. That said, I have to assume that IDC's forecast is spot-on, it wouldn't feel right to disagree with IDC on this :whiste:

My conclusion is that reception has likely been cool for one reason - OEM's are busy preparing Windows 8 designs/validations and getting windows 7 ultrabooks to market (and investing in their design so that they would be well received) just took a distant second place to the windows 8 projects at the time.

Come next year, once the windows 8 cycle has been going for a few quarters, the numbers should be a truer read on how the market is going to respond to Intel's ultrabook strategy IMO.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Will Win8 UltraBooks all ship with a touch-screen? Because if they don't, Win8 is going to be very hard to use with a touchpad, emulating a mouse, emulating a touch-screen.

 

[pelov]

Will Win8 UltraBooks all ship with a touch-screen? Because if they don't, Win8 is going to be very hard to use with a touchpad, emulating a mouse, emulating a touch-screen.

If Ultrabooks are being tied to win8 then then it might be time to sell off your Intel stock. Touch-based on a non-touched based device...

 

[Phynaz]

Why would I, is this an investor board or an enthusiast board?

Enthusiasts can be enthusiastic about the performance of the companies that make the products.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Chris, are you guys going to make any changes to the Ultrabook requirements in the coming year? Like maybe weight? I know the standardization of the batteries should help decrease overall cost, but are there any other planned cost saving measures?

I am sure over time that there will be some changes to the Ultrabook™ requirements (with the next release). I have read about a bunch of change that maybe coming down the road for battery but I don't know how long it will take for them to get to market.

Right now there is a very limited # of the Intel® Core™ i3 processors in any of the Ultrabooks™. Heck most of Intel Core i3 processors havent even launched yet. Once these are launched I can see prices dropping more.

Two other things that will see prices dropping in the next year are hard drive pricing. The prices for HDD are still higher then they were about a year ago and there should be some drops coming in that area.

Also SSD prices are coming down a lot. Heck today we just had a big price drop on our Intel® SSD 330's and Intel SSD 520's. Even the older Intel SSD 320s' got a small drop. These prices should be seen at the Distis soon and they resellers no long after that.

 

[IntelUser2000]

If you're paying for $300 for a chip you'd expect that chip to provide $300 worth of performance, otherwise why not opt to buy an i3 or an i5?

People put too much emphasis on the TRAY pricing. According to the TRAY pricing, the Core i3 3217U, i5 3317U, i5 3427U, i3 3110M, 3210M, 3320M, all cost an identical $225. But the laptops based on i3's are cheaper than the i5's. The key is volume pricing. Volume goes up, price goes down. The ULV chips were never high volume chips, and might have remained close to the TRAY costs.

Small reductions here and there will allow it to reach pricing they desire. Last year, you had to opt for the Aspire S3 with cached SSD and Core i3 to reach $899 pricing. Now, you can get a Ivy Bridge i3(clocked 29% higher) at $799, with lot more manufacturers. The same $899 pricing also gets you a full SSD.

 

[ViRGE]

I love that thing and was about to pay for it but the OS DPI scaling issues threw me off. I guess that's not so much your fault as it is Microsoft

Chris, are you guys going to make any changes to the Ultrabook requirements in the coming year? Like maybe weight? I know the standardization of the batteries should help decrease overall cost, but are there any other planned cost saving measures?

I love the idea of it. I don't think there's a need for such big and heavy notebooks anymore considering the rise of browser-based apps and the lack of any real stressful applications people would run on a CPU (outside of some casual gaming). But Haswell brings with it more SoC style improvements, chief among them the engulfing of the VRMs and chipset, which should decrease PCB size and supposedly a hefty increase in graphics performance. So more room for a better heatsink and maybe bigger batteries as well!

In its current iteration, Ultrabooks just don't do it for me yet. They don't seem to be worth the price they're targeted for.

Pelov, have you seen Anand's 2012 MacBook Air review? He actually goes into Haswell for just a moment. The consensus is that it won't significantly improve the amount of space that can be used for the battery; the VRMs and the PCH simply don't take up that much space relative to thinks like the CPU, RAM, SSD, and such.

As it stands Ultrabooks are already mostly battery. You'd be hard pressed to increase that by too much more.:|

 

[dastral]

Right now there is a very limited # of the Intel® Core™ i3 processors in any of the Ultrabooks™. Heck most of Intel Core i3 processors havent even launched yet. Once these are launched I can see prices dropping more.

ULV are TWO times more expensive than regular or T series, that's just insane.
For 150$ they should sell 65W(3Ghz) 35W(2.3Ghz) 15W(1Ghz)....
Intel is trying force ultrabooks to have the same margins with CPU at it has with Macbooks.

 

[pelov]

Pelov, have you seen Anand's 2012 MacBook Air review? He actually goes into Haswell for just a moment. The consensus is that it won't significantly improve the amount of space that can be used for the battery; the VRMs and the PCH simply don't take up that much space relative to thinks like the CPU, RAM, SSD, and such.

As it stands Ultrabooks are already mostly battery. You'd be hard pressed to increase that by too much more.:|

I did, and I was slightly disappointed I'm hoping Haswell pushes up the perf-per-watt considerably, both CPU and IGP side. Part of me also wishes they don't get any thinner...

 

[Fox5]

ULV are TWO times more expensive than regular or T series, that's just insane.
For 150$ they should sell 65W(3Ghz) 35W(2.3Ghz) 15W(1Ghz)....
Intel is trying force ultrabooks to have the same margins with CPU at it has with Macbooks.

To be fair, that's kind of where AMD slots in. Trinity is 17W and performs much worse than a current Intel cpu, but much better than a netbook cpu. The one sleekbook model that has it is only $600, although it's closer to a mid-range to high end laptop in build than it is an ultrabook.

 

[Phynaz]

ULV are TWO times more expensive than regular or T series, that's just insane.
For 150$ they should sell 65W(3Ghz) 35W(2.3Ghz) 15W(1Ghz)....
Intel is trying force ultrabooks to have the same margins with CPU at it has with Macbooks.

Maximizing their revenue is their job. That's why they are a for-profit company.

 

[piesquared]

Maximizing their revenue is their job. That's why they are a for-profit company.

Who cares, this is an enthusiast board not an investor board. You seem to be selling out enthusiasts in favor of your stock portfolio.