When I first had hands-on with the Toshiba U940 I was a little worried that it might be built too cheaply. The casing and styling weren’t exactly top-of-the-range but it turns out that Toshiba have put together quite an honest package here. Don’t judge an Ultrabook by the cover because the Toshiba U940 has some unique features and good all-round performance. Read-on to find out more.

As part of our continuing co-op with Intel on highlighting interesting and useful Ultrabook resources we’ve got another bunch of info for software developers this week – a very useful guide to designing for Ultrabook Convertibles. Related software development articles: Implementing Sensors in Ultrabook Desktop Applications Dev Tips – Designing Apps for Touch on Ultrabooks

For some people it’s more important to be mobile with all-day, all-scenario capability at the expense of processing power or speed. For others, the most important thing is to be able to carry desktop power. Intel Atom and Intel Core separate these two areas of computing cleanly but how big is the difference in platform performance? I took the chance to test the Acer W510 alongside an Ultrabook convertible the Lenovo Thinkpad Twist. Both devices have strengths, and weaknesses. A copy of this article also appears on our sister site, […]

We focus on Ultrabooks here but also keep a close track on what’s happening in the ultra mobile PC space through our work with UMPCPortal. For some people it’s more important to be mobile with all-day, all-scenario capability at the expense of processing power or speed. For others, the most important thing is to be able to carry desktop power and that’s where a Core-based Utrabook comes in. But how big is the difference in platform performance? I’ve had a Atom-Clovertrail based tablet convertible for a few weeks now and […]

In my regular check of availability for Windows 8 tablets and Ultrabooks I found a couple of interesting new products. The HP Envy X2 and ASUS Vivo Tab are now shipping but these are CloverTrail dockable tablets that won’t really interest anyone looking for desktop-level performance (see UMPCPortal.com for more.) For those looking for some touchscreen Windows 8 mobility with a ‘Core’ inside though, check out the MSI S20 i546 a slider with an 11.6” FullHD screen and a weight of just 1.16KG. Loaded with a Core i5 and 128GB […]

As part of our continuing co-op with Intel on highlighting interesting and useful resources from our favorite Ultrabook-related company (!) we’ve got a 3rd party report for you that highlights the responsiveness and performance characteristics of an Ultrabook compared to previous generation laptops.

Until WiGig docks take off next year the only thing Ultrabook users can use are the USB3.0 docks that are available from Toshiba, Lenovo and others. The problem with those is that they were designed for bigger laptops and assume you’ve already got a DVD drive. The ASUS VariDrive solves that problem. Gigabit Ethernet, Dual display outputs, USB3.0 hub and DVD drive in one. The only thing that is missing is an analogue audio in and out port for those Skype headphones.

Here’s a very interesting scenario and demo. I installed PowerDirector 11 Mobile on the Acer W510, a CloverTrail Tablet and used the built-in cam for a complete end-to-end on-device video creation and sharing process. After I had taken the 1 minute video it took just 5 minutes, 300 seconds, to create and render a video with transitions, to upload to YouTube and even included the time it took YouTube to make the video available. Smart camera, or what?