The new technology to start hitting PCs and notebooks this year is the concept of switchable graphics. The technology is not brand new, but the use of it will start to become more widespread amongst manufacturers.

So what are switchable graphics?

Basically, switchable graphics allows the user to switch between graphics on a buit in graphics card and an external graphics card such as an ATI etc. So what you can do is switch to the powerful graphics card for games and video, but switch back to the built in graphics card for other applications etc. This allows for conservation of energy whilst running less demanding grahical applications.

The technology has already been used in 2008 by some manufacturers, the Lenovo T400 is one prime example. You can expect to start seeing this alot more and the technology will also improve over time, as it does have some constraints at the moment.