Thinnest laptops coming to East Africa

Intel plans to unveil the thinnest laptop model, Ultrabook, into the East Africa market in the next few weeks. Billed as the slimmest and lightest gadgetry in the PC stable, the new models will be shipped in a few weeks with mainstream price points well under $1,000 (Sh85,000). “The Ultrabook is a tablet when you want it to be and a notebook when you need it. It’s considered relatively cheaper than a macbook,”said Intel East Africa General Manager, Danie Steyn.

A few Ultrabook models debuted last year, but more than 75 Ultrabook designs are in the pipeline for 2012 and will come in a variety of screen sizes, shapes and styles.

Intel had announced it would later fuse together a compact laptop with a tablet to make it a thin, lightweight laptop, with some models featuring a detachable screen that can be used as a tablet. “As the Ultrabook continues to evolve, so too will the way people interact with them, as touch-based experiences are added,”Steyn said.

In a recently completed Intel research study on the use of touch-enabled applications on an Ultrabook, users found the use of touch on a clamshell design, and the seamless transition between the use of touch applications and the keyboard to be compelling and natural.

Components from display panels, battery technology and storage solutions to motherboard and cooling technologies all had to be redesigned to fit into the new slim designs. “An Ultrabook will get you from zero to go in seconds with Intel Rapid Start Technology,” he says. This new ultra-responsive capability gives your device the power to resume in a flash when you’re ready, and ultra-low power consumption allowing some models to have up to 8 or 9 hours of battery life.