European Buyers Not Appealed by Ultrabook

[btarunr]

Intel went to the market with its first-generation Ultrabook platform hoping that by the end of 2012, Ultrabooks would make up as high as 40% of all notebook sales. Notebook vendors like Acer relayed a slightly more realistic 25-35% figure in mind. Alas, the two will have to rethink their expectations, as notebook vendors are lowering it to 20%, thanks to the reception Ultrabooks got in Europe. The old continent constitutes a large and mature market for notebook sales, but Ultrabooks so far aren't appealing to European buyers.

This statement is backed by the latest sales data. According to this data, European consumers prefer 15-inch (or bigger) conventional notebooks. 15-inch notebooks constitute 40-45% of global notebook sales. There were no 15-inch Ultrabooks. 30-40% of global notebook sales comprise of 14-inch models. There is a 14-inch Ultrabook, HP's Envy 14 Spectre, but it is priced as high as US $1,399. Ultrabooks have so far been launched to test market response and if vendors want to increase sales, they have to lower prices from US$1,000 to US$699, the sources in the notebook industry supply chains point out.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[NC37]

Thank you European consumers for being smarter than a good chunk of the world

 

[InnocentCriminal]

If I had money to burn I'd get an Ultrabook.

 

[Red_Machine]

I already have an ultraportable. It's better than an Ultrabook, actually. It's an AlienWare M11x.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

On average people don't get the whole SSD thing, they just get "more GBs", so they lose out there. Then there's the no optical thing. When helping people shop for thin and light notebooks I've found they always bitch about not having an optical drive. Lastly there's the thin batteries. Battery life keeps trending down on everything from regular laptops to netbooks because our quest for thin is outpacing the die shrinks. Why pay more for less battery life? That's the way the average consumer will look at it.

I do wish they'd sell better though. Would be a fantastic way to drop SSD prices.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

I'm good with ultraportable.

And a quick way for Apple to make a few more billion? Macbook Air for Windows. Take the 13" model with the SD card slot. Improve the screen quality to non-gloss IPS with PC compatible keyboard. Sell it with Windows. Radical. Yes, you can in theory "bootcamp" but 95% of laptop buyers cannot cope with this... far too difficult and technical. (Obviously this can't cope comment is not targeted at any TPU members!)

People are ready to pay premium for iPhone, iPad, etc. I believe there is a huge market for iAir for Windows. There are very few if any notebooks/ultrabooks that beat the Air for design, form factor, and even performance. If they preinstalled with Windows (with bootcamp to iOS, ie in reverse), they might even get people to migrate from Windows to iOS...

Now that Jobs is gone, this concept isn't as impossible-never-on-a-month-sundays as before.

I'd get one. In fact I'd put on my black poloneck and walk straight into a iStore with a fistfull of dollars. Tomorrow.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

People are ready to pay premium for iPhone, iPad, etc. I believe there is a huge market for iAir for Windows. There are very few if any notebooks/ultrabooks that beat the Air for design, form factor, and even performance. If they preinstalled with Windows (with bootcamp to iOS, ie in reverse), they might even get people to migrate from Windows to iOS...

Now that Jobs is gone, this concept isn't as impossible-never-on-a-month-sundays as before.

I'd get one. In fact I'd put on my black poloneck and walk straight into a iStore with a fistfull of dollars. Tomorrow.

Won't ever happen.

I'd rather have a Chromebook equivalent to the Macbook Air. I'm very interested to see Acer's S3. Looks schweet!

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Won't ever happen.

I agree with you if the time horizon of "wont ever" is the lifetime of Jobs plus 3 years for corporate culture change. I will expect different behaviours being manifested by Apple around 2015.

Chromebooks look great EXCEPT for the missing keys ontheir keyboards making the installation and use of Windows on a Chromebook particularly difficult for practical use.

Acer S3

Nice except for WXGA screen which is very poor for 13" IMO. An ultrabook needs a 900 or 1050 or 1080 in the y

 

[Steevo]

Why do you need another device with a small screen if you have a good phone? I want and got a laptop with a screen big enough to see from more than a few inches away.

 

[human_error]

The 2 reasons I hear people use when they bought something other than an ultrabook are:

1. Too expensive. Thin + light is nice, but the extra cost makes it not worth it as you can get a comparable spec laptop for £300 whereas the cheapest ultrabook is £700 - more than twice as much for a thinner machine.
2. screen resolutions - the screen resolutions are really rubbish, and the biggest the screens get aren't great either. Personally I'm waiting for a 13-14" model with a decent screen resolution.