A bearded guy with long rumpled hair, dressed in rags, perhaps marooned on a lonely island, finally manages to retrace his way home. Poor thing! Both his wife and the dog fail to recognise him, thanks to his unkempt look. But lo, there is someone (read something) who can read his face. And that?s Lenovo?s Y-series laptop, that manages to identify its rightful owner in Saif Ali Khan. (?Now, your face is your password, says the voiceover at the end of the television commercial.)

Cut to an office where a man wants to end his life because his laptop crashed bang in the middle of an important meeting. In comes Bollywood hunk Hrithik Roshan promising to make his ?busy? life ?easy? with the help of an Acer laptop. Not just Hrithik and Saif; even the ?Badshah? Bollywood has to depend on his Compaq laptop if only to impress a pretty young thing at a computer showroom(?Ban Jaaye Baat?).

Even until a few years ago, one would hardly catch a laptop commercial on the small screen. It was a niche segment, with manufacturers targeting their ads at large enterprises. But the new notebooks in the sub-Rs 25,000 range are increasingly finding their way into homes, educational institutes, and small and medium enterprises.

?Why should I go for a bulky desktop when I can get a laptop in the same price range?? asks Piya Narang, a Delhi-based teacher. ?I can carry my laptop just like a mobile phone. It?s convenient and easy to use. I don?t have to worry about power failure or Internet disconnection,? she adds. Nikita Agrawal, a college student, thinks much like Narang. She says, ?I don?t have enough space in my house to keep a desktop. So I bought a notebook and that too within my budget.?

Led by a sharp drop in prices, notebook sales in India are growing faster than desktop sales and are projected to corner 40% share of the Indian personal computer market by 2010. Notebook shipments have grown 86% in financial year (FY) 2007, and today, one out of five PCs sold in India is a notebook. As the market matures and prices fall further, experts see laptops and desktops to be in the ratio of 50:50 in next four-five years.

According to the estimates of IT hardware body MAIT (Manufacturers Association of Information Technology), PC sales crossed 1.7 million units in April-June of FY2008. Of this, notebook sales touched 3.67 lakh units, posting a growth of 104% over the same period previous fiscal. According to IT research firm IDC, consumer laptop segment grew from 29% to 32% of the total notebook shipments by June-end.

?Notebook purchases will be heavily influenced by brand value and service capabilities in the minds of customers, while economies of scale will help vendors remain competitive and offer better price points going forward,? says Piyush Pushkal, manager, computing products research, IDC India. ?Consumers will benefit further when local vendors compete with the big global players on price, smart sourcing and innovation.?

According to IDC data, HP is the leader in the notebook shipment with a market share of 40.4%, followed by Lenovo and Dell. Aiming a growth of 50% in the lifestyle computing market this fiscal, HP has expanded its portfolio to bring in the oomph factor by launching new products including desktops, notebooks and handheld devices at various price points.

HP has introduced four feature packages in its business notebooks?standard, business, professional and workstation. Each of these, available in the price range of Rs 24,990 to Rs 1,49,990, offer personalised features.

Dell, which was selling its products directly to the consumer in all the markets, is mulling a change in strategy?selling its products through retail stores. The company has introduced notebooks priced at just Rs 32,000.

?Globally, and in India, notebooks are achieving outstanding growth,? says a Dell executive. ?We saw triple-digit growth in our notebooks in FY06 over FY05. Users are happier about what they can get from notebooks and, as a result, we see many users switching from desktops to laptops.?

Zenith Computers has announced a new price strategy to, in its own words, ?revolutionise the Indian notebook market?. Starting at Rs 24,990, the three new ?ultra-portable? laptops offer consumers advanced configuration with on-site warranty rather than the ?carry-in warranty that is offered by most multinational companies?.

?We are not interested in making ?the 10k debacle? (as in launching a sub-Rs 10,000 laptop) in the laptop segment like other brands,? says Raj Saraf, CMD, Zenith Computers. ?The new range of laptops will help us reach the performance laptop buyer for whom price was a constraint earlier.?

On its part, Acer India has launched its Aspire 4310 and Aspire 4710 series, which are part of the new design notebooks from the company whose design team worked with BMW Group Designworks, USA, to study design trends, develop the concept and visualise new forms. With a Linux operating system and Combo drive, the notebook is available at Rs 20,999. A variant in this series is available with a 0.3 mega-pixel camera, priced at Rs 24,499.

Bundling is also the flavour of the season in the notebook segment, with most companies tying up with Internet service providers, operating system and software providers, and chipmakers to make the package available to the consumer at an affordable price. With increasing competition some companies are giving special offers and discounts, which reached its peak during the festive season.

HCL notebooks, branded as ?Leaptops?, are available at Rs 24,990 onwards. HCL has also started notebook financing, offering notebooks at monthly instalments of Rs 790 through HCL Digilife stores. Airtel Broadband & Telephone Services has tied up with HCL to offer a bundled broadband connection with every HCL PC.

?We saw strong traction for our notebooks in insurance and education verticals,? says George Paul, executive vice-president, HCL Infosystems. ?The momentum towards notebooks is so strong that many enterprises have announced a notebook-only policy for their employees. Today?s notebooks come close to matching desktop PCs in multi-media features and performance and, as a result, consumers too are adopting notebooks in large numbers.?

This Diwali, Lenovo promoted its latest Lenovo 3000 Y410 notebook with exciting multimedia features such as Audio DJ, which allows users to play music even while the notebook is turned off.

?Innovation has always been our USP?in products or marketing,? says Prasanna Rai, general manager, marketing, Lenovo India. ?Unique marketing tactics have been a feature at Lenovo?be it the product placements we have done on TV, movies or the recent Audio DJ Console event we did with Radio Indigo in Bengalooru, where RJs played live music from a giant Y410 on a 20-foot pedestal. ?

The increasing proliferation of broadband access and multiple modes providing access to the Internet are also playing a big role in boosting laptop sales in India. Also, all laptops are now Wi-Fi enabled, which means the user can surf the web at a minimal cost by installing a Wi-Fi router anywhere in her house or office. Besides, one can get a data card and log on to the net in seconds.

Laptop manufacturers are heading towards tier II and tier III cities to tap the unexplored opportunity. Sahara Computers, for instance, has set up its manufacturing units in Noida (UP), Pondicherry and Roorkee (Uttaranchal).

The facts that every 50th Indian today owns a PC shows there is a huge chunk of the market yet to be tapped.

The department of telecommunications has set a target of 18 million Internet connections and 9 million broadband connections by the year-end; but till October the country had only 2.69 million broadband subscribers. Increased penetration of notebooks and desktops will give a push to Internet usage in India, especially in the rural areas, from where the next stage of growth is expected.

And it?s not just Indians who are taking a fancy for laptops. IDC found that driven by huge sales of notebooks, PC market in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), totaled 16.1 million units in the July-September quarter of FY07, representing a 13% sequential growth and a 24% year-on-year growth.

?Portable PCs, particularly those sold through retail channels, continue to blow me away,? says Bryan Ma, director of Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC. ?Even emerging markets that intuitively would gravitate towards lower priced desktop PCs have shown increased interest in notebooks.? If things keep going at this pace, the region?s portable PC shipments will likely reach the 20 million unit milestone for the year, Ma predicts.