In 2008, late Steve Jobs, to everyone's surprise, took out a laptop from a manilla envelope. It was thinner and lighter than any full-fledged laptop we had seen at the time. Since then, Apple has made its laptops thinner and stuffed in more processing muscle into them. The trend has been widely imitated by Windows OEMs, and we have reached a point where one such company, HP, claims it is all set to out-innovate Apple's offering.
HP says its upcoming offering will help it surpass Apple for the most innovative laptops. The company is expected to unveil the thinnest laptop we have seen to date on Tuesday. "For years, Apple has been seen as the innovator and the driver of innovation," said Ron Coughlin, president of HP's personal systems group. "HP is really taking over that mantle."
HP has been one of the handful PC giants to manufacture thin laptops and focus on premium design - a tradition that Windows ecosystem isn't necessarily known for. The Elitebook Folio, which it unveiled at CES earlier this year gained it a lot of praise. The HP Envy 13, HP Pavilion 13 x360, and HP Pavilion 15 notebooks also impressed many.
As PC manufacturers see a continual decline in their shipment numbers, they have no choice but to try out different things to lure customers. The market for cheap laptops now sees a strong force from Chromebook category, the cheap-priced laptops that are able to meet most of the computing needs of a user. The higher echelon of the laptop market sees many people swing to Apple's offering. The high-end laptop category can help OEMs make a lot of money, as a large profit margin is possible there, but if computer OEMs don't innovate, they will leave customers with fewer reasons to buy their product.
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