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Laptop Makers Push Size, Price Limits to Gain
By: Reuters   |   Jun 09, 2007
Notebook PC makers are stretching the boundaries of light-weight and low-cost computing, rolling out ever slimmer tablet PCs and mass market models costing as little as $200 in their quest to find the next big thing.

Old school slab-like laptops could soon become a thing of the past, replaced by a new, more varied generation of slick designs, with equal diversity of features and prices.

Many of those, with bells flashing and whistles blowing, were on display this week at Computex, the world's No. 2 PC show, in Taiwan, maker of 80 percent of the world's laptops.

"Computer companies are really boosting their industrial design capabilities to gain more business," said JP Morgan analyst Alvin Kwock.

This year's Computex featured laptops ranging from traditional 12-14 inch widths to as svelte as 7 inches, and weighing as little as 900 grams (2 pounds).

"Seven-inch PCs are the perfect size, it fits in my bag and it's still large enough for a full keyboard," said Jason Lin, a PC system product manager from California's PC Club.com, a U.S. computer firm, as he strolled the isles of the show.

Laptops - computers small enough to fit comfortably on the lap - have been the standard for portable computing for years. But improving technology is paving the way for more varied devices, such as handheld ultramobile PCs (UMPCs) so tiny they hardly seem like computers at all.

Smaller than traditional laptops and bigger than smartphones, new mobile devices perform most computing tricks and can play videos and games. With more powerful software and new processors added to extend battery life, such UMPCs could rewrite the portable computing story going forward, some believe.

Japan's Sony Corp. launched its UX UMPC last year equipped with Windows operating system, an integrated webcam and a fingerprint sensor.

Asustek Computer Inc. has its own UMPC, which contains all the functions of a laptop, a handwriting board and GPS. It also allows users to take pictures with cameras and transfer files wirelessly with Bluetooth.
 

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