Can Newegg Survive the Post-PC Future? 559
jfruhlinger writes "Upgrading your desktop PC's video card was once a rite of passage for many Slashdot readers — and could also be a gateway to building your own computer from the motherboard up. And more often than not, you bought the components from Newegg. But the tablets and ultrathin laptops that are today's hot sellers don't let you so much as swap in more RAM. What's a component retailer to do in world without user-serviceable components?"
Other stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
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Did the market really shift? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids are still interested in this as well. I taught middle schoolers how to build a PC from scratch, and wanted nothing more than to work on their custom machines.
Re:Did the market really shift? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no reason to upgrade every year or two like there used to be. That's got to hurt their business even more than tablets and netbooks.
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There's no reason to upgrade every year or two like there used to be. That's got to hurt their business even more than tablets and netbooks.
I've built three home PCs in the last three years; two are servers and one's an Xbmc frontend. The low cost of PC components these days means there's no need to have just one.
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Blame the consoles. Since everything nowadays is a port, the consoles have been holding the minimum specs waay down for quite a while. The next generation if and when it arrives should be interesting for the PC world too.
Re:Did the market really shift? (Score:4, Interesting)
Blame the consoles. Since everything nowadays is a port, the consoles have been holding the minimum specs waay down for quite a while. The next generation if and when it arrives should be interesting for the PC world too
True, however you can't blame them for wanting to make money as easily as possible and the returns from the console are apparently better. I remember seeing Deus Ex 2 and how small the areas were... and the general console creep in many level designs. Next generation stuff: Battlefield 3, Rage, Skyrim to name a few.
While these titles do have console ports, Battlefield 3 is developed specifically with a focus on the PC [rockpapershotgun.com] and uses the new Frostbyte 2 engine [wikipedia.org]. Rage features the new Id Tech 5 [wikipedia.org] (although not as quite as impressive as it was shown few years ago). Skyrim uses what they've dubbed the "Creation Engine [wikipedia.org]". All of these titles are superior on the PC.
Re:Did the market really shift? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm in the same boat, but sometimes I wonder if it's more of just an age thing. Back when I was in high school/college (ironically, when I had the least amount of disposable income), I had to have faster and faster stuff. It didn't matter if I was only getting another 100Mhz on a CPU upgrade - I had to have it. I also overclocked virtually everything in the box to get as much as I could out of it. I researched thermal pastes and heatsinks and spent weeks picking out a motherboard that had just the right flavor of features I wanted.
Now, I'm on the verge of turning 30. I still play games on the computer, but not as much as I used to, and I've come to a point in my life where there are a lot of other things taking my attention rather than keeping my computer spiffy. I still build from parts, but I typically buy midrange stuff. I typically don't upgrade things for a few years or until I run across a game that won't work on my current system. I pick out whatever cheapo thermal grease is on sale, typically use a "budget" Biostar motherboard, and run pretty much stock everything - I no longer have the patience to troubleshoot overclocking issues.
To put it into perspective - my gaming PC is still sporting a Core 2 Duo CPU 3.2 Ghz, a Geforce GTX 460, only 2GB of ram, and Windows Vista (yep, Vista). Also telling is that since I'm not sitting at that PC, I had to check my order history to be able to specify the video card and CPU I was using. Once upon a time I could have told you the specific stepping of my CPU without checking anything.
That said, there still seems to be a vibrant community of younger guys still doing all that stuff and having fun, and they will provide plenty of revenue for shops like Newegg.
Re:Did the market really shift? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most computer geeks I know are using years-old hardware because it works just fine. Take a 3 year old system and strip off all the OEM installed garbage and it's lightning fast. On the other hand, most normal users I know are buying brand new PCs that are way over powered and throwing them away when they're too filled with malware to run anymore. And they buy those at Best Buy.
$300 for the latest video card? It's probably not going to boost the frame rate much for Unreal Tournament. My 5 year old NVidia 6thousandwhatever works great. I'll spend my $300 on an Acer Aspire One.
there's always a motherboard (Score:2)
unless they plan on getting rid of a motherboard there will always be serviceable components. Even a SOC setup still needs a motherboard for other interfaces.
Maybe this article will apply 50 years from now, but certainly not today nor in the near future, nor even with ARM taken into consideration. ARM SOC with the power of a top of the line graphics card? Next year a better version is released? People will buy and drop in the new version.
You can either fight modding, accept modding, or embrace it. Only appl
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I used to buy a new computer every 2-3 years from NewEgg. I would buy and build a dozen systems, in components, for small offices that needed them.
Now, I still do that, to some degree. I'll by the odd component (RAM, video card) - that market isn't going to disappear outright, overnight. I'll also buy set-top boxes through them.
However, I also buy a great deal of server hardware from them, now (Supermicro). The profit margin on that stuff is a lot higher, and I'm buying thousands of dollars more of it than
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You must have a computer running Windows or MacOS to use an iPad. Without iTunes they are bricks. Expensive, shiny, bricks.
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Lets add to this that an iPad (for example) WILL NOT WORK WITHOUT A PC TO HOOK IT UP TO.
You must have a computer running Windows or MacOS to use an iPad. Without iTunes they are bricks. Expensive, shiny, bricks.
Since iOS5, neither iPad nor iPhone will require a computer at all.
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Even once you get past iTunes you still have the problem of feeding the tablet content.
For that you need a real PC. You need it for storage, the more interesting apps, the far superior computational power, and the more interesting peripheral options.
Re:Did the market really shift? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty much with you on this point of view. In fact, there might be a SLIGHT drop in volume, but by my guess-timation, NewEgg's future demographic is pretty much the same people who have been with NewEgg all along. Is that "survival"? In my mind it is. But there are still a million MBAs out there who believe that if you're not growing, you're dying. It doesn't make sense to me, but plenty to those who believe growth means everything.
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Still plenty of PCs for many years (Score:2)
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You're right. It's the number of PCs falling that means the number of PCs are falling.
Once "Please connect to iTunes" disappears (Score:3)
Just because the number of mobiles is rising it does not mean the number o PCs is falling.
If by mobiles you include laptop PCs: Not all PCs have user-serviceable parts. Laptop PCs, for instance, are far less user-serviceable than desktop PCs; apart from hard drives and sometimes RAM, laptops from well-known brands really aren't built for internal upgrades.
If by mobiles you exclude laptop PCs: It might come iOS 5, when iPhone and iPad no longer rely exclusively on a Mac or Windows PC to load firmware for the first time.
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Right. Only the sales are falling, which is what naturally happens when a market is saturated with "good enough" product. This is despite Microsoft's herculean efforts to obsolete otherwise very capable hardware with new bloats of Windows. :p
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The same that Microsoft lives in with it's idea of secure boot?
if that takes off and they pressure oems to turn it on then no one with a oem computer can buy parts from new egg and have them work. in fact many laptops 'now' have white lists in their bios's that prevent you from say dropping any old ddr2/ddr3 ram modules or mini-pice cards in and have them work because the vendor string on the device does not have the name of your laptop's manufacture in it. this forces you to only be able to buy parts from
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You must have missed the followup [slashdot.org].
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And you never really read the documentation on the specs. if it's on and the oem's force it to stay on with out a way to shut it off(you can bet ms will offer a discount for that) without certified drivers for every odd piece of hardware provided by the oem the system will not be able to use parts bought from a retailer like new egg.
to put it more simply. No driver signed by the oem's secure boot key = non working hardware = your forced to buy replacement parts and upgrades from their store's limited and ov
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
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Although I agree with you, there is a point I'd like to nitpick. 'Work' doesn't necessarily represent the majority of the market. Also, we're already seeing a decline in the amount of work that a notebook couldn't do. There is a fair chance that one day in the not-too-distant-future we'll see something like 10% of the number of ppl today using upgradable towers. NewEgg's catalog would be something completely different then.
Loss of economies of scale (Score:2)
It's pretty hard to do any kind of actual work on an i*.
Device manufacturers don't want you doing actual work. They want established companies doing actual work. Otherwise, companies like Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment would have opened up to home-based microISVs.
Some analysts (citations available upon request) have predicted that after tablets and set-top boxes take over more and more functions from a home PC, the economies of scale of desktop and laptop PCs won't be as effective, and it'll become far more expensive for a home user to buy his first
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You mean 10 million Americans shift to tablet, and that suddenly destroys the PC market with 3 billion users?
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Well... I wrote the complete embedded software package for a linux based airborne LIDAR on a laptop connected to the device with a serial cable (plugged into a USB to serial converter).
I'd say that is real work.
screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 and I was off and running.
Not post PC for businesses yet (Score:5, Informative)
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I still manage about 500 desktops, and we're constantly ordering parts from NewEgg. While the consumer PC era is being described as ending (not true in my experience), the business workstation is going to be around for a long, long time.
You should really look into thin clients. Same desktop experience but less hardware maintenance. In fact there are some aspects of thin clients that make invaluable these days. You can dynamically spin up linked-clones from a VM template. You can troubleshoot without leaving your office and push upgrades and rebuild systems the same way.
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There is a place for it, but not every place works with it.
The bane of my existence right now is the trend towards "rich" user interfaces in point of sale systems, and web sites, etc.
Transparency and animation in particular... currently runs like a piece of shit over any sort of remote connection even on the lan, and is even worse to remote locations.
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I manage far fewer desktops, but I also get my parts from NewEgg. After all, it's cheaper to overnite a USB cable from NewEgg than to pick one up at BestBuy.
Where I think NewEgg is going to have problems is that, over the past decade, my upgrade cycle has gone from 3 years to about 7 years.
Really. (Score:2)
Really, I think it's hype. I cannot ever see a time in the future I would buy a system that I cannot configure and upgrade. As long as there are high-performance games, there will always be a need for new graphics cards. As long as there is a need for speed increases, there will always be some new bus technology. I really am not worried for Newegg.
Applications suppressed by device mfr (Score:4, Insightful)
But what about when you can get a 15 inch tablet (which is basically a mb and a screen) for say 50 bucks. Would you *bother* to upgrade it?
That depends on whether I'd need to upgrade it in order to become able to run applications that the device's manufacturer has suppressed. Compare modding original Xbox consoles to run XBMC for Xbox (formerly Xbox Media Center).
I dont know how true that is (Score:3)
Students in my college were given Thnikpad L420 's.
The HDD,RAM can be upgraded w/o voiding the warranty
I have a R61, on which I have maxed out the RAM, probably will get a SSD when they are cheaper
At home, have a self assembled PC.
Now, as you may see from my UID, I'm not one of the people for whom, "Upgrading your desktop PC's video card was once a rite of passage for many Slashdot readers " is valid.
However, I have seen the older PC's insides, and can say that newer ones are MUCH easier to work with.
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"The HDD,RAM can be upgraded w/o voiding the warranty"
Indeed, and I get those from the Egg, as well as external accessories, media, mice, keyboards, monitors...all of which will still be required in the supposed "Post-PC World".
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I'm not really sure that "unplug card from socket" and "plug another card in same socket" is such a "rite of passage" anyways.
It's just another component that may or may not be attached to a modern bus that has auto-detection features built in.
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I meant, like PATA HDD's required you to be familiar with the jumper settings, ports had to be wired from the motherboard individuallt, BIOS had to manually configured, Windows install needed CLI experience,etc..
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The jumper settings were usually listed on the drives themselves.
Plugging things in can get a little hairy from a physical point of view but most of the mechanics of building a system have always been pretty trivial. What problems did arise primarily were due to the platform being backward (which I mentioned). However, that hasn't been a problem for a rather long time now. The PC industry started moving away from that sort of nonsense before Slashdot existed.
It's simply not that impressive. It's "elitism" t
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I'm not really sure that "unplug card from socket" and "plug another card in same socket" is such a "rite of passage" anyways.
It's just another component that may or may not be attached to a modern bus that has auto-detection features built in.
"What's a 'socket?' This is scaring me!"
"I have to replace my driver? What's wrong with my car?? ARRRGHHH!"
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I have heard these, no joke.
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However, I have seen the older PC's insides, and can say that newer ones are MUCH easier to work with.
Back in my day we had IO cards and math co-processors. IDE, serial, etc weren't built onto the motherboard and you actually had a separate card.
Now EVERYTHING is built on to the motherboard: IO, Sound, Video. About the only thing you have to troubleshoot is memory, CPU and HDD. I wouldn't call installing a video card a right of passage... hell the IRQ is automatically negotiated for you!
Now get off my lawn!
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I got a Thinkpad T61 through my college about 5 years ago. Swapped in a 320GB 7200RPM HDD and upped it to 2.5GB RAM and it run beautifully with Windows 7. Without the ability to upgrade, I would have had to junk it by the second year of college because I would not have had enough memory for virtual machines, etc - nevermind Windows 7 and Office 2010.
False Premise (Score:5, Insightful)
Hello, I'd like to introduce you to the False Premise [wikipedia.org].
Besides, people who are replacing their real computer with whatever the current "hot seller" is are not the primary customer of computer component retailers.
Assuming they don't do anything stupid to themselves, NewEgg is going to be just fine.
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Right. I could see us moving to a post *LAPTOP* era, but not post PC.
Besides, NewEgg sells electronics, including components, they can just start selling tablets, servers, software etc. It's not like it's a big stretch for them to add different products to their store.
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+1 FUD Negation.
Trinkets, baubles and other fads will fade from the collective consciousness in time. Toys do not replace tools.
I was expecting TFA to read, 'Could Newegg Survive The Post-IPO Era", now that would be interesting to read.
Still many accessories in a "post PC" world (Score:2, Insightful)
There are still a lot of possible accessories to be sold for those going wholly with tablets - keyboards, stands, other accessory items.
And of course the term "post PC" does not mean the PC is going away, just that it may not be the primary device for everyone with a computer as it has been.
And even with ultra-thin laptops, you have a ton of stuff they can sell - a company right now is working on an external Thunderbolt case for the Macbook Pro line that lets you add new video cards, and of course there's a
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I used to order all my hardware from newegg. Then, my last order were marked as "successful" only for me to find out the following day it had been flagged. As a very busy adult that was a huge deal. I can't just assemble a new PC any day I feel like it. I cancelled the order, found all of the parts available on Amazon Prime for about the same price and overnighted them (would have been free shipping had I been able to wait an extra day.)
My brother went through an almost identical experience the last time he
Post-prosumer (Score:3)
And of course the term "post PC" does not mean the PC is going away, just that it may not be the primary device for everyone with a computer as it has been.
By post-PC, some people refer to post-prosumer [pineight.com]. A "prosumer" device such as a PC allows creating works ("pro") in addition to viewing works ("sumer"). A tablet, smartphone, or video game console allows viewing works, but its capacity for creating works is very limited or none.
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If you aren't going to bother to keep up with this stuff, don't come into an argument like some sort of johnny-come-lately that has obviously not read up on this subject in the least little bit.
"external drive cage" is one of the main advertised use cases for thunderbolt.
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Magma is the company: http://magma.com/thunderbolt.asp [magma.com]
It doesn't however state anything about video cards, but everyone (including God himself) hopes and wishes that it will be possible
newegg should be ok (Score:3)
tablets can not fully replace the PC
cause some of us have to create stuff not just watch adorable videos of cats on youtube..... although adorable videos of cats are quite nice indeed.
tables suck ass for content creation
Re:newegg should be ok (Score:5, Funny)
tables suck ass for content creation
Are you kidding? Tables have been used for hundreds, if not thousands of years for content creation, and even ultrathin tablets won't replace them
http://stores.paulsplaceonline.com/Detail.bok?no=389 [paulsplaceonline.com]
http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/books_writing_such/the_codex_climaci_rescriptus/ [snarkmarket.com]
If anything, a table makes a tablet more useful:
http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/laptops/2001tablets1.jpg [cnet.co.uk]
Furthermore, tablets have been around for thousands of years, and they still haven't replaced tables:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhmim_wooden_tablets [wikipedia.org]
Read this before (Score:3)
Yeah, just like the suppliers of after-market vehicle parts all went out of business when manufacturers started computerizing cars.
More Post-PC nonsense... (Score:2)
No. Newegg doesn't have anything to fear from this Post-PC hype.
The real threat to them are competitors like Amazon that sell the same thing for less, offer free shipping, and have better search features.
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Sadly true. I like Newegg, but recently I've been getting components from Amazon because I get free second-day shipping, 100% returns, and free returns shipping. Got tired of receiving nonfunctional components and then paying return shipping + restocking on them.
Yeah, still waiting on that... (Score:5, Informative)
When it comes to computer parts, Amazon's website is a freaking disaster zone. NewEgg's search engine has a few quirks, but it's still way better than Amazon's. And I don't find Amazon's pricing to be significantly cheaper, and their free shipping is WAAAYYY slower.
Interestingly enough, the local "CompUSA" store (formerly TigerDirect Outlet) has prices that are usually within a buck or two of NewEgg, and I can have my part NOW. The place is a poorly-organized dump, but as long as they have the part I need, I'm not that picky.
Newegg FTW (Score:2)
Newegg competes with tiger direct and buy.com, not tablets and ultra thin laptops. Newegg SELLSSSSS tablets and ultra thin laptops. Dumb #### . Last I checked they were VERY competitive on their prices in those categories along with everything else. Their business model ties very close to their shipping model, I've been with them since almost the start.
They've been trying to branch out as a pass through seller amazon style into stuff like rice cookers and HD Tvs. No idea how that's been going for them
The PC is at least a decade from dead (Score:2)
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Newegg isn't going anywhere (Score:2)
Can you imagine all business users switching to tablets? Or enthusiasts completely ditching their powerful and configurable systems for tablets? I don't think that is happening. Market for PCs and computer parts of all kinds will be around for a long time. It may shrink some. And it probably will kill smaller component retailers. But the bigger ones like Newegg will get more entrenched.
OTS commodity != custom built componentized build (Score:2)
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. (Score:3, Insightful)
But the tablets and ultrathin laptops that are today's hot sellers don't let you so much as swap in more RAM. What's a component retailer to do in world without user-serviceable components?
Um, pre-built computers from Packard Bell, IBM, Compaq, Gateway, HP, Dell, were the hot sellers prior to and during Newegg's rise. I have a feeling a change in "hot seller" won't change the custom built market one whit.
Can itworld.com survive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yay for the desktop (Score:2)
If mobile screen tech was better sooner, and batteries had more juice in them 10 years ago, we may never have seen such amazing advances in big desktop computers. Portability is great, but it's nice to see how much power they can pack into a bigger area.
PCs needed (Score:2)
I thought iPads still required PCs to activate.
Post-PC nonsense (Score:3)
As best as I can tell, this whole post-PC era we're supposedly in is nonsense. Tablets, phones and other cute consumption devices are neat, and I wouldn't mind a tablet myself when they eventually mature, but there's no replacement for my home workstation. I've built my last few desktops myself and my current desktop is hitting around the 3 year mark and I'm starting to look at my upgrade path. I just got a new GPU, the CPU, RAM, mobo and PSU are my next upgrades and will likely occur as one single big hardware swap. An SSD would be nice too!
Back to the topic at hand: I don't see many people I know using their tablets to completely replace their 'real' computers. For some people laptops have started to replace desktops because they have lower demands and realistically laptop hardware seems to be much more on par than it was five years ago. As that continues to improve more people will probably ditch the desktop for a laptop, but that's still a 'PC' and there are still upgrade options like RAM and drives. I still wouldn't ditch a desktop for a laptop but in either scenario Newegg can continue to be successful. They sell laptops, they sell replacement parts.
Even if the Post-PC era weren't just marketing hype and news headline making nonsense, they still have plenty they can offer. NewEgg sells tablets too, they also sell software, home entertainment gear (I just got a new receiver from them) and all sorts of other things. I believe they have the ability to adjust themselves to changes in demand as needed, but I don't really think the PC business is in any danger of crumbling beneath them any time soon. New uses will emerge for computers, new games will come out demanding the latest technology and the best price/performance and the best choice for expansion continues to be the "desktop."
Toner (Score:2)
Tablets complement not replace - one day converge (Score:2)
Personally I think the future will more likely offer some sort of convergence between computer and tablet. When on the go and traveling light take the tablet and use it as a touch device. When at the desktop or on the road carrying a full load the tablet is accompanied with a wireless keyboard and mouse and functions more like the CPU and display of a traditional laptop, not a touch device. Alternatively the t
Cables (Score:2)
What's a component retailer to do
Sell cables and chargers and adapters and "docks" and bluetooth-everything
Black and White thinking. (Score:3)
Yes tablets and ultrathin laptops are gaining popularity. They are popular for uses where user-serviceable desktops were a sub optimal solution to whatever the user was using them for.. so yes, we will see some adjustment in the market as people who were using desktop due to lack of other options move away from them, but there are many domains where desktops are still the right tool for the job and that market will continue to be served. In fact I would wager that said market, after maybe a dip, will go back to growing as the population increases.
This is not to say that newegg is immortal or shouldn't check how it does things now and then.. the industry is littered with companies that could not find a good balance between servicing a niche vs a broader market.
Can NewEgg survive the post-apocalyptic future? (Score:2)
Enthusiast computers (Score:2)
The average slashdot poster will undoubtably argue vehemently against a "post-pc" world, but I think to an extent it is inevitable. It probably won't happen this decade, but maybe in the next. Computer appliances are the way of the future. Average Joe wants an easy to use appliance, not a build-it-yourself nightmare. Even before tablets, the big pc makers were using less and less user maintainable parts. In most modern laptops basically the only thing you can fiddle with is the ram.
The question is: will cus
Newsflash: PCs are alive and well. (Score:2)
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This. A thousand times this. PCs aren't going anywhere.
"Post PC" LMAO (Score:2)
More of this "Post-PC" idiocy.
PCs aren't going anywhere. First off, thanks to their high price, there is no tablet market. None. Just an iPad market. When tablets come down in price, to around $200 or less, THEN you can expect to see a tablet market. However, I guarantee that almost all tablet owners will also own a PC. Those who don't will tend to be elderly.
Can Toyota Survive the Post Automobile World? (Score:3)
Now that even little kids can wear shoes that light up as they walk, will the automobile industry be able to cope with the flashier competition? "I don't like cars. I run!" said Johny Demply, age 6. Shoes are selling at a higher rate than ever before and new "smartshoes" offer portability and ease of use not found in ancient vehicular relics like cars. As the era of the car comes to an end, will automobile manufacturers and dealers be able to adapt to sell accessories for shoes or will they be relegated to the dustbin of shameful obsolescence?
You can pry my custom PC from my cold dead hands.. (Score:3)
"Why don't you buy a laptop?"
Because I don't want one. Most sit on a desk anyway. At best they migrate to the couch. Which I would argue is better suited for a tablet anyway, and my smart phone does a good enough job as it is. I do not want a pre-assembled POS. I like getting the components I want. I like being able to get a video card that isn't as slow as something offered 5 years ago, or costs about 1200$ extra. I don't want a CPU with bitched out cores, or throttling down to save on battery power. I want mine to dim the GD lights when I turn it on, and to give me a breeze when the fans rev up. I would also like to have the opportunity to have say 8 HD if I want to without having to have a daisy chain of usb all around me. I want to be able to upgrade only pieces I need without throwing everything away each time. I want to put everything together like logos, and then then load everything *I* want on it, nothing more, or less.
In short, I think newegg or others (NCIX is my store of choice) shouldn't be worried at all.
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Newegg will cheerfully sell those, too.
I send many customers to the Egg. I've spend thousands of dollars there and will spend thousands more. Their service, which I've only needed twice for RMA, has been faultless.
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External HDDs, wifi APs, the occasional wired switch, there's plenty newegg sells for people who never crack the case. Also, they sell AV accessories.
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What kind of 'net pipe do you have that can handle an RDP session with a moving graphical game in it and still leave it in a playable state? Or was this a humorous comment? :)
Re:wasd + mouse (Score:4, Funny)
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"Ferris Bueller, you're my heeero." :>
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Judging from the increase in use of laptops vs. desktops, apparently home-assembled PC's are, too.
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If it is the case where laptops will overcome PCs, it may still happen.
Thus, these vendors will not be in as much trouble as PC manufacturers would like them to be.
Re:YES (Score:5, Informative)
Re:YES (Score:5, Interesting)
Tablets don't have to be a fad. But Windows may yet kill the perception of tablets as useful, in the public's eyes, and then we'd be back to only Apple fanbois carrying tablets. Which would be ok, I guess, except for those of us who need an SD card slot. Or a USB port. Or a replaceable battery. Or Flash support. Or a form factor smaller than 10". Sorry, I meant to stop at SD card, but I always get carried away. Parenthetically, do we know if Apple has shown any signs of relaxing any of these restrictions now that Jobs is gone? Just wonderin'.
I'd say that to us geeks, tablets are useful *in addition* to our other devices. I can carry a 7" Android tablet running Logmein Ignition and actually get work done on my home machine, or fix problems on customer's machines. (7" seems to be the optimal size for "always with you", as opposed to the cooler but more likely to be left at home 10" form factor) This is useful enough that I don't consider it a fad, but I am sure as hell not going to trade in my desktop PC just yet. As said elsewhere, tablets (*all* tablets) have barely usable screens and input methods, and laptops aren't a whole lot better. Their only real advantage is portability. For heavy duty work, PCs are still the way to go for a lot of reasons. (By "PC" I mean the hardware platform, irrespective of the OS, speaking as a Win7 user who's probably going to skip Win8, and who owns an OSX machine and finds it useful.)
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Unfortunately, Windows 8 seems intent on turning ordinary PCs into tablet wannabes.
I think it's a case of people getting more stupid, so the PCs (and cars, and ...) have to follow suit.
Holy Wars ... the Punishment Due (Score:3)
OK, let's get this started.
What's a component retailer to do in [a] world without user-serviceable components?
In a world without user-serviceable components, a component retailer wouldn't exist. So it's a good thing for component retailers that we do not live in a world without user-serviceable components.
I want to play Rage and Skyrim with the graphic detail maxed out, am I going to buy a tablet for that or am I going to order my shiny new SSDs and video card and mobo and other components from Newegg? The last computer I built was for Crysis when it came out, so it's time for a new one
Re:Holy Wars ... the Punishment Due (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously there will always be some demand for high-end PCs. However, it is plausible that at some point in the near future, most people will be using "netbooks" or tablets for their day-to-day computing needs.
Won't those be the same people who currently buy preassembled machines at bestbuy or walmart?
Re:Holy Wars ... the Punishment Due (Score:5, Insightful)
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I built my current PC from various parts suppliers as I did the one before it, as many of you probably did. I have two console systems, a laptop, and a smartphone. Owning those doesn't make me want to give up my PC. Their existence only expands the roles electronics play in my life; they don't remove my want and need for a desktop system - one that I build to my personal requirements.
Re:Holy Wars ... the Punishment Due (Score:4, Insightful)
However, it is plausible that at some point in the near future, most people will be using "netbooks" or tablets for their day-to-day computing needs.
Most people who currently own netbooks and tablets do not use them for their "day-to-day computing needs", so what makes you think they are replacing current laptop/desktop machines?
Exactly.
The demise of the desktop is a long way off. It will probably never arrive.
Anyone who has ever used a tablet pc knows that doing any amount of real work on one is tedious at best, and impossible for the most part. Anything beyond email is a major hassle. Even with docking bays, mice, and keyboards, its a pain.
Corporate is not that interested in putting all its assets into the purse of the airhead intern to walk out the door.
Desktop's will change. But they are not going away, and the touch screen scaled up simply will not fly. People are not going want to fat-finger huge monitors with their whole arm when a simple mouse click will do.
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Now, gamer rigs are increasingly uncommon, so people aren't targeting them for games.
No, 'gamer rigs' are less common because games are designed for consoles, so there's no need to have a fast PC to run something that was designed for five-year-old console hardware.
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Holy fucking shit. MichaelKristopeit posted something that wasn't completely fucking retarded. Maybe slashdot really is dead.
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The "post-PC era" does not mean an era without PCs.
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And creating such obviously stupid articles is a great way to drive page hits and adclicks especially when slashdot puts you on the front page.