One of the most exciting displays at the Intel booth is the showcase of ultra thin notebooks. These systems are innovative and sleek. They definitely have good performance and battery life, but tradeoff in some functionality. However, if you are on the go roadwarrior, these systems are for you. If you see it you will want it to buy it. Thin is definitely in for notebooks. I think the trend is similar to cellphones. Thin systems are definitely more expensive as these are premium systems. They require differnet materials (e.g magnesium, carbon fiber), use HDI (high density interconnect) technology for the motherboard, require innovative engineering for placing the components and finally use ultra thin components that are difficult to manufacture and hence expensive. I believe this category of systems has tremendous end user appeal that it will grow significantly and as the volume increases these systems will drop in price. All major companies have systems in this category. The interesting thing is that almost all systems are 13.3″. Looks like that this is sweet spot for the ultra thin notebooks for the compactness and the technical reason for trading off length and width for height. Here are some examples of systems shown at the Intel booth from Toshibha, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Sony, Dell and Dialogue. Looks the race for the thinnest system is on in the industry.
Toshibha
Lenovo
Fujitsu
Sony
Dell
Dialogue
Nice.