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Hardware

US PC Shipments Soar 73% In the First Quarter As Apple Falls From Top Spot (techcrunch.com) 76

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: With increased demand from the pandemic, Canalys reports that U.S. PC shipments were up 73% over the same period last year. That added up to a total of 34 million units sold. While Apple had a good quarter with sales up 36%, it was surpassed by HP, which sold 11 million units in total with annual growth up an astonishing 122.6%. As Canalys pointed out, the first quarter tends to be a weaker one for Apple hardware following the holiday season, but it's a big move for HP nonetheless. Other companies boasting big growth numbers include Samsung at 116% and Lenovo at 92.8%. Dell was up 29.2%, fairly modest compared with the rest of the group.

Overall though it was a stunning quarter as units flew off the shelves. Canalys Research Analyst Brian Lynch says some of this can be attributed to the increased demand from 2020 as people moved to work and school from home and needed new machines to get their work done, but regardless the growth was unrivaled historically. " Q1 2021 still rates as one of the best first quarters the industry has ever seen. Vendors have prioritized fulfilling U.S. backlogs before supply issues are addressed in other parts of the world," Lynch said in a statement. Perhaps not surprisingly, low-cost Chromebooks were the most popular item as people looking to refresh their devices, especially for education purposes, turned to the lower end of the PC market, which likely had a negative impact on higher-priced Apple products, as well contributing to its drop from the top spot.
According to Canalys, Chromebook sales were up a whopping 548% with Samsung leading that growth with an astonishing 1,963% growth rate. "Asus, HP and Lenovo all reported Chromebook sales rates up over 900%," adds TechCrunch.
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US PC Shipments Soar 73% In the First Quarter As Apple Falls From Top Spot

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  • PCs Just Work (Score:3, Interesting)

    by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @03:09PM (#61466886) Journal
    And get the job done for a lot less money than Apple products cost. Proof that Apple products are for image wankers with more dollars than sense, and not for most people who just need a good tool for the job at a realistic price.
    • Good thing we don't have any shortages making prices less "realistic". ;-)

    • by J-1000 ( 869558 )

      And get the job done for a lot less money than Apple products cost. Proof that Apple products are for image wankers with more dollars than sense, and not for most people who just need a good tool for the job at a realistic price.

      I'm a PC user because I have a bit of a grudge against Apple. But even I have to admit that Apple's low-end laptops and Mac Mini are pretty decent deals. I use a lower-end HP Spectre which seems to target Macbook quality, but you can still see the blemishes, especially when you factor in the operating system.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Well the fact that everyone knew they were going to launch a new M1 Mac probably depressed sales in Q1... But it will be interesting to see if they recover now. The M1 Mac is... A bit naff. Massive chin, very first gen. No upgradability. The basic model as just 2 USB 4 ports, or on the more expensive model you get 4 and for some reason an ethernet socket in the power adapter. Yeah, it's part of the power brick. The M1 is mediocre for a desktop CPU/GPU too.

      Oh, and the stand is non-adjustable too.

      So it will b

      • by hazem ( 472289 )

        Well the fact that everyone knew they were going to launch a new M1 Mac probably depressed sales in Q1

        I just lived this... I just begrudgingly ordered a Macbook for the first time and definitely considered waiting for the M1. However it's for my partner who's starting grad-school later this month and she needs to replace her 7 year old Windows 7 HP and really wants to switch to Mac (I don't blame her, I hate having to use Windows 10 at work). On top of that, she has vision problems so definitely needs the 16 and not the 13, which is not likely to come out until next year.

        For context, I'm in the "buy a ref

      • M1 Macs came out last year, not this year, and that's actually why Apple is down from the quarter before. There was massive pent-up demand after the butterfly keyboard debacle, and you'll still have to wait a month or two, even today, if you want a new Mac laptop, just because they're still having trouble keeping up with orders.

        I suspect you're referring to the iMac as "Mac", but laptops have been the bulk of Mac sales for well over a decade, with the iMac being little more than a footnote in comparison, so

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        I looked at a lot of comparisons, and you're right about desktops...for now. But then...

        https://www.tomsguide.com/news... [tomsguide.com]

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's hard to compare benchmarks. Look at how wildly different the scores are for different apps. Look at how the two M1 machines differ despite having the same chip, because one has active cooling. FWIW every recent Intel Macbook was crippled by lack of cooling.

          Geekbench is also complete bollocks, never pay any attention to that.

          Intel's transcoding performance is held back by crappy GPUs. Their new ones should be better but they are stuck on an old manufacturing process. AMD are so far ahead in this regard.

    • No, PC's are cheap (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      PCs Just Work...And get the job done

      Well I wasn't going to post but that outright fabrication just had to be corrected.

      Since the pandemic started, my wife has been working remotely using an older 17" Mac laptop I had.

      It worked great, ever day for about a year...

      Then recently, her employer decided since employees were at home a lot more, they should all have laptops to work on, so they sent her a Dell...

      She absolutely despises the Dell. Mostly because, in fact, it does not "just work".

      Foe one thing, the tr

      • I've never bought an Apple product, but the MacBook Air seems pretty sweet. I'm afraid to be stuck in the walled garden, why can't we have linux on M1?!
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by aitikin ( 909209 )

          I've never bought an Apple product, but the MacBook Air seems pretty sweet. I'm afraid to be stuck in the walled garden, why can't we have linux on M1?!

          What do you mean we can't? [9to5mac.com]

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It's still far from production ready though. A lot of the M1 stuff is undocumented, especially the GPU. In fact the GPU is going to be an issue for a long time yet, because it's heavily cut-down and specific to Apple's APIs so adding support for OpenGL and OpenCL is proving to be hard work.

            • by aitikin ( 909209 )

              It's still far from production ready though. A lot of the M1 stuff is undocumented, especially the GPU. In fact the GPU is going to be an issue for a long time yet, because it's heavily cut-down and specific to Apple's APIs so adding support for OpenGL and OpenCL is proving to be hard work.

              Agreed, but it'll be interesting to watch it develop. I expect things will take many years before one can run a solid Linux install on an M1 MacBook Pro (and be consistently a few generations behind if you want "everything" working). C'est la vie.

      • Get one that isn't defective.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          I don't like Dells. They're boring and corporate. That's actually their selling point, and why most businesses standardize on them. But you're way off if you think your wife's experience was in any way typical. Have your IT staff re-image the laptop and see if the problems reoccur. If so, it's a problem with your employer's standard image or the laptop itself is faulty. If not, it was presumably some glitch and problem solved.

          Dells are boring and corporate but try too hard to not be. There are some very ni

        • by torkus ( 1133985 )

          Have you seen the 9000 series Latitudes? Heck, even the 7000 series are pretty nice. On the consumer side, the XPS remains a personal favorite out of all the laptops I've ever used.

          Not a Dell shill by any stretch, but I've seen/used/support a lot of their product range for a lot of years (as well as everything from Compaq to Lenovo to Apple and back again)

      • PCs Just Work...And get the job done

        Well I wasn't going to post but that outright fabrication just had to be corrected.

        You must not do much on your mac. My 100% Apple hardware setup has daily hardware failures. No Joke....I have a 2020 REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE MacBook pro for work and an EVEN MORE FUCKING EXPENSIVE 2020 MBP for personal use. My personal one ONLY has Lightroom Classic, Magnet, and Firefox on it. It's my goddamn overpriced laptop and I don't want anything slowing it down.

        I went all in. I bought the latest Apple Keyboard, Apple Mouse, and even the shitty LG 5k Apple Exclusive monitor because that was

        • "Beyond that shit sloppiness, their keyboards fail with the tiniest bit of dust."

          That's because Abble's target market is very clean young men. You have to start cleaning more!

      • It's the little things that make Macbooks stand out. The trackpad, as you point out, is simply fantastic. There is nothing in a PC that is even remotely close. It's not just the size of the trackpad it's the way it operates. Smooth, accurate...and that three finger swipe is great.

        The screen is another thing. I can't quite put my finger on it but it just seems to have a warmer depth of color. Easier on the eyes.

        After a few false starts with previous models, they finally have a keyboard that rivals the late 2

        • by torkus ( 1133985 )

          You might want to check around before claiming other mfgs don't have large, quality trackpads with multi-touch/gestures.

          They only way I'd consider the M1 MBP's keyboard "good" is in comparison to the previous debacle of keyboards. It's still horrible and if you think otherwise it's because you haven't tried a decent alternative. Heck, even the Surface Pro 7+'s keyboard-cover is better to type on - and I *loathe* those keyboards.

          • Other manufacturers do have large trackpads with multi touch gestures. It's just that in my experience that aren't as good as the Macbook trackpad. I just find that the MBP has better sensitivity and accuracy. Your experience may be different from mine.

            As far as keyboards go, I have a Surface Pro and I do like the keyboard for the most part. Physically it is a bit flimsy but the typing experience is fairly good, but again, in my experience the MBP keyboard is better. I do agree with the "previous debacle" s

      • I'm calling BS...
        If this was remotely true, why wouldn't your wife go back to remotely working with the Mac? She was able to do it before, she should be able to easily go back to it again.
      • by vivian ( 156520 )

        If your wife is using the trackpad for regular work, she's using her PC wrong. Please put her out of her misery and get the poor woman a mouse, and disable the trackpad. Trackpads are all but useless for any serious work - they are just way too inefficient and inevitably get triggered when you are trying to type.

        If her work involves a lot of typing, a full size keyboard would probably not go astray too.

        • Please put her out of her misery and get the poor woman a mouse, and disable the trackpad.

          Arrgh I know, I've offered multiple times - we have an extra monitor, and extra mice/keyboards. But she likes working on the couch....

          That said she worked just fine for a year using the 17" Mac to Remote Desktop in to a windows PC at work, using only the laptop trackpad and keyboard, and had zero issues. It really is just that the Dell sucks so horribly even she noticed, and she doens't have a history of complaining

      • by torkus ( 1133985 )

        Oh boo-hoo, your anecdotal story about one laptop having a hardware issue does not invalidate the point that PCs *do* 'just work' in an enterprise environment. They're built for that and there's oodles of well developed, robust tools to manage them. Macs? Not so much...and Apple DGAF about Enterprise when they make decisions because it's such a tiny % of their sales. I've spent a decade+ ironing out the bugs and working around apple's consumer-centric methodology to make Macs work in enterprise.

        A faulty

        • You believe what you want BOFH, but I know exactly what she does and doens't do with that PC because I know what she does with the home laptop also, and she simply has not done anything at all with music (she doens't use any computer to listen to music ever, only her phone).

          And even when the trackpad works, it sucks. She used Remote Desktop for a year to get onto her work PC from the Mac, no issues or complaints. Now I get to hear every day about how much she hates Dell...

    • No, Windows PCs do not "just work". I have Windows 10 on a PC that's used exclusively for gaming and that damn stupid OS still finds ways to get in my way. I can't imagine anyone having to endure that piece of shit of an operating system for work.

      • Windows 7 PCs "just work"

        Windows 10 PCs are a shit show

        Microsoft gives zero fucks so long as people keep handing them money.

    • Look at Mr fancy pants, spending money on computers. You can easily get work done on something put together scavenging at the dump and trading chickens for the parts you can't find. A fool and his money...

    • Oh, BULLSH*T! And pity the fools who bought an HP laptop. What a piece of crap! The damn things spend more time farting around with Windows housekeeping crap than they do doing actual work the user wants to do. And what moron pays $15 for a DVD player app?

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Yet Apple, tools for wankers, has a monopoly.
    • Then they reboot automatically, wiping out any unsaved work you have.
      • by torkus ( 1133985 )

        No. They don't actually.

        The last time my Windows 10 box patched and rebooted even my unsaved notepad (vanilla version) text came back. And it only force-rebooted because it's on a corporate patching policy.

    • I use both, Apple products are designed to lock you into their infrastructure with the sophisticated way all their devices dumb down common tasks. It's really ingenious in the marketing sense. Once you have a couple products, you're hooked and not many people are techie enough to want to burn time learning different systems.

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      "PCs Just Work And get the job done for a lot less money than Apple products cost"

      Okay, I'll grant the last half of that sentence and at the same time say that the first half is the dumbest comment I've seen on /. this year.

  • No wonder sales are up. The tinfoil hat guy in my head says the lack of PC parts (video cards & CPU's) is intentional to hamper our hobby and to funnel users into proprietary PC's that are probably back-doored over and above the Windows OS that is installed.

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Because it is magically more difficult to put a backdoor into a component than it is to put it into a pre-assembled bunch of components?

      • Negative. It is easier to install some rogue software or rootkit. Unless you spend another chunk of change on a new copy of Windows and/or a replacement SSD.

        • by Tom ( 822 )

          Negative. It is easier to install some rogue software or rootkit.

          Right. I forgot people actually buy pre-installed spyware delivery kits, turn them on without re-installing the OS and then wonder why it's slow and what all those windows are doing and why is there advertisement on my desktop?

          Yeah, that's a thing. I agree.

  • by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @03:23PM (#61466932)
    People thought Windows 98 would become "Internet Explorer OS" with all the web integration, it looks like Chromebooks have fulfilled the dream. At least you can still add Firefox to Chromebooks.
    • At least you can still add Firefox to Chromebooks.

      At least for now.

      Pretty soon, in the future...
      Google: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further.

    • The other dream it fulfilled is "year of the Linux desktop"
  • Have the best bang for the buck out there and everyone need a computer since marsh 2020.

    i don't see any Dell number, I wonder why, maybe because their computer fail big time 1 days after the warranty is over.

  • HP numbers are bogus (Score:5, Informative)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @04:01PM (#61467066) Journal

    We have orders from back in March which still haven't been delivered, but I'm certain HP is calling them shipped. Other than a few keyboards the other day, we haven't received a single item from HP in over a month. I have over two dozen orders sitting on my desk waiting for HP to deliver.

    There is no way HP's numbers are correct.

    • There is no way HP's numbers are correct.

      Perhaps your orders are part of a large unshipped backlog. It's possible that the shipping numbers reflect everything HP was able to push out the door in that time period, and they have more orders than they were able to ship in the reporting quarter.

    • If they've been paid, the sale was made...
  • by NoMoreACs ( 6161580 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @05:15PM (#61467260)

    This is simply pent-up corporate and educational purchasing demand as businesses and schools start to reopen.

    IOW, a statistical blip. Pay it no mind.

  • Or the prebuilt ones from stores?

  • 2021 will finally be the year of Linux on the Desktop!

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341]

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