A Wider Share
Thanks to the wide-screen LCD television boom, wide-screen laptops should be in abundant supply for the foreseeable future, according to John Jacobs, who is director of notebook market research at flat-panel market research and consulting company DisplaySearch, based in Austin, Texas. Large glass producers such as Samsung and LG Philips are ramping up their production primarily to accommodate the TV market, but plenty of material remains for wide-screen laptop manufacturers, too. It doesn't hurt that wide screens are less expensive to produce than standard portable screens because they waste less LCD motherglass.
After a slow start, wide-screen laptops have begun to steal some sales from their standard-screen-size brethren. According to Jacobs, wide-screen notebooks accounted for only 7.5 percent of worldwide sales in the fourth quarter of 2003, but a year later they claimed almost 20 percent of all laptop sales. The 15.4-inch laptop is the best-selling size, garnering about 22 percent of overall wide-screen sales, followed (in order of popularity) by 17-inch, 14.1- and 14-inch, and 12.1-inch models. Even so, currently you can expect to pay a premium of $50 to $60 for a wide-screen laptop, according to Ken Dulaney of Gartner Research.
Though hard market numbers are scarce, currently more consumers than business buyers are embracing wide screens. "Consumers tend to accept them as full-fledged entertainment centers, especially the 17-inch wide screen," says Dulaney. "For example, a student takes one of these to their dorm and they have a TV and almost everything else they need to keep themselves occupied outside of studying."
Dulaney believes that notebooks with standard, conventional screens won't disappear any time soon--especially not in the corporate world, where no-frills portables have traditionally enjoyed considerable popularity--at least among bosses.
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