The high prices of second-generation ultrabooks which are set to appear in early June of around US$1,000 are unlikely to help them win-over consumers; therefore, notebook vendors plan to launch ultra-like notebook models with lower prices along with the new ultrabooks to help boost sales, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.</p><p>

Acer is reportedly set to push 13- to 15-inch ultrabooks and Asustek plans to announce two ultrabook models featuring 11- and 13-inch IPS panels shortly.

"Lower-priced ultra-like" notebooks. Or as they're also known, cheap notebooks.

Joanna Stern has really smart idea: run Windows 7 on a MacBook Air via Parallels and Boot Camp.

The MacBook Air is simply best in class when it comes to hardware. The build is outstanding, the touchpad works better with Microsoft’s operating system than any other laptop trackpad out there, and the display makes Windows look better than ever. All that combined with very snappy performance makes the Air more enjoyable to use than many of the other ultrabooks on the market, including the higher end $1,110 Asus Zenbook and the $1,200 Lenovo IdeaPad U300s.

It's expensive, and the battery life is worse. But it kicks all the others in the display and trackpad, Stern says.

Services such as PayPass—which will allow users to make payments by tapping their credit cards to the device using NFC—and Nuance speech recognition are being incorporated into new Intel partner devices. The goal, said the chip giant, is not only to produce thinner and lighter machines, but laptops that are both fast and capable too, thanks to Intel’s forthcoming Ivy Bridge chipset.

Ina Fried: "Intel plans to make sure that if you haven’t heard of Ultrabooks, you soon will. The chipmaker, which has trademarked the name, is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into both the manufacturing and the marketing of Ultrabooks.

"Well, I have another word for them. I call them laptops."

Party pooper.

Fascinating review, because the only part where it is complimentary is on the boot and resume times. On everything else - keyboard quality, build quality, performance, battery life (they couldn't get it above three and a half hours) - it's not as good as rivals, especially Samsung.

Notice how Samsung is the name that keeps getting complimentary comments: it is beginning to look like the only company that can properly challenge Apple in both PCs and phones. It even has its own mobile OS.

"And Acer is the first out of the ultrabook gate — the 0.51-inch thick, 2.89-pound Aspire S3 that we were quite impressed with back at IFA will be touching down on [the US] side of the Atlantic on October 16th for just $899.99. The price is in line with Intel’s sub-$1,000 ultrabook target, but Acer’s getting there with the always-clever flash and hard drive combo trick. While the 13.3-inch laptop (or MacBook Air replica) boasts a Core i5-2467M processor, Intel’s integrated HD graphics, and 4GB of RAM, Acer’s gone with a 20GB SSD to house its Windows 7 Home Premium OS and a 320GB, 5400RPM hard drive for files and less frequently used application storage."

Hmm, Flash and spinning hard drive? But it will be interesting to see how this sells.