Ultrabooks will rule 2012

Some IT journalists and industry analysts are predicting that 2012 will be the year of the ultrabook. You know, those anorexic laptops that are less than 0.8-inch thick and weigh less than 1.4kg, come with no optical drive, have ditched the hard disk for a solid-state drive, powered by a Core i5 or i7 processor, have a battery life of about 5–8 hours, and are priced around $1,000 (about Php 43,000).

Apple, with its MacBook Air, created a new market segment. Again.

The ZenBook from Asus, one of the thin laptops, aka ultrabooks

At least, that is how Intel defines an ultrabook. By the way, if you want to use the term "ultrabook," you might save yourself some future, highly probable legal headache by getting in touch with Intel, which owns the copyright to that term.

Well, you might add "don't come with the Mac operating system" to that list of qualifications. Right now, that is the only thing that helps consumers distinguish those non-Apple thin laptops from the MacBook Air.

The Aspire S3 from Acer

So far, even in terms of price, these mostly Windows-based ultrabooks are almost as expensive as the thin-books from Cupertino. Some industry watchers, however, forecast these PC-based thin laptops to have lower prices in 2012, when more PC vendors are expected to launch their own ultrabooks.

HP offers its Folio ultrabook to corporate users who want an extremely thin laptop.

PC makers that have introduced their ultrabook products include Lenovo with its IdeaPad U300s; Acer with the Aspire S3; Asus and its ZenBook; and HP with the Folio.