“If it’s got a battery and a hinge…”

By John Jacobs - Director, Notebook Market Research, DisplaySearch

Someone once said to me, “If it’s got a battery and a hinge, it’s a notebook.”  Well, that is no longer exactly true.  At CES this week, I saw a plethora of devices that have taken the traditional concept of a notebook PC and pushed it into new areas. 

Some changes were on the subtle side, like the launch of the 11.6″ Dell Alienware m11x. Instead of the typical 11.6″ CULV-based sub US$500 Ultra-portable with embedded graphics, this is a full-featured gaming rig with 1 GB of graphics memory with lots of battery life and in a package that is light enough to make it easily portable.  Another unique product with a battery and a hinge was the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 hybrid.  This device has a hinge and two batteries and two CPUs.  At first glance, it appears to be a small form factor notebook.  Upon closer inspection, the slate-style tablet with its own Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and a Lenovo-developed, Linux-based OS (Skylight) can be detached from the upper part of the clamshell.  In slate mode, it operates as a mobile internet device and media player.  In clamshell mode, the Intel processor and Windows 7 take over and it acts as a more traditional notebook PC.  Like the Alienware machine, this too has a roughly $1,000 price tag.  Or, if you want a more dedicated device, Lenovo is offering the upper detachable piece in an extremely thin clamshell design running only the Snapdragon processor and Skylight OS.

3G was also a popular topic in the notebook world. Several brands announced partnerships with telecom providers to offer subsidized netbooks and notebooks when signing up for data plans.  While these plans have been quite successful in Europe and Asia, they are still relatively new here in the US.

Touch screens are also starting to appear in more places in the notebook market.  Lenovo launched a convertible tablet PC built from a typical 10.1″ netbook.  Other brands are also including touch in one or two, larger, mainstream models.

Dell also showed a prototype Studio XPS notebook equipped with a 1366 × 768 OLED display from LG Display.  While the PC brand does not, at this time, plan to bring the product to market, it was another stunning demonstration of OLED display technology.  There were even one or two portable devices that are in development that I was shown-but cannot yet discuss-that should hit the market in the next 3-6 months that will create even more excitement in the world of portable computing.

The portable computing market is continuing to heat up and gain momentum. Long-standing players are re-discovering what got them their leading market share positions, and up-start brands are trying to grab their own piece of the market with cutting-edge designs.  Whether it’s LED backlighting, 3G, 3D, tablets or finding new ways to attach monitors to notebooks, the mobile computing market now has a product to fit almost anyone’s requirements.