Ultrabook Laptops’ Ultrathin Display Screens = Temporary Repair Price Fluctuations


Intel-branded ultrabooks and other thin-and-light laptops known as ultrathins are becoming the new normal, and are a form-factor that will essentially dominate most laptop markets world-wide by the end of 2013.

The technologies required for manufacturing ultrathin laptops are bringing new challenges to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) designers, and engineers. New manufacturing processes used for making display screens have reduced the total number of accessible parts in a screen, but have somewhat increased the price of displays and the cost of repairing them. The reasons for that are actually fairly straight-forward.

The older display screen manufacturing technology uses numerous discrete, or separate parts to make the display into what looks like a single unit. That allowed for most of the parts to be individually accessible and repairable. Typically, having large numbers of parts can increase the cost of manufacturing; but that older technology is mature and volume production over many years brought prices down.

Now, with the new technology of ultrathin laptops the display screens are much thinner and lighter. The only way that could be achieved was by laminating and bonding certain parts together into a single unit, with the downside being that fewer parts are separately accessible for repair or replacement. As a result, some repairs that previously involved replacing only one small laptop part now require replacement of the entire display screen.

In the short-term those new technologies, as always seen historically, will mean an upward fluctuation in the price of parts and repairs; and as always, that situation will be self-correcting. Even now, the cost-differential is not extreme.

As large numbers of thin-and-light ultrabooks go into production watch out for falling laptop prices, and also for repair costs to slowly trend to a normal baseline as ultrabook manufacturing technologies ramp-up with substantial volume increases by the end of 2013, while bringing economy-of-scale cost-efficiencies.

Definitions of Ultrabooks & Ultrathins


It helps to remember that the term ‘Ultrabook’ is actually a trade-marked brand category created by the PC chip-maker Intel. That term, however, is now being used somewhat more generically. As a result, Intel gets to make the rules governing that definition, and has done so in reasonably clear terms. The number-one rule, of course, is that the laptop must have Intel chips inside in order to be branded as an "Ultrabook".

"Ultrathins” are to “ultrabooks” as vehicles are to Toyota cars. All thin-and-lights are ultrathins, a category name which is now common, but which has not been trade-marked. Ultrathin is a term being used by other chip-makers, including AMD, and the attributes and functionality of ultrathins are essentially the same as the trade-marked, branded ultrabooks. The only notable difference between ultrathins and ultrabooks is that ultrathins do not use Intel CPUs (Central Processor Units).

Here is a list of attributes you should expect to find in just about all "Ultrathins" and the subset category of "Ultrabooks".

  • Form-factor -  Eight-tenths of an inch or thinner; near or entering netbook dimensions

  • Weight – Less than 3.1 pounds

  • Performance & power equal to full-sized notebooks

  • Very fast boot-up

  • Instant-on resume from sleep

  • Always-on connectivity

  • Battery-life, minimum of 5 hours, with some models exceeding 8 hours

  • Solid-state drives (SSDs) or hybrid HDDs combining magnetic & solid-state

  • No optical drive (Typically, but not always)

  • Enhanced security features; both hardware and software


The attributes of ultrabooks and ultrathins are what netbooks were always intended to be, but the technology was not quite ready at that time. Ultrathins are actually the convergence of a netbook or tablet’s size, light weight, portability, and battery-life; with a laptop’s larger display, superior processor (CPU or APU), more RAM, a better keyboard, and a more robust array of connectivity options and ports.

Topics: Technology News Display Screen Technology Laptop Trends Laptops & Ultrathin Ultrabooks

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