New Delhi: Ultabooks are fast conquering the realm of personal computing. The demand for ultrabooks is fast growing in Indian and overseas markets due to its unique design and performance. An Ultrabook was defined by Intel in 2011 as a notebook sub-genre that offers thinner, longer lasting notebooks that are high on on performance. The introduction of the Ultrabook was naturally seen as Intel's answer to the widely popular Apple MacBook Air.
An Ultrabook must now be outfitted with a touchscreen, and Intel is encouraging device makers to build two-in-one convertible designs (notebooks with touchscreens that detach from their keyboards to become tablets). Also, no laptop can be thicker than 23mm (0.9 inches) if it's to be marketed as an Ultrabook, and it must now be hardware-ready for voice command and control. Ultrabook battery-life requirements have been extended to provide at least six hours of HD video playback; a minimum of nine hours when Windows 8 is idling; and at least seven days of standby time. An Ultrabook must now wake from sleep mode in less than three seconds.
In addition to supporting wireless networking, an Ultrabook must now also support Intel's Wireless Display technology for streaming its video output to a supported display or adapter.
Also, all Ultrabooks will come with antivirus and antimalware software preinstalled and support Intel's antitheft and identity protection technology.
Here are our top 10 picks:
Acer Aspire S7 (2013)
The 3-pound Acer Aspire S7 is exceptionally light and has a fast SSD and a crisp display with wide viewing angles. The S7 features a powerful fourth-generation Intel Haswell processor, a fast 128GB SSD and a gorgeous 1080p touch screen display that displays vivid colors, particularly blues, greens and yellows. The $1,699 model (S7-392-9890) has a 1.8-GHz Intel Core i7-4500U processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and an Intel HD Graphics 4400 GPU with 128MB of VRAM. The Acer Aspire S7-392's 4-cell, 6280mAh lithium-ion battery lasts 8 hours and 53 minutes.
