For the next couple of months, Intel is expected to launch Ivy Bridge processors that will be used inside upcoming ultrabooks. As the price tag is an important factor for the machines’ sales, manufacturers could use HDD instead of SSD to reduce eventual costs. Because storage machines use about 15-20% of total costs, the companies will try to adopt hybrid drive disk that are less expensive.
We expect to see a new wave of ultrabooks - most of them being announced next week at MWC event – at below $700 compared to actual prices of $ 1,000. Acer’s president, Jim Wong predicts that ultrabooks equipped with HDDs will drop pricing at $600 or $700 for the next period of time.
Ultrabooks, skinny laptops with the portability of tablets and running Windows 7 operating system, will account about 20% of total notebooks this year, lower than Intel’s target of 40%, say sources from Digitimes.
