Current Trends in the Laptop Industry
The UK laptop market has been expanding and growing consistently year on year as many make the switch from desktop computing to a powerful, portable solution. In the first three months of the year the laptop market grew by 43.4 per cent according to analyst firm Gartner, which was representative of an eight year high in the market. Of this percentage, nearly three quarters of the growth was accounted for by the sale of netbook computers. This shows that people are looking to smaller, lighter laptops that do not have the full functions of notebooks or desktop PCs, but rather focus on networking and internet connectivity for instant access to the online world from any location. Worldwide almost 50 million computer were sold in the first three months of the year, of which a fifth were netbooks, up from 13 per cent for the same period in the previous year. However, many believe that the diversification of the laptop market is set to continue as technological advances make new breeds of portable PC more popular.
The biggest innovation to be reborn in 2010 is the tablet PC and it is manufacturer Apple that is almost single-handedly responsible for this resurgence. This is because its iPad tablet has already sold millions and consequently silenced the nay-sayers who claimed before its launch that the oversized iPhone would not make an impact as consumers would not understand where it should sit in the current laptop market. Many manufacturers have followed Apple`s lead and begun to capitalize on the iPad`s popularity with their own tablet technology. Rivals such as Samsung have announced tablet computers which will sport the Android operating system to square up to Apple`s software and the birth of these new tablets certainly shows that gaps between the Smartphone and laptop computer markets are becoming less distinct.
The Smartphone revolution is manipulating not just the tablet market, but also having an impact on more traditional styles of laptop. This is most obvious when looking at the touchscreen laptops that are being developed and sold, taking advantage of the native touchscreen support offered by the likes of Windows 7. The first dual screen laptop with full touch support on both displays was announced by Toshiba, bringing a netbook sized form factor with high end interface features together in what it described as unrivalled flexibility. You can hold the dual screen Libretto W100 in any orientation and its integrated accelerometer will adjust the angle of the onscreen image to compensate. This means it can be held sideways like a book and read naturally, or placed on a desk or lap like a standard laptop and make computing far more intuitive with its touchscreen capabilities.
A significant contributor to the growth of the laptop market in the UK has been the fact that many people now get a free laptop with mobile broadband. This has allowed people to offset the cost of getting a laptop over the course of two years whilst simultaneously getting internet access from anywhere in the UK. Both netbooks and notebooks are represented in the plethora of deals and as such laptops are looking more attractive than ever, with more growth likely.
