Over at the Atlantic, Robert Wright is being sacrilegious. He says he’s unhappy with the trend–seen in phones, laptops, and other products–to make gadgets as thin as possible:

Remember when Jobs first unveiled the Macbook Air? I do, because I had long been a fan of the small, lightweight computers that had until then been available only on the Windows platform. Jobs brought the machine onstage in a manila envelope, because the thing he wanted to wow the audience with was its thinness.

I thought: Who cares how thin it is? Thickness isn’t the dimension that really matters when you have to fit a computer into a tiny backpack or use it in a coach seat on an airplane. And, anyway, more important than any spatial dimension is weight. Sure, to the extent that thinner means lighter, thinness is good, but if you make thinness an end in itself, you start compromising functionality.

Bob has several specific beefs with whisper-thin gizmos. He points out that all things being equal, a thin case leaves less room for the battery, thereby leading to shorter battery life. He says that overly svelte devices are harder to hold and easier to drop. With laptops, he says, engineering for thinness leads to compromises in keyboard quality.

If you’re down on thin, you could point out other problems which Bob doesn’t mention–for instance, thin laptops and tablets often don’t have room for useful ports. (I might own an 11″ MacBook Air if it had an SD slot, but Apple jettisoned it.)

I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about Bob’s argument, and it’s been surprisingly tough. In some instances, I know I like thin: I’m certainly happier carrying a MacBook Air than a MacBook Pro, and it’s not just because of the weight difference. Skinnier notebooks are easier to hold; that matters to me, because I’m out and about a lot, and have been known to attend cocktail parties with my laptop tucked under an arm that’s also holding a glass of wine.

But am I subconsciously buying into the thinness fetish which Bob derides? If you carry a MacBook Air or a thin Windows machine, you might impress other people who equate thin with good. But nobody ever increased his or her social standing by lugging a particularly chunky notebook. Maybe that unspoken truth influences my purchasing decisions without me even understanding it.

With phones, I don’t feel quite the same impulse to defend thinness. My favorite phone of the pre-iPhone era was my Treo 650, was 23mm thick. The iPhone 4S is 9.3mm thick. And yet, if I made a list of the 20 top ways in which the iPhone 4S improves on the Treo, its dimensions probably wouldn’t make the cut.

At least Apple, through clever engineering and a willingness to postpone 4G, manages to give the iPhone decent battery life by current standards. (Even then, lots of people buy Mophie cases for their iPhones–effectively opting for a portlier, longer-running iPhone.) Numerous makers of 4G Android phones have released skinny phones with dismal battery life; in these cases, it’s painfully obvious that consumers would have been better served if the phones had sported thicker cases that had room for bigger batteries.

The thing is, phone makers are stuck in their usual war of numerical specsmanship. After awhile, it doesn’t matter whether thinner is better or not. Bob heralds the arrival of Motorola’s Droid Razr Maxx, a thicker, bigger-battery version of the Droid Razr. I’m glad Motorola is giving it a try, but I also worry that if the Maxx isn’t a hit, it’ll make phone manufacturers even more thick-averse.

And then there are HDTVs, a product category that Bob doesn’t mention. They too are obsessed with thinness as a marketing talking point. That really confuses me: Why should anyone care much about the one dimension you can’t see when you’re watching TV?

(Yes, I speak as someone who owns an aging Vizio LCD set that is, compared to current models, laughably thick. Sorry if I sound defensive.)

The bottom line here is actually pretty straightforward. Every gadget represents a series of design tradeoffs. Every gadget buyer has a different comfort zone when it comes to the balance of thinness-vs.-other-stuff. If Bob doesn’t want a super-thin notebook–and is willing to use Windows–it’s okay, because he still has plenty of choices. But if he doesn’t want a super-thin phone, his options are surprisingly limited. That’s a shame.

Do you think today’s tech products are inappropriately fixated on thinness, not thin enough–or just right?

How things have changed. Apple’s revamped MacBook Air became a runaway hit while the rest of the PC market stagnated, and suddenly every computer maker wants to make thinner, lighter and prettier products. Intel calls these creations “Ultrabooks,” and provided PC makers with strict criteria for weight, thickness, battery life, processor power and pricing to qualify for the marketing jargon. This new wave of notebooks run the latest Intel Core processors, cost around $1,000, and go toe-to-toe with the MacBook Air in physical measurements.

Over the next few months, a bevy of these machines will strut their stuff for laptop shoppers. Here’s what we know about every Ultrabook or similar product that’s on the market or on the way.

Acer Aspire S3

Availability: Now

Price: $900

Specs: 13.3-inch display (1366-by-768 resolution), Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive and 20GB solid state, up to 6 hours advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.51 inches to 0.68 inches thick, 2.98 pounds

Defining Features: Resumes from sleep in two seconds if napping for less than 30 minutes; lasts 50 days on standby power.

Reception: Critics weren’t thrilled. Laptop Magazine gave it 2.5 stars, and The Verge called it “an unfortunate first entry,” knocking its battery life, chintzy build materials, and flimsy keyboard.

Asus Zenbook UX21 and UX31

Availability: Now

Starting Price: $999 (11-inch), $1,099 (13-inch)

Base Specs: 11.6-inch (1366-by-768 resolution) or 13.3-inch (1600-by-900 resolution) display, Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, up to five hours advertised battery life for the smaller model, or seven hours for the larger.

Dimensions: 0.67 inches thick tapering to 0.11 inches, 2.43 pounds (11-inch model); 0.71 inches tapering to 0.11 inches, 2.86 pounds (13-inch model)

Defining Feature: Thanks to its tapered design and aluminum finish, the Zenbook looks almost exactly like a MacBook Air.

Reception: The Zenbook fared well in reviews, with Engadget calling it “the Ultrabook [competitors] need to beat.” But it apparently shipped with a wonky trackpad that may or may not be whipped into shape by software updates. Some models are also hard to find in stock right now.

Toshiba Portege Z835

Availability: Now

Starting Price: $900

Base Specs: 13.3-inch (1366-by-768 resolution) display, Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, up to 8 hours advertised battery life.

Dimensions: 0.33 inches to 0.63 inches thick, 2.47 pounds

Defining Feature: At Best Buy’s $800 asking price, it’s the cheapest Ultrabook yet.

Reception: I reviewed one for Techland, and liked it–especially the solid keyboard and smooth trackpad–although the vertical viewing angles are terrible. Probably the best lower-cost Ultrabook you’ll find for now.

Lenovo U300s

Available: November

Starting Price: $1050

Base Specs: 13.3-inch display with 1366-by-768 resolution, Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, 8 hours of advertised battery life.

Dimensions: 0.59 inches thick, 2.9 pounds

Defining Features: Has “Clementine Orange” color option, RapidCharge restores half the battery in 30 minutes

Reception: Engadget praised the keyboard and trackpad, and The Verge said the U300s “proves you don’t have to copy Apple to make a beautiful laptop,” but the lack of an SD card slot could be a dealbreaker for photographers.

Also: A slightly thicker, heavier version of the U300s, dubbed the U300, will be available in November starting at $799

Lenovo U400

Available: Now

Starting Price: $849

Base Specs: 14-inch display with 1366-by-768 resolution, Intel Core i3 processor, 1 GB AMD Radeon HD graphics, 4GB of RAM, 50 GB hard drive, seven hours of advertised battery life, DVD drive

Dimensions: 4.36 pounds, 0.89 inches thick

Defining Feature: DVD drive, dedicated graphics

Reception: Although the U400 isn’t technically an Ultrabook–it’s much too thick and heavy to qualify–I’m including it here because it’s cut from the same cloth as the U300s, and manages to be pretty trim despite its optical drive and graphics card. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any reviews yet.

HP Folio 13

Available: December 7

Starting Price: $900

Base Specs: 13.3-inch display, Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, 9.5 hours of advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.71 inches thick, 3.3 pounds

Defining Feature: It doesn’t look like a MacBook Air

Reception: Harry seemed to appreciate HP’s practical approach as an alternative to ripping Apple off. Battery life would be killer if it held up in real-world tests.

Samsung Series 9

Available: Launched in March, still in stock in some places

Starting Price: Was $1,149 (11-inch) and $1,649 (13-inch), but now cheaper.

Base Specs: Core i3, 2GB of RAM and 64GB solid state drive for the 11-inch model; Core i5, 4GB of RAM and 128GB solid state for the 13-inch model; 7 hours of advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.62 inches thick, 2.3 pounds for the smaller and 2.88 pounds for the larger.

Defining Features: Wakes from sleep mode in three seconds, and the duralumin enclosure is stronger and lighter than aluminum

Reception: It launched earlier this year, so it’s really a prototype Ultrabook (Protobook?) instead of the real thing. Walt Mossberg approved of the Series 9’s high-quality materials and performance, but its battery couldn’t keep up the MacBook Air, and its starting price is expensive compared to Apple’s machines. Prices haven’t come down enough to rival today’s Ultrabooks, either.

Sony Vaio Z

Available: Now

Starting Price: $1,750 and up

Base Specs: 13.1-inch display with 1600-by-900 resolution, Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB solid state drive, 7.5 hours of advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.66 inches thick, 2.5 pounds

Defining Features: Not technically an Ultrabook, it’s the lightest machine on this list, and includes a docking station with a discrete graphics card and DVD drive (Blu-ray optional).

Reception: Wired raved about the Vaio Z’s display and performance, but panned its loud fan, disastrous touch pad and price “equivalent to feeding thousands of starving children for a month.”

Dell Thin-and-Light

Available: 2012

Price: Unknown

Specs: Intel’s next-gen Ivy Bridge processors, perhaps

What we know: This rumor comes from CNet’s Brooke Crothers, who says Dell may announce a MacBook Air rival at CES 2012. Dell tried this one before with the Adamo line and failed, but as Crothers notes, so did Apple. The difference is that Apple kept working at the design, performance and battery life, while Dell put the idea on ice.

Samsung Ultrabooks

Available: Late 2011, supposedly

Price, Specs and Defining Features: Unknown

What we know: The rumormongers at DigiTimes reported in September that Samsung is preparing two Ultrabooks, one of which will be outsourced to Quanta Computer. Given that we’ve heard nothing from Samsung since then, I’m thinking the company is holding off until 2012.

Sony Ultrabook

Available: Late 2011, supposedly

Price, Specs and Defining Features: Unknown

What we know: Sony hasn’t announced any Ultrabook plans, but that didn’t stop Intel CEO Paul Otellini from saying Sony would release a thin-and-light by the end of 2012. Unfortunately that’s all we know.

That accounts for most of the major laptop makers in the United States, showing just how serious Intel is about getting its partners on board. But if you’re eyeing an Ultrabook, consider this: Come mid-2012, a second wave of Ultrabooks will arrive, using Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors for much better battery life and performance. Some of them may even have touch screens to take advantage of Windows 8′s tablet interface–at least according to Intel’s plans. As with the iPad rivals of 2010, I can’t wait to see how the MacBook Air alternative market shakes out.

The Foleo 13 is a 13″ system with an Intel Core i5 processor. It’s pretty thin (.71″) and pretty light (3.3 pounds) but thicker and heavier than the Air and Toshiba’s Portege Z830. It has, however, a fuller complement of ports than the Air, including Ethernet, HDMI, and USB 3.0, with no dongles required. HP claims up to 9 hours of battery life vs. Apple’s 7 hours; that’s impressive if independent testing backs it up. And the price–$899.99 for a machine with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of solid-state storage–undercuts the most comparable MacBook Air by $400.

Buyers of Windows laptops have historically had a limited appetite for systems that emphasize portability rather that offering as many specs as possible at a low price. I don’t think it’s a given that Ultrabooks will catch on–HP’s press release for the Folio quotes IDC saying that it expects sales of 95 million Ultrabooks a year by 2015–but I like the compact form factor and am happy to see PCs with solid-state disks getting affordable, so I hope the category thrives.

The Toshiba technology uses a lenticular screen–one capable of showing two slightly different images at once, which your eyes fuse into a 3D effect. The dimensionality I saw during the demo was a bit like what you get on the Nintendo 3DS: pretty darn grainy, but with a strong 3D effect. Even more than 3D that involves funny goggles, glasses-free 3D tends to have a sweet spot–you want to look at it from one particular position–but Toshiba cleverly uses the Qosmio’s Webcam to track your face and optimize the 3D appropriately.

Glasses-free 3D laptops aren’t a new idea–Sharp had one back in 2004 that attracted a fair amount of attention and then kind of vanished. (That wasn’t surprising: the 3D hurt my eyeballs, and there was no available 3D content to speak of at the time.)

I suspect that Toshiba thinks this Qosmio will be a specialty model of interest to a smallish number of gadget fans, not a landmark product. It can play 3D Blu-Rays and convert standard movies into a fake 3D effect, but it seems unlikely that there are teeming masses of people who will want to sit through entire movies in Toshiba’s 3D effect just yet.

Still, I’m glad the company is investing energy in specs-free 3D (it’s also demonstrated a no-glasses 3D HDTV).  If 3D ever gets great–I’m not holding my breath–it’s going to be 3D that looks fabulous and doesn’t require glasses. And we won’t get there unless companies like Toshiba attempt to make it happen. What do you think the odds are that it’ll arrive in, oh, the next decade?

According to the New York Times’ Bits blog, the Indian government will deliver on its promise of a dirt-cheap Linux or Android device in several weeks. “All the naysayers will be unpleasantly surprised,” said Kapil Sibal, India’s minister for human resource development.

But that’s pretty much all that Sibal is saying right now. Here’s why I still won’t believe it until I see it:

• Sibal claims that a version of the $35 laptop is already in his possession, but he wouldn’t show it to the Times because he apparently left it at home.
• Sibal’s office wouldn’t say who’s making the device, or whether production has begun.
• The Times’ story offers no further details on the $35 laptop’s specs or design.

The last time I wrote about the $35 laptop, the Indian government had run into some financial misunderstandings with its hardware vendor. Meanwhile, one government source told India’s Economic Times that the device’s component costs alone exceeded $125, and Gartner analyst Vishal Bhatnagar estimated that $35 wouldn’t even cover the cost of a touch screen and microprocessor. Skeptics may also remember India’s earlier promise of a $10 laptop in 2009, which turned out to be, well, not a laptop.

I’d still love to see India pull this off — the whole point of the project is to sell cheap computers to students — but empty promises don’t inspire confidence.

Among the umpteen things that makes Apple different from other technology companies is this: it makes news by discontinuing products as well as introducing them. Today’s big announcements involve the arrival of OS X 10.7 Lion and updated MacBook Airs. But it’s also decided to stop producing the $999 white MacBook, a machine that had an uncommonly long life as the cheapest general-purpose Mac portable.

As recently as a week ago, the reliably unreliable Apple rumor mill said that an upgraded white MacBook was on its way. Then it decided that no update was imminent. And the truth turns out to be there won’t be an update because the machine is leaving the market.

The final white MacBook was a direct descendant of the one that Apple released in May 2006 (along with a black model which I mourned when it was discontinued in 2009), and it shared largely similar aesthetics with iBook models going back to, I believe, 2001.

May 2006 was a decidedly different era in Apple history than the present day: for one thing, there were no iPhones and no iPads. For another, an awful lot of the company’s products still came in plastic cases–between the iPod, the iMac, and the MacBook, white plastic was probably the case material most identified with Apple products.

Specwise, the current white MacBook is a modern computer: it offers better specs than older versions, a unibody case, and other improvements. But it still feels a bit like the Mac that time forgot. I can’t imagine that Steve Jobs, a man famously allergic to nostalgia, is a huge fan.

The machine’s disappearance doesn’t do anything to the starting price for Mac portables: it remains $999. But that buys you the new 11″ MacBook Air, a computer that’s strikingly unlike the MacBook. It’s vastly sleeker. It has a smaller screen, but with higher resolution. It weighs less than half as much. It’s battery life is shorter.  It has a quarter the storage, but it’s solid-state. It has fewer ports and no optical drive. It has a slicker case made of aluminum. It has a more current processor, but at a slower clock speed. It’s just a beast born of an entirely different set of tradeoffs.

(The 13″ MacBook Pro is a closer cousin of the white MacBook, albeit one that’s a lot slicker; it starts at $1199, which is presumably too steep for some of the folks who would have bought a white MacBook in the past.)

Why did Apple ax the white MacBook? Presumably, it wasn’t because sales were terrible or because it was unable to turn a profit on the thing. But the new MacBook Airs represent the company’s thinking as of mid-2011 about what a laptop in this price range should be like. And a majority of consumers seem to agree: the 11″ Air was already outselling its older white counterpart. Apple being Apple, it didn’t wait until the white MacBook was truly obsolete before it pulled the plug.

Me, I never owned one. But it reminds me of the black MacBooks which I did have, and knowing it was still around made me feel good. Even though I’d opt for the Air myself if I was buying a Mac on budget. I’m curious to see whether the 11″ MacBook Air becomes anywhere near as pervasive as the old standby which it’s kinda-sorta replacing.

Indeed, the U1′s path to a U.S. launch has been long and slightly vaporous, but now, it’s nearly here. According to Engadget, the U1 has arrived at the FCC for approval — a decent indication that it might graduate from trade shows to retail shelves.

Unlike dual-booting Android-Windows hybrids, such as ViewSonic’s ViewPad 10, the Lenovo U1 has separate processors for its tablet and PC sides. Pull the screen away from the laptop body, and an ARM-based processor fires up Android. Put it back, and an Intel x86 processor runs Windows. In demonstrations, the transition only took a couple seconds. You can even detach the tablet, connect an external monitor to the laptop body and run both halves of the machine at once.

After 18 months in limbo — during which Lenovo switched from its own tablet OS to a modified version of Android — the U1 still seems like a good idea. Although I’m a fan of tablets, when it comes to work they’re still no match for a keyboard, pointing device, desktop software and the familiarities of a PC, such as keyboard shortcuts and a file browser. Inevitably, I travel with both a laptop and a tablet, but consolidation is appealing.

That doesn’t guarantee that the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 will be a great product. It could be outrageously priced. It could have performance issues. But after all this time, it’d be a shame if the U1 never saw daylight.

For now, I just want to talk about the name. It’s snappy, as far as jargon goes, but it also leaves me feeling cold. The tech industry is littered with marketing buzzwords for new kinds of computers, but not all of them stick, and as history shows, you just can’t force this kind of thing.

Consider, for example, the Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer, or UMPC. Microsoft bestowed this name upon a category of tiny PCs that were supposed to become as ubiquitous as cell phones. But they were slow and outrageously expensive — Samsung’s Q1 cost $1,099 — and now they’re history.

More recently, Qualcomm tried to push the “Smartbook,” like a netbook but thinner and more power-efficient. Last year, ARM was blaming Adobe Flash for delays in bringing smartbooks to market. These little laptops were nowhere to be seen at CES 2011.

I wanted to compare these examples to netbooks and smartphones, but I can’t put a finger on how these two terms successfully entered the mainstream. What I can say is that when Nokia announced the Communicator 9000 in 1997, no one used the term “smartphone.” Ditto for the word “netbook” when Asus announced the Eee PC in 2007. The products came first, then came the jargon. It’s a cautionary tale as Intel foists the Ultrabook name on the tech world without any examples on the market.

As I’ve said before, I like what Intel is doing in terms of the actual product. People are going to prefer thinner, lighter laptops over clunky power hogs, as long as performance is sufficient. But that sounds like more of a philosophy than a specific product. If these things occupy 40 percent of the notebook market by the end of 2012, as Intel expects, shouldn’t we just be calling them “laptops?”

Ultra-low voltage, or ULV, refers to a range of processors that are more powerful than Intel’s netbook-centric Atom while retaining excellent battery life and allowing for slim figures. (I’m typing on an ULV laptop now, an Asus UL80vt.)

These thin-and-light ULV laptops were pricey when Intel introduced them a couple years ago, and they quickly earned niche status instead of mainstream success. Still, they offer what a lot of people are looking for in a computer — moderate performance and strong battery life in a lightweight frame — and pricing has come down. The company has already launched low-voltage versions of its Core i3, i5 and i7 processors

So it makes sense for Intel to give ULV a bigger role in its lineup. Whereas the the power draw for Intel’s chips previously centered around 35 watts, the company plans to set the center point around 10 or 15 watts, with the goal of making 10-hour battery life a reality for most machines.

On a recent trip to Best Buy, I was surprised by how chunky most laptops look, even compared to my 18-month-old machine. If Intel and PC makers can deliver lots of ultra-thin ULV laptops in the coveted $600 price range, the dreary old laptop could start to look exciting once again.