14 DAY TRIAL // Analysts have once again looked at the notebook market, and it looks like the findings suggest a significant increase in the standard performance of mainstream machines compared to previous years.
The laptop market is one that has grown substantially ever since the first mobile computers were developed and sent out into the world.
Needless to say, behind the rapid increase in sales was the increasing level of performance, as well as improving aesthetics, better battery life and progressively lower weight.
Nowadays, laptops are divided into netbooks and notebooks, for the most part, their target user segments being the entry-level and mid-to-high end, respectively.
Being such an important part of the IT industry, the notebook segment fell under the scrutiny of market analysts.
What was discovered is that about half of all notebooks sold in 2015 will utilize quad-core central processing units.
This is a reflection of the way the performance level has risen on the mainstream and how the higher levels are about to fall to six-core chips. The fact that battery life is starting to extend to more than 3 hours will definitely act as a boost as well.
“The cornerstone of PC performance, the microprocessor, is continuing to evolve to provide new levels of performance to the PC market,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst of compute platforms for IHS.
“For decades, the main focus for increasing microprocessor performance was in the area of clock speed, with suppliers battling to offer parts with the most megahertz or gigahertz. However, the competition now has shifted to the battle over cores, with suppliers racing to offer parts that boost performance by providing greater parallelism. The battle now has moved from the dual-core segment into the quad-core area—and next will spread to the six-core realm.”
For those that want numbers, 49% (total yearly shipments will reach 58.9 million) is quite the jump from the 9% predicted for 2011.