At the moment, Apple has cornered the market for ultra-thin and portable laptops everyone desires. There are Windows laptops that offer similar levels of portability, but since the Dell Adamo line disappeared there’s not been much in the way of competition for the sleek lines of a MacBook, aside from the thicker ThinkPad X1.


Intel aimed to change this by introducing a new category of portable computing known as Ultrabooks earlier this year. To be classed as an Ultrabook manufacturers had to produce a thin, light and elegant design that’s no more than 20mm thick, has a second-gen Sandy Bridge processor, and cost less than $1000.
Acer looks to be one of the first to produce a laptop worthy of the Ultrabook name. It’s called the Aspire 3951 and pictures of the new laptop have appeared via the Vietnamese blog Sohoa.


The design does look very “Apple”, which is no bad thing as it will likely cater to that category of Windows user who wants a laptop that looks as good as a MacBook, but ships with a Microsoft OS.
The finer details of the 3951 have yet to be officially revealed. What we do know is it is only 13mm thick, sports a 13.3-inch display, and has the prerequisite second-generation Sandy Bridge processor at its heart. There’s also thought to be several hard drive choices including a 160GB SSD option.


This super-slim Ultrabook is housed in an aluminium case and weighs a mere 1.4Kg. Prices start at $770 going up to $960 making it significantly cheaper than both the 13-inch and 11-inch MacBook Airs.
Although there’s no guarantee this laptop will ever see a release, we hope it does as this is what manufacturers need to do to really start competing with Apple in the premium laptop category: produce good looking, highly portable laptops at a reasonable price point.

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