Many phones with access to email are now available in the market, and there is no need to spend big bucks to afford a phone with such feature. Given that more people are demanding email on the go, research firm Gartner believes that SMS would soon be a goner.

According to the firm, one of five people will be using mobile email by 2010. 20 million wireless email users today will grow to a whopping 350 million on the same year, said firm's research vice president Monica Blasso. She noticed that the availability of low-cost phones with mobile email functions is driving consumer adaptation.

"Once email becomes available more or less free of charge by default on your mobile handset, people will gravitate to that rather than just continuing to use SMS," added Robin Simpson, mobile and wireless research director at Gartner Australasia. This is due to mobile email access being offered free as part of mobile phone contracts in Australia, he said.

According to Simpson, low mobile email uptake in Australia can be credited to high costs, but competition between carriers like Hutchison 3 and Virgin Mobile will drop prices rapidly. "The interesting thing is that SMS, if you look at it in terms of actual cost for the data, is really expensive, and where we're heading is you'll get a free email package when you sign up to your monthly plan," he continued.

Call history. Calculator. Multiple ringtones. Text Messaging. These are just a few of the features mobile phone users take for granted. At a glance, one may think that little by little, mobile phones are conquering the landline phone market.

But think again. Despite the booming technology of mobile phones (ever-increasing file storage space, increasing camera pixels and whatnot), more people and businesses still cling to their desktop phones.

Cisco Systems, Avaya Inc, as well as many other telephony companies have developed advanced mobile communications solutions, such as dual-mode phones that work with extension dialing that comes with PBX (private branch exchange) systems, even on the go. Another variant, which are softphones for laptops, are also adding more features and are decidedly more user-friendly than desktop and landline phones.

However, despite of all the improvements that mobile communications has to offer, many people still prefer using the more traditional landlines as well as their Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) counterparts. "People still relate to their physical phone. It's like their office space. It's very near and dear to their hearts," said a network administrator from a Canadian engineering company, who asked to remain anonymous.

There are more reasons beside mere sentimentality. There are the still-recurring issues that plague mobile phones, such as lesser sound quality compared to their more traditional siblings, and the softphones' dependence on PC performance.

With about 500 million users, desktop and landline phones can't be phased out that easily. "It would take about five to seven years for wireless phones to replace wired," according to Ken Dulaney, mobility analyst for Gartner Inc.

A few years ago, the trend was owning a decked out PDA with all the trimmings. These days, the smartphone's pulling ahead in the tech race.

According to Gartner Research, North America's the only strong point left in the world for PDA's, accounting for 45 percent of worldwide PDA shipments earlier this year. Even then, of the 42.1 million recorded shipments of PDA's and smartphones recorded this year, 34.7 million were found to be Smartphones.

Nokia currently owns 50% of the smartphone market, with similar companies like RIM reaping steady benefits from their BlackBerry phone.

Palm, one the better known PDA brands, is steadily losing out in this race, owning only five percent of the PDA and smartphone market. Palm's banking on its Treo series smartphone at the moment, with no revent news on a new PDA model for for this year.

What's the cause for this trend shift putting the likes of Nokia at the lead?

Gartner researcher Roberta Cozza say this about the increasing demand in smartphones: "Consumer taste and fashion, advances in PIM software and messaging, and rapidly declining prices all combined to drive the strong growth in smartphone sales."

If you want a computing device that you can bring along anywhere, get a laptop. If you want something that is less likely to break down on you, stick with the desktop computers. But if you're one of those lucky people who are financially blessed, get both. This is what a recent survey seems to imply.

Apparently, computers have become more reliable in recent years as manufacturers have improved designs, but one in every six new notebooks still needs to be repaired within a year after purchase.

The good news according to market research group, Gartner, is that failure rates for both desktop computers and portable notebook computers have improved in the 2005-2006 time frame, compared to that of 2003-2004.

In the research, it was mentioned that 5% of desktop computers need to have a component replaced within the first year, compared with 7% two years ago. Four years after purchase, the chance that a desktop computer needs to be repaired is 12%, compared with 15% in 2003-2004.

As for the portable notebooks arena, the first year failure rate is 15% compared with the 20% mark it got two years earlier. The research defined failure as a repair incident in which a component needs to be replaced, ranging from something as trivial as a notebook latch or as significant as a motherboard problem.

The usual issues of notebooks are motherboard and hard drive problems, which together make up almost 50% of all laptop failures. Before, screen breakage used to be the single-largest source of failure, but with the manufacturers focusing on notebook casing and screen rigidity and greater clearance between the screen and the keyboard when the system is closed, that isn't the case anymore.

The battle between PCs and Macs continues to be lopsided with Apple on the losing end. According to data from research firm Gartner, PC shipments totaled 57 million units worlwide in the first quarter of 2006, a 13.1% increase. Meanwhile, Apple's slice of the global pie slipped from 2.2 percent to a mere 2.0 percent.

Apple's share of the personal computer market in the United States isn't moving up either. It remains relatively flat at 3.6% but down from 3.8% in the first quarter of 2005. On the other hand, overall PC shipments in the U.S. shot up 7.4% to 16.4 million units during the first quarter of 2006.

There is one bright spot for Apple. Potential Mac buyers are thought to be holding out for the new Intel-based models that had yet to come to market. The company could begin to realize some share gains later this year once all of its PC offerings are readily available with Intel processors.