Where are all the reasonably priced Haswell & Kabini ultrabooks?

[Fjodor2001]

Why are you arguing with *us* about the price? It's not like we have control of matters.

I'm not arguing with you about the price. I'm however questioning ShintaiDK's statements and justifications for that an Ultabook matching the specs in the OP has to cost $1500+ going forward, that's all.

Would I love for ultrabooks with 1080p screens to cost 500$? But I just don't see that happening anytime soon, so we just have to deal with things as they are.

Where did I make that claim? I wondered if it was likely that we'll see one for up to $1000 for a Haswell based or $700 for a Kabini based in the OP, then later upped to $1100-1300 for a Haswell based one if it has really good specs.

Also, did you notice the claim by Intel in my previous post stating that they expect Haswell Ultrabooks to cost from $600 at this Holiday season? That will of course not be for the top end versions, but still.

Finally, this thread is not about what any particular person wants a certain product to cost. It's about what they are likely to cost going forward, and the reasons for that.

If these laptops were available at the price you wanted, you wouldn't have erected this thread.

Please read the OP again. It's not only about what is available at the moment, but about what we can expect going forward in the coming months (at around the time when Windows 8.1 is released and beyond).

 

[Fjodor2001]

Cliffs : buy a Macbook. Seriously. You can install Win7 or Win8 on them no problem if you want to run Windows instead of OSX.

Yes, that might be an option. There should be a new Haswell based Mac Book Pro coming in September I heard. I'll have to increase the budget a bit, but it might be worth it. I'll wait and see until it's released.

The quality just isn't there for PC notebooks once you get to that level. Of course you can build higher-end PC notebooks, but they're invariably beastly huge desktop-replacement ones. All of the PC 'ultrabooks' I've used have been disappointing. My personal notebook is a chunky Dell Vostro i5, mainly because I don't travel with a laptop, and I got this thing almost for free. i5, 8GB 1600, 256 840 Pro, Nvidia something or other (good enough for light gaming, but not high end lol), etc. It's got 1600x900 @ 17.3", which is not even 1080p, to say nothing of rMBP displays. Imho those ultra high res displays would be somewhat wasted on PC notebooks anyway, due to Windows not really scaling all that well with small screens and ultra high pixel density. I once had a 1920x1200 14" Thinkpad, and it was almost unbearable. I could get many things to blow up to visible size, but often felt like an airline passenger looking down at ant people's writings. Standard size text on the start menu was like 1/8" of an inch tall lol. Not something you could sit in front of without hunching over to use.

/cliffs : buy a Mac.

You make a good point about the problem with high resolution screens leading to a too small text for comfortable reading on Windows.

However, I read that Windows 8.1 might have some remedy for that, see:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/26/4465442/windows-8-1-will-finally-add-retina-display-support

But it's probably a good idea to wait and see how well it is actually handled. Otherwise maybe it's better to opt for a lower resolution screen if one intends to run Windows on it. That will also save some $$$ as a benefit...

 

[blackened23]

How soon do you need a ultrabook? If you're able to wait until the holiday season, Haswell ultrabooks will be substantially lower in price. Windows 8.1 does address the DPI issue better than windows 8, so that will help as well.

Black Friday is your best bet if you want a lower price. In the meantime, Haswell is new and new SKUs generally without exception are not discounted. The only discounted products you'll find are last year's IVB models. You won't find a bargain bin 1080p ultrabook with a Haswell, because it's new.

As far as intel aiming for a 600$ ultrabook price? Yeah right. Maybe for the lowest bargain bin garbage, but that's the entire problem with ultrabooks right now. That problem being the market being filled to the brim with low quality junk - right now, macbooks are just better - and that is just sad because I would *much* prefer a windows ultrabook over a macbook. But it is what it is. What helped sell units 10 years ago (low cost) isn't working, consumers are willing to pay for high quality. The likes of Dell/HP/Asus/etc just have not stepped up.

 

[Fjodor2001]

True enough, but no excuse IMO. Intel squeezes the OEMs with chips, but so what? Most users would not notice the difference between an I7 and an I3 most of the time. Save a few bucks there and spend them on other, more noticeable improvements. Better screens move cell phones, there's no reason not to expect them to move laptops.

The PC OEMs should be embarrassed that the best Windows laptop is a Mac. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57581290-37/macbook-pro-declared-best-performing-windows-laptop/ They produce low quality products, even at premium prices, and their customers respond accordingly by buying primarily on price.

[edit]

Let me put it this way: most laptops above about $800 could be better products by re-directing some of the bill of materials away from the traditional specs which are used to market PCs. OEMs largely have doubled down on features that do not materially impact the user experience for the majority of their customers.

I agree completely. And that's the reason why I'm primarily looking for a notebook/ultrabook where a large portion of the budget is spent on the SSD, better display and keyboard/trackpad instead of e.g. top end CPU or (I)GPU. It's also the reason why I'm even considering getting a Kabini based one despite that it may seem like an "unbalanced" component budget, although I'm a bit afraid it might be too slow.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The CPU in those Ultrabooks you want account for around 20% of the price, if not less. If you want a 500GB SSD, then the main budget is already spend there. After that it might be the screen.

And I doubt any OEM will even remotely consider Kabini in those kind of ultrabooks.

 

[blackened23]

The CPU in those Ultrabooks you want account for around 20% of the price, if not less. If you want a 500GB SSD, then the main budget is already spend there. After that it might be the screen.

And I doubt any OEM will even remotely consider Kabini in those kind of ultrabooks.

Yup. Kabini was delegated to the bargain bin before launch because it can't compete meaningfully with IVB/Haswell in either performance or efficiency. So I can't see a Kabini portable being paired with a 1080p screen or any high end components..

 

[Yuriman]

Google somehow seems to have put a 7" 1080p IPS panel in a $200 tablet. If they get exponentially more expensive as they get smaller, isn't it reasonable to assume a 13" 1080p screen would be cheaper? I mean, how much are we really looking at per-panel?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Google somehow seems to have put a 7" 1080p IPS panel in a $200 tablet. If they get exponentially more expensive as they get smaller, isn't it reasonable to assume a 13" 1080p screen would be cheaper? I mean, how much are we really looking at per-panel?

Google subsidizes their Nexus line. And its 229$ with only wifi and 16GB flash. LTE version is already 349$.

 

[Piroko]

I'm mostly seeing $1500 Haswell Ultrabooks with top end specs being presented. But I'm looking for a $800-1000 Haswell based Ultrabook with 8GB RAM/250-500 GB SSD/2C4T@~1.6GHz/3.0GHz Turbo CPU, decent 1080p or higher resolution 11-13" matte IPS display, nice keyboard/trackpad, good I/O options, and excellent battery life. Optionally a similar one based on a Kabini CPU for around $500-700.

There are decent IVB based Ultrabooks that tick most of your checkboxes on the market currently, although the bolded parts are near impossible to find. Haswell will probably only see the same value when it's nearing eol in 12-15 months.
I think that OEMs only take up Haswell as a way to stabilize prices, it's probably a hard sell for marketing as it doesn't give them any straight new features to throw into the face of technically challenged proletarians.

 

[tential]

How many 1080p 11"-13" screens do you know of for example? Even Apple's Airbooks doesnt support that.

Since you are sure it can be made for 1100-1300$. Why dont you show us? Then you can just mail the OEMs afterwards and show them the business case of the easy profit to be made.

Sony Pro 11 and 13.

I know fo others too just have to remember. I dunno why everyone is only mentinoing the MBA there are other choices...

Then again you guys are mostly desktop/ocers, I like the portable market a LOT more and kept up with the releases of these notebooks.

 

[Fjodor2001]

How soon do you need a ultrabook? If you're able to wait until the holiday season, Haswell ultrabooks will be substantially lower in price. Windows 8.1 does address the DPI issue better than windows 8, so that will help as well.

Well I might as well wait at least until Windows 8.1 is released (i.e. mid October) since that's pretty close in time, but ideally no longer than until Christmas. But note that I did not intend this thread to be just about what I personally consider buying, it would be interesting to hear what others plan on getting as well. Because surely I cannot be the only one considering getting a Haswell or Kabini Ultrabook?

Also, regarding Windows 8.1 and the DPI issue, I wonder if the lack of proper support for high resolution screens in Windows 8 has been a primary reason such screens not yet having become common in Windows Ultrabooks. I mean what's the point of getting a 1080p or higher resolution display on a 11-13" Ultrabook if you need a magnifying glass to read the text? So with the introduction of Windows 8.1, maybe the volume of such high res displays will increase and that might also bring down the price somewhat?

 

[blackened23]

WindowsXP, windows 7 and windows 8 all support DPI for high resolution on mobile displays, but it primarily works with only applications using a native interface. The problem happens when you're using applications with their own UI adjustments such as Firefox, they don't quite work as well with XP style DPI. On a side note, you *must* use XP style DPI scaling as the new style of DPI styling is blurred. Non-XP style DPI scaling looks like garbage.

The difference with windows 8.1 is that it supports DPI increases in 2.0 increments, while Windows 8 and prior versions (with XP style scaling) only support 1.6 increments. This has been problematic because most applications using a propritary interface (most browsers) support DPI using Apple's favored 2.0 increments. Well Windows 7/8 was 1.6 increments, and most application vendors didn't bother supporting windows DPI but instead favored Apple's methodology (since they released a retina-class display prior to any PC vendor)

With 2.0 DPI scaling in Windows 8.1 this is now a non issue - anything that supports Apple's retina DPI increase will now also work in Windows 8. Although it should be said, this is not a fault of microsoft, it is a fault of application vendors that favored Apple's style of DPI scaling. Windows had native support high DPI scaling for mobile displays longer than that of Apple's OS/X - again, application vendors simply favored Apple's version for whatever reason.

 

[sm625]

The 250-500GB SSD is going to eat a rather enormous part of that budget.

In terms of BOM it only costs about $120 at most to slap down 256GB of NAND, and of course you get to subtract $30 for the HDD. A company like samsung can even take one of their own SSD designs and place it right on the motherboard. Doing so can allow them to eliminate a SATA port, a drive enclosure, and some wiring and all the qualifications that go with adding a drive as a separate component. In the end it would only add $80 to the BOM to offer a standard 256GB of SSD instead of an HDD. (Assuming this was an ultrabook that would have no internal SATA ports.)

Intel is to blame for all of this btw. If there was an integrated SSD controller inside of haswell, this wouldnt even be open for discussion because every oem would be using it. It would actually be cheaper to go with 128GB of onboard NAND vs an external HDD.

 

[Aikouka]

Intel is to blame for all of this btw. If there was an integrated SSD controller inside of haswell, this wouldnt even be open for discussion because every oem would be using it. It would actually be cheaper to go with 128GB of onboard NAND vs an external HDD.

Why would you want an integrated controller? That would restrict OEMs to use that specific implementation. For example, Samsung wouldn't be able to do what they did in the 840 EVO.

 

[Homeles]

Intel is to blame for all of this btw. If there was an integrated SSD controller inside of haswell, this wouldnt even be open for discussion because every oem would be using it. It would actually be cheaper to go with 128GB of onboard NAND vs an external HDD.

What the hell? So wait, it's Intel's fault for not being able to predict the future?

Do you know how long Haswell has been in development for? Much longer than the SSD revolution. It is completely ridiculous to assert that Intel could have integrated an SSD controller into the Haswell platform. The financial risk would have been astronomical.

 

[blackened23]

Why would you want an integrated controller? That would restrict OEMs to use that specific implementation. For example, Samsung wouldn't be able to do what they did in the 840 EVO.

I think there is merit to what SM is stating. While i'm not sure about "integrated", PCI express SSDs are far, far faster than any SATA6G implementation. The 2013 Macbook Air achieves read and write speeds in excess of 900 MBps because it uses a PCIE SSD. I would love for PC motherboards to have some type of integrated PCIE SSD controller as to benefit from the increased speeds. I wouldn't necessarily want NAND attached to the motherboard, but SATA6G is already dated.

The fact of the matter is that all of the cool new technologies are being devoted to mobile while desktop users are left behind. That doesn't make sense. Desktops should be ALL ABOUT performance - yet we have slower potential SSD speeds than some portable computers. How does that make sense? Why should a macbook air have faster SSD performance than any desktop user here (unless they're using RAID 0)?

As far as what SM is stating, i'm all for it. Again, desktop is being left behind when it shouldn't be. Why are we still using SATA6G? Why don't we have DDR4 yet? Maybe Haswell-E will address this somewhat, but all of the cool gadgets seem to be focused on portable products.

 

[Fjodor2001]

And why are we having 1080p 5" mobile phone displays, but 1366x768 13" notebook displays?

 

[ShintaiDK]

And why are we having 1080p 5" mobile phone displays, but 1366x768 13" notebook displays?

They are AMOLED.

 

[Aikouka]

I think there is merit to what SM is stating. While i'm not sure about "integrated", PCI express SSDs are far, far faster than any SATA6G implementation.

Based on what I read in his post, he wants an internal NAND controller in the PCH so motherboard manufacturers can throw NAND on the board.

Now, I don't think what you're saying is bad at all. In that case, I would agree that Intel is causing some problems by providing so few usable PCI-Express ports off the PCH (if I remember correctly, some are supposed to be configured for USB 3 and/or SATA) and limiting them to PCI-Express 2.0. It takes two PCI-E 2 lanes to beat out a SATA III connection.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Sony Xperia Z and HTC One are 1080p TFT. But how do you mean the display type matters in this case?

 

[monstercameron]

an amd option, mentions a-series apus in press release
http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/02/...d_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi

 

[frozentundra123456]

How soon do you need a ultrabook? If you're able to wait until the holiday season, Haswell ultrabooks will be substantially lower in price. Windows 8.1 does address the DPI issue better than windows 8, so that will help as well.

Black Friday is your best bet if you want a lower price. In the meantime, Haswell is new and new SKUs generally without exception are not discounted. The only discounted products you'll find are last year's IVB models. You won't find a bargain bin 1080p ultrabook with a Haswell, because it's new.

As far as intel aiming for a 600$ ultrabook price? Yeah right. Maybe for the lowest bargain bin garbage, but that's the entire problem with ultrabooks right now. That problem being the market being filled to the brim with low quality junk - right now, macbooks are just better - and that is just sad because I would *much* prefer a windows ultrabook over a macbook. But it is what it is. What helped sell units 10 years ago (low cost) isn't working, consumers are willing to pay for high quality. The likes of Dell/HP/Asus/etc just have not stepped up.

I would love to have an ultrabook or convertible. Whether or not the prices are justified, I don't really have enough information. However, the prices are more than I am willing to pay for the performance available.
The problem I see is the market is limited for high priced models even if the quality is excellent.

Especially this is a problem because they have to compete with cheaper laptops, tablets, and smart phones. Personally, I really like the tablet form factor, but hate android with a passion. But that is partly because I grew up in a windows environment. Unfortunately for the PC makers, there is now a generation coming up that is perfectly satisfied with android and arm and love their apps. In addition, the real cost of smart phones is cleverly hidden into the contract for the cell service.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I agree there needs to be better quality ultra books, but if they are going to be more than a high end niche product they need to be price competitive as well. There are simply too many competitors available now.

 

[gorobei]

an amd option, mentions a-series apus in press release
http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/02/...d_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi

wow 15" @1080 for $1k, that Acer aspire r7 is a really impressive bit of design/engineering. the hinge solves most of the problems with convertible laptops that try to be a slate as well (though traditional business class swivel convertibles dont have the weird touchpad location like the Acer).

if the digitizer is a wacom and MS gets off their duff and work out the w8 drivers, the r7 could be the next big thing for Cintiq alternatives.

 

[paperwastage]

lenovo has haswell refreshes

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/laptops/new...ered-thinkpad-notebooks-with-windows-8-413864

i won't mind getting the x240.... unless the helix gets a refresh as well

 

[Fjodor2001]

lenovo has haswell refreshes

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/laptops/new...ered-thinkpad-notebooks-with-windows-8-413864

i won't mind getting the x240.... unless the helix gets a refresh as well

Yes, the X240 looks nice. Good I/O connectivity too; HDMI, VGA, 2 x USB 3.0, SD/MMC card reader, WiFi + Bluetooth, 4G LTE and 3G WWAN, Gigabit Ethernet. Not many Ultrabooks have that good connectivity. 12.5" HD screen is a nice size too, and only weighs 1.34 kg.