Ultrabooks only shipping small unit amounts at first

Intel's design for the thin-and-light Ultrabook PC notebook became a reality last week when companies like Toshiba, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer first revealed and showed off their products at the IFA trade show in Berlin. While the first notebooks with the Ultrabook design should be released later this year, Digitimes reports that unit shipments for those notebooks will be below 50,000 units until the end of the year.

Some of the reasons for the small number of shipments are hardware based. The report claims there are still some issues with Ultrabooks' cost as well as the technology inside of them. Intel first announced the Ultrabook design back in May and said it would like for PC makers to sell them for under $1,000. So far only Toshiba's Ultrabook, the Protege Z830, has a price that will start around Intel's goal. These cost issues are making PC makers cautious about going all in with Intel's design. The article claims Intel plans to hold a conference with its Ultrabook partners on September 14 with the hope that these cost problems can be resolved at that time.

So far the Ultrabooks that have been announced by the various PC makers all share a number of features including weighing about 2.5 pounds and a casing that's only .63 inches thick. Intel's vision for the Ultrabooks include having a long battery life and being able to start up in just a few seconds. It remains to be seen if any of the thin-and-light notebooks that are due out by the end of the year will have all of the features that Intel would like to see in their initial design.