Intel Pushing Thin and Light Laptops and WiDi for Holiday Selling Season

The first Intel Ultrabook-based laptop is expected to hit stores by back-to-school season, Greg Welch, Intel OTG segment director for mobile client platforms, told Consumer Electronics Daily at the company’s holiday gift event in New York Tuesday. He wouldn’t disclose details but said more are due by the holiday season, with the next wave following around CES time in early January.

The thin low-power laptops, based on second-gen Intel ultra-low voltage processors, are Intel’s second stab at the thin/light segment following the company’s unsuccessful launch of CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage) processors two years ago. Welch told us the company held “a lot of post mortems” on the CULV line and has vowed not to “repeat the mistakes of the past” with Ultrabook.

The first Ultrabook, the Asus UX21, debuted at Computex in May. Recent reports have said that the first Ultrabooks from Acer and Asus will be priced above $1,000, despite Intel’s claim that many Ultrabooks will sell for under $1,000. Welch told us the plan is still on target for $700-$800 Ultrabooks to ship to stores in time for the holidays. An Asus spokeswoman told us the UX21 won’t ship until Q4 and pricing hasn’t been set.

Intel has put together a plan designed to address shortcomings of the CULV initiative. CULV was product group-driven rather than a unified company-wide effort, Welch said. With no marketing support “there was no air cover pushing demand,” he said. Marketing has been involved with defining the Ultrabook program, he said, “and we have their commitment that this will be part of their marketing programs as we look into this holiday season and beyond.” Second, he said, costs have to be driven “across all components so that overall price points map into volume price points in the market,” he said. In addition, he said, with CULV there was a “disconnect between what we were trying to do from a value proposition and what actually got delivered.” Systems that came out “frankly were not very thin or very light,” he said. To ensure Ultrabook products meet goals, Intel trademarked the term, he said. Any manufacturers that want to take advantage of the potential marketing clout of the logo have to deliver product that meets spec in terms of thinness, built-in security and battery life, he said.

Ultrabook will evolve in three phases, with the first kicking off in June at Computex around the ULV second gen processors that will power Q4 laptops. Phase 2 centers around Ivy Bridge processors scheduled for availability in systems in the first half of 2012, according to a company blog. Laptops based on Ivy Bridge promise improved power efficiency, “smart visual performance,” increased responsiveness and enhanced security, it said. Faster I/O technology including USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt are part of the plan to drive the PC platform, the company said. Haswell processors will drive the third phase of Ultrabook, improving performance in thinness, weight, responsiveness and security, it said.

Also for the holiday season Intel is pushing its WiDi wireless display technology in an effort to ensure that the laptop “remains an essential Christmas gift” despite “all the hype around smartphones and tablets,” Welch told us. WiDi is a carrier protocol “on top of Wi-Fi” that enables users to stream 1080p HD video content from a laptop to a display. The WiDi software built into higher end laptops communicates with a $99 receiver that connects to a TV. The next evolution is a 46-inch TV with built-in WiDi (CED, May 2 p1), which will be out in time for the holidays, Welch said, but he wouldn’t reveal brands. “TV makers are struggling to differentiate their product, and this is an interesting differentiation,” he said. When asked if the supplier shipping a WiDi receiver this Christmas would be a TV maker that also sold laptops, he indicated that was likely.

Consumer expectations for consistency and responsiveness are driving laptop designs today, Welch said. Intel has achieved a seven-second start-up time with the Ultrabook, but it has a goal of reaching one second by 2013, Welch said. The underlying technology is what Intel calls Fast Flash Standby, which turns off power “without losing the memory state,” he said. On the horizon with Windows 8 during the second half of 2012 is a PC era where “consumers are going to expect every screen to respond to their touch,” Welch said. “We'll see how long it takes for large-screen TV to get there,” he said. Smartphones and tablets have set the stage and “I'm convinced laptops are going to go the same way,” he said. Touchscreens won’t add to the processor burden, Welch said. “The computer takes the input whether it’s from a pointing device or a touchscreen, and it doesn’t know which it’s coming from,” he said.