New Laptops May Boot Instantly, Thanks to Faster Memory

This is what I've been waiting for!

"Apple's newest MacBook Air laptop boots up in mere seconds, thanks to its use of advanced flash memory instead of a standard, slower hard drive. And that memory format, used in so-called solid-state drives, could soon become a standard in PCs, as manufacturers follow Apple's lead and warm to the benefits of flash storage.

Increasingly used in smartphones, the chips used in flash storage are still expensive -- but market leaders Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, SanDisk and Intel are investing billions of dollars in cutting-edge facilities to boost production.

That will help meet growing demand and make solid-state drives, which are made of flash memory chips instead of mechanical parts, more mainstream by 2012 as prices decline, analysts say. Game fans and other tech-savvy consumers are increasingly buying off-the-shelf solid-state drives, or SSDs, because they are quicker, more rugged and less prone to fail.

Intel lowered the prices of some of its solid-state drives on Friday ahead of the Christmas shopping season. Its suggested retail price for an 80 gigabyte drive is now $199, down from around $225." See the rest HERE