The first round of Ultrabooks were mostly underwhelming. It shouldn't be a surprise, but many of the efforts were just half hearted at best. Of the companies who shipped the first Ultrabooks however, it was ASUS who came the closest to perfection with the Zenbook.

ASUS' Zenbook embodied the form factor, portability and overall concept of an Ultrabook. Where it failed to deliver was with its keyboard, display and, at least initially, with its trackpad. The first Zenbook was an amazing effort given the short period of time that it was conceived and developed in, but it was too rough around the edges.

Despite only being introduced 7 months ago, the Zenbook is old news. This is the Zenbook Prime:

The Zenbook Prime is ASUS' second generation Ultrabook, built around Ivy Bridge silicon. Unlike most silicon updates to notebooks however, the Zenbook Prime takes an almost Apple-like approach to renovating the tangibles rather than just relying on a faster chip to do the heavy lifting.

I don't know that I've ever seen a faster turn around on implementing reviewer and user feedback into a product. The Zenbook Prime fixes nearly every issue I had with the original Zenbook. From keyboard to display, it's all significantly better with the Zenbook Prime.

Read on for our full review!

The initial bum rush of ultrabooks resulted in, with limited exception, a lot of designs that took most of their cues from Apple's MacBook Air. Even Dell's XPS 13, otherwise very different from what came before it, still maintained that wedge shape. Yet HP went a bit of a different route with their Folio 13 and demonstrated the same kind of outside the box thinking that many of the larger vendors are demonstrating these days.

HP's engineers took a look at Intel's ultrabook spec and, rather than see how small they could get their design, opted to see just how much they could pack into the spec. The result is the Folio 13, an ultrabook designed to bridge their consumer and business lines and offer the best an ultrabook can offer. Read on to see where it succeeds and where it could still use some help.

Some of our editors recently had the opportunity to take part in NVIDIA's Editor's Day in California's "sunny" San Francisco to be briefed on new products. While we can't go into any great detail on NVIDIA's new Kepler architecture (as that information is still under embargo), what we can provide you with is a review of Acer's new Aspire TimelineU M3 notebook, complete with a shiny new GeForce GT 640M based on the Kepler architecture.

Of course, that's not all that's interesting about the TimelineU M3. Taking advantage of Intel's expanded ultrabook definition, Acer has produced a 15.6" notebook with a dedicated GPU that's only 20mm thick. At the risk of spoiling the conclusion of the review, we'll say this is one of the most compelling notebooks we've seen yet, even if we're hesitant to call it a true ultrabook.

Late last year, before CES, we had the opportunity to check out Dell's then-upcoming entrant to Intel's nascent ultrabook market, the XPS 13. Dell has been refocusing their XPS line with an eye on sophisticated notebooks that straddle the line between the consumer and business classes, while at the same time emphasizing slimmer, more powerful machines. Thus, the XPS 13 seems like a natural fit both for their XPS line and for the ultrabook category.

While manufacturers like ASUS, Toshiba, and Acer have been apt to more closely ape the Apple MacBook Air aesthetic that Intel is arguably appropriating for ultrabooks, Dell's XPS 13 is a different creature, and when we saw it in 2011 it felt like the ultrabook to wait for. Now it's here; was it worth the wait?

Intel first launched the ultrabook concept back in May of this year, and the initial reaction ranged from cynicism to excitement. On the one end of the spectrum were those who just saw the ultrabook as a way for Intel to try and sell more high-margin ULV parts, along with others calling the whole thing a MacBook Air knockoff. Those who showed more enthusiasm for the platform had a different take on things: who cares if it’s just a rebranding or a knockoff? If it’s a way to get less expensive laptops with a great aesthetic and SSDs for everyone, sign me up! Naturally, there are plenty of others who fall more in the middle. For this group, it doesn’t matter what marketing might say; “show us what you’ve got” is their motto, and if you build a good product at an appropriate price, they’ll be happy to recommend and/or buy it.

Today, we have two more ultraportables to put under the microscope. The first is the big brother to the UX21E that we already reviewed, the ASUS UX31E. The second comes from Acer and targets a lower price point by trimming a few extras. We’ll also have some discussion of the broader ultrabook market and who might benefit from a look at the various offerings. If you’re thinking an ultrabook (or an ultraportable) might be the right choice for your next laptop, or if you just want to see what they have to offer, read on, as we'll also provide a detailed "ultrabook state of the industry" along with the other benchmarks.

We say it every year, but the trends continue so we’ll keep repeating it: laptops and mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular, often at the cost of desktop sales. This year we saw a lot of people looking at smartphones and tablets along with laptops, and sales of those devices have skyrocketed. Still, if you need to do some serious work—writing a large document or email, working on a spreadsheet or presentation, etc.—you still need a real computer while you travel. Whether you want something for work, school, or play, we’ve got recommendations in our annual…

So pull up a chair, wrap up in a nice blanket, and get yourself a steaming cup of hot chocolate while we cover the laptop market from top to bottom. Netbooks, Chromebooks, ultrabooks, laptops and notebooks—we’ve got it all right here. Even better, you can do some of your Christmas shopping without even leaving the comforts of your own home. What better way to enjoy the season than by staying indoors?

Intel's ultrabook initiative is a curious one, one that's very gradually picking up interest among vendors. We've already had a chance to take a look at the smaller of the two units from the typically early-out-of-the-gate ASUS, and we know there are other ultrabooks out there from Lenovo and Acer, with only Dell opting to sit out of this round, unconvinced of the viability of Intel's plan. Today, in true Toshiba fashion, we get a chance to look at a more budget-oriented (or at least as budget-oriented as an ultrabook can be) unit: Toshiba's entry-level Portege Z835-P330.