Las Vegas (CNN) -- At the gadget industry's annual crystal-ball convention, laptops look more like products of Aston Martin than Fisher-Price. With sales of budget laptops plummeting, computer makers are swinging the pendulum toward sleeker, metallic and pricier portable PCs that they're calling Ultrabooks. Many of these were shown for the first time here this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show. Most PC giants have committed to building Ultrabooks. The laptops typically use flash memory instead of hard drives, have no disc readers in order to stay thin, and weigh less than three pounds. Some computer makers see Ultrabooks as an evolution of the laptop in response to demands created by lightweight tablet computers. This view is even shared by PC companies that produce tablets of their own.
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Ultrabooks have drummed up buzz at CES
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Ultrabooks are slimmer, lighter and metallic laptops
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The initiative is being led by Intel, the PC chip maker
The @placeholder's prospects for bolstering the PC industry come at an opportune time.