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Why ultrabooks were a flop in 2011?

From the informal discussions with a few dealers and distributors, MB Technews Editor @artsamaniego shares that the biggest flop in the PC industry for 2011 were ultrabooks. It must have been a classic case of overhyped and underperformed — and we wonder why.

I was surprised as well about this insider info considering the ultrabooks that we saw in 2011 were already impressive both in hardware and design. Still I wondered why they didn’t sell well in the Philippines (could have been a different scenario in other countries).

We offer several possible reasons:

1) Ultrabooks are expensive. Price could have single-handedly caused this. The median price for ultrabooks in 2011 was around Php50,000. The market for laptops in those price range is relatively small.

2) The Macbook Air Distortion Field. The Macbook Air has been around for 4 years. Ultrabooks have only been around for under a year. I guess people will always take the MBA into consideration every time they look at ultrabooks.

3) The ultra-hype. Before the era of ultrabooks, we saw a whole generation of ultra-portables. They also promised portability, processing power and long battery life.

Maybe in 2012, with all those dozens and dozens of new ultrabooks coming into the market (Intel promised no less than 75 models) we will see the price point become more rationalized and be more affordable.

Here’s my suggestion to manufacturers — give us an 11.6″ ultrabook, running a Core i3 with 4GB RAM and 64GB of SSD for around Php30k and maybe we’ll see more takers.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

34 Responses

  1. Avatar for jorden jorden says:

    thanks

  2. Avatar for Laptop Price in Pakistan Laptop Price in Pakistan says:

    Your article post is so informative about ultrabook are flop. The first Ultrabook arrived in the retail channel in October 2011. Since then, growth has so far been both impressive and linear. Best guide in this article about ultrabook. Thanks for sharing this article post.

  3. Avatar for Umair Umair says:

    According to me they have very high prices but not good enough like other brands like apple mac book etc. You guys can visit us for laptop table

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  5. Avatar for Mobile Prices in Pak Mobile Prices in Pak says:

    because they are not readily available in stores, at mismong mga sales rep e di alam ang ultrabook, i asked stores nung december e octagon lang sa megamall ang me tinda ng acer, sa iba e pag nag inquire ako nakatingin lang puro netbook ang pinapakita, its a good thing na maayos ang reviews dito kaya di nga kelangan magtanoing sa mga sales

  6. Avatar for Lani Garcia Lani Garcia says:

    PRICE was the biggest factor.

    Why would anyone want to buy a plastic looking S3 at 45K when the entry level MBA is also at the same price? If it was way lower, people would have considered.

    This year, if Lenovo prices the U310 and U410 affordably, they might be able to penetrate the Philippine market.

    As of the moment, people are still into netbooks and other AMD portables. The best sellers are still the Atom netbooks. At a 10K-12K price point, most filipinos would opt for those machines.

    To be honest, filipinos don’t have the cash to spend on these high end gadgets. Look at the cybercafes jampacked with people who are either playing, doing Facebook, or even blogging in there.

  7. Avatar for fireice2 fireice2 says:

    I’m happy with my ultrabook. I might be using a traditional HDD for the moment but when prices of SSD’s will go down, I would be considering an upgrade. :)

  8. Avatar for Salman Salman says:

    Main reason behind this is that these ultra books are expensive..

  9. Avatar for tc27 tc27 says:

    i think it’s because of the rise of the tablets!

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