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What is new from a technological and offering aspects
Last couple of decades has witnessed amazing technological innovations in the
field of ‘mobile computing’ and ‘miniaturization’. ‘Convergence’ has been the
winning theme. All aspects of our daily life have been impacted in a positive
manner. Right from cell phones to PDA’s to computers –all have improved over
time to make our lives better. Globalization has created global corporate
personnel and the need to equip their armory by introducing portability, was the
compelling reason behind inventing mobile machines or laptops.
The journey of laptop evolution in little over two decades has been immense and
there has always been an exponential trend-change. From ten kilos laptop back in
1981 to Toshiba’s Portege R500-S5007V that weighs 1.08 kilos. The first notebook
from Osborne Computers looked like a sewing machine case and the display was
just 5 inch wide. Next notable laptop was from IBM in 1984. Needless to say, it
was all text based. It had 640K RAM. Today, almost any electronic device – be it
phone or camera or palmtop – have storage space more than 640K. Imagine an era
where none of our software, applications, games or gadgets would work! But then
it was just a step ahead in the journey of notebooks’ evolution. Next milestone
in the journey was reached first by Compaq as they came out with graphics
equipped laptop in 1988. Finally, Apple broke into the world of laptops in 1989
with a laptop that would run for 10 hours on battery.
The latest laptops’ offerings are not limited to serious computing nerds but
are cutting across plethora of customer segments – computer professionals,
designers, architects, school-kids, housewives, entertainment-seekers, and
everyone who want their online world to be portable. Internet’s evolution has an
integral story in the evolution of notebooks. With Internet being able to
provide videos, games, music and pictures, it was only natural to have laptops
the ability to have DVD players, music players, call making abilities – all with
the portable aspect of notebook remaining unchanged. Enter Wi-Fi capability in
laptop and soon the mantra of convergence with portability is reality. However,
from a technological perspective, all the latest applications require tremendous
processing power, storage abilities and technological advances – and the present
day notebooks hardware abilities successfully meet the software’s ever growing
resource need.
The present day’s laptop can have 64-bit processor or dual processors, which
provide the raw muscle required for processing. RAM’s have evolved from 640K to
2GB. This satiates most of the current day games. And then DVD slots, video
graphic cards, Wi-Fi capability, USB slots, integrated modem, hundreds of GB’s
of primary storage, and long-life batteries add to all that is required from a
notebook to do personal or professional or educational activities. Mac Book Air
is the slimmest laptop while Acer Travel Mate is touch-screen tablet laptop.
While Wi-Fi ability was milestone to mark beginning of a new era in laptop
history, Bluetooth compatible is the recent past accomplishment – all happening
with an eye towards reducing weight and size. Early last year we had Sony come
up with Blue-ray disc optical drive integrated with their VAIO notebooks.
Prices of laptops drastically vary depending on processing power, storage,
accessories, offerings and brand name. While it is necessary to have a most
recent laptop, it is prudent to map ones needs to laptop configurations. The
continuous need to compute, access anywhere anytime will only improve with time
and new technological inventions.
The latest trend in the laptop arena is the netbooks. These can be called
mini laptops with small screen size (8” to 10” on average) small hard drive and
reduced RAM, netbooks and light weight are gaining momentum across a wide amount
of light or users and travelers whose needs are pretty simple such as web
browsing and modest use of office applications. These users are happy to trade
some power and hard drive space (that they don’t use in general) for the
practicality of small and light machines that they can take anywhere.
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