CES 2012: First look: Upcoming ultrabooks from Lenovo, Sony (pics)

Ultrabooks are still a relatively new concept for consumers, but manufacturers have been working on their designs for months. Lenovo and Sony have been showing off their latest ultrabook concepts at CES this year, and the companies have come up with different ways of achieving the same goal - a thin, light laptop that easily converts into a tablet.

Sony Vaio concept ultrabook

Stowed away in a glass case on the show floor of CES is a working prototype of an upcoming addition to Sony’s Vaio family. It’s currently unnamed, and Sony couldn’t give us any information on the specifications, but the design is an interesting one.




Both of the devices in that cabinet are actually the same ultrabook - the laptop has an extra hinge and an extra piece of material to prop up the screen at varying angles, so it can act as a stand or fold into a tablet.





While PC World did not get the opportunity to hold the laptop and gauge the weight - the display was strictly hands-off - the emphasis appears to be on slim, portable design. This concept carried through to the power cable, which was about half the size of a regular laptop power cord.



The Sony Vaio ultrabook is not a concept device in the same sense as a concept car - Sony is not looking to gauge audience reactions, just showing off what Sony’s research and development team is working on. The company is planning to bring this device to market at some point in the future.

This particular ultrabook has a gap in the bottom that a stylus slots into. We suspect this is just so those people who do not want to dirty their laptop screens with fingerprints can avoid doing so. The styluses also appear to come in a variety of colours and styles - no word on whether that means the ultrabook will come in a variety of looks too.






Lenovo concept ultrabook, codenamed ‘Yoga’

Lenovo could not have come up with a more fitting codename for its upcoming Windows 8 ultrabook, the Lenovo Yoga (expect that name to change). While it might look a bit boring in this shot...



...this device has a hinge that can rotate the screen almost a full 360 degrees. This means the device can fold in a variety of different ways - like the Sony Vaio concept, it can turn into a stand.



On top of that, it can also go into what Lenovo called 'tent mode'.



And finally, like the Sony Vaio concept, the device folds neatly into a tablet. You might notice in these pictures that the screen is not rotating when the screen is flipped 90 degrees. Lenovo said that the pre-production model on display had no gyroscope and that the final model the company produces will flip Windows 8's metro interface automatically when you turn the screen over.

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