Lousy ultraportable selections -- why? Low demand? Competition too fierce?

I just went to Dell Business and browsed through their laptops under 5lbs, and was extremely underwhelmed by the choices. Aside from the sub-2lb slate tablets, the 2.9-lb Latitude 2120 netbook (who's still buying netbooks anyway?) and the 2.99-lb XPS 13 (which isn't really a business-class laptop), the lightest laptop currently available is the 3.05-lb Latitude E6230, followed by the 3.35-lb XPS 12 convertible tablet (which is, again, not business-class). Dell used to have much lighter Latitudes namely the 2.20-lb E4200 (which I have and love) and the 2.5-lb X1, and also several models that were just under 3 lbs, e.g. the X200, X300, D420 and D430. Why have Dell Business's "ultraportables" gotten heavier and heavier? Is the demand for small and light laptops too low? Or is Dell trying to avoid competing with Sony's Z Series, Lenovo's X1 Carbon, Apple's MBA, and Asus' and Samsung's ultrabooks?

 

Did you see the 6430u??

Latitude 6430u Ultrabook

 

Yeah I knew about the E6430u. At 3.7 lbs, it's too heavy. I was talking/asking about sub-3lb ultraportables.

 

This is just a guess on my part, but Dell is aiming to keep a certain amount of ports/features on their business units and those unfortunately take some amount of space like expresscard. I can't really say for the consumer market, but usually for businesses what's important is those ports that aren't really in use anymore on consumer notebooks and some level of durability (which can be achieved on ultraportables, but it's harder). HP and Lenovo don't really have a lot of thin and light business units either, I can think of one elitebook for HP and two fro Lenovo, the X1 carbon and the X230.

 

Funny that I prefer E6230 to E7240 despite the lighter 7000 series. Just feel that haswell is not quite there yet. Perhaps its because of the LV processor general lag. I have both so I know.

 

I agree, I've used an E6230 extensively and also an E7240 and you really do feel the drop in CPU power. Much slimmer and lighter too, but the option of the extended battery and the slice could get genuine 15 hour+ life from the E6230 when you needed it. I think of all the recent machines I've seen from Dell the E6230 has been my favourite, with only the poor screen resolution and quality letting it down.

 

I use the E6230 docked at home so there is not that much issue with the screen when i am using at the home base. There is also an E7440 in my posession now, i5 with msata 256GB. I am beginning to think that I will pass that on despite me liking the FHD IPS touchscreen. Guess I will be stucked with 6230 for quite a while yet. I suppose a laptop can only be so thin afore it gets too wobbly to be comfy to tap on. I must admit tho, working on an older E6320 is a lot nicer than tapping on 6230. But I am beginning to feel the weight after 2 years of lugging it around.