AMD launches Trinity APU microprocessors: Ultrabooks don't have to be as costly as the Mac

Purists and most Mac fans have been saying that Intel-sponsored ultrabooks are poor copies of the MacBook Air.

While these significantly thin laptops, which are PC makers' varied attempts at creating laptops as anorexic as Steve Jobs' ultraportable computer, may look like the MacBook Air, they are not MacBook Airs. In terms of performance and wow factor, ultrabooks are just light years short of the MacBook Air.

AMD's Trinity processor offers hardware manufacturers the ability to make ultrathin laptops that cost less but are just as powerful as the Intel-powered ultrabooks.

And to add insult to injury, most of the ultrabooks come just as expensive as Apple's bestselling thin computer, or at least hideously more expensive than conventional, thicker-girded laptops.

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.