What is an Ultrabook?

To a person who is not really into technology and electronic gadgets, a laptop is a laptop. There is no further distinction among the different types of laptops. But you will be surprised to know that there are various layers that separate laptops based on their design or intended use-case.

One such category of laptops is the Ultrabook, a term often confused with all ‘thin-and-light’ laptops. Here’s all you need to know about the term and how to differentiate between Ultrabook laptops and regular thin-and-light laptops.

What is an Ultrabook?

The term Ultrabook is used for a segment of high-end laptops, and was introduced in 2011 by Intel. The marketing term originated to refer to laptops with a certain set of high-end features. These standards must be met for any laptop to be called an Ultrabook, and the criteria itself is regularly updated by Intel.

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Any laptop that runs on an Intel chipset and meets these regularly updated minimum requirements is classified as an Ultrabook. If a laptop doesn’t meet these specifications, it can still be a thin-and-light laptop, but can’t be termed an Ultrabook. As a result, all Ultrabooks are thin-and-light laptops, but all thin-and-light laptops aren’t Ultrabooks.

Ultrabooks are mainly targeted at business users and working professionals, and the purpose of the term was simple – to make buying easier for business professionals. With the term Ultrabook catching on, buyers no longer needed to dive into the specifications of a new work laptop. Instead, they could just look for an official Ultrabook-class device and rest assured that the laptop cleared a minimum bar of required specs.

Intel’s Ultrabooks were introduced primarily to compete with Apple’s MacBooks. Some of the key features that define an Ultrabook include a lightweight form, high-performance, a long battery life, and touchscreen displays. Ultrabooks are known to be very thin and light, and weigh less than 1.4kgs making them highly portable and easy to carry around.  

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Another distinct feature of Ultrabooks, is the presence of a powerful processor and ample memory and internal storage. This is to allow for resource-intensive programs to run efficiently and also to make the machine future-proof.  

Ultrabooks today also need to feature Intel Wireless Display certification and a touchscreen, along with other features like Thunderbolt connectivity and built-in tools for protection against issues like theft and malware.