The ultrabook breaks the 40K barrier: The Acer Aspire S3-391-32364G52a

 The Acer Aspire S3 is the companies line of lower cost ultrabooks. In order to cut cost, Acer equipped its S3 with a hybrid drive. A 320 GB hard drive combined with a 20 GB was used in the Acer Aspire S3. On one hand this is more storage than one could expect with a laptop equipped with a SSD drive. Anything larger than 256 GB of SSD storage right now is insanely expensive. Acer has released a newer version of the S3, this time with an Intel Core i3 processor, instead of the more expensive i5's and i7's it was using in its S3. Instead of having Windows 7 Home Premium bundled with the Acer Aspire S3, the new version has Windows 7 Home Basic installed. The hard drive has been upgraded from a 320 GB unit, to a 500 GB unit.  This end result is the cheapest ultrabook we have seen in the Philippine market at a price of Php39,900.

Quick specifications:

Display: 13.3-inch (1366 x 768 pixel) LED back lit LCD

Operating system: Windows 7 Home Basic

Processor: Intel Core i3-2367M (1.30GHz, 3M L3 Cache)

Graphics: Intel HD 3000

Memory: 4 GB

Storage: 500 GB hard drive with a 20 GB SSD as a hibernation partition

Optical drive: None

Card Reader: Yes

 USB 3.0: Yes

HDMI Out: Yes

Battery: 3280 mAh 

Dimensions: 12.59x 8.52 x 0.51/0.68 inches

Weight: 3.1 pounds

Update: The Acer Aspire S3 carried locally, the S3-391-32364G52a, does not appear to have a SSD drive. The same model sold in Australia has a SSD companion drive.

One thing to note. The 16 GB SSD is used as a hibernation partition, only helps the the laptop wake up faster. It does not make the operating system boot, shut down or run faster. Still the Acer Aspire S3 gives you a 13.3-inch laptop which weighs just 3.1 pounds and comes with adequate power for the kind of task you would expect an ultraportable to be able to do, at less than 40K.