Intel said Wednesday that it believes prices for ultrabooks will go as low as $699 in just a few months and that 75 new models of the ultrathin and light laptop form factor are in the development pipeline.
Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's PC Client Group, said there are currently 21 laptops on the market that conform to the company's guidelines for products branded with the Intel-owned ultrabook label, which include certain baselines for battery life, fast boot times, and security features, as well as carrying the sleek, thin, lightweight appeal pioneered by Apple with its MacBook Air product line.
The chip giant introduced the ultrabook concept at the Intel Developer Forum last May and further expanded on the idea at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Intel has so far ponied up a $300 million fund for computer makers developing Ultrabooks under its guidance.
Skaugen said ultrabooks, currently priced at $800 and higher, will dip below $700 in price in time for this summer's back-to-school buying season, according to PCWorld.
Given that Intel is already heavily subsidizing the development of ultrabooks in these early stages, that would appear to be a tall order, but Pat Moorhead, principal analyst and president of Moor Insights and Strategy, pointed to a couple ways they could get there.
For starters, makers of ultrabooks could cut costs by using composite materials for cases rather than the expensive, pure metal casings popularized by Apple with the MacBook Air, Moorhead said. Also, current ultrabooks feature solid state drives (SSDs) but less expensive models may instead utilize cheaper hybrid drives. Finally, the analyst said, Intel's lowest-tier Core i3 processors could be used to further drive down costs, and for consumers, price.
Moorhead also said that Intel has marketing muscle it hasn't flexed yet, which could further help the chip giant establish the pricing patterns it would like to see for a product category it believes will soon come to dominate the laptop market.
"Intel has barely scratched the surface of the massive Ultrabook campaign it's planning," the analyst said.
For more, see the 5 Great Ultrabooks at CES 2012 slideshow below.
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