Tablet Shipments Decline For 16th Straight Quarter (venturebeat.com) 195
The tablet market has now declined year-over-year for 16 quarters straight. According to new estimates from IDC, "Q3 2018 saw an 8.6 percent year-over-year decline: 36.4 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 39.9 million units in the same quarter last year," reports VentureBeat. From the report: The only silver lining is that the Q3 2018 decline wasn't double digits again. While 2017 quarters only saw single-digit declines, Q1 2018 and Q2 2018 were in the double digits. The estimates come from IDC, which counts both slate form factors and detachables, meaning tablets with keyboards included. Apple maintained its top spot for the quarter, with Samsung and Amazon rounding out the top three. Huawei was the only company in the top five to ship more tablets than the year before. The top five vendors accounted for 68.4 percent of the market, up from 67.1 percent last year.
Sooo, 4 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sooo, 4 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
A tablet is a pretty useful media-consumption device. If I'm sitting in bed watching movies, I'd rather have a 9" screen a foot away than a 40" screen twelve feet away - it gives me more flexibility in positioning (like with reading a book, much comfier to do while laying on your side since it rotates with you), and better UX than a TV and remote control. Especially given how slow most "smart TVs" are.
So maybe it's not a "need", but it is a pretty nice "want". It was definitely worth it for me - I got mine for a different reason, but I have to concede I mainly use it to watch Youtube and read tech articles.
The problem for tablet makers is, there's no upgrade cycle needed. As soon as we got to a point where tablets could stream Netflix, 99% of people never needed an upgrade afterward.
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Re:Sooo, 4 years? (Score:5, Funny)
It wants to be closer to your jugular. Your cat is biding its time.
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I do that with my 14" laptop. Only problem is, the cat decides to sleep between me and the laptop, $diety knows why, and I can't read the bottom half of the screen.
I know it's a variable and can mean anything, but please spell it $deity to stop the inner turmoil I feel whenever I read $diety (I'm not one for diets).
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You are forgetting that the $diety IS the cat. Just ask her, she knows why she does it.
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Added to that, they tend to travel a lot less than a phone, so there's not nearly as much drop induced replacement going on.
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Actually, I found that a notebook is a better media consumption device, especially in bed. At least it stands more or less solid. Tablet stands are fragile and the darn thing will fall over if you move under the sheets to change position or something. On a couch, setting the notebook on your lap gives you more stability than any tablet I've ever seen.
Not just for media consumption (Score:3)
A tablet is a pretty useful media-consumption device.
Sure but to think of them as just a media consumption device is a gross under utilization of what they can do. Tablet's should be the go-to device for replacing tasks that currently are done with a pad of paper and a pen. Simple example: it's nigh impossible to take notes in a math class with a keyboard and mouse. A keyboard+mouse is a terrible interface for that application. A stylus and touch screen is vastly preferable and a tablet with some good note taking software should be the ideal tool for stu
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Doesn't sound better than headphones.
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I disagree, given various values of speaker setups.
Headphones can't deliver physical vibration the way a subwoofer can.
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maybe not, but a fuckload more comfortable than wearing headphones.
Here's a nickel kid, try getting yourself some headphones made after 1974.
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Re:Sooo, 4 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
they're actually useful when you don't want to lug even a laptop around and just need to do email/calendar or meeting notes..or read a book.
The nice thing about my tablet I bought 6 years ago is it still does the job. that's why sales are falling, a tablet good then is fine now. Come to think of it, my laptop is 6 years old and this PC I'm on is 8....
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they're actually useful when you don't want to lug even a laptop around and just need to do email/calendar or meeting notes..or read a book.
The nice thing about my tablet I bought 6 years ago is it still does the job. that's why sales are falling, a tablet good then is fine now. Come to think of it, my laptop is 6 years old and this PC I'm on is 8....
I don't find a tablet to be any easier to type on than a phone (the touchscreen is bigger but it's still a touchscreen)... unless I add a decent keyboard. And once I do that, the tablet is the same size as a laptop, so I may as well bring the laptop.
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The nice thing about my tablet I bought 6 years ago is it still does the job. that's why sales are falling, a tablet good then is fine now.
Same story here, except that I can no longer install or upgrade apps because the Android version is too old for G-Play, and the hardware's too old for a newer Android.
But I still can't find one to replace it that has even roughly the same weight and dimensions, which I think are ideal.
Re: Sooo, 4 years? (Score:2)
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Trying to read a book on a phone sounds miserable. No thanks.
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tablet has big ass pipe, my wifi doesn't suck. big drive, no problem, memory cards are f'ing HUGE these days.
big screen is nice and at work I do read and respond to emails in a timely manner, it's part of job
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Tablets vs smartphones and laptops (Score:3)
6 years ago didn't see the need for a tablet. 4 years ago didn't see the need for a tablet.
Tablet's aren't useful for everyone. I don't own one for personal use though my company uses them rather heavily to good effect. There are lots of great uses for one but unfortunately the software to facilitate those use cases to date has often been rather lacking.
4 weeks ago I had a hard drive crash, 100% dead, no recovery possible, thank $diety for decent backups.
Umm, WTF does this have to do with tablets?
Tablet would not do half of what I need to do (half: web browsing and email. Other half: everything else).
Tablets are useful for a LOT more than just web browsing and email. If you think otherwise then you haven't really bothered to look at them seriously.
That said, the problem with Tablets is that the com
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Tablet would not do half of what I need to do (half: web browsing and email. Other half: everything else).
The shocking thing is that you think the only possible role for a tablet is the 1-1 replacement of your PC.
Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
They're selling replacements only at this point.
Also, time I deploy a "detachable" type to a user, one more person learns they will never have another one of these awful things. They all want a proper laptop thank you very much.
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Yep. Market saturation.
That, and my 6 year old tablet is still good enough for most everything I use it for & there's no way in Hades I'd pay more than $200 for a newer model with better specs. (mostly because today's specs aren't much better, yet the prices are higher than a decent laptop).
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I'm still waiting for a cheap Star Trek style tablet that I can use for electronic document display. There are some reasonable ePaper based tablets but they are expensive, and the slow refresh rate makes browsing a bit of a chore.
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the brand new iPad with USB-C is faster than one of the mid-spec MacBooks in benchmarks.
a) Yes, MacBook integrated graphics are rubbish at 3D/gaming.
b) Does it make the slightest difference to anything you do on a tablet?
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The MS Surface is a “detachable tablet” and is included in the declining tablet sales numbers in the article.
Apple and Microsofts attempts with detachable tablets are not having a massive impact (yet?).
“The detachable market has failed to see growth in 2018, a worrying trend that has plagued the category off and on since the end of 2016,” IDC research analyst Lauren Guenveur said in a statement.
Microsoft has only really sold the surface in the US and hasn’t shipped enough devices to get near the top of any global sales charts(either as a tablet or PC).
Personally I hate the detachable tablet form factor; it is a clumsy laptop and a heavy tablet.
Re: Yup (Score:4)
I have a surface and they are horrible tablets. They weight a ton, and the interface is clumsy to use. Plus the battery life, while good for a laptop, sucks for a tablet.
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure everyone who wants one already owns one.
On top of that, there are former iPad owners who now have phones large enough to fill the need I once filled with a tablet. I had an iPad when my smart phone screen was only 4", because it gave a much better media consumption experience than my phone. Now that my phone screen is 6"+, it's no longer worth it to lug a phone and tablet around. Based on just cost I wouldn't mind paying for both but it is simply much easier to carry around a smart phone.
I still have tablets for my kids, but only because they don't have phones yet. My guess is they won't get new tablets once I feel they are ready for phones.
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My guess is they won't get new tablets once I feel they are ready for phones.
When my kids got phones, the tablets went unused and gathered dust, sort of like what happened to Woody in Toy Story 3.
Enjoy their innocent tablet-days while you can. Soon enough, they will have smart phones and 500 friends on social media.
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Enjoy their innocent tablet-days while you can. Soon enough, they will have smart phones and 500 friends on social media.
It's OK though, a hundred will be pedophiles pretending to be teens, a hundred will be FBI agents pretending to be teens to catch the pedophiles, a hundred will be Russian trolls, a hundred will be bots, ninety-nine will be marketers targeting kids, the the one remaining one will be Sally from next door who she talks to on the bus every day anyway.
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Except 6 inch phones don't fit in pockets.
Might as well carry a Nexus 7 instead.
Re: Yup (Score:2)
I just bought one. Supposed to come Wednesday. Never owned a tablet before.
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Got my first one (the old e-ink Kindle I use for books doesn't count) this past summer. It's just a 32GB Asus Nexus 7, nothing to write home about; but for $10 at the police unclaimed property yard sale, I couldn't resist. :)
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I just bought one. Supposed to come Wednesday. Never owned a tablet before.
A tablet is just like any other electronic tool, it has its place. If you try to take it outside that zone then it performs poorly. Can you use a tablet as a phone or a laptop? Yes, you can but it sucks.
The primary use for a tablet, for me, is as a passive data display device. I use it to read ebooks most of the time and as the occasional video display to watch youtube or netflix on. They are also very handy when you have information on a web page that you need to have some where else. Like last ni
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> They're selling replacements only at this point.
Actually they're not. Here's the problem. Tablets for a while were a competitive market where there was actually decent value for money. Now? You want an Android tablet you have two choices - Buy something for under $200 US and get a device with a shit 16GB of storage or spend a lot more for a device with proper storage. 16GB on Android is terrible these days because 11-12GB is eaten up before you take it out of the box, and once you install a few ap
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Ding Ding! We have a winner. That is exactly what I see out there. Low end crap, or high end and not worth the price.
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Ding Ding! We have a winner. That is exactly what I see out there. Low end crap, or high end and not worth the price.
You can get a new 10" iPad for $329.
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To be replacements they would have to have the same or better features. Crappy letter-box aspect ratio screens and no "tab" features won't hack it. I want to be able to draw on the screen while giving presentations to individuals or groups up to three, but HDMI out is good too.
I won't buy unless the boot loader is unlocked and the battery is replaceable by ME.
OTOH, I would happily buy an A3 E-ink ebook reader with sound. I want it to read datasheets with
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They're selling replacements only at this point.
To be replacements they would have to have the same or better features. Crappy letter-box aspect ratio screens and no "tab" features won't hack it.
I believe GP meant replacements for other tablets. We've got a Nexus 7 2nd. First the volume buttons died so I replaced the button board. Now the battery is dying so I'm replacing the battery. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new tablet, even though a N7-2nd is not much tablet and a new one with the same specs would be easy to find. I figure the replacement rate would be a lot higher if not for all the little cellphone shops capable of making a repair like this.
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Indeed. I still use a 2014 Galaxy Tab S 10.5. Yes, it's old and runs outdated Marshmallow, but it does most things I need from a tablet.
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The king is dead, long live the king! (Score:2)
bingo. the market is saturated. Upgrading to the latest iSamsung is no longer of critical importance, and kids are getting by with phones or hand-me-down tablets. Kids aren't really rushing out to get laptops, you can tell that by the slowly declining sales. The PC market ain't what it used to be. With larger screen phones like the Galaxy S8 (5.6") being so popular, it is easier to argue that the tablet market is transforming than to say it is dead. (not to be confused with "phablets" of 6+ inch)
My company
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You'd wrong. Iâ(TM)m on my second iPad
Try getting something that can type an apostrophe next time around. OK?
Re: Yup (Score:3)
Turn off 'smart' punctuation in the keyboard settings
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Your language parser needs work. "Some folks" != "All tablet users ever"
Your anecdotal experience just means you are not included in his set of "some folks." But hey, thanks for checking in, I guess. Enjoy using a device that works for you.
Re: Yup (Score:2)
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They fail every usability test to either a phone or a laptop.
Want to carry it around? A phone is easier.
Want to hook it up to a mouse, keyboard, monitor? A laptop is easier.
Want to edit content on it? A laptop is easier.
The absolute only place it has any advantage is if you want to lie down in bed and watch movies on a bigger screen- which isn't a big enough niche, and most people are happy using their phones for (or getting a TV in their bedroom). Which is why tablets are dying.
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That's exactly what I've found too. Between a >5.5" phone and a laptop, there are very few scenarios where a tablet would do the job better. And even when it would, it's hardly worth it overall.
I wouldn't even agree with your "movie in bed" scenario - a laptop is way better since it has a built-in stand. Just put it on your belly and there's no need to hold it in your hands or screw around with flimsy tablet stands.
I won't deny that there are use cases for tablets of course. Like reading comics maybe (wh
A tablet used to be the way to avoid cramming (Score:2)
would you buy and carry [a tablet] around in addition to your phone, which you always carry
I did just that back when I carried a flip phone. For years, I chose a flip phone with a separate tablet over a smartphone because it made my cellular bill hundreds of dollars per year smaller. Only a few years ago did it become common for carriers in my home country not to cram data service onto a voice SIM inserted into a smartphone [google.com].
What I think would be perfect is something in the form factor of the Yoga Book
Try a Lenovo Yoga or a Dell Inspiron 11. The screen on these convertible laptops folds all the way around to become a tablet. A different convertible laptop geometry existed a
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They fail every usability test to either a phone or a laptop.
Have a laptop and Internet at home, but want to run phone apps without having to pay a cellular bill? Several years ago, a tablet was much cheaper than a phone for this purpose for two reasons: a cellular radio was an extra cost add-on, and major carriers in Slashdot's home country were still structuring the purchase of a phone as a subsidy bundled into a 2-year contract rather than straightforwardly financing a purchase.
Want to carry it around? A phone is easier.
Not much screen real estate for comfortably reading paged media, such as a datasheet, a
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The absolute only place it has any advantage is if you want to lie down in bed and watch movies on a bigger screen- which isn't a big enough niche, and most people are happy using their phones for (or getting a TV in their bedroom). Which is why tablets are dying.
Tablet sales outpaced laptops for a few years and now are about even now:
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
There are about 1.5b tablet users worldwide. So yeah, contrary to your arm chair analysis, people love tablets.
Cell Phones Cannibalized Tablets (Score:5, Insightful)
And in two different ways. First, screens just kept getting bigger on phones which limited that advantage on a tablet. Second, phones have been getting incredibly expensive, just forces a lot of people to have to choose one or the other.
Not rocket science here.
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It's not just the size that counts. (Insert juvenile joke here.)
I've had an iPod Touch for a very long time but found myself in dire need of a replacement due to a severe crack on the screen. It still works but I can't trust it to keep working in this condition. Upon acquiring an iPhone to replace it (and an equally aged and slightly damaged cell phone) I found that while the screen was not all that much larger the screen resolution has increased considerably. I can simply get far more information on a
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Not rocket science here.
Considering it's not rocket science you've spectacularly missed the mark. Cellphones haven't cannibalized tablet sales, tablets have. Every mum, dad, and kid who can afford one have a tablet already. For most the tablet is good enough. When the battery dies, or the screen cracks, or the latest iOS renders the device so slow as to be useless then they will buy another.
Endless growth is a fantasy.
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It's everyone's own fault of they can't look past the Apple and Samsung top models. I honestly have no idea why anyone buys them, the ratio of cost and benefit is total crap.
Writing from my Moto Z2 play.
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It's still much nicer to read an ebook, web site, or watch a movie on a 8-10 inch tablet, than on a smartphone. This truly big phones are a nuisance, and everyone I know wants to stick with a relatively small iphone 6/7/9 or a Galaxy S8/S9
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Since the advent of Moto G and Huawei Honor series, I haven't bought smartphone costing more than 250 bucks.. They came with a big screen, good build, and lots of storage. Yes, the CPUs are kinda weak, but not a spoiler.
App dev needs a device on which to test (Score:2)
The specs of last year's flagship phones can now be bought for midrange or lowend prices, unless you're that brand conscious
Or unless you're a developer who has been hired to port an application to an operating system that brand conscious end users prefer, in order to take advantage of the greater disposable income of brand conscious end users. Then you need a Mac on which to run Xcode and an iPhone on which to test.
Most suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because tablets these days suck. I own a 2nd Gen Nexus 7, and it's still my main tablet. When I walk into a tech store, and they ask if they can help me, I say "I doubt it." They see it as a challenge... So I show them my 5 year old tablet, and say "I want an upgrade that's in this price range, and I don't want an Apple product." They offer a few products to me, but basic things like screen resolution, storage size, or RAM are either equivalent or WORSE than my 5 year old tablet. I would buy the Huawei Mediapad M5 in a heartbeat were it sold at a store I could go to.
I think I know why. Marketing now runs the industry, not technology improvements. When technology dictated what was more or less expensive, the rule was that the smaller the phone, the bigger the price. Miniturization means the highest price. Now that the public has gotten used to tiny devices, tech companies have arbitrarily decided that larger devices should carry the premium. Larger device with a larger price tag is now the new normal.
By this rationale, a tablet should always carry an astromical price tag. Tablets with an LTE modem are essentially cell phones with the "talking" portion of the software disabled. Essentially, the big players in the market have deliberately neglected the tablet industry to maximize their profits in their "premium" phone brands. In this crazy industry, "bigger" is more expensive, which means tablets have no place.
Re:Most suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a similar experience. My brother showed me his Android device some time ago (long enough I forgot many specifics) and I was quite impressed with it. One impressive feature was the HDMI output (or, that's what he called it, I found out it was really MHL) and how he could mirror the display on his TV, direct the sound to his stereo, while powering the device, on a single cable. I thought that looked awesome and thought I'd look for something similar for myself.
Here's what I found out, device manufacturers (or maybe just the ones I looked at) dropped MHL support in the next generation devices. The old devices used mini-USB for power and A/V out which was a standard (or "standard enough") means to make this connection. New devices use USB-C which made such cables obsolete. There's laptops and such that support video out from the USB-C, notably Apple products, but this seems quite rare to the point of near nonexistence.
In their defense these devices often offered some kind of wireless means to output audio and video but that meany buying a new TV or buying an expensive dongle to do what my brother's device did with what seemed to be an off the shelf, and relatively inexpensive, cable. The video was also higher resolution but that seemed like a non-issue since the source material would often be just 720p anyway from some internet stream.
USB-C is nice but it introduced a "reset" on what we had before. There's going to be a lot of mixed up messes on standards until we get back many things lost with older and well established (for the time) connections like mini-USB and the 30-pin Apple connector.
Oh, and this...
Tablets with an LTE modem are essentially cell phones with the "talking" portion of the software disabled.
That really bothers me for some reason. I don't see myself holding a tablet to my face for a phone call but if someone wants to call me on my tablet then they should be able to do so. I can use it like a speaker phone, plug in headphones, use some kind of Bluetooth device (like those built into the dash of many cars these days), or whatever to talk. This would be especially useful for outgoing calls and other cell phone based (as opposed to the general internet protocol based) communications. If I want to make a quick phone call while holding my tablet then in my hands is all the electronics needed to do so, except it's been hobbled for no reason I can really understand.
Maybe if the people making tablets want to sell more of them then they should enable all the features of that cell phone chip it's got, meaning it can make and receive a phone call. Is there some FCC regulation or something preventing this?
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My nexus 7 works amazingly well as a speaker phone. I have VOIP software installed, I have my own number, and pay pennies a month for phone service anywhere I have LTE signal. Every time I thought of getting a modern cell phone, I looked at the monthly fees and changed my mind in a hurry.
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Sure, there's software solutions for the lack of a phone in tablets. What software cannot fix is the problem of a well supported, standardized, cable for A/V output and charging. I'm guessing if I look hard enough I can likely find a dongle/dock/adapter of some sort that can provide USB-C to HDMI (or MHL, or DisplayPort, or whatever) for audio and video out and that's supported by a large number of devices. What it won't be is as cheap as that passive cable I saw that connected HDMI/MHL displays and TVs
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and pay pennies a month for phone service anywhere I have LTE signal.
How much are you paying for the LTE signal?
Nexus (Score:2)
That was my main tablet for three years until it failed for some unknown reason. The closest thing I could get to replace it was an Asus ZenPad 8, and it's nowhere near as good. Support sucks and it's flaky, and it's jammed with crapware. At least their launcher is OK. I hear the Amazon Fire pads are OK, but still aren't up to snuff with the Nexus 7. Plus I have a few apps I don't want to repurchase on the Amazon store.
Re:Most suck. (Score:5, Interesting)
As a fellow Nexus 7 2013 owner, I share your pain in finding an improved model after so many years. I like the specs of the M5, but I hear there are 2.4 Ghz wifi / Bluetooth interference issues and there's no 3.5 headphone jack, so the search goes on for me.
I get what you're saying about the marketing, but really... tablets just have a much longer product life cycle and the profits are razor thin, so there aren't many models. Phones which are still often replaced every 2 years (thanks to "new every 2" phone plans) have a much shorter cycle and can be mass produced at a much larger scale.
The tablet market was saturated quickly. Then, e-readers and smart phones cannibalized most of the tablet market. Amazon's Fire HD tablets and other low-end tablets ate the rest of the Android tablet market. Most adults have large smart phones and give their kids the cheap, even larger tablets. (You can get a refurbished Fire HD 10" for only $120... or a Fire HD 8" Kid's Edition for $130)
Me, I want something like the M5, but with better quality wifi/bluetooth... and I'll use a USB C to 3.5 jack if I have to, but I'd rather have the native 3.5 jack. The M5 has double the cores and RAM of my Nexus with a higher def screen and 4x the internal storage plus a card slot for more. NICE! But, it doesn't come with Android 9.... and there's no indication of when it'll get it - if ever. With Nexus devices, Google does OTA updates almost instantaneously upon release, but even Google only supports devices for a couple years, then you're on your own with your unsupported device with gaping security holes.
The Android ecosystem is enough to make me want to pull my hair out over the security issues and lack of support and updates by hardware manufacturers. I'd like to switch to LineageOS, but they're in eternal beta as well.
Re:Most suck. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll use a USB C to 3.5 jack if I have to, but I'd rather have the native 3.5 jack.
I'd rather have some quality headphones with a USB-C connector.
For years I've had all kinds of problems with the built in audio from computers, except from Apple. The problems are that I can here noise from hard drive access, mouse movement, or some other device in or around the computer. Ever since buying a pair of some very expensive headphones years ago I've been a bit spoiled on the quality of the audio from my electronics. I expect a clean signal because I have headphones that allow for nuance that I could not hear before. The only way I found to address the problems of noise from computers with terrible built-in audio is a USB audio dongle to use with my headphones.
What I'd like is a set of nice headphones with a USB-C connector on the end so I can plug it into the increasingly common USB-C ports on electronics, including those from Apple. This is what I expect though with this new Audio Accessory mode that's been added to the USB-C spec, a return to the crappy internal audio just on a different analog connector. So long as there is still support for an external DAC on that USB-C port then I can still happily replace the crappy internal audio with something of my choice. If devices drop support for this because they provide an analog output on the port then I don't want it. It's bad enough that audio output quality took a dive long ago, we don't need to repeat that history.
I won't miss the 1/8" audio jack. The lack of concern for a quality output on those ports made them useless for me long ago.
USB C audio up the wire (Score:4, Informative)
USB-C audio has the ability to be so so much better if only the manufacturers understood
all you have to do is place the DAC in the bulge away from the phone/device and close to the headphones
(the dongles all place the DAC near the EMF emitting device)
IT HAS TO BE USB Audio Class 3.0 otherwise its a fail...
cost about $10 to manufacture and charge $49
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I'd rather have some quality headphones with a USB-C connector.
I'd rather not spend money on a quality anything that severely limits it's usability to a select few devices.
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The facts are that the tablets on the market have rather lackluster performance due to the choice of processor and hardware surrounding it. Most of the displays are sub par as well. Updates to the OS seldom come or when they do they have so much bloat ware and trash as to sully the experience even further and piss people off. Worse yet are "Updates" that actually purposely slow down an owners older but otherwise perfe
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I would buy the Huawei Mediapad M5 in a heartbeat were it sold at a store I could go to.
And what's the problem with ordering it from Amazon? Here in the USA, the WH administration seems to have scared the brick stores from carrying Huawei products.
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No warranty. Call me old fashioned, but for some things I prefer the extended warranty plans of brick and mortar stores. Money doesn't grow on trees around here, and replacing a tablet that craps out is a non-trivial issue.
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I would buy the Huawei Mediapad M5 in a heartbeat were it sold at a store I could go to.
Well since it seems you have internet access: https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-... [amazon.com]
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The warranty does not extend to my country. I like warranties for expensive products. For expensive things I prefer buying from established brick and mortar stores, so that I can drive down and shake a manager by their shirt collar if they refuse to honour a warranty.
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Anything you can do on a tablet, you can do 100x times faster on a desktop
Including entertain yourself at the grocery store while waiting for your carpooling roommate to finish shopping and meet you by the checkout?
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Anything you can do on a tablet, you can do 100x times faster on a desktop
Including entertain yourself at the grocery store while waiting for your carpooling roommate to finish shopping and meet you by the checkout?
A tablet's too big to lug to the store. I use my phone for that.
Are they counting ginormous phones? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because a 6.something inch phone should probably be considered as a tablet. 7 inch tablets aren't much bigger, 7 inch tablets are of course much, much less expensive than giant phones.
I love a tablet for a very narrow range of uses.. (Score:5, Insightful)
None of those uses suggest I even vaguely need to refresh my device that's a few years old.
I will be quite sad if I do need to replace my tablet and the market is gone.
Victims of their own success (Score:3)
Tablets for the most part just work. Modern materials, batteries, and manufacturing, have made them very durable. The things people use them for have not changed a lot since they've been introduced. They are the "personal digital assistants" from the 1990s brought to maturity. They give us our e-mail and other communications. They keep us on schedule with clocks and calendars. They give us the information we crave with weather reports, stock prices, news, opinions, and just whatever else we can grab from the internet. They amuse us with music, games, movies, and so on.
With a phone people crave new and shiny more often because they fit a different need. People want more data in a smaller package, which means chasing the latest cellular technology even if the phone is otherwise up to task. A tablet will often be used at home, in an car (where internet access is increasingly a common feature of the vehicle's electronic package), at work, or otherwise in an environment where WiFi exists or brought to the tablet by the latest and greatest cell phone.
This is also a market for which the average user has a computer for the "heavy lifting" of high resolution gaming, office productivity apps, internet access, and computing beyond the mundane of checking the weather or seeing if there was a response to an e-mail.
I've thought of buying a tablet but I find myself instead craving a better phone, laptop, or desktop computer. If I'm just checking for a quick bit of information then my phone comes out of my pocket. If I need more screen space, want to write a longer message, or I'm expecting a longer bit of down time, then I grab my laptop or walk to my office so I have plenty of screen and a real keyboard.
The increasing trend for tablets to have keyboard attachments, and a greater number of ports for accessories, just means they are encroaching on the space already occupied by laptops. And losing on the competition. On the other end is making them smaller, lighter, and simpler, which just means they are getting into the territory of cell phones and other pocket electronics. All I'm seeing with tablets these days is larger and larger versions of my very old iPod Touch. That's not a bad thing, only that I'm only seeing a need to upgrade unless I had my iPod broken, lost, stolen, or considered so old that I can no longer run the latest version of my favorite games.
Perhaps this is just a matter of drawing a distinction where there should not be one. A tablet computer is just an arbitrary distinction along the spectrum of electronic communication devices from pocket sized (generally a cell phone or whatever an iPod is considered these days) to desktop sized. Draw that distinction somewhere else and the market could look very different.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
The market is stupid (Score:2)
Tablets would be great if the market hadn't decided the target customer for a secondary device will only want something bottom-of-the-barrel.
The long tail of the poors keeps tablets from becoming a useful niche.
Tablet sales have shifted (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"Windows on a proper computer is a dog's breakfast."
If there were such a thing as being racist against an OS, you would be the Imperial Wizard
Re: (Score:2)
HA!
Oops, was that out loud?
Windows on a proper computer is a dog's breakfast. I wouldn't wish it on someone stuck with a tablet.
Dog's breakfast? Is that before or after the dog's eaten it?
Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
As tablets increase in capability and power, they will cannibalize laptop sales, and start expanding into new markets they are not used in currently - so the long term forecast for tablets is growth.
To some extent large phone sales detract from tablet sales, but that is only true to a certain degree; for some things you just need more screen estate.
So basically I think we are in a localized dip and will see some tablet sales increase again before too long.
Re: (Score:2)
To some extent large phone sales detract from tablet sales, but that is only true to a certain degree; for some things you just need more screen estate.
Laptops and hybrids fill the need where screen real-estate is essential. I think we will continue to see a gradual decline in tablet sales till they find their balanced marketshare, a lot of people bought them when their simply was no other option or because it was "cool" to have one, now we simply have far more choice and many of the tablet makers seem to have all but given up now as well. I don't think they will shrink much more but they are still far to high and as the hybrid devices come down in price i
Re: (Score:2)
Because the "best" stinks (Score:2)
Why buy a tablet when you can have the best of both worlds.
Do you mean having a desktop and a tablet OS in one?
Because that is not the best - that is the WORST. Normal people hate maintaining one system, why would they want to maintain 2?
For 99% of computer users they will be FAR better off when desktop OS's are well away from everyday work they have to do.
Tablets have more or less maxed out their sales potential
If you think of all the ways and places there are laptops and TV's today, you'll realize how ta
Re: (Score:2)
As tablets increase in capability and power, they will cannibalize laptop sales,
The problem isn't capability or power. You can already buy tablets which have plenty of both for the average user. The problem is the OS. Nobody is making a good tablet OS. They're just using a phone OS on a tablet. It doesn't do the things that one naturally expects a tablet to do, like work gracefully with a stylus. It also doesn't do the things that one naturally expects a notebook to do, like work well with a keyboard and mouse. Deprecating KB and mouse input will go down in history as the single worst
Tablets are gradually getting more universal (Score:2)
Since last year I have the previous generation iPad Pro and while all the above is still true, I find that the processing power makes it quite compelling for a lot of uses, esp. on travel. On holiday evenings, I find it relaxing to import photos from my dslr (yes, yes, it needs that dongle), and edit them in pretty powerful software. While sipping a glass of wine. And when ready
not useful (Score:2)
I've bought two iPads and my wife got one as a present once, but neither of them see much use and the newer iPad has since been given away to someone who found it useful.
With notebooks becoming smaller and lighter, and phones getting bigger and faster, the niche that tablets fill is becoming smaller and tablets are not taking bites out of the notebooks market because everyone insists on treating them like big phones instead of small notebooks. MS had the right idea with the Surface except that they decided
Convertibles? (Score:2)
However the main reason for the continued drop-off in pure tablet sales has probably more to do with how there was a single big surge in interest in 2012-2013 and the people who bought in haven't had any
Make Hardware Shitty Again (Score:2)
Unfortunately when vendors finally figure out that they made hardware a little too reliable, they'll start making hardware about as shitty as your average smartphone.
Of course, they'll depreciate software support as well. If the kids can't download the latest PC emojis to complete their life, they'll be forced to upgrade. It would be downright offensive if you had to send someone a smiley face that was the wrong skin tone...
Tell that to blizzard (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
That means an aluminum shell not plastic.
With wireless charging being the new thing, and just wireless everything in general, there's no one that will build a tablet out of a faraday cage.
I'm guessing that if you looked hard enough you could find a "toughbook" style tablet, or someone that makes a durable metal case for a popular model of tablet. That will kill any wireless function in the tablet. For the security minded person this might be considered a plus. For the rest this will mean needing some kind of dongle hanging out of the thing, whi
Re: (Score:2)
The only issue was the software support? I wasn't familiar with the device so I had to look it up. Looking at the Wikipedia page for it I see that GPS performance was compromised to the point that Asus felt the need to supply a separate GPS receiver to compensate.
It's not just GPS either. I have a TF201. WiFi reception is also garbage, it's highly directional based on the case back and it goes all but away when you close the case.