IDF 2011 Preview: It’s All About the Ultrabooks

Ultrabooks–a new class of super-thin, long-lasting notebooks–are set to arrive at any moment and we couldn’t be more excited. This new category is guaranteed to steal the show next week at the Intel Developer’s Conference. We’ll have boots on the ground at the show and we’re excited to give you up to the minute reports on what the chip giant will show off in San Francisco from Monday through Thursday (9/12 through 9/15).

Based on the success of such sexy slim notebooks as the MacBook Air, this summer Intel first began pushing PC makers to create their own super-thin designs, complete with fast boot times and all-day battery lives.  Intel even announced that it was creating a $300 million fund to invest in developing ultrabook technology. And four major OEMs have already unveiled their models. Stay tuned here next week to find out what other manufacturers get in on the fun.

So what else do we expect to learn next week? The first generation of ultrabooks will be powered by low voltage versions of the chipmaker’s Sandy Bridge processor line, but by next year, they’ll be running on Intel’s new 22-nanometers Ivy Bridge platform. At IDF, we’ll be getting a run-down on Ivy Bridge and its groundbreaking trigate transistor technology. We may even see some demos of Ivy Bridge in systems in action.

Solid State Drives will help ultrabooks achieve their super-fast boot times, overall responsiveness, and power savings. Intel is already a leader in the SSD space, having added SATA 6Gb/s support and tiny mSATA drives to its SSD lineup already this year. At IDF, we may learn more about Intel’s SSD strategy.

While past IDFs have focused a lot of attention on geek-friendly performance features such as hyperthreading and turbo boost, this year’s show should be heavy on style. Can Intel bring sexy back to laptops? Stay tuned.