PC Prices Reach $300 Milestone 515
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Prices for fully loaded, name-brand PCs have slipped below $300 in the last few weeks, a major milestone. 'Ten or so years ago, when PCs cost five or even 10 times what they do now, it was common for analysts to say that they would never become a staple in homes until they were priced the way consumer electronics were, usually defined as costing less than $300,' Lee Gomes writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'In the days when PCs were $2,000 and even more, that target seemed to be something of a fantasy. Now, PCs cost less than some telephones--and less than a lot of TV sets--and can be found in roughly three-quarters of U.S. homes. But while they are priced like consumer electronics, the machines still aren't even remotely as easy to use, and the trend lines there aren't particularly encouraging.'"
Put Linux On It (Score:5, Insightful)
I now expect I'll be modded up as insightful. :-)
But in truth... Running IE and Outlook Express out of the box when pre-configured by Dell and hooked up by your local cable/DSL installer, vs. running Firefox and Thunderbird when configured and hooked up by your friend who knows their way around Linux... about the same learning curve. The trick is that if your friend who knows Linux set you up right, you won't be infected with three viruses and 18 types of spyware six months later.
Windows vs. Linux in usage... about the same. Maintenance... Linux wins.
- Greg
Uhhh.... DUH~! (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
junk (Score:1, Insightful)
hardly (Score:4, Insightful)
The PCs that are below $300 may be 'brand name' but they are hardly what I'd call 'fully loaded.' Usually 128MB memory and a Celeron or Sempron. Definitely not the Rolls-Royce of computing.
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if you're the type of friend who likes to get calls at 8pm on a Sunday night saying "Hey, I bought this USB video conversion thingy and want to edit my home movies, but the software doesn't install. How can I transfer my movies from my video camera to my PC and then burn a DVD of it?"
Sure, Linux can probably do it, but do you really want to spend the next 8 hours walking your friend through downloading and compiling packages, kernel modules, or hunting around for software to accomplish the task? Either let them use Windows, which 95% of the software out there assumes you have, or prepare to be their phone support for the next 2 or 3 years.
Face it, no matter how hard you try, some users are just not going to get it. I've had to explain to my mother how to drag and drop a file to copy it in Windows 30 times over the past 5 years and she keeps forgetting. Sure, it's probably a convenient excuse to get me to talk to her for more than 5 minutes, but I've got other shit to do.
Re:wouldn't it be nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
I switched my folks over to Firefox, and this is what I got. Ended up putting the IE icon back on their desktop. Told them I will not clean spyware any more.
PC's USED to cost under $300! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uhhh.... DUH~! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the difference is as big as most people assume. Yes, OSs are huge, complicated and amazingly difficult to master, but the average person has no need of mastery. When you look at what the average person does, it's actually fairly easy.
-turn on, click on web browser, type URL of favorite site.
-turn on, insert disc, hit next, next, next, finished, use newly installed software.
-turn on, insert disc, hit next, next, next, finished, plug in USB hardware, use new hardware.
Have you ever tried to dial-in surround sound? Have you ever tried to make your TV, surround sound reciever, cable/sat box, and DVD player all work well using a single remote control? Have you ever tried to watch a TV, then switch to DVD using all of the remote controls that hadn't been unified into a single one?
Yes, OSs are complicated. Consumer electronics is too.
TW
TW
What we need now... (Score:3, Insightful)
While lower prices for desktop machines is great, we need to find a way to get laptops down to a price point where they can be used to replace textbooks for highschool students.
This textbook replacement laptop doesn't necessarily have to have every possible feature, but I think it does need networking, USB, a harddrive, and a display that is fast enough for word processing and simple animations. The ability to play music might insure that the kids don't lose it. The kids can play FPS games at home on their $300 PCs; this machine is meant for study.
Obviously, Linux will be part of that solution, since Windows simply costs too much money.
The educational software for such machines should all be Open Source. This will make it easier for governments and school systems to adapt the software to their particular needs. Each school district can employ a couple of Open Source programmers. Think of what the combined capabilities of so many programmers will be when it comes to developing educational software.
It's sad that we don't hear about wonderful educational software. The people who work on such software aren't held in the same regard as those who work on business enterprise applications or on games, yet educational software could potentially have much farther reaching impacts.
Re:Pity (Score:1, Insightful)
Household staple (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno about this, it seems to me that PCs have been a household staple for a while now. Even when they still cost $1000, they were common enough that it would be a surprise for a household not to have a PC in it. If you also consider the number of homes which have an obsolete PC (older than 5 years old or so) which are pretty much given away at rummage sales and such, the PC is just about ubiquitous.
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:2, Insightful)
The $50 minimum to clean up spyware, viruses etc. adds up to $500 a month for me. Why would I walk away from that?
Of course when I'm asked to build a system for someone it is built with all patches applied, AVG, users choice of firewall both hardware and software, Firefox and Thunderbird. That tends to cut down on the repair side but happy people are more valuable.
It doesn't necessarily need to be Linux and KDE. A well maintained Windows system works too.
But this all agrees with the basic premise of the article. Most home users shouldn't have administrative rights on their own computers. That's the biggest problem I run into.
Re:Pity (Score:2, Insightful)
yuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers don't break themselves. Users break computers.
Well, that's quickly changing: these days, computers can break themselves, be it via automatic upgrades, spyware, or worms that come in through vendor-supplied security holes.
linux on the box (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where do you get your prices??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Stable price (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiocy. Some things are complex and require more knowledge to use effectively than others not because they are poorly designed but because they are much more powerful and versatile. How many functions a typical representative of "consumer electronic" serves? Even a TV needs just on/off, channel up, channel down, volume up & down to operate (the rest is hardly used). Is anything more complex in the consumer electronic field?
What we have to do to shove this plain old truth down the underdeveloped journalistic cerebrums?
Re:Where do you get your prices??? (Score:2, Insightful)
We sold primarily HP and Compaq machines to most consumers. For a given configuration, the HP or Compaq machine would range from ~$1300 to ~$1700.
Comparably, the eMachines model with approximately the same configuration would be ~$700 on the sticker. However, if you signed for eighteen billion years of AOL and some other promotions, you could get rebates that would knock it down to about $300. But, there wa absolutely no way is $300 flat on the sticker.
Mac mini does solve one problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what you're buying with the $200 difference. A Mac's still expensive for an entry-level PC, but it's not 2-3 times as expensive any more.
Re:But they should be (Score:1, Insightful)
Even if we don't do it ourselves (ie, we take it to a shop), we know that it needs to be serviced and we have the appropriate work done.
PCs are the same thing. They require periodic maintenance to get rid of viruses and spyware and the like, as well as uninstalling grandma beatrices crapware program that she insisted on installing because Yahoo! told her it was a good idea.
The bottom line is that PCs are not toasters or TVs or even DVD players. They are sophisticated pieces of machinery and if the owner is too dumb to realize that and take care of it, then they shouldn't own one.
thought... we require drivers licenses to operate cars the benefit of traffic safety. maybe we should require PC licenses for internet safety.
Wrong - computers last almost forever, no maint. (Score:2, Insightful)
In my 20+ years using computers, I only dusted out the inside of a computer once. I did that replacing the harddrive during the only serious hardware failure I have experienced in that 20+ years of computing. My MTBF is 10 years without dusting. Why would I dust?
Software upgrades are necessary? On what planet? Oh, I guess you must be from planet internet - the source of most modern computer problems. Why does everybody today presume that a computer is just a net-access device? You can do a lot more things with a computer than surf pr0n, you know. I still have a PC running Windows 95, with no firewall or anything else on it. It makes a great machine for those older games which require emulation to run on XP. It's also great for anything I don't want broken into by some nefarious hacker. My requirements for the machine haven't changed - why should my software?
It seems that the problem with most need for software upgrades come from changes in the internet environment. That is a completely separate issue from regular computer maintenance. I agree with you that computers don't break themselves - users break them. I think you'll find the same to be true for tables, chairs, and other very reliable items around the home.
Re:wouldn't it be nice... (Score:2, Insightful)
once people give it a chance and get to know how it works, they start to get on just fine with it. i've had a similar, if slightly less hysterical, reaction at work, where all but one of my staff are very happy with it. big sell here? the forecast fox extension, god they love it.
Re:wouldn't it be nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
As did I... And when they made that same complaint (somewhat more eloquently phrased), I explained that pages not loading (or even crashing their browser) meant, in no uncertain terms, that the owner of that site didn't want their business.
Problem solved.
As an aside - I've noticed that quite a few "major" sites DELIBERATELY crash Firefox... Weather.com, as the example I notice most often (since I actually visit it regularly)... I use the User Agent Switcher extension, and if I set it to MSIE (or even to no user agent at all), such sites work just fine. If I set it to FF or Moz - Bam!, dead browser.
I mean, not taking the effort to make a site compatible, I can understand - But to actually exert effort to deliberately break some browsers? You'd almost think such actions must violate some law...
Re:Um, no. (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you add and remove features from either device on a regular basis? Do other dishwashers try to exploit your dishwasher?
If people wanted dishwasher/microwave features ONLY, the internet appliance would have taken off.
Re:But they should be (Score:2, Insightful)
To achieve the end you're suggesting, you'd have to lock the pc down and not allow software installation.
IMO, software installation (and de-installation) is the primary cause of serious computer breakage. (Yes, spyware, etc fall into this category).
Re:Household staple (Score:2, Insightful)
Think of the millions of Americans living in real, don't-have-a-job-or-sot-at-one poverty, and the millions of seniors living in retirement homes. When they've all got capable, easy-to-use pc's, then we can say the are 'ubiquitous'.
These are not fully loaded. (Score:1, Insightful)
A buyer would be better off getting a 2-year old Pentium or AMD system for a similar price. The box would say fewer MHZ, probably, but a higher quality, most likely.
Would you prefer a bran new Dodge Neon, or a 5-year old Mercedes?
Re:wouldn't it be nice... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm quite sure that Microsoft wouldn't love anything more than being able to enforce such things but I doubt that this is the main issue why oems don't do it.
The main issue is cost. Most (read all) businesses aren't about ideology. Why would they go through the trouble to disable some of windows and install Openoffice and firefox? If for example real was paying them to isntall their play, then I could understand but going through the trouble to install 3rd party software is not on the oem's agenda.
You would only be exchanging virus and spyware support calls for 'why can't I open this website' 'Why doesn't this activeX work on my 'internet'', 'why doesn't that doc sent to me by a friend look the same on my computer' kind of calls.
Seeing how they treat most of the virus/spyware problems (reinstall). I say they would prefer them to the alternative.
Re:wouldn't it be nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh man, you've been in that coma for a while [internetnews.com].
IMO: PCs are easier to use than other appliances (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me, but I still haven't mastered my stereo, or my TV/DVD/VCR/Remotes. My PC, by contrast, is a cinche.
With my entertainment system, it's always: " . . . no wait, if I'm going to tape the show, *first* I have to VCR power, *then* power-TV, then switch to the other remote, then push that little button on the top - no wait - that was with old remote - with *this* remote, I have to use the VCR remote to turn on the TV, I only use the TV remote to change to channel 3, and to adjust the volume. Damnit, that didn't work . .
And every settup is completely different. I don't have that sort of problem with a PC, with a PC I just follow the menus.
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that she is learning to follow step-by-step instructions - and not learning to abstract what is actually happening. I notice this a lot when I'm helping non-techy people.
Maybe she would remember what was going on if you showed her how to do it, then asked her to repeat back to you exactly what you just described, using completely different words. That way, she would have to assimilate what was going on, in order to rephrase it.
Re:Perception hasn't caught up yet though. (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's the exact way to tell. When a user is faced with paying market rate for any sort of labor to fix the problem. That's when. With billed labor costs in the US typically running from $50-100/hr, it doesn't take much to reach 75%-100% of a new PC's cost in labor.
People often go on and on about the cost of Windows contributing to the PC (and it's a valid point as prices dip into this range). However, when compared to the cost of labor the gap gets even wider.
[warning: car analogy ahead] Imagine if repairs or maintenance for your car was similarly priced to PC services at the current pricepoints. "Setup" from GeekSquad is somewhere around $150. That's 50% for *setup*. However, for an on-site call, compared to other labor-based services, that's not an unreasonable rate.
It's not just computers though. Paying directly for labor is much more expensive than spreading that across thousands of customers like a product does.
You can always offset these costs if you are able to do the labor yourself. Brake pads aren't expensive, but paying someone to bleed the lines is. Electrical outlets and wire aren't expensive, but paying someone to install a new GFI outlet in your bathroom is.
The more expensive the product, the more reasonable paying for services is. I'm OK paying $200 for some work on my car (which costs $15,000 when new), but not $200 for work on a PC that I can replace for $300. PC's used to be in the $2000 range, but just aren't anymore.
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:2, Insightful)
Very true. And the reason for this is so many people have Windows. Almost 90% of PCs on W3C [w3schools.com] have some variant of Windows. Baring in mind that this will be particularly techie community, it doesn't bode well.
The fact of the matter is, for most manufacturers, it just isn't cost effective to make their devices compatible with Linux, then test against various distros with various kernel configurations on various hardwares just to tap into under 4% of the market. Firefox has almost 1 in 10 people on the web, and some businesses still think its not viable to support it.
It's going to take some dedicated geeks to introduce Linux to the general public. Without market share, no-one's going to bother.
Linspire and (though it pains me to say this) Xandros are two viable distros that are either ready or nearly ready for the main-stream market. Hell, even SUSE is pretty useable for Linux n00bs.
As for lack of support, there are plenty [mepislovers.org] of [ubuntuforums.org] forums [fedoraforum.org] full [desktoplinux.com] of [linuxforum.com] friendly [linux-tips.net] people willing to help, or providing in depth documentation.
Give a man Linux, and he'll use it, get stuck and return to Windows. Teach him to use Linux, and how to find help, and we've improved our market share.
Re:One problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uhhh.... DUH~! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have HDTV?
Want to use surround sound?
Want to watch DVDs on the console?
Want to play online?
Don't want cords in the middle of the room?
Want to use more than one console?
Want to use a DVR and a console?
Want to use a DVD, DVR, VCR and cable box with the console?
As it turns out, as single entities consumer electronics are easier. But as soon as you want to hook them up with all your other goodies, they get really complicated, really fast. Want to go through a little thought experiment? How's this:
Experiment #1:
You buy a 27" standard definition (regular) TV and a PS2 for your 16 year old daughter. You give her the boxes, unopened, and have her set them up in her room by herself. Is she successful? Great. My daughter would do just fine too. But wait, there's more.
Experiment #2:
You buy a 27" HDTV and a PS2 for your 16 year old daughter. You also get her an HDTV-ready cable box. You get her surround speakers. You get her a surround reciever. You get her a DVD-recorder. You get her a Tivo. You give her all these things brand new and in their boxes and you send her to her room to set them up.
Is she successful? Well, it depends on how you define success. She might have plugged them all in, but she's already missing a bunch of cables. She might not even be able to hook up the speakers, much less have surround sound for the PS2.
Let's say she bought some cables and eventually got everything working. You go to look at her system and find:
-The picture is fuzzy because she used composite video cables. You ask her about component and she gives you a blank stare.
-She has 5 different remote controls and can barely keep track of them.
-There are wires all over the floor because of the surround sound.
-The sound is bad because she's used zip-ties to bundle all the cords, including the power, all the RCAs and the speaker wire. She just accepts it and figures she'll have to buy better speakers later on to improve her sound.
-She has at least a dozen manual-looking thing. Some are just "don't use your toaster in the bathtub" type warnings, but she doesn't know the difference. All she knows is she has more than 200 pages worth of stuff to read if she wants a better understanding of her equipment.
As I said, one console is easy. But in the real world when you want to use more than one device (the equipment I listed is very realistic) Consumer Electronics, as a whole, are not easy at all.
TW
Re:What we need now... (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother and favorite aunt are both teachers, I was a teacher before I was an engineer, and I have unending respect for the majority of the profession... but the level of technological expertise approaches zero. Forget firefox, the "power user" at my Aunt's school uses IE and laughs at the people stuck with AOL's browswer or a six year old Netscape-for-macs client. These are the folks who need to be on the ball if Bobby's Electronic Notebook eats his test fourty-five minutes into the period... do you see that happening?
Um, $300 ten years ago is not $300 today. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:3, Insightful)
When I got the urge to record DVDs, I bought a Philips DVD+RW TV-recorder. Looks like a VCR, just uses discs instead of cassettes. Cost me a bit more, but it doesn't tie up my computer while I'm recording the big première off Sky Movies. It's the discs that are the main expense in the long run anyway. When that finally went the way of everything that plugs in, I replaced it with a Daewoo machine that was cheaper, had a slightly better user interface {though it was evidently very similar internally -- same processor, just more modern firmware with s/Philips/Daewoo/g} and came with a longer guarantee. {I can always copy DVD+RW discs of stuff I want to keep forever onto DVD+R using K3B. [Yes, this does work, and transparently to the point of being boring. But make sure you press STOP twice and move the menu highlight to the first programme before you eject the DVD, otherwise the copy will start in the middle!] Or, since K3B shows you exactly what commends it did, I can type the commands in an Xterm and just pretend I used K3B.}
Just because a computer can be used for something doesn't mean it should.
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I agree that usually getting things done on linux is a bit more complicated than doing them on windows, I feel must point out one thing:
SSH.
It's a blessing to be able to SSH into a friend's computer and fix it up in seconds, instead of spending the next 8 hours telling them "ok, click START, then SETTINGs, CONTROL PANEL... No, not program files... NO---LEFT CLICK! Ok, do you see System? No, not Network, I said SYSTEM!!" etc.
And if they often have to do something complicated, like... Recompiling their kernel or something, for whatever reason. Instead of teaching them the complex steps, you could write a simple shell script for them...
#!/bin/sh
make menuconfig && make clean && make && make modules_install && mount
Or something.
Well, you get the idea.
Linux clearly has its strengths.
- shazow
Re:wouldn't it be nice... (Score:2, Insightful)
Being a fully-paid-up Penguin Shagger myself, if I was writing a Web-based photo-sharing application I would just allow you to HTTP-upload a
Re:Put Linux On It (Score:3, Insightful)
with Windows, you would have to go out to the store, buy three different software packages, and install them all while you hunt for license keys and hope that they don't all overwrite each other's DLLs.
With Linux, the driver for the video doodad is probably already installed; for everything else there's apt-get. No compiling, no driving, and probably less total time spent than the Windows approach
Yeah but they're still borderline-unusable (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the PC will never catch up with the mobile phone. [chiralsoftware.net]
Re:What about the Microtel PCs? (Score:3, Insightful)
You do know they're made in the same factory in China, don't you? With Microtel, you pay for the components (and someone to put them together, but child labor in China is cheap). With Dell, you pay for the same components and child labor, plus 4 or 5 full page ads in glossy magazines, a handful of TV spots and that billboard down the road. If you're lucky, you might get to sponsor a cinema ad in full widescreen Dolby surround as well.
Re:Article comments on MS software price decline (Score:3, Insightful)