Laptop tech and trends 2013 and beyond

Many changes are afoot in the world of laptops largely influenced by tablets and smart phones.I think 2013 will see the mantras of thin, long battery life, and streamlined--influenced by Retina MBP. Input tech will also be a focus influenced by Windows 8 and iOS/Android. Some trends we might see.

1. Streamlined. Ethernet ports will be more rare. CD/DVD/Blu-ray will be in fewer laptops. More laptops will have non-removable battery, RAM, hard-disk, etc.
2. Thin. Streamlining will make laptops thinner. Tech such as IGZO will help make screens thinner. Haswell and new Nvidia/AMD graphics chips will be mobile focused.
3. Better displays. Maybe 2013 is too early for 4K 15" screens but we should at least see resolutions matching Retina MBP 15". PPI wars of phones coming to a laptop near you.
4. Touch tech. Many laptops will have touch options. We could see Synaptic's pressure sensitive touchpads.
5. Motion tech. We're seeing some Kinect type motion tech being demonstrated and it could be ready by 2013. 3D cameras in laptops?
6. Tablet/Laptop hybrids. Dell XPS 12, Yoga, Taichi are just the beginning.

What is everyone else's predictions? What tech or form factor are you waiting for to upgrade to your next laptop? Are laptops heading in the direction you want?

 

If they truly are heading in the way you're predicting: notebooks are dying imo.

Proprietary, non-replaceable/upgradeable components? Nooooooooooooo!!!

Where are we? In 1980???

I want 'more' than today's available Quad Core platforms. With fully serviceable RAM, mSATA, wireless and SATA bays/ports/connectors. Having a notebook with 6 mSATA ports, 3 SATA bays and an Optical Drive would go a long way towards making me much more mobile than I can be now. The chipsets support it: why/where/how come we don't have these yet????

Longer battery life yes: but with removable/expandable options (giving actual longer run time away from A/C).

Touch? NEVER - I want to see the image I'm editing - not the smudges my snacking fingers leave...

Higher resolutions? Yes, but at the same time: an O/S that scales to real world uses (eg. a 12 point font is actually/physically 12 point in size). OS/x doesn't even come close...

Tablet/Notebook Hybrid's? Yes - but running a real O/S like Win8x64 PRO not Win8RT along with the physical capability of dual channel SoDimm (I wouldn't mind a 2x 2 Dual channel configuration for 32GB+ RAM on a Hybrid - that would make it 'usable' to me and not excruciatingly slooooooow with the current 512MB/1GB/2GB tablets currently offer...


Yes I want what hasn't been announced yet. And if your predictions are true: we're going in the wrong direction.

 

For the average user I think we've just about gotten to their limit. For them, laptops will simply continue to become thinner, lighter and more automated. the will just tough icons or push buttons and all their lives will be revealed before them...or for the world to see.

However, for the rest of us, there is much room growth left for business and industrial user to grow. This is where the flexibility of upgradable components will flourish. I see more powerful multiple CPU/GPU behemoths with the application of more standardization in components and ports.

The displays will become more efficient with dynamically active panels so they can react and adjust to whatever resolution and scale to fit users needs, as well as lighting ratios. Also docking will increase so we can carry all our super computer needs from location to location.

 

What I see in the future is lower quality parts combine with worse QC to drive the price down. facebook games and "apps" will take over PC game industry.

laptops functions are overkill for people in this generation. (for entertainment and typewriter/office purpose)

 

Pretty much agree with Baiii in that cheap customers will demand more cheap laptops that comes with cheap parts because so long as you can play Farmvile on it, who cares? I guess they'll continue giving tech support shops a job when their throw-away machines break down.

For the serious users out there (like the NBR crowd) and business users, there will still be laptops that resemble today's Clevos, Alienwares, Thinkpads, Latitudes, etc etc. Performance, build quality, and aftersales support still matters to these people, and they make up a huge chunk of an OEM's revenue (especially the business buyers).

I'd love to see 768p dropped on all laptops 13.3" and above.

 

Ethernet ports are something you never think you'll need anymore until you are in a hotel with only an ethernet connection. For example, I'm on a det right now for the Navy and we only have ethernet (this is common for the military hotels for whatever reason). A few of the guys have shiny new MBP Retina's but now have no internet since there is no ethernet port. They've resorted to purchasing $100 wireless routers. This is a lesson learned for me that A) sometimes my ethernet port may be useful and B) to include a wireless router in my deployment/detachment kit from now on.

 

I think this could be a better idea than lugging around an entire router

 

i hope there still will be laptops in the future. Tablets might take over just like laptops took over the desktop. I think being portable will get more and more important what you already see in the ultrabook range, sacrifising preformance and quality for a sleek light laptop.

Furthermore Lithium is getting really rare and with those darnn elictric cars using Litiuhm battery´s too battery´s might get scarse

 

NFC will make an appearance since it seems to be the vogue with phones at the moment. I heard some research in to Magnesium Ion batteries might make a show, the electric car drive is a good thing since it might spur battery innovation for the first time in decades since we ditched nickel cadmium. IIRC a uni also managed to store about twice the energy per volume with fluoride but they couldn't get more than a few re-charge cycles.
We might start seeing laptop IPS or PLS screens becoming more common since people are getting used to tablets and will start complaining about the cruddy TN.
I forsee SSDs become more standard with a bifurcation in to performance and cost-sensitive product lines from most companies.

 

Thinner/lighter - this has been a trend since the beginning of the notebook industry but somewhere along the way the motivation to do so went from practicality ('We can fabricate smaller parts now, let's make a smaller package') to style. Reality check: a super slim 15.6" notebook isn't actually more portable than a slightly heavier and thicker 'normal' thickness notebook. But hey it looks cooler and 'chic'
---This trend has had a lot of disturbing side effects recently including the elimination of useful ports (see above posts about Ethernet) and the move towards using dongles for any sort of port connectivity (see Ultrabooks). It's also resulted in the elimination of user upgradeability and user-changeable batteries.

A guaranteed trend going forward for notebook PCs is the inclusion of a touch screen. Windows 8 is more or less pointless without one.

All these trends have me wondering what business class notebooks will turn into; they've stayed more or less immune to the thinness trend (form hasn't eclipsed function yet). I personally think there's going to be significant resistance to Windows 8 in a business environment. I haven't seen evidence that it is useful for corporate office types like myself; quite the opposite as a matter of fact.

 

Yes, that adapter is definitely useful, but a wireless router is still a good idea for our deployment kits. Many of us have more than one wireless router sitting around and it's a little less confining to be limited to the size of your ethernet cable. Granted, our living space is very tiny so that's not an issue, but with a wireless router we can use our phones to talk as if we're back home (with programs like Talkatone on Android, for example). Sometimes being able to do things like we'd do back home is very therapeutic. Realistically, using an adapter like the one in your link is the easiest and most cost effective solution, but why would we do that when we can make everything way more complicated?

 

While I'm not as pessimistic about the future of laptops as some posters, the laptop-as-a-device trend is where things are heading. I'm hopeful that in 2013, desktop replacement class laptops don't start to disappear and go the way of the netbook. Instead of filling out a 5 lbs, 1" laptop chassis with the best in class tech, companies seem to want to shave off millimeters and grams with each revision, which means removing parts. Removing a few millimeters and a few grams doesn't make it that much more portable. There's definitely some good things coming in 2013 which we will see in CES, but some trends are disappointing to the power user and tinkerer.

Another aspect is that these throwaway laptops with non-replaceable batteries and RAM are bad for people's budgets and bad for the environment. Adding RAM and replacing a battery can add years to a life of a laptop. And even though a DVD/Bluray isn't as necessary today, having the bay to install a SSD or HDD also adds to the life of a laptop.

 

I was about to suggest the same thing, lol.

But about the post, I think general consumer devices will just become media devices but laptops will thrive. Likely most will turn into convertible laptops with touchscreens, but like tiller, I don't like touch. It's added and unnecessary maintenance (cleaning) when you have a keyboard and mouse. Granted sometimes it would be nice to have something smaller and lighter at my job, but I can always still use a keyboard and touchpad.

 

except for all the mSATA and SATA slots/bays look up the portable workstations. I had the same issue for mobile photo/video editing, and dont get me started on OSX's font handling and rendering.

I really hope they leave them alone. just the disparity of quality and features between the consumer side now is incredible and should be maintained for those that need less than disposable computing devices.

As for windows 8 I see it as a bit of a split, the word processing and e-mail crowd seem to like it as it is easy to fast highlight and edit. ( they should learn a trackpoint ) but the designers, and data entry people rather dislike it as it messes with our workflow too much. ( the dumbing of OSX into iOS is the same issue ) we rely heavily on file management, file trees, advanced network shares and all the goodies in the background that the new UI's are hiding to the user. but alas we have moved into the age of the lowest common denominator .... the average user that cant be bothered to learn the basics and wants to poke buttons like their smartphone does for an instant result, on a shiny device they can feel happy about replacing in a year when it busts.

end rant /