What's the point of all this?
Yeah - Intel developing great technology and fantastic processors. What's the point of it all - when the marketing departments at both Intel and OEM's manage to screw it all up for us. Five years ago I bought an 11.1" laptop with:
1. 5.5 hours battery life
2. Optical (DVDRW) drive integrated
3. Excellent and loud speakers (for a laptop).
4. Solid chasis
5. 1.4 Kg weight
6. 2 full size usb ports, full size SD card slot, full size VGA slot
7. Removable battery
8. Usable (1300x700) resolution
9. Just about fast enough processor (Intel U2500 at 1.2GHz)
10. Full size ethernet integrated
11. Sane price (£499 reduced at the time)
The above is what I call a highly functional, portable and usable configuration at a decent price point. Five years later, I have been searching incessantly for even a slight upgrade to this laptop - without having to drop key aspects of its functionality. Not a chance:
1. I still use optical drives quite a bit. A BDRE drive would be even better. Not a chance below 12" size (even there they are very rare).
2. Most small laptops/ultrabooks skimp on connectivity like hell. MicroSD instead of full SD (if you are lucky to get anything), no integrated ethernet, mini VGA and/or HDMI (if any).
3. I could have just about managed with a netbook - but they had to screw the resolution on them - keep it at 1024x640 - so nobody can do proper work on them!
4. Atom Z2760 might be really good on power consumption (and pretty much the same as my old processor above) - but it is 32bits only (not a huge deal breaker) and doesn't have virtualization extensions. And has not Linux support. Thanks a lot Intel!
5. Removable batteries - well, they went out the window a while ago. But even worse - they bundle skimpy 2-3 hours batteries with small machines nowadays. Screw the darned thin edges - give me a square blunt edge and bundle a decent 10 hours battery in there - for pete's sake!
6. Intel has some pretty good processors - the "Y" from Ivy Bridge - with excellent power consumption and features. But they are so expensive, that you can only find them in £1000 plus machines. The rest - they are still putting out Sandybridge Celeron's in ultra portables to keep prices down. That's ridiculous.
So yes - keep on inventing cool and fantastic technology - and then make machines good for playing with only. Seven years ago we could buy full featured ultraportable sub-netbooks at 11.1" screens with every imaginable feature and port, excellent processors, optical drives and solid construction - nowadays - back to stoneage. 'Cause none of us need to do work any more - we are all kids and watch cats on Youtube all day long. Great.