Spoilt for choice, customers still value premium notebooks: Toshiba

That doesn't worry Mark Whittard, however. As Australia-New Zealand general manager with notebook giant Toshiba, he's confident that continuing technological advancement, backed by steadily increasing business demand and growing involvement with retail customers, will help Toshiba retain the #1 spot despite growing competition.

"We see it as a healthy thing," he says, "because it grows the overall market. We're seeing a huge shift in the consumer market from desktops to mobile computers. Some customers are focused on product and buy a single box at a low-end price point, but others understand the benefits of having all the features there. We're building different products for that market, stripping down to the bare bones".

To compensate for lower overall prices - with notebooks now hovering around the AU$2000 price and dipping as low as AU$1299 - Toshiba has redoubled its efforts on the high-end market traditionally dominated by desktop PCs. Windows XP Media Centre Edition based notebooks such as its Qosimo F10 and G10, which at AU$4999 and AU$5999 respectively now cost what all decent notebooks did just three years ago, are being positioned in retail outlets alongside the widescreen TVs, DVD players and other devices in Toshiba's growing home-entertainment lineup.

Such devices may carry a premium price, but growing consumer sales -- International Data Corp this week pegged annual growth in the consumer notebook segment at 110 percent and placed Toshiba as #1 with 23.5 percent market share -- show that gadget lust is still driving many consumers' purchasing decisions.

For their money, they get a completely integrated entertainment PC that includes 2GHz processors, one or two 80GB hard drives, 15.4" or 17" widescreen screens, dual-layer DVD burners, and TV tuners. By year's end, says Toshiba director of worldwide product planning Masa Okumura, introduction of HD-DVD capable notebooks will further improve the products by bringing high-definition video, and eventually HD digital TV reception, to the notebook market.

Growing sales of high-ticket devices raises Toshiba's average selling price, something that Whittard believes will compensate for the notebook market's overall decline. Just how long this strategy will work remains to be seen, however: even Okumura concedes that new features are pushing technological boundaries, with HD video requiring a minimum 3GHz processor. Processors running that fast require considerable battery power, a point that will not be lost on consumers the minute the notebook is unplugged and the battery dies halfway through 'The Matrix' in HD.

Continuing to find new features that justify higher-priced notebooks is particularly difficult in the business market, whose real feature requirements were met years ago. Subsequent generations of notebooks continue to refine those features - for example, Toshiba has just added a privacy feature that prevents the screen from being seen by anybody except the person using it. Later this year, the company will ship a notebook with built-in fingerprint scanner.

Looking forward, however, Intel has enough mobile technologies on the boil to keep Toshiba and other mobile makers busy for some time. Many of these were announced at this week's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, where the company demonstrated or announced technologies including:

• The marketing name of Intel's 'Smithfield' dual-core desktop CPU: Intel Pentium D processor. 'Napa', the next-generation Centrino mobile technology, paired with 'Yonah', a 65nm dual-core CPU optimised for mobile applications.

• An 'on-the-go concept mobile PC' with combination touch screen/speaker, wired or wireless keyboard, detachable DVD player, GPS navigation, built-in camera and array microphones. At IDF, Intel executive Sean Maloney demonstrated this concept system being docked in a Land Rover, which could access stored media and GPS readings from the mobile PC.

• A concept business laptop incorporating out-of-band mangeability, visual activity indicators, biometric fingerprint scanner, an array microphone, integrated camera, mobile phone, integrated wireless, and support for 'Vanderpool' Intel Virtualisation Technology, which enables the running of multiple operating systems simultaneously.

• A digital office concept desktop, shaped like a notebook but specced like a desktop.

• Progress in standardisation of ultra-wideband wireless (UWB) technology, which runs at up to 480Mbps within 10 metre range. UWB will support Wireless USB, specification of which is due by the end of March, and will also enable the MBOA medium access controller (MAC) standard by the end of June. Expect commercial UWB products in late 2005 or early 2006.

• Intel Digital Media Boost, a Yonah supplement for what Intel calls "rich digital multimedia content creation".

• Intel Advanced Thermal Manager, to better monitor the temperature and speed of Yonah-based systems.

• Intel Dynamic Power Coordination, which dynamically balances performance and power between the Yonah CPU's two processor cores.

• Intel I/O Acceleration Technology, for improved server-to-server communications.

• Intel Active Management Technology, allowing low-level management of remote notebooks and desktop clients even when they refuse to boot; will first appear in 'Lyndon' desktops later this year and 'Bensley' servers next year.