
A year on, Ultrabooks are a worse disaster than most expected - Toshio
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/02/a-year-on-ultrabooks-are-a-worse-disaster-than-most-expected/
======
reitzensteinm
For those that aren't familiar, SemiAccurate is more of a tabloid rumors site
than a hardcore technology site. Sort of like The Sun for silicon.

They love to blow failures well out of proportion. BumpGate (nVidia's
packaging recall problem), Fermi (nVidia's late and hot GPGPU), Tegra
(nVidia's... are we seeing a pattern?)

Sort of like the drunk and bitter (but frankly more knowledgeable) uncle of
ExtremeTech.

I'm a regular reader, and enjoy it, so this isn't an attack... I'm just
recommending, along with the articles, an additional dose of a large grain of
salt.

Especially if it's a nVidia article.

~~~
mtgx
Yes, it's a pretty biased article, but I don't mind. You know why? Because
he's been pretty spot on. Anyone who's been watching Intel knows how
misleading Intel can be (before anyone accuses me of being an AMD fanboi or
something, I own a quad core i7 SNB laptop), and it's obvious ultrabooks will
not get to the magical $700 price-point anytime soon (I'm thinking 3-4 years
here).

Why not? Well, because while Intel keeps promising that, they have no
intention of being themselves part of that price reduction. They have no
intention of reducing their prices. So they want to put the whole
responsibility on manufacturers. Unfortunately for them, manufacturers have to
worry about more than just CPU's to be competitive with ultrabooks. They have
to worry about having a quality and high-resolution display. They have to
worry about having a fast and large amount SSD, and so on.

Why is it that the laptop/PC market has been considered non-innovative in the
past compared to the smartphone/tablet market? Because all the focus has been
on CPU's and that has helped Intel. But now people are starting to prioritize
more than the CPU in their laptops. In fact the CPU may not even be their #1
or #2 priority anymore. A good display or a good SSD or high quality materials
might be.

This sucks for Intel, as the their processors are becoming _more_ than "good
enough". ARM devices are "good enough" for most people in terms of performance
(iPad's success is proof of that), and an Intel chip that is 10x more
expensive will soon become irrelevant for most people. That price gap will
just not be worth it to them.

~~~
ajross
Intel's CPU prices (like all semiconductor products) have been going steadily
downward for... basically forever. I don't have a clue what you're talking
about.

I guess you're saying that Intel gets a higher margin for its parts per-die-
area than fabless SoC vendors do, which is undeniably true. But generally
that's considered a good thing for the company, not a bad one. Intel has
competing parts in the market for almost everything they sell, and _still_
manages to make a product that people are willing to pay significantly more
money for.

It won't last forever, obviously. Eventually the desktop market will dissolve
and servers and mobile SoCs will be all that's left. And Intel certainly seems
to be aware of this, c.f. all the marketing effort being pushed into the
various low-margin Atom lines.

~~~
mtgx
I'm not talking about old CPU's going down in price. I'm talking about the
"new" CPU's, which is what Intel will be pushing. Not like anyone still wants
a cheap $20 Intel Pentium M in their laptops anymore. My point is they are
overshooting in performance, and that means they are overshooting in price,
too. And most consumers simply won't care. People pay $1000 or more for
Macbooks because they are from Apple. They are buying the brand. It doesn't
really have anything to do with pricing there. I mean, it's not like you can
just say "Hey, if Apple can sell 20 million $1000+ Macbooks per year, then so
can HP, or Dell!". Far from it.

~~~
ajross
I understand that you think Intel CPUs are overpriced. I'm just saying that
the market is _paying_ those prices. So you're wrong, simply by definition.

Compared to essentially everyone else in the industry, Intel is printing money
with their silicon. The only product area that comes close in price per die
area that I can think of off-hand are high end FPGAs. And it's not as simple
as saying they should just drop the price to sell more -- last I remember
reading Intel's 22nm fabs are at capacity. They can only sell more Ultrabooks
by cannibalizing sales of other parts.

Now, that will change in the future, but it hasn't happened yet.

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programminggeek
The author is dead on for one thing - an ultrabook needs to be cheaper than
the comparable MacBook Air, or the average consumer will buy a Mac, because
most people think Apple products are better, but "too expensive", even PC
people.

Intel and Microsoft spent the last decade making PC's cheap for the masses,
but they cheapened the brand experience in the process with bloatware and lazy
hardware design.

Microsoft seems to get this and is willing to make their own bloatware free
hardware. They're even partnering with companies like Vizio to get rid of
bloatware while doing some nicer hardware design, even for relatively cheap.

Even still, most consumers at the same price will buy a Mac because it's seen
as a better computer. Ultrabooks need to hit say $500-700 to be interesting,
but then they're competing with the iPad 3, which is pretty popular and very
nice.

~~~
polshaw
I agree the problem of ultrabooks is price.. they are far more expensive than
the previous generation of ultra-portables. I see this as just like the tablet
market was; trying not to knock down the high price apple had set.

But an iPad does not compare to an ultrabook. There is an argument that they
compare to a netbook, but not even close to an ultrabook. I wish people would
stop trying to compare an iPad to high end laptops.

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andrewgodwin
This article seems particularly biased against Intel - it gets down to what
are almost character attacks at points.

I'd love to see a more level-headed analysis of the Ultrabook space. There's
over a hundred different ones now (which may in itself be a problem), and some
have replaceable RAM/hard drives, some have full-height Ethernet, and it's at
least made the OEMs think about decent industrial design (and in the case of
Asus and Lenovo, I think that's worked).

It's not some massive panacea, but I for one welcome the new boon of lighter,
thinner and better-built laptops.

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Tichy
What exactly is the problem? My next notebook would probably be an Ultrabook,
and the reviews of some of the models didn't sound so bad. Some look good, too
- that alone is a huge improvement, given that until recently all notebooks
except Macs were extremely ugly (in huge part owed to the tasteless use of
"piano lacquer").

My only gripe at the moment is the screen formats. Once again Apple seems to
be the only one that gets it right. Those widescreens are just too tiny (all
13'' are not the same).

What other computer besides an Ultrabook would you buy (Apple excluded)? I
praise lightness above most other features.

~~~
paulgb
I don't think you can exclude Apple when looking for the problem. Last time I
compared Macbook Airs with Ultrabooks, the Macbooks were better computers for
the price. The so-called "Apple tax" doesn't seem to apply to this category
like it does to regular laptops/desktops. (Or, as the article suggests,
perhaps the Intel Tax is equally taxing)

~~~
cstross
I run on Apple kit because I like the design and build quality, but being
reliant on one control-freak supplier brings me out in hives. So I
periodically look around to see if there's another supplier I can alternate
with.

Nope. Lenovo's thinkpads are nice, but by the time they're spec'd out like a
Macbook they cost about 10-20% more. (Better keyboard, though, and that lovely
anti-coffee-spill drain to save your ass from the once-in-five-years oops.)
Some of Dell's premium laptops look nice and are cheaper ... except the specs
are lower end and by the time you add all the extras back in you're paying as
much for a Dell as for a Macbook Pro.

It's frustrating! Why can't anyone else build laptops as good as Apple that
don't cost even more than a Mac?

~~~
dnissley
> Lenovo's thinkpads are nice, but by the time they're spec'd out like a
> Macbook they cost about 10-20% more.

This baffled me, so I did a comparison:

The low end (2.3ghz i7, non-retina) 15" MBP with the 8gb RAM upgrade and the
hi-res screen upgrade costs $2000 even.

The Thinkpad T430 configured with similar specs (different video card -- nvs
5200m vs gt 650m, worse screen resolution -- 1600x900 vs 1680x1050, better
processor -- 2.6ghz) came to $1464.

The Thinkpad W530 configured with similar specs (different video card --
k1000m vs gt 650m, better screen resolution -- 1920x1080 vs 1680x1050) came to
$1419.

Maybe you were comparing different things though?

~~~
bryanlarsen
He was probably comparing the MBA against the X1 Carbon.

------
trotsky
Charlie fails to mention something he knows very well - that the ultrabook
program was born during hardball negotiations with apple in which (supposedly)
they were very close to using an AMD APU part due to the poor intel gpus.
Without a credible threat in the form factor Apple had much more latitude in
choosing a lower performing cpu from amd or even a different isa. Did
ultrabook fail? Look at it this way - Intel is selling more ULV chips than
they ever have - and while I'm sure they'd like to have the volume less
lopsided, it's obviously way better than not selling them.

Meanwhile, 2 years later the ivy gpu is really pretty good for mobile
workloads, and haswell appears to continue their overweight focus on it to
keep apple happy.

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rvkennedy
I got an 11-inch Asus UX21E to replace my heavy, battery-hog 17-inch HP
monster. I chose it for two reasons:

1\. It's really, really light, I can carry it in one hand or in my Muji
manbag. And it's a PC.

2\. It's an i5, so while it's fast enough for web and email, the limitations
of CPU and GPU power keep me honest as a client-side coder.

Six months on, I can't fault it. I'll upgrade when DX11 GPU's become
available, but for now it's perfect. If I needed a Mac, I'd get an Air, but I
need a PC: I can't imagine ever going back to a full-fat laptop, and tablets
are simply not _for_ C++ coders, end of story.

~~~
hollerith
>It's an i5, so . . . the limitations of CPU and GPU power keep me honest as a
client-side coder.

Off-topic, but I wish Google's client-side coders had your attitude! Most of
the (annoying) "this web page is not responding," alertboxes I get on my Sandy
Bridge i5 are from Gmail, Google SERPs and Google Reader.

------
dvhh
My main issue with ultrabook is that they combine the issues of tablets and
laptop with very little advantage than "this is a thin pc". I would really
like to see some ARM laptop that could last days ( dual/quad core and 2-4 GB
of RAM)

------
peteretep
Ah, I hadn't realized Ultrabook was some Intel thing, and was going to make a
snarky comment about how my MacBook Air is the nicest computer I've ever
owned... I guess this means the category has huge potential not to suck

------
dpark
> _In the mean time, the real problems still remain. The form factor is
> abjectly broken, mainly too thin for the purpose ... until they find a way
> to update the laws of physics, don’t hold your breath ... Want a realistic
> number of ports? Nope, VGA for a projector or monitor? Nope, too thin. Full
> height Ethernet? Not possible. Removable battery? Not a chance. Keyboard
> with actual travel? Guess why that isn’t on the cards? Any chance for
> expansion? Yeah right. Luckily, if you have a dongle fetish, Ultrabooks are
> for you, some even have a mini-VGA port that no one else does, how
> convenient. The entire form factor is simply dumb._

And yet Apple is selling millions of Ultrabooks under the name MacBook Air.
Guess what they don't have: VGA ports, ethernet ports, removable batteries, a
"keyboard with actual travel" (surprisingly comfortable to type on, actually).
They're just as thin as other Ultrabooks. How is the form factor "abjectly
broken" or "simply dumb" if Apple can sell so many?

If customers are unwilling to buy Ultrabooks, then obviously something is
wrong, but it doesn't seem to fundamentally be a form factor issue. Maybe the
high-end market has settled on Apple as the premium producer, and they're not
even looking at PCs anymore. (I hope not. I work for Microsoft.) Maybe the
Ultrabooks that are hitting the market are still just not that good. (Most of
the ones I've tried felt like cheap crap, or had obvious deficiencies like big
fan vents on the bottom....) Maybe there's something else holding them back.
It's not simply a problem of lack of consumer interest in the form factor,
though.

~~~
ajross
Looks like, by that defintion, Airs (5M/yr per cnet) make up about 1/3 of the
"Ultrabook" market (10M/yr per linked article, not including Apple products).
That would probably make them the most successful model, but I don't think
that it really validates what you're saying. If the Air was clearly "what
people want" it would be doing better than a smallish fraction, no?

~~~
dpark
The source I was looking at claimed 2.8 million Airs in (fiscal) Q2 of FY12,
but digging in, it looks like that is the total for all MacBooks. So you're
right that these stats don't indicate that the Air is necessarily what
customers want.

Still, 10M/year for a category that launched only a year ago? Obviously not
what Intel hoped for, but that doesn't seem so shabby to me. It certainly
doesn't tell me that customers are completely uninterested.

~~~
ajross
Yeah. The news is that the earlier projection from the same analyst was 20M. I
guess the notion was that Ultrabooks would cannibalize existing netbook and
"cheap laptop" sales in a way that they didn't. Instead, manufacturers are
chasing the "Macbook Air" market instead, which is at a different price point.
And they're not even doing it badly per those numbers. But they aren't hitting
what had been expected in the market as a whole.

------
wbhart
I completely disagree with the point of view in this article. I recently
purchased an ultrabook because I realised that is exactly what I wanted.
Reason: weight and size.

I do agree that the current incarnation of ultrabooks isn't there yet. I
always find that one or more of the following are wanting: they either have a
limited 128 GB SSD hard drive or they have a tiny 32 GB hard drive plus large
conventional drive, but the boot up speeds are slow (25-40s instead of 3-12s),
or the screens are dull and flat with inaccurate colours lacking vibrance, or
the touch pad keys are integrated with the rest of the pad and operate
intermittently, or the cursor keys are too small (seemingly for no reason
whatsoever), or the performance is jerky due to slow AMD or first generation
Intel 1.7GHz processors, or they don't have enough RAM, or the battery life is
terrible, or the machines just look really awful or are too heavy for an
ultrabook, etc. And if they do have everything right, they are still way too
expensive and/or don't support flash.

Nevertheless, I am utterly convinced ultrabooks will be a huge hit when they
finally get them right. DVD drives will disappear and people will use SD cards
and wireless peripherals for everything.

~~~
justincormack
So you are agreeing then that they aren't there yet, but you think they
might...

------
lmm
Might be a disaster for the manufacturers in general, but it's been great for
me. My Samsung N900X1B has completely replaced my ASUS Transformer - it's as
light or lighter, can play 10-bit video, and can play windows games; I can and
do use it as my main computer (except when I want to watch 1080p video). Of
course it's twice the price, but it's worth it.

------
jstalin
A bit melodramatic. I would buy an ultrabook if they were priced better, but
for now I'm just sticking with my clunky 17" laptop.

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _I would buy an ultrabook if they were priced better_

Hmmm, wasn't that sort of their point...?

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SnowLprd
Building a lightweight notebook is all about balance and sacrifice. You can't
have it all. The reason that the MacBook Air is so popular is that Apple
managed to hit the sweet spot, balancing weight, battery life, performance,
and design. The MacBook Air is defined as much by what it leaves in as what
has been left out. Part of the reason the Ultrabook is such a disaster is that
getting the right balance is extremely difficult, and there's no indication
that they're going to get it right in the future. The OEMs are told, "You must
include these features," and when you're trying to maximize the feature
checklist, you're almost always going to fail in this product category.

------
ccoggins
Am I missing something about all this price talk? The first 17 results for
ultrabooks on newegg are under 800(with a couple < 600$) and the first 40 or
so are under the 1200 that the 13" Air starts at...

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lampe
I got a Zenbook and i dont wanne get back to my old notebook...

yeah they arent cheap but this arent mainstream products in 1 or 2 years ther
will be cheaper ultrabooks but they will have bad screen resolution and cheap
ssds

i dont get why it is a disaster... a disaster is that many manifacturs put bad
screens in ther laptops or other things that must get better...

------
skyebook
Does a anyone else get the feeling that between Intel, OEM's, and MS promising
the revolutionary they have too many cooks in the kitchen? Not every company
in the chain can be at the pinnacle of their creativity all the time. All of
them promising it means one of them will always be missing their own mark.

------
nachteilig
It really amuses me that so few tech sites bother to mention the MacBook Air
when talking about "Ultrabooks". It's not like one can exactly deny that
Intel/PC manfcs were "inspired". I wonder if its genesis is part of the reason
that they fail so hard when it's not Apple making them.

------
samwillis
OK here one for the HN cowed! What light wait laptop would you get for $800?

Would it be an ultra book?

~~~
robin_reala
Just sneaks over at $829, but I’d get an 11" Macbook Air (2011, 4gb ram, 128gb
SSD) from Apple’s outlet:

<http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC969LL/A>

I love my 11" Air, best laptop I’ve ever owned.

------
cooldeal
A better article than this agenda driven Charlie Demerjian rant.

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/02/lets-take-
another-l...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/02/lets-take-another-look-
ultrabook-numbers/)

