"Global PC shipments* plunged 14 percent in the first three months of 2013, according to newly released figures from market research firm IDC.
It’s the steepest decline since 1994, when IDC began keeping records for the device.
In IDC’s own words:
"Despite some mild improvement in the economic environment and some new PC models offering Windows 8, PC shipments were down significantly across all regions compared to a year ago. Fading Mini Notebook shipments have taken a big chunk out of the low-end market while tablets and smartphones continue to divert consumer spending.""
Do Dopers consider a tablet or smartphone an adequate replacement for a PC?
Natural correction of the market given that tools better matched to a large segment of the user market are now available. If all you want is a portable web-browser, a tablet does just fine and you no longer need a clunky desktop or laptop.
OTOH, the people running around screaming that desktops are dead have probably never done a day’s paying work with a computer in their lives. Nothing beats the ergonomic and usability quotient of a good desk system.
No, not even a laptop; I foresee a huge uptick in carpal tunnel and other posture-based problems from the swing of desk users to laptops-as-desk-devices.
I’ll take 750 square inches of screen and a real keyboard in an ergonomic setting over all alternatives, thanks.
Not for the things I use a PC for, no. For casual web browsing and social apps, I’m sure it’s usually fine.
I wonder if the newest upcoming consoles will actually help stimulate PC sales. Currently PC gaming has been somewhat held back by developers who want the same games to work on eight year old PS3’s and Xbox360’s. Therefore, the minimum specs for new games haven’t really increased much and there’s little incentive to do a major overhaul of your system. New consoles may help push the required PC specs for new games upward which provides incentive to buy new PCs (or at least new components).
PCs are dying as home devices - PC gamers will be a niche market - but most home applications can be done via tablet or internet enabled TV.
PCs as a business tool - we are quite away from declaring the demise of that. I disagree about laptops - docked laptops are indistinguishable from desktop PCs for most business use cases.
Couple of things:
First, if the economic and cultural predictors are anything close to correct, the PC will die about the same time Rock and Roll will. Sometimes numbers go down, sometimes they go up, but the subject in question isn’t going anywhere.
Secondly, as a general point of terminology: PC stands for “personal computer”, not “Windows-powered desktop”. A tablet computer designed for personal use is a personal computer, just as surely as the machine I’m typing this on is.
This leads into the third point, which is: if we lose anything, it won’t be the desktop, but the personal. The more cloud computing becomes the market-mandated norm, the less these machines and the data on them will be able to correctly be called ‘personal’, though it’s less black-and-white then that makes it sound.
We may be seeing an era where the desktop is no longer king, if it even still was; but that’s because of more market versatility and options, not less.
I shoot and edit HD video, and need many, many terabytes of hard drive space, DVD and BlueRay burners, media readers, Firewire connections and multiple screens. I can just barely function with a powerful laptop, but to really get work done, I need a desktop. I’d lose my mind trying to do my work on a tablet, let alone a phone.
I thought the Reality Distortion Field generator died when Steve Jobs did.
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I’ll take 750 square inches of screen and a real keyboard in an ergonomic setting over all alternatives, thanks.
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Between my two main screens and the HD monitor, I’m at 1303 sq in.
Well, that’s just cheating. I could add in the 53" proofing monitor for another thousand and change inches, but I’m honest. Just three big screens and me, here.
Which doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy surfing and even doing the Dope on my Note II. Everything in its place.
No, they’re not. On the other hand, they do replace a PC for many routine tasks which is why my household has a tablet in addition to a PC.
For many people those two items likely serve all their computing needs, in which case they probably should look towards tablets and smartphones. For others, a PC still provides additional functionality they aren’t willing to give up. In other words, more choices means more people can purchase what actually fits their needs rather than more than they need.
Exactly. I used to have a desktop and a laptop. I recently replaced both of them. I got a new desktop but the laptop was replaced by a tablet. They both have their place.
I had occasion to do some research on growing tech use in the developing world recently, and one of the interesting things we found was a very quickly growing amount of internet-enabled devices, but hardly any “traditional desktop” models. ISTR, for instance, about 50% of China had access to some internet-enabled device, but 80% of that was smartphones. There’s some things that are particularly problematic about big clunky desktops in a low-infrastructure environment, not least the problems of intermittent power supply and the cost of the materials.
I do think, as that market grows, that we will find the percentage of desktops and laptops trending downwards for a while. I doubt if the absolute numbers will go down very far though - as people above point out, for what desktops are good for, they’re still better than the other alternatives.
Down 14% is not much compared to the combination of the relative lack of requirements creep in recent software and lack of progress in specs. So people might not have to buy new ones if their old one will still do fine.
Bingo. I may have to replace a couple machines next year, but that would be because XP support is going away, not because they’re not capable of doing what I want anymore.
But I will also do my best to hold off until the next version of Windows–I wonder how many others are just giving Windows 8 a skip.
Of course it is. But that’s like saying you can haul a trailer of rubbish to the dump with your Aventador… or your Smart Car.
I’m not in any way dissing laptops; there are at least three in the house. But I don’t agree that they’re a universal replacement for a desk-based system, which is an opinion hooted down by recent college grads, hipster executives and “efficient” companies everywhere. If your needs for mobility REALLY trump your needs for efficient ergonomic computer use, laptops are irreplaceable.
They’re also expensive, fragile, irrepairable by any but factory techs or the equivalent, can’t be significantly upgraded and have absolutely abysmal ergonomics.
A desktop can be repaired and upgraded easily and cost-effectively, with commodity components, and support far more console than even the best laptop.
They are, pardon the expression, apples and oranges… and I wouldn’t even be making this argument were I not already deeply tired of people saying “the PC [which mostly means desktops, and for Wired readers, laptops] is dead, dead, dead!”
The full-scale PC as living room or mobile web browser is dead. The rest of us have work to do and will thank you not to stand around driving nails into our workbenches.
I process health insurance claims, and I can’t possibly fathom doing it on anything else but a desktop. Yes, a laptop can be docked, but that’s more expensive than a laptop, there is absolutely no need to ever move it since we’re hourly and don’t take work home with us on weekends, and what happens if one gets left on the bus full of sensitive health.
information.
When I’m at home watching Youtube videos a 15" laptop seems to be ideal. I can’t imagine having to type on some touchscreen gizmo when I can use a real keyboard.
I sought out the most rugged, repairable laptop I could afford. I wound up getting an HP Elitebook. It has a machined aluminum case, and you can open it to upgrade memory or the hard drive with no tools. And fixing the #1 cause of laptop failure - overheating due to dust bunnies between the fan and the cooling radiator - can be fixed with a small Phillips screwdriver. And the screws on the fan are “captive” so you’ll never risk losing them.
But yes, other than a handful of models, laptops are a nightmare to service. The same repair on most any other laptop takes two hours to perform, pulling everything apart, including the motherboard.
I could add in the 53" proofing monitor for another thousand and change inches, but I’m honest. Just three big screens and me, here.