What can consumers expect from laptops in 2008/09?

[Ace_777]

Hi guys,

          As most people know the laptop industry has a fast pace, just like any other electrical goods market.

Innovations in technology are created around the clock.

What can we as consumers expect from laptops in 2008/09 ?

I mean specs such as clock speed, graphics, RAM and storage if you can.

Is it worth buying a laptop now? Or will it become redundant by '08/9? Should we just hold off till then ?

[ctjoyce]

Well if you look back over the last two years, many things are redundant. 5400RPM hard drives, and low voltage single and recently dual core processors. Slower RAM, and usually no stand alone GPUs. When you think about what 90% of the market for laptops is, its a bunch of College students and Business people, only that last 10% are gamers. But us gamers will alwaies have our niche with companies like Dell XPS, Voodoo, Falcon Northwest, Cyberpower, ASUS, etc etc. The biggest block in a laptop is the power consumption and heat. You can't put a 7400RPM drive into a lappy because it is going to burn a hole in the plastic if it doesn't drain your battery first. Same thing with GPU's. when I look at my Laptops ambiant temperature (useing IR thermometer) its easily 5*C higher than most 17"ers.

So is it a worthy investment? Hell yes. Just get a T5200 Meron, Preferably a T7200, 2GB of RAM and a Go 7400, or a Radeon X1400 and your good. DX10 video for laptops is easily 1.5 to 2 years off, and by then your current laptop is going to need to be replaced for whatever reasons.

If I was being capped at $1500 this is what I would buy:
HP dv6000t
Core 2 Duo T7200
2GB RAM
8x DVD Burner
802.11 A/B/G + Bluetooth
nVidia GeForce Go 7400
160GB 5400RPM SATA HDD

Total $1260

Now that laptop is going to be one hell of a rocket ship now, and a decent stable platform in the future.

Cheers
Cameron