Analysts kept pegging the year at which the tables turned as closer and closer, but they were conservative: The numbers for 2005 are in, and 50.9 percent of computers sold in the U.S. at retail were laptops. This does exclude massive corporate and industry purchases, but it's a good reflection of the adoption of laptops by a broader segment of users. News.com notes that base-level laptops cost $500 to $700, while $1,000 purchases a nicely full-feature higher-end system. You can spend a lot more, but that typically buys you battery life, a better screen, and extras rather than radically improved system performance. (Intel Core Duo will change that equation, too.)
A couple of years ago, predictions were that 75 percent of laptops by now would have Wi-Fi as a built-in option. I thought it was nonsense: it would either be close to 100 percent or replaced by another wireless networking technology. The tipping point of cost and utility was already in place when that prediction was made: it just required manufacturers to have enough time to revise their laptop lines to incorporate the technology into current products.