If the latest rumors are to be believed, there could be an LED-based portable in your future. Geeks have long touted the advantages that LED displays have over their LCD counterparts: more accurate color reproduction and uniformity, a higher contrast ratio and improved brightness being among them. Still, a few factors have kept the technology at bay, namely, a prohibitively high price and high power consumption. Despite these drawbacks, Apple and HP are both rumored to have LED based laptops in the works, which will allegedly make their debut this year. According to the source of the rumors, Taiwanese newspaper Digitimes, the LED machines would be high-end multimedia laptops. Apple and HP certainly seem like good suspects here, as both sell ridiculously-expensive, widescreen laptops (think of the 17" MacBook Pro, or "Lapzilla" as it is often, affectionately called). The only question that remains is whether LED displays are a technology ready for prime-time in the portable market.

For more on the rumor:
- see this Ars Technica article [1]