PC Firms Bet on Ultrabooks
New Sleek, Thin Laptops Make Stylish Push Toward Mainstream Price Points — Intel Corp.'s crusade to redefine the personal computer is entering a crucial phase, as a new breed of sleek skinny portables jostle with tablet-style devices and smartphones for consumer attention.
Context & Ripple Effects
The ultrabook push is the endpoint of a decade-long thinness race: what began as one-off engineering stunts like the world's thinnest notebook in 2007 has been systematized by Intel into a repeatable product category. The chipmaker laid the groundwork through 2011, first shipping Sandy Bridge chips tuned for ultraslim laptops in June, then codifying an ultrabook spec that keeps parts costs under $710 explicitly to spar with Apple's thin-and-light franchise.
First-order effects
- PC makers now have a defined Intel blueprint — slim chassis, mainstream price points — to build against, putting their holiday-adjacent lineups in direct visual competition with tablets and smartphones for the same consumer dollars.
- Apple's MacBook Air loses its status as the only credible thin laptop at scale, since the sub-$710 parts-cost ceiling is designed to let Windows OEMs match its form factor at lower prices.
Second-order effects
- Component suppliers face margin pressure as Intel's cost cap forces display, storage, and enclosure vendors to hit ultrabook price points, echoing the squeeze AMD anticipated when it argued for creating a new laptop category of its own.
- Netbook-style budget portables get squeezed from above, since the same buyers Intel courts with sleek machines are the segment that made cheap small laptops a phenomenon after the netbook breed emerged.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, laptop design consolidates around Intel-defined specs rather than individual OEM differentiation, shifting category power toward the chipmaker and away from PC brands.
- The convergence of notebooks toward tablet-like styling signals that 'fashionized computing' — devices sold on design as much as capability — becomes the default expectation across portable hardware.
The trend: Intel is converting thin-and-light laptops from a premium niche into a spec-defined mass category, with the chipmaker rather than the PC brands setting the design agenda.