Ultra Thin Laptop --This Years Hot Laptop?The ultra thin laptop is the hoped-to-be hot computer for thisback-to-school and holiday gift season. Bigger than netbooks and lighter than most small laptop computers, they perform in the middle too. At least Intel and the OEMS like HP and Dell hope they're hot. Intel sells Atom processors on a laptop motherboard with integrated sound and graphics. They've fought against allowing any other choices. This basically forces all the OEMS to charge the same price for their net books. They can't put something a little bit different in and charge more. You're just seeing designer net books and different flavors of unix. Everything I have seen unabashedly says that Intel (and the OEMs) want to sell the consumer Ultra-Low Voltage chips and platform because they have a higher profit margin than net books, the current hot product. (This is bad for you. Higher profit margin means more of your money is going to line someone else's pockets.) Just like in 2009 with net books, you are being sold less performance. Net books are small, extremely portable, fast enough to do the things most people do most of the time, have relatively long battery life- but have smaller displays and keyboards. They really aren't suitable for gaming and don't have optical drives. An ultra thin laptop with the Intel Consumer Ultra Low voltage processor is a little smaller and lighter than current ultra portable laptops, fast enough to do the things most people do most of the time, are alleged to have a longer battery life than ultra-portable laptops, have full size keyboards and displays that are larger than net books. They aren't suitable for gaming either. Many of these laptops do not have internal optical drives (CD/DVD burners). You are to be sold less for more. You will pay more for a considerably slower but lighter computer as compared to a mainstream laptop. As compared to an ultra portable, an ultra thin will be slower and a little lighter. Makers will claim better battery life. As I have said, most people do not play new, top end games on their computers. Most people do not do extensive editing of video on their computers. I read a review by a writer for an allegedly unbiased, technically oriented publication, that was shilling for ultra thin laptops. This writer encouraged people to buy ultra thin laptops because most people surf the net, down load music, e-mail and run a few Microsoft Office or equivalent applications on their computers and do little else. These people do not need the speed and power of the current laptops, so apparently they should pay more for a slower, but marginally lighter laptop that might have better battery life. Remember though, net books use even less power, but they put smaller batteries in them so the battery life isn't as good as it could be. If a net book is about the equivalent in performance to a 5 to 7 year old near top end laptop, the performance of an ultra thin laptop is about the equivalent of one that is 3 to 5 years old. Both are fast enough to surf the net, down load music, e-mail and run a few Microsoft Office or equivalent applications. The laptop will come closer to running new higher end games but any ultra thin with a video card good enough to run these well would lose most of any battery life advantage it might have, and it will run quite hot. I would expect a lot of burn outs unless there is a break through in cooling technology. A gamer who insists on buying a laptop needs a high end mainstream laptop preferably with a 17" notebook computer's (or larger) display. The "most people" I describe above can use either:
You still don't get a "performance" video card in net books, ultra thin laptops or ultra portable (thin and lght) laptops. The processors I've seen in the ultra thin laptops are about the same speed as the processors in the laptops Walmart and Best Buy have been selling recently for $300 or less. I won't say don't buy an ultra thin laptop, but you should know that unless a little bit of less weight is worth it to you, you are paying a lot. |