Gadgets and gizmos

We’re really taking to these new fangled computery things in the UK, according to recent research. In fact, the UK market is the fastest growing PC hardware market in the whole of Europe. Gartner, the research company that’s always responsible for publishing these statistics, have noted that sales in the 2nd Quarter of 2008 are more than 25% higher than they were over the same period last year and totalled 2.8 million sales during that period.

While it was a combination of both individual and business consumer that contributed to this growth, the mobile PC category is the stand out winner with a rise of 60% in this area alone. HP was the most notable gain in the top manufacturer positions although ASUS, manufacturer of the miniscule Eee PC, also had strong gains. Desktop sales actually declined.

Sales are expected to grow throughout the year thanks to the introduction of the micro laptop PC. These offer an affordable way for many people to start out on the PC ladder, as it were, and their size makes them ultra portable and extremely convenient for pretty much any application. Dell is still the leading manufacturer over here with HP in 2nd and Acer in 3rd.