Feature Articles

All about Ultrabooks

By Leo Boon Yeow - 26 Nov 2011

Windows Will Make or Break Ultrabooks?

What Will Make or Break Ultrabooks

Also extremely crucial to the success of Ultrabooks, is what these machines are made to run on -- the Windows operating system. Windows 7 is great, and we're more than happy to complement Microsoft on that. However if the next iteration of Windows -- codenamed Windows 8 -- lives up to what we've seen so far, then it might just be the catalyst that propels the Ultrabooks to the next level.

What we know so far is that Windows 8 is extremely touch-friendly and geared for usage on multiple product groups from tablets to PCs. Gestures and touch movements will control elements in the graphical user interface, such as the much touted "Tiles" concept (also found on Windows Phone 7). As it is, part of Intel's US$300 million fund is targeted at improving the way users interact with their hardware, whether through touch, stylus or other new means of interfacing with the Ultrabooks.

.Windows 8 is what Microsoft will be using to penetrate the tablet market and improve the standings of Ultrabooks.

Due to this direction, we get an impression that Ultrabooks down the road will feature touch-sensitive screens, or could be convertible into tablets. This gives you a plethora of options on how you can use your machine, or how you want it to interact. In fact we'd go so far as to say, what Ultrabooks can or cannot do is quite dependent on what Windows 8 will allow. So to get an inkling of how Ultrabooks will progress later next year, be sure to keep your eye on the Windows 8 momentum too.

And if Ultrabooks take off, you can be sure that the line between notebooks and tablets will be blurred even further. That's because Ultrabooks are meant to have the same instant-on, instant-use feature found on tablets, while tablets are increasingly adding more compute performance at a furious pace (such as NVIDIA's upcoming Tegra 3 platform). We can't say for sure which will be the dominant form factor, but if the Asus Transformer, Eee Pad Slider  and upcoming Transformer Prime are anything to go by, we'd like to have our cake and eat it at the same time please.

The forward thinking Asus Transformer Prime may be more than just an innovative form factor to differentiate itself from other tablets. It might possibly become the dominant form factor of Ultrabooks in the years to come.

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