Michael Tchong I Love My Lappy November 4, 2008

It’s a sensual ritual that’s repeated daily, sometimes hourly. Highly detailed online videos show close-ups of trembling fingers eagerly and gingerly removing layer after layer...of packaging. Welcome to the wonderful world of unboxing, a trend that’s being propelled by a love for anything digital.

At the MacRumors forum, a thread speculating about “glass trackpads” in Apple’s new MacBooks began at 34 minutes past midnight on October 14. By 11:44 that same morning it had already reached a whopping 60 pages containing nearly 1,200 posts.

That type of feverish anticipation is unheard of in any other product category. But then again, this is no ordinary product. Over at NotebookReview they refer to their laptops as “my lappy.” The computer is no longer a productively tool, it’s an extension of our persona. A marriage between man and machine.

And the bride is becoming increasingly fashionable. This week, H-P announced that its Vivienne Tam Special Edition laptop would be available in December for $700. We can thank ASUS CEO Jonney Shih for that low-ball price. Shih kicked off the “mini-book” trend last year when he launched the Eee PC, originally promised at $200.

Mini notebooks have galvanized sales because they represent the future. IDC reported this past October that more than 2 million mini-notes were sold in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) during the third quarter of 2008, equal to 7% of the 28 million laptops and desktops sold in the same region.

Laptop sales, meanwhile, surpassed desktops for the first time in third quarter, says IDC. The researcher estimates that worldwide desktops shipments totaled 151 million in 2007, an anemic 4% growth rate, while total notebook shipments jumped 26% in 2007, equal to 137 million units shipped worldwide.

Now, that’s a lot of unboxing.