Intel is ready to take the lid off of Clover Trail, the newest member of the company’s Atom low-power processors. Along with Clover Trail info comes official announcements from seven Intel partners showing off hybrid Windows 8 devices that will soon be available. Intel is promising three weeks of ‘connected standby’ and up to 10 hours of HD video playback possible from Clover Trail devices.

With talk about the potential dilution of the Ultrabook brand one would almost think that Intel hasn’t set clear guidelines about what defines an Ultrabook. On the contrary, whether or not a laptop manufacturer calls a new product an Ultrabook tells me a whole lot about the product right away. PC Advisor has run a story claiming that “The truth is that there are few definitive specifications for an Ultrabook,” apparently not realizing that this is part of the strategy.

We asked the question yesterday…is the Nokia Lumia 920 worth 600 Euro and picked up a few comments from Nokia PR in Europe. At first I thought they were suggesting the RRP (recommended retail price) would come in at under 600 Euro but a further message suggested that we should make a full test before making a decision about value for money. Fair enough but there are people waiting in line you know! Today we get confirmation that the price isn’t coming in under 600 Euro.

The six teams competing in the Ultimate Coder Ultrabook Challenge have one more day to go. On the 28th September they must submit their final code to Intel. In the following week I will be testing and scoring with the other judges and on October 8th we’re going to see who’s won $10K. Yes this is a promotional activity by Intel, but it’s one of the most interesting and educational I’ve ever been involved in. We’ve all learnt a lot and a useful trail of posts has been left by […]

Lucky Myriam Joire of Engadget got to do some live testing of the Lumia 920 stabilisation feature and were allowed to publish the video – or at least a cropped part of it. As you would expect and as I saw with my own eyes last week, it’s stable, way more stable than the already good software stabilisation on the iPhone 5. Engadget were also allowed to slot in a few other phones including the HTC One X and Galaxy S 3 – phones that could be in the same […]

Update: Nokia PR Europe say they think it’s too early for this question. I can only interpret that in one way; There’s a possibility that the official MRRP for the Lumia 920 is lower than the price we’re discussing here. True, distributors may have been given indicative pricing and launch pricing could be lower. For those wanting to pre-order though, the question is valid. Update2: Nokia PR Europe also suggest to me that one should test a device before evaluating. True if you have that luxury and clearly the sensible […]

HCL Infosystems have just launched the HCL ME Series 3074  in India. It’s another 2nd tier Ultrabook and one of the first we’ve seen running Ivy Bridge in India.   Running the 1.8Ghz Core i3 it comes with similarly entry-level specifications on the RAM, HDD< Screen and weight. You can probably guess those by now. (HCL store with full specs here.)

I’m disappointed. Intel teases an Ultrabook experience called ‘always on’ and I’m getting excited that it’s a challenge to see how much battery life one can get out of an Ultrabook. It turns out it’s a stunt by David Blaine. Worse still, it’s in New York so I can’t even go and see it. I suspect the ‘3 Days, 3 Nights’  and ‘One Million Volts’ theme means he’ll be inside a cage. If we’re lucky he’ll make an Ultrabook last that long!