Origami prices are likely to crash over the next 18 months and cheaper models could be available by the end of this year, says the general manager of Microsoft’s ultra-mobile PC division.

The machines are likely to get 30-40 percent thinner and up to 40 percent lighter, Otto Berkes said at Winhec. Models with 5in screens, compared to the 7in of the first generation, will also emerge, together with higher-resolution displays.

Berkes said: ‘It is very exciting when you consider what is going to be possible over the next couple of years.’

He predicted that compute power would stay around that or a 1GHz ultra-low-volt processor while power consumption fell roughly in line with Moore’s law – halving every two years – until batteries last full a full day of use.

Pressed on this, he said he expected compute power to go up but the priority was to get the size and weight down while increasing battery life.

Microsoft sees the Origami primarily as a consumer device, though it expects sales in schools. My colleague Tom Sanders has posted pictures of some of the specialist concept designs that it is considering.

Berkes said the machines were not going to be successful until they hit commodity prices that can be afforded by people who did not have corporate budgets to draw on. But he said first versions of new technology were always more expensive because of the extra development costs.

A tablet based on Via’s C7-M chip is going on sale in the US for $799 (£490), which translates mysteriously to a £750 price tag in Britain. But Via chip designer Charles Holthaus said the company will compete with Intel-mased models on price.

The Vista next-generation operating system will include tablet functionality as standard and there are a number of new features. A welcome one is the ability to delete mistakes by ‘crossing out’ with the pen; users will also be able to define their own pen gestures.

Handwriting recognition, which was previously fixed ability, can now learn by experience to that it reads your writing better the more you use it. It will also build up a custom dictionary based on the vocabulary you use.

More from Winhec:
Fast flash sidelines the hard disk 
Digital rights protesters gate-crash Microsoft Winhec party  
Beta release of Vista, Office 2007 and Longhorn  
Microsoft braced for Office confusion  
Office gets a new look