The Asus eee is setting the trend for UMPCs

Various devices have tried to fill the role between a PDA and a full-blown laptop over the years, but none has taken off.

But 2008 could be the year when the Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) finally have their day.

The first devices were launched in 2006, but they have never gone mass market - partly because of a combination of high prices and poor battery life.

But towards the end of 2007 a series of new products started to hit shelves.

The most talked about was the Asus EEE, a sub-£200 laptop about the size of a hardback book.

The Taiwanese manufacturer has predicted it will sell five million of the tiny machines in 2008.

The low-cost laptop runs open source Linux software and weighs less than one kilogram.

To cut down on weight it does away with a hard drive in favour of just 4GB of flash memory.

Whilst the storage is small, its use of flash highlights another trend of 2008.

Flash memory has been gradually increasing in power. For example, electronics giant Samsung recently showed off chips that could be used to make 128GB memory cards.

As a result the technology is now starting to challenge hard drives as the storage of choice on laptops.

Apple is even rumoured to be launching ultra-thin Macbooks using flash in 2008.