Can Lower Ultrabook Pricing Take On The MacBook Air?

HP has come out with a whole range of new laptops, ultrabooks and desktops recently, including one that is taking direct aim at Apple's sexy little number known as the 13-inch MacBook Air.

HP is taking direct aim at the Air by introducing a newer and much lower pricing point of only $798. This new and lower price is believed to be in direct response to the MacBook Air's upcoming and rumored much lower price of $799.

HP's ultrabook, HP Folio 13, which you can see a video review here, is now priced, according to this post, at a measly $797.77 at Best Buy. This doesn't, however, include Intel's latest and greatest chip, "Ivy Bridge", but rather the older "Sandy Bridge"  1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor. The  Folio's screen weighs in at 13.3-inch inches, and it includes some 4GB of memory, and has a 128GB solid state drive.

I must admit, that at $798, the Folio 13-inch is not only a great looking machine, with some nice specs, it is also a rather tempting buy. I'm not sure, however, if it's still a better deal or tempting enough win me over than the older 13-inch MacBook Air.

At the Folio's low price of $799, the question now is: will HP's Folio and other lower priced  Ultrabooks be enough to trounce the little computer that launched the big move to Ultrabooks in the first place?

The answer:  maybe, but not probably not that very likely, and this goes especially if Apple actually lowers the Air's pricing.

Yes, as tempting as Ultrabooks in the $700-$800 might be, they still can't take on the Air in other areas. For one: they don't first place advantage or the Air's superior trackpad, one that puts all others to shame. Secondly: unlike the Air, Ultrabooks can't run OS X, but the Air not only runs it, but it can also run every other OS else out there to boot, be it .... Windows 7, Windows 8 or any of the zillions of different distros from Linux, including, of course, its biggest and best, Ubuntu, which I personally rather like almost as much as OS X itself, but alas.... it has very little commercial software to run on it.

So, in conclusion, Ultrabooks owners actually have a lot less software that they can choose from, and without software a computer, no matter how great its specs or, for that matter, how great its price might be, the less software it can run, the less valuable it is, therefore I give the Air the edge. After all, who wants a computer that can run only some, but not all of the software out there? Well, not me, and that's for dang-tooting sure.






And that's my 2 cents 4 this rainy, and I mean really rainy, Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Opening HP Folio 13 photo via: http://go.bestdenki.com.sg/products/hp-folio-13-notebook