This IDC study looks at the worldwide and U.S. markets for notebooks by screen size and forecasts it them out to 2010. Seventeen screen-size categories are tracked, and their growth rates and shipment numbers are estimated. The aspect ratio — the ratio of width to height — of the screen sizes and their resolutions are also tracked and forecasted on an annual basis from 2005 through 2010.

"Panel makers continue to play a central role in the shift to widescreen displays. A need to fully utilize next-generation liquid crystal display (LCD) panel plants and get as much glass as they can into the hands of manufacturers and PC buyers is leading to rapid price declines of widescreen panels. This has a ripple effect on the rest of the PC supply chain, encouraging widescreen adoption. While widescreens were previously a differentiator for PC vendors, product portfolios without a majority of widescreen displays in their notebook mix are now viewed as stale." — Richard Shim, senior research analyst for IDC's Personal Computing group