Desktops down, notebooks up

Bulky desktops may soon become obsolete as laptops become smarter and slimmer, and feature-rich laptops are the way to go, says Economic Times. With prices of laptops crashing to desktop levels, PC makers in India expect every second computer sold to be a laptop in the next four to five years.

The ratio of laptops to desktops in India is 20:80. However, in West Europe, Middle East and Singapore, the ratio is 60:40, in favour of laptops. In other markets like the US, the ratio stands at about 45:55 for laptops to desktops.

"The ratio will become 50:50 in the next few years, with more users preferring laptops for increased portability," says HP India director (consumer products) Rajiev Grover.

Small and medium businesses (SMEs) in India are on track to invest about US$4 billion on computer hardware this year, according to a study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, says Tekrati.

Last year, overall SME spend on hardware in India grew 20% to surpass the US$3 billion mark. Also in the previous year, notebook PC spending grew at 43% among Indian SMEs.

Aggressive pricing by vendors has narrowed the price gap between desktops and notebooks, and the availability of wireless technology has resulted in the mobile computing boom.

Struggling processor vendor AMD has announced it will be releasing two new HDTV tuner solutions for both notebooks and desktop PCs: the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB and the ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe desktop PC card, reports About Electronics.

The USB combo tuner will work on notebook and desktop PCs and comes with a slim credit card-style remote. It will capture both free-to-air HDTV broadcasts as well as cable programming, according to AMD's announcement.

Along with its HDTV reception, the 600 USB will also feature an audiovisual input for capturing video from an analogue video source, such as camcorder or VCR.