The $900 Acer Aspire S3 ponies itself up as a cheaper MacBook Air alternative. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

The computing industry calls them ultrabooks: super-thin, super-light, high-performance notebooks. Apple’s wafer-thin MacBook Air partly inspired this new category, and a lot of these devices are doppelgangers for that highly successful notebook.

In 2011, Windows-based ultrabooks haven’t been flying off shelves. In fact, Acer and Asus have reportedly cut back their manufacturing orders by 40 percent. Nonetheless, Intel is pushing ultrabooks as a key notebook strategy in 2012. The Consumer...