Asustek Computer has unveiled its Zenbook series ultrabooks saying it is confident it has the closest performance/price ratio compared to Apple's MacBook Air.

Asustek's Zenbook series is separated into two segments – 11.6-inch UX21 and 13.3-inch UX31 – and the company has launched five models under these two segments.

One of Asustek's Zenbook ultrabooks adopts an 11.6-inch display with Core i5 2467M processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB SSD for a price of US$999, realizing Intel's goal of having ultrabooks priced below US$1,000. Asustek's other four machines are all priced between US$999-1,499.

Sources from notebook players pointed out that Asustek's advantages over component purchasing and design, allowed the US$999 ultrabook to appear in the IT market, but since such a price point is almost contributing no profit to Asustek, they believe Asustek is aiming to use the model to boost its brand power.

Since US$999 ultrabooks are not providing notebook vendors any advantages, Intel has already started evaluating plans to drop its CPU prices to speed its partners transition to the new notebook generation.

Currently, the CPU accounts for one third of an ultrabook's cost and if Intel decides to reduce its Ivy Bridge processor prices, standardization of ultrabooks is expected to accelerate. With launch of Windows 8 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 22nm Haswell processors in 2013, a new wave of notebook replacement trend is expected to be gradually take off.