Responding to their customers’ garish ineptitude in trying to outprice the $999 MacBook Air, Intel has decided to do notebook makers’ work for them and put together a reference bill of materials on how to build cheap ultrabooks capable of competing Apple’s superslim ultraportable.
Digitimes reports that Intel has provided two reference designs: one for 21mm ultrabooks starting at between $475 and $650 to put together (excluding assembly costs), and another reference design for 18mm ultrabooks that would cost between $493 and $710.
Note that both of these designs would be thicker than the MacBook Air’s 17mm. Worse, because Apple has locked up all of the CNC lathes required to make unibody magnesium-aluminum chassises, most of these MacBook Airs will use fiberglass instead, which should shave another $50 to $100 off the build price.
So maybe there’s hope after all for notebook makers looking to deal with the threat of the MacBook Air. They’ll probably be able to match the Air’s $999 entry-level price, but only by making their machines thicker than the Air, cheaper than the Air and with inferior software to the Air.
Remind you of anything? Yeah… these same bozos’ attempts to compete with the iPad.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
17 responses to “PC Makers’ Ultrabooks Will Be Thicker And Made Of Cheaper Materials Than The MacBook Air”
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That’s the problem with notebook makers to begin with. They’re ALWAYS looking for the CHEAP, EASY way (out) to build things. That’s why there products SUCK to begin with…
Ok, I’m an Apple fanboy, I guess, but this was a fanboy article. I respect it though because it shows how much you stand behind what you say. I agree with the article. Most Apple knockoffs don’t reach the quality of Apple. They just post the $300 under Apple’s product and expect everyone to just jump on board.
The “Apple Tax” theory is starting to look foolish now. Companies are finding it hard to build a product that can challenge iPad and still beat its prize. Same goes for the MacBook Air -esque PCs.
These manufacturers are missing the basic point. People don’t give a damn about the price if they are assured about the quality of the product. So stop building a cheaper product. Build a better product and give the customers a hard time choosing the best.
While I don’t always agree with Apple’s choices, and feel dissed off – yes, I’m a pro user…
But when the hordes chase after Apple products and designs like a school of fish to offer cheap knock offs, or pricey copies, it gives your some reassurance that Apple does make a lot of right moves. No one tries to emulate a product they think sucks. Oh wait, does ASUS have a tablet?
Let’s see…so would I take a fractionally thicker machine with a fiberglass body, and save $500? Oh, HELL yeah!
You’d only save $500 if it cost the manufacturer literally nothing to assemble, package, ship and advertise — and the maker had a 0% profit margin and no licensing fees for software. The point is, I believe, that even with the cheap (not to be confused inexpensive) parts it will be hard to actually sell these ultrabooks for much less than macbook airs.
I agree that Apple makes great hardware and great software to run on that hardware but I disagree with the notion that Windows 7 (and soon 8) are inferior to OSX. They are different and they serve different uses. But my company could not do what they do on Macs, they tend not to allow backwards compatibility with hardware and apps and close up a lot of those “security holes” that company apps need to perform their functions. Of course I would rather be on my Mac OS then Windows because for me I like most of the UI better (never had a security issue with Windows so that does not motivate me) and the OS works better with the hardware.
i say we just go back to doss/terminal commands, then what will we all complain and bicker about? Mac’s font’s elegant shade of lilac?
Issue = resolved! ;-)