Tamara Chuang

July 05, 2003

Jul. 5--For years, there's been a race to squeeze more technology into a smaller space.

From 8-track cartridges to CDs to tiny flash-memory cards inside MP3 players. From ear-muff-sized headphones to ear buds. From dial telephones to cell phones. From desktop computers to laptops and digital organizers.

Then this week, Irvine's Toshiba America took a step back, introducing a hulking 17-inch laptop with all the perks. Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to launch one later this year. Apple Inc. has had one since February.

"We've thrown everything into this notebook," said Carl Pinto, Toshiba's director of product marketing.

These "desktop replacements" are the queen bee of portable computing, boasting 17-inch, wide-screen displays and many features that are found in the latest desktop computers. The new, larger machines take advantage of technology not available 10 years ago, such as the ability to watch a wide-screen movie in the way directors intended.

"You can have your work on one side of the screen and something else on the other," Pinto said. "At the end of the day, the consumer is beginning to use the laptop for more than just work. It's a secondary TV. Or a gaming machine."

These larger machines typically weigh more than their predecessors -- Toshiba's new Satellite P25 tips the scales at 9.9 pounds -- but they are still far more portable than a 35-pound desktop computer.

Apple Inc., which started selling its 17-inch PowerBook G4 in February, said it has had trouble supplying enough to meet consumers' demand.

"We couldn't quite make enough in the first quarter," said Sandy Green, Apple's director of PowerBook marketing.

Over the years, laptops thinned but screen sizes kept growing. Five years ago, 15-inch screens were top of the line, compared to the more common 12-inch to 14-inch screens. Since then, 15.4-inch and 16-inch screens have entered the market.

The bigger laptops are essentially smaller desktops, said Stephen Baker, an analyst with market researcher The NPD Group.

"Most consumers don't want to give up the advantages of a desktop but want portability," he said. "Consumers don't need the portability a road warrior needs. They need the portability of going from the den to the deck."

With more space, Toshiba has crammed in two optical drives (a CD player and a DVD burner), dual Wi-Fi networking (802.11a and b), four USB ports, two PC card slots, a FireWire port, a Secure Digital memory reader and a Harman Kardon sound system. The $2,099 laptop has a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor -- better than most desktops -- and a full-size keyboard.

A growing stream of consumers has been buying laptops instead of desktops in recent years, according to market researcher International Data Corp. In the first three months this year, 20.5 percent of computers bought by consumers were desktops. That's up from 14 percent a year earlier.

Consumers have also been ogling bigger and wider TV screens, so the larger, wide-screen laptop isn't a new technology that consumers need time to understand, said Greg Memo, senior vice president for eMachines Inc. in Irvine.

Emachines introduced its first laptop in April, opting for a slightly larger 15.4-inch wide-screen display.

"We wanted to have it fit on most airplane tray tables," Memo said. "The wide-screen is two-inches shorter than traditional notebooks."

Although manufacturers are introducing larger models, laptops in general aren't getting bigger. Offering the new laptops with larger screens is just a way to add another product to a company's lineup.

When Apple launched its 17-inch PowerBook, it also unveiled a 12-inch version.

In March, Huntington Beach-based Sharp Systems of America launched the Actius MM10, its smallest and lightest laptop. The 2.1-pound MM10 has a 10.4-inch screen.

Toshiba also has a thin-and-light line, which includes a 12.1-inch Tablet PC.

"Down the road, there is absolutely a trend of (laptops serving as) desktop replacements," Pinto said. "As prices come down and as availability improves, it will become more mainstream."

-----

To see more of The Orange County Register, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.ocregister.com

(c) 2003, The Orange County Register, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

HPQ, AAPL, TOSBF, 6502,

More Mobile Computing News