THE age of portable computing is now well and truly here and the improvements in technology have banished the users' excuse that laptops sacrificed processing power and storage.
The second half of last year saw a flood of new machines hitting the market and at the same time the major vendors began a no-holds barred, price war.
Following Compaq's decision to try and regain ground worldwide, the company slashed its prices on both desktop and laptop computers.
Its competitors then did the same, with Apple announcing new prices with new machines in October. Early in November IBM did the same and rolled out new desktop PCs and two new versions of the ThinkPad notebook computer.
So aggressive is the pricing battle that Mr Philip Wong, managing director of AST Asia/Pacific, declared that it will result in the ''survival of the fittest''.
But he also believed that sales would be stimulated throughout the region.