Notebook vendors should pay more attention to their enterprise customers, says Gabriel Vitus, IT director of the Vancouver-based Certified General Accountants Association of Canada. "Not only on the big issues, but also on the little things," he says. "Like button placement."

Even today, many CIOs feel that too many notebooks have batteries that conk out in the middle of a job, weigh too much, or fail to keep critical information secure (Compare Data Leak Protection products). "There's plenty of room for improvement," Vitus says. Yet as 2008 dawns, CIOs have some reason for optimism. Notebook makers are prioritizing improvements to design, storage (Compare Storage Resource Management products), and displays that could make the notebooks of 2011 quite different than the workhorses of today.

"Notebooks are rapidly evolving and improving," says Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group consultancy. Does a three-pound laptop that runs some eight hours sound good to you? Then you may like the machines of 2011. If one company has its way, you may also be able to use those machines for quick e-mails and Web browsing without firing up Windows.

The Obesity Problem

Like a growing percentage of the U.S. population, notebooks face an obesity crisis. Vendors must respond to increasing performance demands while keeping their products from inflating to unacceptable dimensions.

To balance the parameters of weight and size, batter life, durability, security and performance, notebook vendors must work as carefully and precisely as a Swiss watchmaker. And to counter bloat, vendors are looking to lighter materials, more highly integrated components and new space-saving design approaches.

"Design is an overarching trend," says Enderle. "Dell has tripled the size of its design staff," he says, adding that Lenovo and Toshiba will continue to stand out among mobile vendors known for cutting-edge designs. "Design is becoming a key battlefield, and buyers will ultimately benefit by receiving more powerful and compact notebooks," Enderle says.

What kind of design changes are we talking about? Look for more case colors, more metals, sleeker designs, brighter displays, better speakers, better integrated cameras, quieter fans, lighted keyboards, secondary displays and more exotic screen hinges, Enderle says. At the same time, a storage revolution promises to attack several notebook problems, including weight, speed and power drain, says Richard Shim, a notebook analyst at IDC. "Solid state drives -- flash memory -- will change notebooks by providing a medium that's faster, less fragile and more power friendly," he says.