Notebooks hit the runway

In a vaguely Apple-like manner, Dell is offering a spectrum of brightly coloured notebooks in a variety of weights and sizes. Meanwhile, Apple’s MacBook Pro line has adopted a sleek, silver veneer, while the even sleeker MacBook Air gleams on the horizon. And with Lenovo’s launch of its new consumer range, it seems even IBM’s conventional boxy, black notebook design is taking a turn for the chic.

It’s official: the notebook computer has come much further than merely being ‘luggable’; it is now an accessory that the digital generation simply cannot live without. “We’ve seen that for consumers – as well as having the functions on your notebooks such as fast processors, software, and battery life – style is really rating very highly,” said Ben Baumgarten, market development manager for Hewlett-Packard’s consumer notebook range.

“Style is a really big consideration for HP; we want to make it as easy as possible for retailers to sell our products,” he said.

In line with its stylistic inclination, the Californian vendor has announced three new notebooks in its Pavillion range. Anticipated for release shortly is the 15.4-inch special edition notebook, Thrive, which sports a copper-brown lid on a silver chassis, and an inlaid vine pattern that creeps across the lid and keyboard.

Also expected to join the Pavillion ranks this year is the MTV youth edition notebook, which features an Asian-inspired design on the 14-inch notebook’s lid and chassis. The design, dubbed “Asian Odyssey”, was created by 20-year-old Joao Oliveira of Porto, Portugal, in a 2007 worldwide design competition that was co-hosted by MTV and HP.

“We’re continually releasing notebooks that push that edge on design and the notebooks that we’ve got coming out now … [are] quite striking,” Baumgarten said.

But the allure of HP’s offerings goes far beyond skin-deep beauty. According to Baumgarten, HP will continue to beef up its notebooks with bigger hard drives, Intel’s new mobile quad-core Penryn processor chip and 4GB of RAM.

But while power and functionality are drawcards to a number of notebook users, he also noted a trend in customer demand for smaller screen sizes.

“The 15-inch-wide is still quite a mainstream screen size, but we are seeing that customers are wanting more mobile machines,” Baumgarten said.

“When they’re out and about in a café, and they want to get out their notebook and do some emails, they want a notebook that can fit inside their bag or their handbag,” he said.

To cater to the demand for small, ultraportable notebook, HP has announced the 12.1-inch touchscreen Pavillion tx2000 notebook series that features a swivel lid, touch-resistive screen and tablet functionality, as well as a circular HP Echo design imprinted on the lid.

It only takes a 12-inch screen to be labelled ultraportable, but Taiwanese manufacturer Asus has pushed the definition one step further. The newly launched Eee combines a miniature seven-inch screen with a solid state disc and flash-based storage to provide an ultralight, ultracheap computing experience.

“As technology gets better, as processors get cooler and as battery life gets higher, we’re going to continually see smaller screens out there in the market,” HP’s Baumgarten said.

David Nicol, director of Lenovo’s small business and consumer unit, disagreed.

“There is a trade-off between size and weight and functionality, where the thinner or lighter the notebook you want to make, the less features you can fit into it,” he said.

Nicol speculated that most of those customers tend to be experienced users who may be making their second or third notebook purchase.
“[Ultraportables tend to appeal to] users who are experienced in using notebooks, where they’ve become a little more sophisticated in determining their criteria for using a notebook,” he said.

As far as style is concerned, Nicol admitted that the ThinkPad design hasn’t changed much from its traditional professional black veneer with silver accents in the hinges.

“ThinkPad’s design for the business user has an iconic look and feel which our users appreciate,” he said.

But there is hope yet for the more fashion-conscious Lenovo users, with the announcement of the new IdeaPad brand earlier this month. Targeted at the consumer market, the new IdeaPad Y710 and Y510 were recently released, featuring facial recognition, dedicated gaming controls, borderless screens, touch-sensitive control surfaces and unique cover textures.