Right as usual, Windows laptop makers are just beginning to get their Air-challenging Ultrabook production ramped-up to take on the year-and-a-half old second-generation MacBook Air. No PC Ultrabook has yet matched—let alone beaten—the MacBook Air in capturing popular imagination. On paper, some Ultrabooks have more impressive feature sets than the Air, especially in terms of connectivity and screen size (although not necessarily quality) for the money. However the overall MacBook Air user experience—its superb keyboard, its excellent glass, buttonless touchpad, its fine-jewelery-like aluminum unibody construction, its extra-long battery life, and OS X’s smooth delivery of features like sleep, resume, and instant-on that work the way they’re supposed to—remains several cuts above.

And while some of Ultrabook contenders have been playing reasonably credible catch-up, and the MacBook Air is getting a bit long in the tooth (its last refresh dating from July, 2011), Apple is expected to disrupt the laptop computer market again this year with a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of its notebook Mac lineup, including new MacBook Airs.

A recently published report: “Global Ultrathin Portables (Ultrabooks & MacBook Air) Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017,” by TechSci Research, notes that six players launched Ultrabooks within six months of Intel’s announcement of the Ultrabook formula, and some ten models of Ultrabooks are now on the market. With this increasing availability of choices for the consumers at more affordable prices, the MacBook Air/Ultrabook class is expected to be the central focus of the laptop computer market for the foreseeable future.

TechSci Research predicts that the market for lightweight ultraportable notebooks will expand enormously in the coming years, with the Ultrabooks and MacBook Air Market expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 92% up to 2017, and the entire market size for Ultrathin Portables to increase as a greater number of retailers enter the market offering competitive products at competitive prices.

This trend is expected to decrease the average Ultrabook selling price, which was around US$ 960 in 2011—already lower than the entry-level threshold price of an 11″ MacBook Air. TechSci Research observes that Apple’s strategy of winning on profit margin instead of raw sales volume has restricted the pool of potential buyers for the MacBook Air, and thus the market’s overall size, until recently, since it had been essentially the only player. However, with the entry of more Ultrabooks, the ultrathin portables category is expected to represent up to 61% of the global computing devices market overall by 2017.

Intel’s first-phase Ultrabook design guideline specifies notebooks less than 21 mm thick, weighing no more than 3.1 pounds, with flash-based SSD data storage and at least 5 to 8 hours of battery life, and selling for around $ 1,000.

So, what can Apple do to maintain its lead over the ultrabook pack? Intel’s next generation Ivy Bridge Core I processors are pretty much a given, and with RAM prices plumbing new lows it’s not too extravagant to hope Apple might finally move to a respectable 4GB standard configuration for the lower-end Airs, and possibly 8GB for higher-end and Pro models.

Enhanced connectivity would be nice, notably USB 3, which will finally be supported by the Ivy Bridge CPUs. Continued and even greater emphasis on and promotion of Intel’s Thunderbolt ultra high speed data/video protocol is expected, but Apple will have less credible excuse for excluding at least one USB 3 port, especially with FireWire, unhappily, likely a goner. Any laptop purporting to be serious productivity hardware should have built-in Ethernet connectivity, which the current MacBook Airs don’t, but I’m not holding my breath. MacBook Air users can currently get Ethernet connectivity with an external, extra-cost adapter, but they shouldn’t have to, and don’t have to on most Ultrabooks.

9To5Mac’s Seth Weintraub says Retina displays are coming to Mac laptops, noting that the Mac OS has teased us for a while with HiDPI Retina images, and the recent inclusion of 2X images in Messages in Mountain Lion. However, I’m highly skeptical that we’ll see ultra high resolution displays with the next MacBook Air refresh.

CNET’s Dan Ackerman notes that the 11″ MacBook Air is the only Apple laptop with a 16:9 aspect ratio display, while the current 13″ Air and all MacBook Pro models are still 16:10. However 16:9 is the consumer standard, matches perfectly with HDTV and HD video content, and allows for a smaller chassis, and Ackerman suggests that in the 13″ MacBook Air going 16:9 would likely mean a 1600 x 900-pixel native screen resolution, as seen in the Asus Zenbook, as opposed to the 13″ Air’s current 1440 x 900-pixel display. I can see that happening.

Whatever the key to cracking Apple’s market cachet and mystique might be, it’s evident that just playing catch-up with Apple innovation hasn’t proved the charm for Windows PC vendors, nor did Intel’s $ 300 million cash subsidy for Ultrabook promotion last year. Barrons’ Tech Trader Daily columnist Tiernan Ray recently cited J.P. Morgan hardware analyst Mark Moskowitz in a conference call shrugging off Ultrabooks as little more than MacBook Air rip-offs; nothing new at all, but just the Wintel crowd scrambling to catch up with Apple.

Ultrabooks will, of course, be transitioning to Ivy Bridge silicon when it becomes available as well, but the prospect of going head-to-head with a whole new generation of freshly redesigned Apple notebooks will mean little comfort or breathing-room for the PC vendors. Their best hope for some relief will come with the Windows 8 release, anticipated for sometime in the fall. But by that time Apple will likely have already skimmed the top of the season’s market with its new MacBooks, even while its corporate heart now belongs to the iOS. Will cross-category Windows 8 be able to turn the tide? It’s shaping up to be an interesting confrontation, but I wouldn’t bet against Apple.