It might not last, but at least for now the sale of personal computers are projecting higher for this year, according to tech industry analyst Gartner.

Gartner on Thursday upped its forecast for worldwide shipment of PCs in 2008 to 297 million units, or 12.5% above shipments last year. Three months ago Gartner predicted an annual increase of 10.9% over '07.

The company attributes the increase to...well, I'll let Gartner tell you:

“Mobile PC shipments exceeded our expectations in the first quarter of 2008,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner. “Mobile PCs continue to have strong momentum and the global economic environment is proving to be less punishing than we expected."

Still, Shiffler issued an important caveat:

 "Even so, it’s a bit premature to say PC shipments won’t be impacted by a weaker global economy, especially if oil and food prices continue to soar.”

Unlike food and oil prices, the cost of mobile PCs continues to go down -- a typical trend in the tech world. Shiffler points specifically to ASUS’ Eee PC, which stellar Datamation columnist Mike Elgan wrote about earlier this month.

How much downward pressure are the Eee mini-notebooks putting on the mobile PC market? Elgan makes this prediction:

[B]y the middle of next year, "mini me too" laptops will be given away in the United States, and by so many companies that they’ll become hard to sell at any price.

Sadly, that almost describes the housing market right now.