As the PC shrinks in size, it is on a collision course with the multifunction cellphone.

The new smartphones change the rules of the game in computing because computing speed is no longer the most important factor. For a cellphone relying on a small battery, how efficiently a chip uses power becomes more important.

A new market of MID’s, or mobile Internet devices represents the beginning of a boom in a new class of computing device — things like shrunken laptops called netbooks, personal GPS navigators and handheld game systems, as well as an expanding array of idiosyncratic gadgets that connect wirelessly to the Internet for every conceivable purpose.