What Awaits the Technophile in 2012?
Courtesy of which.co.uk
Alistair Williams gives his annual roundup of what to look out for as we enter the year of the apocalypse.
2011 has been quite a year for technology. But what’s in store for 2012? Here’s are selection of 6 items that I think will capture the consumer’s mindset this coming year.
The Ultrabook
2012 should see the rise of the famed ‘Ultrabook’. These are essentially a hybrid of the netbook and traditional laptop classes; the portability of the netbook, combined with the higher performance of a laptop. The emergence of the Ultrabook has been floating around years, but Q4 of 2011 finally saw companies releasing these devices onto the market.
ASUS and Acer were quite quick of the mark, releasing their Zen and Aspire devices in October 2011. Sony is rumoured to be releasing a Vaio ultrabook in good time. Other manufacturers are also lining up releases in 2012, no doubt Apple will be looking at refreshing their Macbook Air laptops in response.
Whilst Ultrabooks should prove to be much more capable than Netbooks (anything is better than a netbook in my opinion!), pricing could affect uptake. Pricing is in the range of around $800-$1000, which is much more than the bog standard laptop and tablet computer. No doubt those living in Blighty will end up paying much more! Will consumers be willing to fork out extra for these devices?
Asus UX21 ultrabook. Source: Wikipedia.
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