Will new laptops stimulate PC revival?

Like a fashionista during the big spring shows, John Stokdyk has been gallivanting around laptop suppliers of late and fingering their latest merchandise. While awed by the selection on offer, he wonders if the wider market will get as excited.

Having had an opportunity to use new laptop models put forward by the likes of Toshiba, Dell and Lenovo I'm amazed by the variety of models (from 10in to 17in) I’ve seen and the value for money they offer. A combination of factors appears to have breathed new life into the previously moribund PC market. Microsoft hasn’t disappointed with Windows 7 and Intel, it’s counterpart in the microprocessor market, has come up with a set of Core i3, i5 and i7 processors to power the new operating system.

Toshiba and Dell have based new laptops on the Intel CPUs, while Lenovo took a different tack for the UK with its latest ThinkPad models, which feature AMD processors. Whichever manufacturer and configuration you choose, the specs are stunning – dual core processors, 250-500GB, hard drives, 2GB-6GB of RAM, glitzy graphics, built-in webcams, HDMI monitor connections and so on. These machines are really raising the stakes on what we were looking at last year and are available in some cases for less than £400 (or more like £500 in the case of the Toshibas).

To help with my comparisons, I’ve been relying a lot on the Windows Experience Index (WEI) in the Windows 7 Control Panel. It’s a slightly stilted measure based around the system’s weakest point, but is handy as an objective benchmark. If there were some way to go back in time and retrospectively apply similar measures to older PCs and operating systems I suspect that in terms of overall user experience, the latest generation of laptop PCs has leapt ahead even faster than the industry’s usual breakneck pace. Hardship, it seems, has been a spur to new feats of innovation.

Launching its new Vostro 3000 series this week, Dell quoted IDC’s research VP for small business Ray Boggs, who suggested that Windows 7 was one of the drivers behind small and mid-sized firms returning to the PC market after its ”year in the recessionary wilderness”.

Bigger processors matched to what appears to be a popular Windows launch, combined with all manner of business laptops ranging from 10in to 17in – surely happy days are right around the corner again?

I’d like to think so, but I’ve also been reading the thoughts of our infrastructure guru Martin Banks on Fujitsu’s adoption of Pano Logic’s Zero Client technology. This virtualisation approach lets the central processing department serve a client application on to almost any kind of device – from an old PC to a spanking new smartphone. If you’re an infrastructure host like Fujitsu with thousands of client machines to support, it’s a very attractive proposition compared to upgrading all those machines to run Windows 7. And did somebody mention the iPad?

I’m sure the laptop PC has a lot of life yet, but as I look at the latest crop of technological marvels, the thought occurs that perhaps we are seeing a luxuriant burst of innovation as the plant beneath goes into long-term decline.

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