Although there are a number of slider and rotating screen Ultrabooks out there it’s the dockable slates that seem to interest the readers here the most. The Samsung XE700 / Smart PC Pro is available in a number of location now but it’s the Acer Iconia W700 that get’s the first round of reviews. Laptop Magazine and CNet have published their thoughts so make sure you read these to get a feel for weight, battery life, performance and features for this new phase of Window Tablet PCs.

According to a couple of online source the HP Envy X2 should start shipping soon. An offer starting in Japan today promises delivery starting from the 27th December (some reports say 21st) and in Germany a couple of retailers have listed the same timeframe.

I thought we’d be getting a Toshiba U920T Slider Touchscreen Windows 8 Ultrabook through the post this week but I was wrong. It wasn’t until the video unboxing that I found out it was actually the ‘budget’ Toshiba Satellite U940 (U945 in the USA.) I’ve left the out-take in the overview video below. What we’ve ended up with is more than just a surprise, it’s a surprise pleasure because after only half a day of testing it’s clear that this is a well balanced Ultrabook with a few almost unique and very usable features.

After weeks of trying to get hold of a CloverTrail tablet through product managers, PR companies and marketing teams I’ve given up and bitten the bullet and bought one. The Acer W510, with 64GB and dock, will be with me soon and I’m excited to get right into the testing to find out what the platform is capable of.

The upgrade from non-touch to Windows 8 touch is one you’ll see on a lot of models over the next year. It’s a relatively easy upgrade for manufacturers to make that expands their ranges out into the new touch-enabled market. The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon is the latest to get the treatment. Order the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon Touch today and you could be swiping and pinching your way through the holidays later this month.

We finally got our hands on the NEC Lavie Z which is the world’s lightest 13″ Ultrabook. In fact, at 875 grams, it’s even lighter than most 11.6″ Ultrabooks! Thanks to our pals at Dynamism, who handle importing products like the Lavie Z that aren’t otherwise available in the US, we have an unboxing and forthcoming review of the Lavie Z for you.

Intel could, according to Xbitlabs, release a new set of low-TDP Ivy Bridge CPUs next year that will help tablet and Ultrabook designers make products thinner, cooler and quieter. TDPs will be brought down from 17W to 10W by limiting clockrate and Turbo features. The process is going to make it very difficult for a customer (and for us analysts) to determine performance based on a i3/i5/i7 part number but are also likely to be there to let Intel feed-in lower price CPUs for tablets and low-cost Ultrabooks. There’s a […]

Since 2006 I’ve owned three swivel-screen laptops and one of them, the Gigabyte Touchnote, became completely ingrained in my mobile computing life. The Lenovo Twist is a similar size and weight but it offers quite a bit more. We’re talking about a useful and desktop-capable Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hybrid HDD and 5-point capacitive touch. This little Ultrabook Convertible is running Windows 8 and also includes a great set of ports. To top it off there’s an IPS display. Out of the box it’s an extremely […]