Ever since the first "luggable" PC made its appearance in the mid-1980s, technology designers and innovators have targeted the "lifestyle" market with their offerings.
Surprisingly, these luggable PCs - with their large, cumbersome "suitcase" style casings and weighing more than could be successfully manhandled by one person - were touted as the ultimate in convenience for the travelling businessman or woman.
They were soon surpassed by the first generation of laptops, which were more manageable but very limited in terms of software offerings and battery life.
The palmtop followed in the mid 90s. The trend by now was obvious: smaller, better, lighter were the watchwords. Performance was the constantly moving target, with vendors adding more speed, memory, sophisticated communications facilities and high speed graphics to their offerings.
"Feel good" features such as colour screens, camera functionality and other gimmicks kept the public interested and determined to outdo their neighbours with the latest, hottest releases on the market.
Moving on
Times have changed. The latest lifestyle-altering PC does not fall into the ultra-small, immensely powerful genre.
Certainly it is a notebook PC, but it features a bigger footprint and, while impressively light, thin and compact, it harks back to earlier days in terms of overall size.
That is not to say that function overshadows form. Far from it. These "wide screen" notebooks have been described as "sexy" and even "romantic" - the attributes of a good companion, no doubt.
They are dubbed "wide screen" notebooks for obvious reasons. Their screen size is more commonly associated with the 16:10 ratio, landscape format of modern high-resolution television sets.
This is an obvious clue to their primary functions, which include high resolution (in Europe) TV reception and the playing of the latest DVD movies and games.
Entertainment
According to Toshiba, which recently released a new model line up - the focus is on entertainment. These new devices are positioned as "mobile cinemas", "gaming consoles" and, more broadly, "ultimate multimedia solutions".
Is the hype justified?
These units have gained an enormous amount of positive press since their launch last year, with respected industry commentators throwing their weight behind the idea.
It seem certain that the wide screen concept is not just another in a long line of innovations that will soon be superseded by something better.
The Japanese, in particular, are hailing the advent of wide screen notebooks as a "breakthrough". They are fast replacing "dinosaur" TV sets and old square format notebooks with these new devices. It`s a trend that is sweeping through South East Asia and is fast catching on in Europe.
Broadest appeal
Wide screen notebooks have the broadest appeal. In the family context, there is the obvious entertainment value from TV and new generation iDVD movies and games. This is reinforced by the ability to send and receive high-resolution pictures, listen to music and access the Internet.
What`s more all these features and functions are bundled together and can interact with one another.
This means that creative users can, for example, e-mail home videos with their favourite music as the backing sound track and integrate still photographs into the mix.
Photographs can be enhanced with text or motion and personalised DVDs can be created with input from the widest of sources.
Steve Jobs of Apple fame has gone on record as saying that the new format PC "will blow your mind with productions that are better than Hollywood can produce," or words to this effect.
Modern features
Naturally, wide screen notebooks are packed with modern features. Depending on the brand and model there are backlit keyboards, ambient light sensors, state-of-the-art stereo speakers and more to impress the user.
A TV tuner and the latest graphics cards, high-speed processors and large memory resources are standard. Wireless connectivity, in the form of Bluetooth or infrared links, means the PCs will be able to synchronise with cell phones and other mobile devices.
Multiple hard drives and RAID-based redundancy assure users of the very best in security and fail-safe protection, while built in video cameras ensure that the units can be called on for video conferencing duties - or simply for chatting to friends in a live-webcam-enabled chat room on the Internet.
It all boils down to the best new idea in home entertainment in a long time. As a spin off benefit, the vendors of these machines - such as Toshiba - are now positioned at the head of the multimedia applications race.
With products that set new aesthetic and technical standards for what a PC should be, they are opening doors to a whole new world of applications and complementary marketing opportunities.
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