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Why no convertible ultrabooks?

yhelothar

yhelothar

Lifer
Do tablet(wacom) screens need to be thicker? All the ones I see are fairly bulky. Lenovo's x series look to be one of the of smaller ones, but they're still nowhere as sleek as ultrabooks.

It seems like a windows 8 convertible ultrabook would be a huge hit.
 
the ones i've seen tend to be clunky. i'm guessing people don't want them, else someone would sell them still. i actually thought dell still sold one, but i don't see it now.
 
a wacom digitizer is only a fraction of a millimeter thick, and is typically mounted behind the LCD. Now, if a touchscreen is used (especially a projected capacitive touchscreen) there will be millimeters of thickness added
 
probably wont be too many ultrabook convertibles as the mechanics demand a certain thickness that doesnt go well with the thin concept of ultras.

the remaining convertibles are hp elitebooks 27xx, lenovo x2xxseries, fujitsu lifebook. dell canceled their most recent version and the hp tm series has been absent for a while. I'm waiting to hear if/when the elitebook will get ivybridge as i need to upgrade my tx2500.

the samsung note 10.1 looks very nice hardware wise, but the software is just ridiculously clunky. the included cut down versions of graphics software take very little advantage of tablet interface paradigm (too many taps to access color/thickness/stroke/opacity). But it is still early in the lifecycle and a pure slate with wacom active digitizer may be where the psuedo cintiq market is heading.
 
Making the convertible hardware consumer-resistant is what adds weight. With a cheap tablet you could conceivably get away with something that's not 3-year-robust. With a $1000 or over notebook? No.
 
Functionally, it doesn't make a lot of sense. To be convertible, the top half would have to be able to function on a stand alone basis. So, what would be in the lower half? Just the keyboard and some ports? Each half would lose a significant amount of structural rigidity and lose a lot of toughness required for mobile usage.

Lenovo's Yoga approach comes close to being a convertible - but note that it retains both halves.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/hands-lenovo-ideapad-yoga/9742-1_53-50118072.html
 
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