PC Sales See 'Longest Decline' In History 385
dryriver writes "Global personal computer (PC) sales have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row, making it the 'longest duration of decline' in history. Worldwide PC shipments totalled 76 million units in the second quarter, a 10.9% drop from a year earlier, according to research firm Gartner. PC sales have been hurt in recent years by the growing popularity of tablets. Gartner said the introduction of low-cost tablets had further hurt PC sales, especially in emerging economies. 'In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC,' said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said in a statement."
Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is doomed, blah blah blah. All the grandma's are buying tablets. Anyone who does any real work are buying PC's or already have what they need. Nothing to see here.
PCs are not going to die. (Score:5, Insightful)
What worries me is that if the PC market can't continuing making profit off volume sales, the prices of a computer (or its components) will go up. I'm still on core 2 due (hey, still works), and waiting for it to die so I can build something with 8-core.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Really? Let me know if you still think that after you've been waving your arms in the air in front of your monitor for about 10 minutes.
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Given a proper desk, chair, keyboard, mouse, and large monitor at arms length, there's nothing easier to do by touch. Touch can be handy when the screen is the keyboard, or is attached to the keyboard, but not so much in a proper workstation.
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[quote]In the past, there was roughly a 2 year cycle for PCs[/quote]
Correctomondo. Except it's not just about checking email but also about one of the biggest PC sellers of the past: games. I used to by a new PC at least every 2 years to keep up with the advances in hardware just to be able to play the latest games. This process has practically come to an abrupt halt. My Athlon 64 X2 I'm typing this on is about 5 years old and it still runs the latest games on high detail without problems (on a standard 1-m
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Re:PCs are not going to die. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. They can end up going up to the point that only businesses can afford them.
On the plus side, we might be able to move away from the awful glossy-widesceen-with-awful-keyboard models that the public have been forcing on us for the last few years.
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This. They can end up going up to the point that only businesses can afford them.
On the plus side, we might be able to move away from the awful glossy-widesceen-with-awful-keyboard models that the public have been forcing on us for the last few years.
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To the contrary, I see pcs as a thriving market. A tablet has to be carried. You cannot put too much into a tablet. A physical keyboard and multitasking are required for productivity.
With SDDs becoming larger capacity and more reliable, the spinning platter will be reserved for back end storage. As my age and my eyes age with me, I need large screens. For productivity, I have two screens on my desk. Am I the exception for a home system? Perhaps, but not in offices in areas where finance, programming,
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As a completely meaningless anecdote, I noticed that Core 2 Duo T7200 at 2.0 GHz is 70% faster than Core i5 M520 at 2.4 GHz, when benchmarking the Lucas-Lehmer test for Mersenne primes. I understand that this does not reflect the full, practical performance of either CPU model, and certainly says nothing about energy efficiency. (Both are 'mobile' processors though, and they run very cool and quiet, especially after undervolting.)
In other words, newer does not mean absolutely faster or otherwise better.
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The PC is doomed, blah blah blah. All the grandma's are buying tablets. Anyone who does any real work are buying PC's or already have what they need. Nothing to see here.
What's funny about this is that 20 years ago my boss was saying the same thing. Just replace "PC" with mini or mainframe computer. The lines between PC and mini-computer got blurred and I don't know if there really is such a beast as a modern mini computer. It would just be called a server. The thing is that there are far more servers than there every were mini-computers. While the PC won't meet exactly the same fate, I think the number of devices that get referred to as "PCs" will continue to decline. Mo
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The mini seems to have just merged into the server class PC. The PCs got faster and now have remote management, ECC RAM, etc like a mini.
Some (a small majority) of tablets are just PCs in a tablet form factor even now.
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Some (a small majority) of tablets are just PCs in a tablet form factor even now.
I kind of doubt that actually. Maybe in terms of models but terms of actual sales I think iPads, Kindle Fires, Galaxy Notes, etc have blown away PC based tablets.
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PC is the new Mainframe (Score:3)
The Mainframe isn't dead, however it isn't as widely used as it once was. They are still new Mainframes being made, and any true Computer Scientist would drool to get their hands on one.
But that being said, they are not selling as many as they use to, most companies are going to PC based servers, because they are cheaper, and more software flexibility, and you are not as stuck with one company for support, and a large group of developers who can handle the platform.
Now the PC, are tablets going replace them
Have you ever actually seen a mainframe? (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever actually laid eyes on a mainframe? You seem to be confusing them with low-budget HPC clusters. IBM is the largest mainframe vendor and I can assure you that they are not "a bunch of PC servers with Infiniband."
They use processors unique to mainframes; they don't even use IBM's POWER CPUs. They certainly don't use "PC" processors.
The internal I/O architecture is also unique to the box. (This is why they were, for many, many, years, the king of transaction processing; they had some unique advantages over the PC/UNIX way of doing I/O.)
Externally, they can talk several different protocols; communication to the "outside world" is mostly TCP/IP, and communication to peripherals is done via FICON (mainframe I/O over Fibre Channel), although Linux partitions can use FCP. (SCSI over Fibre Channel.)
I don't think the boxes can talk infiniband at all. Why would they? That's mainly an HPC protocol, and you'd be a complete blithering idiot to be running HPC applications on a really-expensive business-oriented transaction-processing monster.
Re:Have you ever actually seen a mainframe? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because it's just a server, definitely NOT a mainframe. Just because IBM sells it doesn't make it a mainframe. IBM's mainframes are under the "z" Series.
The Top500 is a list of the highest-performing systems. In other word HPC. It's NOT a list of mainframes. The Top 500 doesn't CARE about mainframes at all, as evidenced by their benchmark being purely number-crunching, with NO attempt to record I/O performance, which is the specialty of mainframes.
Slashdot... Lots of fools who know just enough to be dangerous.
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I would say true mainframes don't really exist anymore because there is no drive to design a computer that way anymore. The modern mainframe is really just a high performance server and exists from an infatuation with the term mainframe.
I would say rather that high-performance servers are functional equivalent to mainframes. But these days I use the term "mainframe" to refer to IBM iSeries and zSeries machines. All of the other old-line "mainframe" vendors are now either in the PC/server business or extinct, as far as I know.
The main thing that keeps these products distinct is that they carry forward the architecture and software from the days when mainframes really were systems whose capabilities were in a class by themselves.
Mainframes don't exist? (Score:3)
Redundant internal engineering and resulting high reliability and security
Extensive input-output facilities
Strict backward compatibility with older software
High hardware and computational utilization rates to support massive throughput
There's no drive to design machines this way anymore? Somebody better tell IBM, as they haven't gotten the memo. They keep rolling out new models and customers keep buying them. (I think the latest estimates are that they are, after all these years, still responsible for ab
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Mainframes have never been about CPU performance. It's entirely the wrong tool for the job if you want to crunch numbers. Mainframes are about uptimes and I/O parallelization, and until recently, they were the only way to get VMs.
When I worked with mainframes in the mid 90s, are main business box had all the CPU of a Pentium 3 desktop, but we supported 6000 terminals with about 2000 active users doing database-intensive tasks. And even then we were making heavy use of compressed caches to use idle CPU to
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Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is doomed, blah blah blah. All the grandma's are buying tablets. Anyone who does any real work are buying PC's or already have what they need. Nothing to see here.
Yep. Most computer users turned out to be media consumers who a) don't need the hassle of maintaining a PC, and b) like the size/shape of tablets.
The sky won't fall. This "fatal" decline will level off soon when everybody finally figures out which camp they're in.
I got yer fix! (Score:5, Funny)
Tablets now fall under the umbrella of being a PC. BAM! Problem fixed... no more PC sales decline.
Re:I got yer fix! (Score:5, Informative)
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Well yeah, but adding "zero" to a total doesn't generally have much impact on the results.
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Didn't you get the news? Fully 10 people have now adopted Windows 8 tablets, 100% growth!
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Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Informative)
Computers made in the last 5 or so years are darn fast, and unless you are a hard core gamer, will be plenty fast for the next 5-10 years. I just built my father a modern computer in the hopes he won't need a new one for about 10 years.
Pretty much this. I run a couple of repair shops and we end up fixing 5 year old computers more often than replacing them simply because for day to day browsing tasks, they are more than sufficient. Hell, most of them can even decode HD to some extent, which pretty much rounds out what 90% of the market uses them for. PCs are becoming a niche market, get used to it, it wont change. Tablets and phones are the future, especially as input methods improve (attachable keyboards, docking stations and such)
Re:Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, more than that, they seem to have stalled in terms of getting much better. 4.5 years ago I built an i7 system. I've been used to getting a new computer every 2-3 years that blows the old one out of the water. This time however, there just hasn't really been much to upgrade to. The CPU specs are still competitive. We're still at quad cores. We've gone from tri-channel memory on the i7's to dual channel. I've upgraded the graphics card though.
In the past, people would buy new computers because their old ones were made obsolete by new ones (so not necessarily because their old ones stopped working). This hasn't happened in a while, so why would people buy new computers that aren't an upgrade, if their old ones are still working?
Re:Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Get an SSD.
Dropping an SSD into a 4 year old machine will make a bigger difference than getting a new CPU for 90% of people.
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You are right on this. The only other changes that I've made beyond upgrading the graphics card have been to add an extra hard drive, as well as adding in an SSD.
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The high-end i7s are now quad-channel, not triple-channel.
There's basically two types of i7s - i5s with hyperthreading enabled (880, 2600K, 3770K, 4770K), and Xeons with fewer cores, higher clocks and no multi-socket (960, 990X, 3930K). They're completely different - the former have a dual-channel memory controller, fewer PCIe lanes, often have integrated graphics left in, and max out at quad-core. The latter use a different socket (sometimes Xeon-compatible), have triple- or quad-channel memory (depending
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You forgot consoles. They are so woefully underpowered right now compared to desktop computers that it limits games since no big budget games will go PC only. The PS4 and and Xbone are not exactly sporting impressive specs either. I was pretty let down when their specs came out. You can be sure they will be around at least as long as the current generation, so that will stagnate gaming pretty seriously on the performance side of things.
Re:No software exists to justify buying new hardwa (Score:4, Insightful)
Not niche, it is becoming an appliance. Everybody already have one. The exponential growth and amazement period has passed. So you keep what you have until it breaks. There is no (big) money to make on this kind of market anymore. It is just another mature market, like dishwashers. We are seeing the transition from boom market to appliance market.
definitions matter (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason, there still remains this weird claddistic requirement that "pc's" (ie desktops, I guess?), laptops, and other devices be all conceptualized in separate boxes. Or, it could just be that the companies that are paid to do this sort of info gathering (and sorting) aren't changing as fast as technology...?
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
The laptop was the evolution of the desktop into a more broadly useful form factor.
The smartphone, and the pad device are precisely the same thing - just other points on the spectrum, not a whole different genus of computer.
That said, then, if one were to include the counts of all such devices that have the computing power and utility of a desktop even as short as 10 years ago, I hardly believe that the "PC market" is in decline.
One might even wonder then what the agenda is for such a naked contrivance to present the situation in such a gloomy light might be?
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The laptop was the evolution of the desktop into a more broadly useful form factor.
The smartphone, and the pad device are precisely the same thing - just other points on the spectrum, not a whole different genus of computer.
I disagree. The evolution from PC -> tablet is at least as profound as the evolution from mainframe -> minicomputer -> PC. Tablets and smartphones are really more of media consumption devices, which go to great ends to de-emphasize composition of anything greater than a photo, SMS or tweet. Laptops were really just a mobility improvement, where tablets are an entirely different mode of usage.
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It includes laptops, but excludes tablets and smartphones. (Some analysts idiosyncratically include Windows tablets, or non-Apple tablets, or whatever happens to make a more sellable story.)
It's interesting because tablet computers are growing while laptops and desktops are shrinking. It's a transitional period.
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No, it stands for "IBM-compatible Personal Computer", and it always has. IBM called their first x86 computer a PC, and the name stuck. It does NOT mean any and every computing device designed for home use.
Laptops are fully compatible with desktops. Same architecture, similar I/O connectors and ports, everything.
Re:definitions matter (Score:4, Insightful)
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
As far as I'm concerned PC derives from IBM PC. It's a PC if it's an IBM PC, a clone, or one of it's descendants. So it's CPU will be in on of the x86 compatible descendants. And it's firmware will be BIOS, or one of it's descendants such as UEFI (that emulates BIOS for compatibility.)
The rule of thumb is that a PC is a machine that can run the x86 build of DOS and/or Windows natively.
ARM based tablets are not PCs. iPad is not a PC. Android tablets aren't PCs. The Microsoft Surface that runs Windows RT isn't a PC. The one that runs Windows 8 is a PC.
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not the computer we know and love here on Slashdot
You CLAIM to speak for all slashdot users, but really you speak of the raw newbies who think computers come in a small metal box with an Intel sticker on it.
unless you like Vendor Lock-in and being told what you can and cannot run on said devices.
WOW you define words based on what you LIKE? And apparently you've ignorant of the fact that many devices can be unlocked and you can install whatever you want on them.
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I don't have to unlock my computer in order to install anything on it. I just plug in a USB stick of the OS and away I go. I shouldn't have to do anything more complex than that for any of the newer class of computing device.
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I just plug in a USB stick of the OS and away I go.
That's pretty much the procedure for installing cyanogenmod on an android tablet
I shouldn't have to do anything more complex than that for any of the newer class of computing device.
Well, there you go.
Yes indeed I choose automobiles based on how hard it is to change the oil filter, which is way more practical than you, because changing oil filters is something that is done way more often than installing an OS.
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What vendor lockin do I have on my Nexus devices?
I have a non-factory OS, I have a chroot and a nice terminal to use it with. I can install any software I like, since you know I installed the whole damn OS.
No Mention of Windows 8 (Score:5, Interesting)
No mention of the fact that Intel and Microsoft are still bleeding customers on gross margins of 70%. Computers have to compete against other computing devices, and they are not doing so on price. Windows 8 being a tablet OS is the nail in the coffin.
It isn't tablets (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason for the decline of PC sales is that PC's have gotten to the point where their useful life is far longer than it used to be. Other than bleeding edge gamers and enthusiasts, there is just no need to upgrade as often as people once did. The same applies more or less to businesses.
Nearly every person I know who owns a smartphone and/or a tablet also has some sort of PC. I really don't think the portable device boom is the culprit here.
Capability, compatibility and change (Score:3)
This is probably the most fitting, in my perspective, folks think their PCs are "fast enough" and "capable enough" that when they are tight on money will put off purchasing a new one.
Windows 8 certainly isn't a reason people are scrambling to upgrade, not only do you get something different (change==bad to most non techies), you loose compatibility with some of the hardware and more importantly the older software you already have. This includes DVD playback.
You want sales you have to offer carrots, give the
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Nearly every person I know who owns a smartphone and/or a tablet also has some sort of PC.
Well, what do you expect, when "nearly every person I know" consists of "my mother".
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You have no clue about my life or who I know. Most of my friends and acquaintances are not IT people. Some of us have lives outside of IT. If you don't I'm sorry, but that doesn't apply to me. Your retort was WORSE than USELESS.
Average Consumers Pick a Communication Device (Score:3)
So why pick a more expensive & less mobile PC?
Not as many are needed (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, we just need fewer PCs than we used to:
- People can do their "consumption" media (browsing, videos, etc) on tablets or phones. Don't need a PC for that.
- People who use PCs for work have no reason to upgrade them as often as they used to, as the machines last for years and real world performance gains in hardware have slowed to a trickle. When most of my software is single-threaded, upgrading from dual core to quad core (or more) does absolutely nothing for me.
- Even gamers don't need to upgrade that often, as requirements have stopped going up unless you want the ultra quality mode. A three year old gaming PC can still play everything new at high quality, and that's never been the case in the past.
Add it all up, and we need fewer PCs today than we used to need. The ones we do need last longer than they used to. The market isn't going to go away, but it is going to become a lot smaller.
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It's not tablets (Score:5, Interesting)
The main reasons that sales are dropping...
Everybody that needs one has one, and they work well enough. Very few people need the latest and greatest
The various different activation and protection schemes make it a royal pain to upgrade
I used to buy new hardware frequently, and just clone my hard drive
Now, I hold on to hardware for as long as possible
I fear that if I upgrade, I will end up spending hours on hold waiting to convince some dude in India that I'm not a pirate
Microsoft kills the PC (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect this is primarily because people who think of buying a new PC go to the store and see Windows 8 and think 'WTF? Why do I want a tablet interface on my 24" monitor?'
In a vain attempt to gain a few percent market share on tablets, Microsoft are killing their PC cash cow.
What were they expecting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perpetual exponential growth? Good luck with that.
I would expect this to be obvious to the casual observer, but I guess not. So, let me enumerate:
Primary reasons for the decline:
1) The PC has been around now for over 20 years. It no longer possesses excitement and consumer appeal.
2) SMARTPhones and tablets are better meeting the needs and desires of the consumer; their increasing sales are supplanting PC sales.
3) The PC market is saturated, either due to consumer need or financial constraint. (Plenty of foreign markets have consumers but lack capital to meet the saturation levels of Western countries.)
4) Digital product producers, online retailers, and brick & mortar stores have all been significantly marketing tablet and SMARTPhone devices to consumers while ignoring their traditional PC products.
5) Tablets and SMARTPhones have much shorter average lifespans than traditional PCs, creating more consistant and continual demand for their replacement.
Ergo, you have a very simple recipe for the decline of PC sales.
The PC no longer possesses consumer appeal (Score:2)
I've ignored your drivel about a smartphone replacing the Desktop Computer...even though I agree the smartphone is a personal computer, I find them complementary devices.
Looking at your statement "PC has been around now for over 20 years. It no longer possesses excitement and consumer appeal." It needs to generate it. It needs to lower prices...produce compelling exciting machines, Where is the sambuntu +android compatible 8 core ARM laptop with 4X displays for under $200. The only think old is Microsoft +
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not correct (Score:5, Insightful)
That's BS, it's Windows 8's fault entirely. This study doesn't count used PC resale or a drop in computer (scrap) recycling levels. Tablets replace laptops, not PCs. There is no drop because of tablets. It is completely Windows 8's fault.
My 2007 laptop still serves me well (Score:2)
win8 and UEFI (Score:4, Insightful)
Who would buy a PC you can't use?
Didn't need a PC in the first place (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people are finding that they didn't need a PC in the first place when all they do is light web browsing and posting on Facebook. Previous to the smartphone/tablet, they needed a PC to do that. I think we'll see more special-purpose devices taking over functions that were previously relegated to the general-purpose PC.
Got what I need (Score:3)
Most desktops can be repaired for around $70 so they can last until they are so old it becomes silly. Laptops are way less repairable and more breakable so they vanish from the pool of used machines faster.
But one factor keeping laptops running is that when the batteries die people just turn them into desktops and are happy with the mobility of their phones and tablets.
The biggest factor keeping people away from new machines is the relentless bloatware infesting most new machines. We
The PC is not dead (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is not dead. For Windows, it was nearly perfected with Windows 7. Intel's Core i5 and i7 plus NVIDIA or AMD GPUs + 16GB RAM + SSD deliver the computing power of supercomputers from just a few years ago, and complete everyday tasks almost instantly. Why do people need to buy a PC that is only marginally faster, only to downgrade to Windows 8.n which is user-hostile on the desktop?
Tablets are new and rapidly advancing and people are buying them to do many things (snapshots, social networking, light web browsing) on the go, on their sofa, etc. but not to actually replace their PCs. Nearly any PC made in the last five years is "good enough" so why replace it before it fails?
The PC isn't dead; the market is simply saturated with computers that are finally "good enough" and a new computer is a downgrade thanks to Microsoft forcing the tablet UI upon everyone. I've had to install Classic Shell for Windows 8 users who are novices and complained the OS is unusable, so you can't convince me at all that Windows 8 is good for newbies.
Then for business, the Metro^H^H^H^H^HModern interface breaks usability and productivity; Windows 2.0's "innovative" overlapping windows (not so innovative actually - it was copied from Amiga) is removed. I don't know about you but when I am doing any kind of sysadmin or development work, I often have five to seven applications open, often overlapped so I can read documenation as I write scripts and code, or even work on spreadsheets.
I'd like Windows 8 if it came with the Aero interface and still supported glass, and the touch UI could be enabled as a choice - or even if it were the default and could be turned off, and if Metro apps could be moved around freely rather than be confined to full screen or tiled. I don't know about you, but even if I cared about touch screens on desktops and laptops, it would be a very secondary UI for me, because I want to keep my hands on the keyboard and mouse. I'm not new to touch screens either - I've been a PDA/tablet fan since WinCE. I own PocketPC (which I still use on occasion), iOS, and Android PDAs and tablets, and have used Windows XP tablets and each is great for its purpose, but when I did use the XP tablet as a desktop, I docked it and used only the keyboard and mouse. I never once used the touch screen while it was docked, nor would I bother with Win8's touch screen on a desktop or laptop.
It's a matter of needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Performance isn't as much of a factor any more - a 7 year old PC will browse the web and get your e-mail just as well as a brand new one. Monitor resolutions are stagnating at 1080p... video cards that are 3 generations old still play games great on single 1080p monitors.
In short, for most people (gaming enthusiasts and developers excluded), older PCs still work fine, so WHY UPGRADE?
Yeah, maybe a new PC will boot in 10 seconds, or that office app will launch in 50% of the time as the old one, but when that 50% is only another 2 seconds, who cares?
There was a time when improvements in PCs were more dramatic - you could FEEL the change performance between one PC and the next, but we've entered an era of diminishing returns with those performance improvements. Sure, we will see good improvements in media encoding time, or see lag on a game that is run on 3 monitors, but most people don't do these things all the time, or even some of the time.
This is why PC sales have dropped. Everybody who needs a computer has them, and most people are ok with the computer they have, until it breaks down. This obviously will slow down sales.
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is here to stay. What we are seeing is a longer life cycle. There is no need to update the hardware these days, there's plenty of power and storage for people writing the odd letter/email, social media and most games. Unless you're a developer or working with huge amounts of media data, PC users aren't going to notice a shit load of RAM, loads of cores CPU and a GPU capable of real-time Avatar level of rendering.
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The problem is that there is no killer app that needs to be tamed by new PC hardware. Any killer apps there days are more likely going to be on phones and need to be tamed by phones sized hardware.
Maybe one comes out one day, maybe with games, 3D, holographic screens, but right now it's all kinda meh.
I think I seen this coming when GHz stopped climbing in the early 00s as well. You can wrench out more power with all the other tricks, but this was the easiest way. Even these days, I can feel when that GHz
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Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:4, Insightful)
The existing PCs are powerful enough for most users, and have been for years. Most users are running Word, EXCEL, or their open source equivalents. They've had enough speed and memory for years. New hardware buys them little more than a keyboard without fingerprints. New software actually slows the machine down due to all the glitz.
Sure, there are a few people like me who want more speed for video processing, or other computational tasks,, but we're the exception, not the rule.
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The real issue here is that software is not being developed to exploit the new found power of modern PCs. An entire generation of programmers is wasting their time writing sophmoric beta "apps" for restricted tablet devices. People are buying these yes, but collectively our software and productivity levels are not advancing.
People used to upgrade their PCs to get a new OS with useful new applications. No such OS is being made anymore. Most of them, Windows, Mac and many Linux distros, are instead sliding ev
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Why are people satisfied with 1080p. My 17" Dell laptop is 1900x1200. I want to replace it but every new dell is just 1080p and that's the upgrade they come stock with x900. I know the margins make it cheaper because of margins with all the 1080P TVs in production but jesus is a 17" laptop with more than a vertical resolution of 1080p too much to ask for?
Love or hate Apple at least their laptops have resolution Their 13" laptops are 2560-by-1600 and The 15" laptops are 2880-by-1800. That's twice the number
Re:Longer Life Cycle (Score:4, Insightful)
The PC is here to stay. What we are seeing is a longer life cycle. There is no need to update the hardware these days,
Hold on there why does anyone say this....I want more powerful hardware and can use it. Where is my 4X 1080P 24" touchscreen monitor, with keyboard with LED keys with these futuristic storage sizes with android compatibility...at a price I can afford.
Those are new monitors, not new PCs. You proved the GP's point. You talk about more powerful hardware, and listed nothing that actually involves replacing the PC. You just need to replace the peripherals.
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Kids can most certainly appreciate a powerful machine if you bother to give one to them. They will happily lug it around too.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a truly misguided statement. Here's a better one:
"Consumers use touch screens. Producers use keyboards."
Good luck using a tablet for tasks such as Photoshop or Blender. Heck, even using a tablet to type out a proper letter could be classified as cruel and inhumane.
The era of the PC is not over... only the era of the PC as an entertainment device.
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Nail, head, hit. The PC has moved from the primary computer to more of a background workhorse. Eventually, it will merge with the server [1].
What has changed is that there are other ways to use machines other than keyboards/monitors, in the way of media consumption. Devices needed for media production are just less in demand. Where someone would view a YouTube vid on their desktop in the past, they might watch it on their laptop or phone today.
[1]: Something I find ironic since I do see a market for ho
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What else did I miss?
You can use a mouse and keyboard over bluetooth, how is this much different than any other PC?
Android is now reinventing Desktop environments, they are all the way up to Tiling window managers!
Next comes overlapping windows and then full compositing.
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Well...
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You really should look more into the wonders of bluetooth.
Mice, headphones, speakers, all kinds of fun stuff. You can even get some pretty massive tablets with great screen resolution.
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I think Microsoft has a tablet product that does run those programs. No one really uses it though.
The point I was trying to make that you keep avoiding is that there is no line between tablet and computer. A tablet is a kind of computer and a normal PC can be used basically the same way as a tablet. For me the best part of that form factor is taking one machine everywhere. Ideally my smartphone would dock and be able to use my normal set of peripherals, then when I go to a meeting become a laptop by docking
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True, but I would argue that using a keyboard on a tablet is somewhat like using a touchscreen on Windows 7. It will work, but it wasn't designed to be used that way and it doesn't work all that great.
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Works fine for me.
Heck, it saves a lot of screen real-estate if you turn off the onscreen one.
Android is reinventing window management, they are up to tiling and this rate we may have full compositing in a couple years.
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The era of the home PC is over.
FTFY.
The market won't disappear of course, because of hobbyist developers, gamers, etc.
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Some of use even have smartphone, multiple tablets, laptops and more than 1 PC. As it turns out the total cost for all this stuff is pretty amazingly low and it fits in pretty small part of the average human dwelling.
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:5, Insightful)
The era of the PC is over. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised at this.
That's drawing a conclusion on shaky evidence.
Drops in PC sales does't indicate that PC usage has dropped.
The real issue is two things:
- There's little in the way of new markets for generic computing devices. After 30 years, most of the population likely to ever have one have been served effectively by the companies selling them
- In existing, saturated markets, there's declining reason to replace existing systems. The sweet spot of memory, storage, and CPU power has been met for the majority of the uses that people have them for. Gaming is really the only area pushing a need for new computers, and even that is arguable in most cases. (Peripheral sales like new video cards is doing just fine, as an example). Even things like editing HD video of the kids is done more than effectively with five year old hardware.
That is the real problem. There's no need to upgrade a 3-4 year old system, short of hardware failures. The fact that even a small part of the market (and is IS very small) can do everything they need on a tablet, without a primary computer is more evidence that there's just no "new" uses that drive a need for new hardware, and a smaller "ultrabook" form factor isn't a compelling enough reason to get people to cough up $1k.
Fact is, other then web surfing, most of the things people have always used PCs for they still need to use PCs for. You can't store a terabyte of family video and photos on a tablet. If you have a Windows tablet, I suppose you could use an external drive. Wireless NAS is just too slow. You're not, generally, going to tap your way through your taxes on a little tablet.
PC era isn't over, but the era of 18-24 month lifespan for PCs is. If that doubles, then sales have to drop in half.
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So what are you going to do, large scale video and audio editing on a Tablet or your Phone?. Oh that's right, you're going to make an AAA Game or some Movie CGI for a flick next year on that Phone and Tablet!.
Please...just because you don't have any work to do, doesn't mean the rest of us don't.
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Now, this signals that PCs have been universally adopted. Now that everybody has one, the sales will obviously decline. But this only means that the growth period of PCs is over, and that personal computing has reached maturity.
Re:needs vs wants (Score:4, Interesting)
it has everything to do with smartphones and tablets
a family needs only 1 PC in the now. but a smartphone or tablet for every member on average. lots of kids starting around 9 get their own smartphones. earlier than that for ipads
Producers vs Consumers (Score:2)
pc owners are the producers of content on that computer network, not tablet users
Except its not true...real keyboard and mouse have uses, but the rise of pen+drawing screen is actually a better input for artists, hell anything where a pad beats static computer.
As for an iPad being better for consumption....seriously my 24" monitor is so much better for consumption than a tablet for *anything* videos, web pages. games...
The main difference is the trade between portability at the lack of some screen estate, power, storage, ease of input and it just happens in most use cases these are not
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i feel like it's gotten easier to just upgrade
Why do people insist on taking their own personal anecdotes and projecting them onto the rest of the industry?
I feel like going for a swim today, does this mean the computer industry should make a waterproof model?
just more selfishness (Score:2)
The desktop industry will have to adapt at some point
No they don't HAVE to adapt.
the above is honestly the best idea for everyone.
No, it's the best idea for YOU. Your idea SUCKS from a low-cost perspective. Connectors cost MORE than chips, not less. They are the #1 failure mode on computers, each connector adds more risk of failure and warranty expense.
Have you noticed the trend toward FEWER and FEWER connectors on computers? This is why!
And this is from someone that screws around with hardware and the like.
If you eat twinkies every day, does this make you an expert on how to make a better twinkie?