Building a lightweight notebook is all about balance and sacrifice. You can't have it all. The reason that the MacBook Air is so popular is that Apple managed t

Building a lightweight notebook is all about balance and sacrifice. You can't have it all. The reason that the MacBook Air is so popular is that Apple managed to hit the sweet spot, balancing weight, battery life, performance, and design. The MacBook Air is defined as much by what it leaves in as what has been left out. Part of the reason the Ultrabook is such a disaster is that getting the right balance is extremely difficult, and there's no indication that they're going to get it right in the future. The OEMs are told, "You must include these features," and when you're trying to maximize the feature checklist, you're almost always going to fail in this product category.