Ultrabooks – Thinnest Laptops Yet

Thin is In at CES

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas draws 150,000 people, covers acres of brand new gadgets, and the trend that's already stealing the show is ULTRABOOKS. Between 30 and 50 of these super-thin laptops will be rolled out this week. But what is an Ultrabook, are they as good as the original Ultrabook — the Macbook Air — and is it worth the extra bucks just to get a lighter laptop?

What's An Ultrabook?
An Ultrabook is an extremely thin laptop; no more than .8 inches thick, in some cases as thin as the face of a dime. They run a full version of Windows: this is not just a tablet with a keyboard. And they have super-long battery life: anywhere from 5 to 9 hours. To stay so thin, these laptops have very few ports: usually just headphones and USB 3.0 (for you geeks- I've seen some touted as coming with Thunderbolt ports which are 2 times as fast as USB 3.0 and 12 times faster than firewire — 10Gbps!). These are not as inexpensive as netbooks were a few years ago, but Ultrabooks boast more power. Most new releases I'm seeing start at $899 and go up into the mid $1300-$1500 range.

Start Up In 7 Seconds
Ultrabooks have no DVD drives, and they have solid state hard drives which are more like the storage in a USB flash drive than in the older hard drives that spin and have moving parts. This is important because when you boot up your current computer you're booting up a spinning hard drive: it takes time to get the platter moving and up to speed. But solid state hard drives in ultra books don't need that time: some start in under 7 seconds.

New Intel Chips Inside
This category of laptops is coming to prominence now because Intel has just designed the processors that these new systems are based on, and they say that 40% of all laptops sold in 2012 will be Windows-based Ultrabooks. Analysts predict as many as 50 new models may be announced at CES, but some differ with the Intel projections on sales, estimating more like 10% of laptops sold in 2012 will be Ultrabooks.

New At CES
So who's announcing what? To name a few:

• ACER has the world's thinnest Ultrabook at .58 inches, it's thinner than the width of a dime, but Toshiba also says they have the thinnest Ultrabook- no specs released yet.
• ASUS released a few Ultrabooks in October of 2011 and we expect an update, although possibly only cosmetic, at CES.
• TV-maker Vizio is unveiling its own Ultrabook this year.
• Dell is rumored to be unveiling a new design.
• HP is also rumored to be rolling out an Ultrabook.

Macbook Air

But don't discount the original Ultrabook. Apple unveiled the Macbook Air in 2008, and it was last updated in July 2011. It costs just $999, but keep in mind it's due for a refresh and may get access to the new processors Intel has created for the PC some time in late spring/early summer of 2012.

The Latest in TV Technology

What's Hot and What's Hype

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is the Super Bowl of new TV technologies. And this year's big event promises lots of new products. Big OLED TVs, 4K and 8K TVS, gesture control and maybe the first contender for a glasses-free TV that really works.

OLEDs
The most beautiful sets at CES are OLEDs: Organic Light Emitting Diodes. They have much higher contrast than current LED sets; light can be turned off on a per pixel basis. Dark scenes offer the blackest of blacks — rich deep colors without the blooming of light that affects other LCD and LED TVs.

OLEDs are super thin: 3/16ths of an inch. Some are so thin that the power ports and connectors need to be housed in the stands, not on the set itself. OLEDs use half the power of current HDTVs and some sets will consume less energy than a 50-watt bulb. And finally the dreaded motion blur of LED and LCDs (when sports and fast action appear blocky) almost completely disappears with OLEDs.

I've seen small 12 and 20-inch prototype OLEDs in past years at CES, but never a true big screen option that is in production and planned for release. This year is different: LG has a 55-inch OLED on display, and Samsung is rumored to have another OLED debuting this week. The prices on these sets will be ridiculous — $8,000-10,000 — but predictions from analysts say that by the end of 2013, they'll be more like $4000. Availability is still a little unclear, although rumors of late 2012 offerings are in the air.

4K and 8K Resolution
Another trend at CES: higher resolution TVs than ever. 4K and 8K respectively double and quadruple the resolution of the highest high definition sets on the market. Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, and most other TV manufacturers are going for this crisper, more vivid resolution as an incentive to get consumers to trade in their old TV sets. But this technology is still a ways from every day reality, and CES may prove a litmus test on whether attendees think the 4K sets are that much more visually compelling. An even greater inhibitor to widespread 4K/8K TVs any time soon is that they will mandate all new source video and new cameras and infrastructure from TV networks and production companies. Today, very little content is produced at such high resolution.

3D Is Dead — Long Live 3D!
In the early press releases from manufacturers, there has been very little mention of 3D. It seems they now understand that most consumers aren't willing to pay much more for a TV with 3D. It's being seen as less of a feature, more of a gimmick. That being said, there is early buzz around Toshiba, who is saying that they will have a glasses-free, big-screen 3DTV available for sale within the year, according to CNET news. This is a big departure from other manufacturers like Samsung, which has managed expectations, saying they don't expect to have glasses-free technology ready for market within 10 years.

Gesture Control — An End To The Remote Control?
The success of the XBOX Kinect, which tracks the player's movements to control gaming, has spawned a whole new idea for interacting with your TV: gesture control. Imagine flicking your wrist to mute the volume, raising your arm to pull up the guide and grabbing or swiping to select a show. Such sets could even have facial recognition to turn on your favorite channels and volume presets when you walk into the room.

PrimeSense, the company behind the Kinect's gesture control, is showing off a TV driven with the same technology, and Samsung is rumored to be debuting sets with this same type of user control.

Smart Internet Connected TVs
Internet connected sets are becoming completely mainstream, so expect a lot of products to tout Google TV and Yahoo! Connected TV built into their sets. Apple is rumored to announce later this year a full-fledged, big screen TV with all the Apple content access built in. Yet more than 8 million consumers have already purchased TVs with the Yahoo! Connected TV platform. One cool product for people whose existing sets aren't connected yet, and who don't want to upgrade, is a new product from Roku. It's a small stick about the size of a USB stick that you plug into your TV through a slot called the MHL port (many TVs have these ports- check your spec sheet or the back of the T for something that looks like a micro USB port) for wireless access to Netflix, YouTube and a whole host of independent Internet content providers. No price yet, but estimates are centering on the $50 range.

How Windows 8 Could Change Your Life – Or Not

Microsoft has begun showing off bits and pieces of Windows 8, the next version of the most popular computer operating system in the world. The question: Is this an operating system you should plan to install on your current PC, or wait until it comes preinstalled on the next computer you buy?

What's Different About Windows 8
The headline with this operating system — it's not just for desktops and laptops, but also for touch devices, namely the increasingly popular tablets. If not revolutionary, this certainly represents a major advancement. Until now, tablets have used a different operating system from their desktop and laptop cousins. But as hardware evolves, Microsoft is working hard to be ready for the inevitable merging of laptop and tablet technology.

Hybrid Laptops
Microsoft envisions a day when your average desktop computer has a touchscreen, and when your laptop can convert into a tablet. That day is coming soon. At this year's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a Chinese company called Compal unveiled a prototype laptop with a removable touchsceen — and that screen becomes a tablet. Very cool. Lenovo also unveiled their Lenovo Yoga hybrid. At first glance, the Yoga looks like a traditional laptop, but the hinge that connects the screen to keyboard can rotate 360 degrees, enabling you to tuck the keyboard flat behind the screen and transform the device into a tablet shape.

Touchscreen Controls

Windows 8 will let you type with a keyboard or with an on-screen virtual keyboard. Like any tablet, menus and apps appear with the swipe of a finger. To get to the main menu, you swipe from the right edge. To see other open applications, swipe from the left hand side. Menus for the application at hand are all found by touching the bottom of the screen.

You may have seen the snap feature in Windows 7, where you can put two windows on the screen and multitask. This works the same in Windows 8, only better. In addition to being able to move windows around with your mouse, you can do it with touch.

Joining the App Craze
Microsoft has set up their own app store, and they're eager for you to buy. So Windows 8 is designed to integrate virtually all of the apps we love — games like Cut the Rope and social sites like Twitter, Facebook, and photo-sharing sites — right on the start screen. You can customize what's on this display, and the information — whether is news feeds from your friends or the weather report — updates automatically.

Buy or Wait
Back to the big question: should you buy Windows 8 as soon as it comes out? Well, the vast majority of its new features are designed to maximize the touch screens that many future computers will have. So while Windows 8 will work on your existing PC. One caveat, that's based on the initial look we've gotten at the Beta version of Win 8, and as with all things tech, new developments may alter the decision making process for consumers.

Microsoft hasn't committed to an official launch date, but company insiders have hinted at an October release.