


Excellent Battery Life

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon
Wireless Connectivity and Ports Selection
Multiple form-factors/screen resolutions to suit each user

Zenbook Prime UX31A

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Article Misses the Point
By Kornfeld on 8/28/2012 6:15:00 PM , Rating: 2
This article kind of misses the mark in a lot of areas. A lot of the factors that would go behind a decision like this depend on the type of company and the operations. So, a small business may simply use systems with an OEM image and make a few changes before deploying the system to the user. You can get into other issues in large enterprise environments that make Ultrabooks harder to deal with and this is where this article loses touch with the real world.

Complications that make Ultrabooks undesirable.

1. Does your primary vendor sell a suitable system? If the answer is "no", do you want to deal with additional vendors that may not be able to handle global supply and have separate procurement and warranty claims processes?

2. Most OEMs treat Ultrabooks as consumer devices. Some complications from this are that very few have support for XP (granted this is a moot point starting next year), but many don't event support Vista. You're not going to be able to deal with managing application lifecycles and getting people to update apps just so you can buy a new hardware form factor.

3. Port replicators. I did a pretty comprehensive search for Ultrabooks that support a port replicator (and don't start with the POS USB port replicators) and found exactly one Ultrabook that supports a normal port replicator. People want to be able to dock to use larger screens or multiple screens and to have an ergonomic friendly workspace. You don't get this with any notbook without having a port replicator.

4. Price. My experience with this is that it isn't so much of a barrier for entry, but it does prevent adopting an Ultrabook as normal consideration. So, Execs can get Ultrabooks because they kind of get what they want, but so what if 200 people out of 20,000 get this. For now, prices prevent these system from really making a big entry.

5. Wired Ethernet. How are you going to do OS deployment on an Ultrabook? Without wired ethernet, this becomes more challenging. USB ethernet adapters can be annoying to get in global supply and won't necessarily work with PXE boot. Also, you're giving up on vPro support in at least some scenarios.

I don't think any of this will matter in time. The early info on the Haswell/Shark Bay systems show a trend towards thinner devices with lower power consumption components. If the normal "Thin and Light" business model, like a Latitude E6430 or ThinkPad T430 is slimmed down to a thinner profile and 3.5 lb, then the norm is already going to be approaching Ultrabook form factors. Take systems like that and make a 13.3" model with no optical drive and that basically is a present day ultrabook.

RE: Article Misses the Point
By Belard on 8/28/2012 7:52:38 PM , Rating: 2
All find all your points valid. I'm sad to see that not even Lenovo added a proper dock for the X1 Carbon. They really wanted to reduce the weight and size I guess. Their connector is not that big, but like you said - I don't think anyone is taking them seriously, not even I do. They are consumer.

I have an X61 (nowadays known as the X230) which has a 12" screen, under 3lbs. They have full dock and other PRO features.

The ThinkPad 430S (Slim) is 1" thick A quarter of an inch thicker than the X1 / some ultra books... and its not shaped like a wedge (so?) It costs about $400~500 cheaper than an Ultrabook of equal stats with expansiblity, you can change out the drive storage or memory as you need. Besides replacing the optical drive for another battery or drive.

Yes its about 1lb heavier (under 4lbs).. but it a full blown notebook with an optical drive (something that ultra books dont have).

