We gaze into a crystal ball and and ponder the future, or possible demise, of some well-known technologies.

Prophecy is a hazardous art when it comes to computers. We do know what's coming to the PC in the near future however, so read on to see the year ahead

In a world first, we've managed to get our hands on a review unit of Sony's stunningly thin ultraportable. Most surprisingly, it sports the newest Atom chip from Intel - the Z550 2.0GHz and GMA 500 graphics.

HP has decided to put SSD drives into its upcoming Windows 7 machines. HP's big idea seems to be that they will speed up boot times.

Solid state storage vendors have been breaking records with a new generation of solid state drives (SSDs)..

Intel are reporting that their new range of 34nm SSDs will help push down the price of older drives.

Kingston's new Solid State Drive (SSD) upgrade bundle promises affordable performance for both desktop and laptop owners

Dell's previous 13.3in XPS - the M1330 - was a delightful portable, but the XPS 13 makes it look scruffy by comparison.

The new Toshiba Portege R600 offers the largest SSD available - a whopping 512GB - as well as a swag of other improvements

The next generation of SATA will double the transfer speed of storage from three to six Gbit per second.

Incredibly fast and silent, too, but solid-state is still far too expensive for the mainstream.

Sony’s Z-Series is an ultraportable to aspire to, even if there are a couple of areas where it could improve.

New range of drives coming in 2009, including a world-first 512GB solid state unit from Toshiba.

Samsung has started mass producing 256GB solid state drives, trumping all other high capacity SSDs currently found in the laptop segment of the market.

FFS... that's fast!

Solidly stating its plans for new drive technologies.

Move over Eee PC, the new HP Mini 1000 reminds us all again why bigger keyboards still rock our world. This could of been the 'mini' notebook to beat all others, except for a few glaring omissions.

It's something of a contradiction in terms, having Blu-Ray in a tiny 11.1in screen notebook, but it's certainly a brilliant feat of engineering. See the specs and launch pics here.

Dell's long awaited entry into the Eee-class notebook market is a top effort, though not perfect.

Time to ditch the hard drive? Intel's 80GB drives make solid state a tasty option, though they'll probably put a dent in your hip pocket.