Hope you haven’t forgotten the AT200 tablet that Toshiba had announced at the IFA conference held in Berlin last year? Unfortunately, it never hit the market anyway, the company came up with its CES announcements yesterday and re-announced the 10.1 inch tablet and the best thing is that it now has its own official commercial name – Excite X10.

This incredibly thin device has a width of 7.7mm which happens to be about 1 mm thinner than iPad2 and Galaxy Tab. It sports aluminum back which makes it more uniquely snazzier compared to the other available tablets that come with plastic body which easily get smudged. Its IPS panel is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass and provides really wide viewing angles together with a native resolution of 1280X800. The processing in the device is done by a dual core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430. In the September of 2011, it was popularized to be superior to Tegra 2 from Nvidia, but now it’s the time that we got to check out how good it stands to quad-core Tegra 3 tablets.

It provides connectivity through 802.11n Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0; micro-sized USB, SD & HDMI ports, doing justice with the slender profile of the device. Other features of the device include DLNA support, dual HD cameras 2MP on front and 5MP on the back offering 1080p video capture capability; GPS & built-in compass; stereo speakers with SRS. However, at the initial level, device won’t be offering any mobile broadband connectivity options.

Toshiba will be presenting their Excite X10 with Android 4.0 “Ice Creame Sandwich” once the device gets available in the market by first mid quarter of 2012. It will be available in two capacities namely 16GB and 32GB with $529 and $599 price tags respectively. Excite X10 will be Toshiba’s premium tablet offering along with the already existing devices making up their ‘mainstream’ options that will be available for $380 for 8GB, $400 for 16GB, and $480 for 32GB. A 4G AT&T HSPA+ option for 16GB device will also be offered by Toshiba at the CES at a price of $480, which won’t require any contract.

Other than its upcoming 10-inch tablet, Toshiba will also be displaying its Portégé Z835 Ultrabook at the CES starting this week. This 13.3 inch laptop will be offering a 1366×768 matte display, 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM, second generation Intel Core processors & Integrated Intel graphics, spill resistant keyboard, a full sized backlit & spill resistant keyboard. The internet connectivity will be offered by three USB ports each being USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA-out, Wi-Fi and Wi-Di. With its pricing starting at mere $819.

Not even a week’s time is left in the starting up of CES 2012 in Las Vegas and HP has started up teasing their second Ultrabook after their 13.3 inch Folio that was announced in November. An FCC filing was leaked last week which suggests that it will be offering a 14 inch display and ‘Ivy Bridge’ processors from Intel which is due in the early second quarter.

It is believed that Ultrabooks will be taking the central place in the upcoming Consumer Electronic Show and prove beneficial in boosting up the PC sales in 2012 which have been lagging from some time. Around 50 new Ultrabooks will be getting launched in the CES to be held in Las Vegas, as per the CES representatives. The manufacturers participating in the show will be introducing their devices competing against Apple’s MacBook Air. Intel will be delivering a keynote address in order to announce their next generation chips.

The popularity of Ultrabooks is because of its portability and instant-on capabilities that it took from the tablets as well as the better performance and convenience that it inspired from the notebooks. If reports are to believe, HIS iSuppli projects ultrabooks will have made about 43% of PC shipments globally in 2015 from just 2% in 2011 and 13% 2012.

Whether an Ultrabook will be successful or it’ll be a failure, it depends on its pricing decision; however, there can be some improvements if the devices like Toshiba Portege Z835 of HP’s Folio 13, which are selling in the price-range of $800 and $900, are considered. Not just the decision of placing the Ultrabooks at lower prices but also the upcoming release of Windows8 in the later part of the year will prove beneficial in the success of the Ultrabooks.

Perhaps Lenovo is going to be the first Windows PC builders selling their ultrabook at a price less than Apple’s MacBook Air. This shows that the ultrabook battle is getting pretty heated up as the companies are found to be bringing out their products at lower prices. However, no other product has yet come to such lesser price.

Lenovo’s 14 inch “mainstream” ThinkPad ultrabook is going to be launched next year by the month of May or June at quite a less price around $800 which happens to undercut Apple’s MacBook Air. Its price will also be considerably lesser than the presently available model.

There will also be a 13 inch “Premium” model in continuation with the ThinkPadX1 which is scheduled to be brought out at about the same time. Both these ultrabooks will be using Ivy Bridge processor architecture from Intel and Chief River, which is a matching platform to the mentioned processor.

Along with this an interim update named ThinkPad X1 Hybrid, is also going to be out soon.  You will get dual boot along with Windows and Android’s customized version with this 13 inch ultrabook just the way as is in the case of IdeaPad K1 however, the battery life is better in this case.

It is equally notable that with leaner mobile operating system it will be starting up quickly and the battery life will also be doubled to about 10 hours which will prove a boon to all those who use the system for music, web and e-mailing.

The price for this X1 Hybrid isn’t available yet but it is expected not to go below $1,199.

Lenovo seems to be creating some more price differences with some other ultrabook line which will go beyond current X1 and the IdeaPad U300. Currently, the ultrabooks that it is offering is found to be having functional equality with the 13 inch system from Apple and at the time they are found to be more expensive when compared to the other Windows alternatives available in the market, which is said to be going down to $899 for the ultrabooks models like Acer Aspire S3 and ASUS Zenbook UX21.

Toshiba to land the ultrabooks market with its first ultrabook, Portege Z835 with a Best Buy exclusive at a price about $900 which happens to be $200 less than the price at which the ultrabook of Asus is available and $400 less than the price at which Apple is offering its baseline 13.3 inch MacBook Air.

And it is equally interesting to note that even when priced at such affordable rate, it has a great deal of things to offer. In fact, some reviewers have found it to be offering more features than Asus and Acer.

You get a display of 1366X768, Intel Core i3-2367M processor of 1.4GHz, RAM of 4GB and a SSD of 128GB under the brand name of Toshiba. But there are a few things which will disappoint you a bit like the color and presentation of the notebook is not elegant enough to be called splendid, again its flash drive isn’t that smart as one will expect as it offers a sequential read & writer speed of 185MB/s and 49MB/s that aren’t above the standard 7200RPM hard drive. Coming to Its SSD, it doesn’t do anything beyond imagination.

But then, you have good things that will make you happy. It weighs light with about 2.4lbs lesser weight than the ultrabooks competing it. Its battery life performs much better than those of Zenbook and MacBook Air, so you get a battery life of about 7 long hours when you use Wi-Fi for browsing the internet. Its connectivity offers you USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, VGA and HDMI out, Ethernet and a card reader.

But what sounds a bit disappointing for Intel and its partners is that ultrabooks didn’t start off that well.  Just in the earlier part of this month, companies like Asus and Acer were expecting to sale out about 100,000 units of their ultrabooks by the end of 2011, which was third of what they had originally targeted. According to the media, Asus and Acer have brought out much lesser than they were expected to do as they have reduced the orders for the ultrabooks by flat 40%.

It is notable that both the companies are pretty certain about the platform for longer time.

Asus has taken the veil off its line of ultrabooks under the head of new Zenbook brand. These are five models in total within a price range of $999 to $1499. The specifications of Zenbook UX21 includes a display configuration of 11.6 inch or 1366 X 768, SSD storage of 128GB and is available with Core i5-2467M or Core i7-2677M, whereas Zenbook UX31 offers a display screen of 13.3 inch or 1600 X 900. It is available in three versions: one with Core i5-2557M with SSD storage of 128GB, another one is a similar model with SSD storage of 256GB, and third one offers a Core i7-2677M.

Both the 11.6 inch Zenbook UX21 and 13.3 inch Zenbook UX31 are light and easy to handle with weight of 2.4 pounds and 2.9 pounds respectively. They also happen to be one of the sleekest and most stylish looking notebooks known to be present in the market with their bodies made up of aluminum alloy, all metal keyboards and neatly made glass trackpads.

The 11 inch UX21 has a thickness of 0.11 inch at its front and 0.67 inch at the rear whereas the 13 inch UX31 comes in 0.11 inch thickness at the front and 0.71 inch at the rear.

The best of all the features that these models offer is the one which enables the system to resume from sleep in as less a time as 2 seconds. Talking about the battery life we find, UX21 models offering about 5 hours of runtime and up to 7 days of standby whereas UX31 offers slightly longer battery life with 7 hours of runtime and 10 days of standby after charging it once.

Other important specifications that the Asus Zenbooks offer is RAM of 4GB, one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 ports, 0.3MP webcam, microHDMI and miniVGA outputs, connectivity through 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0. You also get Bang and Olufsen’s ICEpower technology empowered stereo speakers that will attract more audiophiles toward it.

If you compare the 13.3 inch Zenbook UX31 to its rival MacBook Air, you won’t find much difference in the specifications, however Asus Zenbook is cheaper by about $200 compared to the MacBook and is available at $1,099. Again, the resolution that its display offers is a bit higher which happens to be 1600 X 900 compared to 1440 X 900 offered by its rival. The Zenbooks can be shopped in the US from today itself.

Acer is finally entering the “ultrabook” market with its Aspire S3, its first ever ultrabook which claims to be a good featured set at a price below $1000.This 13.3 inch tall, 0.51 inches thin device, weighing 2.98 pounds will be available by this week itself. The body of Aspire S3 is made up of magnesium alloy and you get an Intel Core i5 processor, a solid state drive operating system of 20GB, and the current state of the machine under its hood along with a storage hard drive of 320GB.

A resolution of 1,366 X 768 pixels is offered by the LED-backlit display of the system and it is the integrated Intel HD graphics 3000 graphics processor of its CPU that drives it. Its major specifications include – connectivity options like 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, USB, HDMI ports, 4.0+ HSR, also offers a head phone port and memory card reader. It comes along with a standard RAM of 4GB.

It claims a battery life of 6 hours when used continuously and an extra-ordinary 50 days when left at a standby. There is a special Green Instant On feature that brings the system out of the Sleep mode in mere 2 seconds and out of the Deep Sleep mode (i.e. when it isn’t used for 8 hours) in just 6 seconds. The bottom vents have also been removed and instead the machine has been tweaked for the efficient dissipation of the heat.

The Aspire SE 951 will be available by this week in U.S. and Canada at a suggested price of about $900. Acer also has plans of launching other Ultrabook models which will be offering Core i3 and Core i7 processor options along with larger SSDs; however no release date or pricing related details have yet been announced. If we compare Acer’s Ultrabook with the 13 inch MacBook Air from Apple, it starts at $1,299 and offers a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor of 1.7GHz, flash storage of 128GB, and a standard 4GB RAM.

Walking the same aisle on which Toshiba and Lenovo are making a move, Acer has finally decided to be a part of the Ultrabook battle at the IFA trade show to be taking place in Berlin. Acer will be officially joining it with its Aspire S3. The chic device offers a display of 13.3 inch or 1366 X768 pixels, thickness of 0.51 inches, uses low voltage Core i3, i5 or i7 Intel processor, on-board flash memory usage for quicker starting up time and caching for performing faster.

It has a neat frame made out of aluminum-magnesium alloy, and a form factor that reminds of MacBook Air line form Apple. Though the specifications aren’t very clear at the moment, it seems apparent that Acer will be offering storage of 240 GB SSD or 500 GB HDD.

The other features of the notebook will be including HDMI port, a pair of 2.0 ports, webcam of 1.3 MP, 2-in-1 SD card reader, a single headset jack, Wi-Fi of 802.11 b/g/n and a Bluetooth of 4.0+HSR.

A full size chiclet keyboard as well as a multi-touch trackpad of slightly large size coming along with mouse buttons will also be offered by the device. Acer even promises 7 hours of battery life for its SSD equipped model making it apparent that the models with hard drive are going to offer lesser battery life.

Acer is looking forward to sell its Aspire S3 in some select regions from a later part of this month at a price of 799 Euros or $1, 138 and moving up to 1, 199 Euros or $1, 707 that will depend on the specifications the buyer will be choosing.

Yesterday, Lenovo declared its three IdeaPad notebooks, offering thinner appearance and brand new processors from Intel. IdeaPad U300s was the central attraction of the show. It happens to be first ever “Ultrabook” design from the company which is an excellently sharp looking system with a thickness of just 0.6 inch. 1.6 GHz Core i5-2647M or 1.8 GHz Core i7-2677M (both of low voltage) is being included by the notebook specifications. Other important features include a RAM of 4GB, SSD of up to 256 GB for the storage purpose, various connectivity options like HDIMI, USB 3.0, and WiDi from Intel.

A single piece of aluminum shell has been used to build IdeaPad U300s and it weighs light somewhat below 3lbs. It is notable that the heat is not vented out through any bottom vents; instead Lenovo has something that it calls “breathable Keyboard” which has a unique way of circulating the air through the gaps between the keys and  a detached vent placed somewhere on the left hand edge.

Lenovo also boasts about the 20 second boot time taken by its IdeaPad as well as about the resume time that happens to be below five seconds. The company promises, the battery life of eight hours of “productive use” and it could be charged up to 50% in a time span of just 30 minutes.

The next two IdeaPads on the line also offer the same kind of style and form; however these two don’t qualify technically the way the Ultrabooks do. Displays of 13 and 14 inch are being offered by U300 and U400, along with that RAM of up to 8 GB, II generation Core processors, Solid-State drive (SSD) as well as Platter hard drive, and graphics from AMD’s Radeon HD 5470M are being used up by both the notebooks. Added to these specifications, U400 also offers a slot-loading DVD-RW drive.

All these three laptops will be available from October at the starting prices of $1195 (U300s), $799 (U300), and $849 (U400) and can then be bought through Lenovo.com as well as some select retailers.