The Toshiba Portege Z835 made its debut to the ultrabook sphere in 2011. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

At last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, you couldn’t throw your schwag bag across the show floor without hitting a 3-D television or Android tablet. This year’s hottest gadget? It looks like it will be the ultrabook.

Super thin and remarkably light, ultrabooks are expected from all the major PC manufacturers. Tablets aren’t going away by any means, but you can expect CES 2012 to be dominated by this emerging notebook category that’s being heavily pushed by Intel.

Intel, in fact,...