Intel turns to plastic Ultrabook cases

• Tweet

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 4 (UPI) -- Intel says it's turned to aerospace in an attempt to come up with materials and configurations to help bring down the price of its Ultrabook computers.

The company's R&D center, consulting with engineers from Boeing, has developed a design method to make plastic laptop cases as strong as the more expensive metal ones typically used in Ultrabooks, techeye.net reported Monday.

Using plastic instead of metal may cut the cost of future Ultrabooks by between $25 and $75, Intel's Ben Broili told Avionics Intelligence.

The researchers found that hard drives, motherboards and other components inside a laptop computer can be arranged in a manner that makes the computer's internal structure much stronger, allowing the use of plastic for the outer cases without sacrificing strength.