The most noticeable change in notebooks over the past couple of years has been the move to wide screens. The classic notebook screen for a long time was a14-inch diagonal display in VGA format -- a width-to-height ratio of 1.33 to 1 (or 4:3) TV-screen dimensions.

Super VGA and XGA added resolution, but kept the same ratio. However, TV is changing over the next couple of years to high-definition displays with a panoramic screen: HDTV uses a 1.78:1 screen, and PC displays are following suit. WXGA displays have standardized at 1366 x 768-pixel resolution, a 1.78:1 ratio.

At the same time, screen sizes have narrowed slightly to keep notebooks about the same width; the result is that the 12.1-inch widescreen display will be the mainstream standard for notebooks over the next year.

This will not affect notebook width and height, which will stay about 8.5 x by 11 (the size of a paper notebook), constrained by the ergonomics of keyboards and screens. However, they will get thinner along the z-axis toward the end of next year, predicts Fiering, as components like the hard disk continue to slim down.

Another display-related technology change will also contribute to this slimming-down effect, according to Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product marketing for Fujitsu: LED backlit displays. Backlighting in a notebook works like a slide projector: the liquid crystal display is turned on or off pixel by pixel, allowing light from behind the display to shine through it or not. Notebook backlights for years have been basically fluorescent lamps, excited to luminescence by a high-voltage current. The current is provided by an inverter, a sort of transformer the width of the screen that steps up the notebook's current to drive the backlight.

LEDs, however, run on notebook power, so the weight and space taken by the inverter can be saved, and the mounting and mullion around the screen can be slimmed down. "A notebook that previously had a 13.3-inch screen," Moore explains, "can move to a 14-inch screen in the same case." Or, if you want to save size and weight, the same size screen can go into a smaller case.

Richard Brown, director of international marketing for chipmaker VIA, agrees that 12-inch notebooks are going to be a sweet spot in the market over the next year -- especially as they get better equipped with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drives, Bluetooth and WAN support, and similar features. (The interest in the 12-inch form factor may be one reason for the recurring rumor that Apple will reintroduce a 12-inch model into its MacBook Pro notebook line.)

Overall, performance of notebooks in the 12- to 15-inch class won't change much. The boost provided by dual-core processor technology has pretty well spread through the notebook market. Manufacturers will be consolidating their gains by offering more models and choices and trying to improve battery life. New chipsets like Intel's Santa Rosa platform (now renamed the Centrino Pro) are as much about power-management as they are about raw compute power.