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The Most Anticipated Ultrabook of 2012
The Most Anticipated Ultrabook of 2012
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If you’ve watched our extensive laptop coverage
from CES 2012, only to look down at your own bus-
ted-up old clunker of a machine, then 2012 might
be the year you buy a new laptop.
And with so many high-end, high-design systems
hitting store shelves this year, there are more wor-
thy candidates than ever to choose from, and many
of them fall into the still-new ultrabook category.
If you need a refresher on what “ultrabook” means,
it’s an Intel marketing term (much like Centrino
was), encompassing a growing category of Windows
laptops that are thin and reasonably powerful (ty-
pically under 188 millimeters thick with the latest
Core i-series processors), with good battery life and
at least some solid-state-drive (SSD) storage.
With all the ultrabooks already confirmed for 2012,
it’s a fairly safe bet that your next laptop will be a
very thin one.
Running from just under $1,000 to $1,500 or more,
the 2012 laptops that seem the most exciting aren’t
exactly the least expensive we’ve ever seen, espe-
cially after several years of falling prices, but at
least they all look good.
Our question for you is: based on design, price, com-
ponents, and features, which of these highly antici-
pated 2012 laptops are you hoping to buy this year?
Below you’ll find a brief executive summary of each
one, linked to more in-depth coverage, with our
take on why it’s a lustworthy machine. Check out
the contenders, then vote in our poll. Or, if you have
a different choice, let us know in the comments
section below.
HP Envy 14 Spectre
Estimated price: $1,499, Q1 2012
The winner of our Computers and Hardware Best
of CES category, this glass-covered beast is certainly
unique. We’re still not convinced a glass-lid laptop
can survive in the wild, but the NFC support and
great audio controls are big pluses.
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The Most Anticipated Ultrabook of 2012
Dell XPS 13
Estimated price: $999, Q1 2012
The look and feel remind us of Dell corporate Lati-
tude line spliced with a MacBook Air, rather than
previous XPS laptops, and inside it has edge-to-edge
Gorilla Glass over the screen and a large clickpad.
Acer Aspire S5
Estimated price: $999, Q2/3 2012
The S5 is 15mm thick–2mm thinner than last year’s
Aspire S3–weighs less than 3 pounds, and has a sleek
Onyx Black magnesium alloy chassis. More impor-
tantly, the ports–HDMI, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt–
are tucked away via a motorized rear port door.
Samsung Series 9
Estimated price: $1,399, Q1 2012
Last year’s big design winner was the ultraslim Sam-
sung Series 9, which hit before anyone had ever
heard of an ultrabook. This year’s version is even
slicker, but still on the expensive side for what you
get.
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga
Estimated price: $1,199, Q2/3 2012
Another laptop we’ll have to wait for Windows 8 to
get our hands on, the Yoga works perfectly fine as
a standard clamshell laptop, but its lid flips all the
way back to form a touch-screen tablet, providing
extra flexibility (no pun intended) in how you use it.
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The Most Anticipated Ultrabook of 2012
Not a 15-inch MacBook Air.
15-inch Apple MacBook Air
Estimated price: $1,699 or more, sometime in 2012
A shot in the dark here, but there have been enough
rumors and online chatter about a larger version
of Apple’s MacBook Air that it must be on at least
some people’s list of most-lusted-after laptops of
2012. If there is indeed a 15-inch Air, it could very
well hit sometime around midyear, when the next
generation of Intel CPUs is expected, and would most
likely involve a decent premium over the existing
11- and 13-inch versions.
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