At GDC 2013, Intel announced that their next-gen Haswell graphics will support a new bit of tech called PixelSync as well as DirectX 11.1. PixelSync on Hawell graphics enables two rendering techniques called ASVM and AOIT which can cost a standard GPU up to 80% of it’s performance but runs smoothly with Haswell’s integrated graphics. The developers behind Grid 2 are using Haswell’s new tech to bring graphically rich games to the masses.

At GDC 2013, Intel told us that their latest major driver update for HD 4000 graphics is due out next week. As you may know, all 2nd-gen Ultrabooks feature 3rd-gen (Ivy Bridge) Intel Core processors which use HD 4000 graphics (if you’re confused, read this). Intel says that this is their 7th major graphics driver release since 2nd-gen (Sandy Bridge) Intel Core processors. While each release seeks to fix graphical bugs and improve performance, Intel seemed especially proud about the latest driver update which they say will increase performance by […]

The very popular, well-specified Samsung  Series 7 Ultra (730U3E) has just hit the number 1 slot in our Ultrabook charts. It’s the most-viewed Ultrabook in our database. It’s also just started shipping in Europe starting from 999 Euro.

Is the wait almost over? The question about when the Lenovo Helix would be made available looks to be getting clearer and may be answered in a few short weeks, at least for US buyers according to the official Lenovo twitter account.    

At GDC 2013 yesterday, Intel held a day-long developer session focused on what they call ‘perceptual computing’ — interacting with computers in more natural ways, thanks to advanced sensors. They brought with them a heap of Ultrabooks, each with a different design, to allow a room full of developers the opportunity to get hands-on experience with many facets of perceptual computing and the Ultrabook hardware itself. Additionally, Intel sent attendees of the session home with their custom Kinect-like depth camera.

We covered the Ultimate Coder Ultrabook Challenge last year but that wasn’t the only competition being run by Intel to promote software development on an Ultrabook. The Ultrabook Experience Software Challenge was running too and the winning entry was 4tiitoo’s NUIA Imagine. It includes gesture control, touch control, voice control and true eye-tracking using the Tobii eye-tracking hardware.

How many times have you been asked if you can recommend a product without really having much to go on? It’s true to say that there are many customers out there that are not really sure what they want and so in that case you have to interpret requirements, add a bit of crystal-ball gazing and come up with an answer. Here’s an example I received recently and three choices for an Ultrabook to run Office apps and store media.

I’ll be the first to admit that I cringe a little inside when I see brand new laptops released in 2013 with 1366×768 displays. It seems like a real shame — many of these devices are beautiful machines but have a resolution that would have felt at home at least 5 years ago. For those looking for a crisp high resolution display there’s good news! The Ultrabook segment is home to at least 16 Ultrabooks with full HD 1920 x 1080p displays — in all shapes and sizes!