5 ms·

Are we past peak-smartphone or is this just noise from model release schedules? It took PCs 20+ years to get good enough, smartphones managed the same in much

Are we past peak-smartphone or is this just noise from model release schedules? It took PCs 20+ years to get good enough, smartphones managed the same in much less than 10 it seems.

Shivetya 11y ago
yet for the most part PCs dropped significantly in price but smartphones seem to be holding the 400+ range which is still woefully overpriced for most of the phone buying populace because not only are you putting out 400 bucks but usually under obligation to send forty to eighty more a month. That is a good chunk of the the lower and middle classes.
- rco8786 11y ago
  I think you're forgetting to include Androids when you address "smartphones" as a whole...
- venomsnake 11y ago
  The PC have not dropped significantly in price. High end gaming PC (that you build yourself) always costed about 1500-2000$. It is just that the majority of tasks could be done in lower and lower segments of the market.
  - ct520 11y ago
    I guess your opinion and mine greatly differ on the history of high end gaming pcs.. (building highend pc's since riva tnt and diamond monster 3d days..) One of many high end buyer guides one could reference. http://www.anandtech.com/show/538/17 http://www.anandtech.com/show/538/17
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    http://i.imgur.com/Lng3MQB.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Lng3MQB.jpg I'd say that computers have come down in price.
    - madelinecameron 11y ago
      I think the point they are making is that the 'high-end' / cutting-edge is the same price as it has been. You couldn't get $2,300 for a 33MHz machine now, just like you can't sell a Galaxy S1 for a $700.
      - potatolicious 11y ago
        Except inflation... "The same price as it has always been" over a long period (like, say, the 90s) is actually a substantial price drop. $1500 in 1995 is about $2300 today. A $1500 computer today is ~35% cheaper than the "same price" computer from before. Having been a gaming rig builder since around that time, high-end performance desktops have gotten way cheaper, with more realistic performance tiers to boot.
      - dragontamer 11y ago
        That's a "Jade" PC. High-end PCs at that time were Compaq computers. Not cheap knockoffs that were made by no-name brands. The Compaq 386 had a launch price of $6500 to $10,000+ http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/10/business/the-executive-computer-a-top-machine-carries-a-top-price.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/10/business/the-executive-com... The "Jade" PC you see in that image is probably more comparable to "Gateway" brand now-a-days. Computers are a hell-of-a-lot cheaper today than in the past. EDIT: I looked it up, and I can't believe I forgot about this. Back then, every mom-and-pop store was able to build their own brand of PCs. The clone wars were unstoppable I tell you! Jade Computers was apparently a small business with just a few retail locations running out of California.
        scholia 11y ago
        You can still build your own PC today ;-) Compaq's pricing was clever. If you bought one, everyone knew you bought it because it was better, not because it was cheaper than the IBM model. (And it was better because Compaq was shipping 386 machines when the IBM PC AT still had a crappy 286.)
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    High end gaming PC (that you build yourself) always costed about 1500-2000$ In real terms, that means the cost of a PC has been reduced quite a bit (because of inflation: http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=10&year=1990 http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=10... )
    - Eric_WVGG 11y ago
      Mac SE w/ HD in 1987 — $3900, $8,175 adjusted for inflation. Makes the head spin, remarkable that I even got to see computers like that during my childhood.
- petra 11y ago
  Phones are a status symbol, in many cases, which shifts the sale price. PC's much less so.
  - philjohn 11y ago
    PC's were a status symbol for a little while back in the late 70's/80's ...
    - frostymarvelous 11y ago
      For us it was the 90s/2000s. Ahh the good old days of having to visit friends to see a PC running Windows 95. Don't you just feel blessed?
      - frostymarvelous 11y ago
        And oh, I knew what an IPod was before I ever knew a Macintosh existed.
tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
now that phones are quite fast and have good cameras, what is the main driver towards upgrading? so that you go from 300ppi to 500ppi? not going to make much of a difference and for most people not worth the upgrade costs. The only issue is that phone manufacturers have even more of an incentive to bloat the OS more and more (and make it slower and slower on old models) and to deprecate it faster (on older models) so they can sell more hardware if people want to get the latest security fixes / software
- bduerst 11y ago
  Screen DPI will affect VR headsets that utilize mobile devices, if demand for those ever take off. Other than that the major change on the horizon that would drive mass upgrades is any advancement in battery tech.
- exacube 11y ago
  in general, hardware improvements will drive new swanky software, and make computing on smartphones closer to a first class citizen (remember motorola's laptop+phone dock, where the phone powers the laptop?). another big pain point is battery (and battery consumption). still waiting on hardware (and software in conjunction) to get more efficient. you'll remember how power hungry PCs were in the beginning and how much better they are now (laptops notably). feels to me like we still have many years to go, and many more "big" technology investments.
  - scholia 11y ago
    > another big pain point is battery (and battery consumption) True, but you could easily make it less of a pain point by making the device 1mm thicker ;-)
  - petra 11y ago
    Xiaomi's redmi series can last a day of heavy use and even 2 days with lighter use. So i wonder why isn't this solved for others already.
- martinald 11y ago
eva1984 11y ago
Yes, you better assume the smartphone golden era is already over. It is super hard for the manufactures to get people hyped for their new gears.

Are we past peak-smartphone or is this just noise from model release schedules? It took PCs 20+ years to get good enough, smartphones managed the same in much less than 10 it seems.

Shivetya 11y ago

yet for the most part PCs dropped significantly in price but smartphones seem to be holding the 400+ range which is still woefully overpriced for most of the phone buying populace because not only are you putting out 400 bucks but usually under obligation to send forty to eighty more a month. That is a good chunk of the the lower and middle classes.

rco8786 11y ago
I think you're forgetting to include Androids when you address "smartphones" as a whole...
venomsnake 11y ago
The PC have not dropped significantly in price. High end gaming PC (that you build yourself) always costed about 1500-2000$. It is just that the majority of tasks could be done in lower and lower segments of the market.
- ct520 11y ago
  I guess your opinion and mine greatly differ on the history of high end gaming pcs.. (building highend pc's since riva tnt and diamond monster 3d days..) One of many high end buyer guides one could reference. http://www.anandtech.com/show/538/17 http://www.anandtech.com/show/538/17
- dragontamer 11y ago
  http://i.imgur.com/Lng3MQB.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Lng3MQB.jpg I'd say that computers have come down in price.
  - madelinecameron 11y ago
    I think the point they are making is that the 'high-end' / cutting-edge is the same price as it has been. You couldn't get $2,300 for a 33MHz machine now, just like you can't sell a Galaxy S1 for a $700.
    - potatolicious 11y ago
      Except inflation... "The same price as it has always been" over a long period (like, say, the 90s) is actually a substantial price drop. $1500 in 1995 is about $2300 today. A $1500 computer today is ~35% cheaper than the "same price" computer from before. Having been a gaming rig builder since around that time, high-end performance desktops have gotten way cheaper, with more realistic performance tiers to boot.
    - dragontamer 11y ago
      That's a "Jade" PC. High-end PCs at that time were Compaq computers. Not cheap knockoffs that were made by no-name brands. The Compaq 386 had a launch price of $6500 to $10,000+ http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/10/business/the-executive-computer-a-top-machine-carries-a-top-price.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/10/business/the-executive-com... The "Jade" PC you see in that image is probably more comparable to "Gateway" brand now-a-days. Computers are a hell-of-a-lot cheaper today than in the past. EDIT: I looked it up, and I can't believe I forgot about this. Back then, every mom-and-pop store was able to build their own brand of PCs. The clone wars were unstoppable I tell you! Jade Computers was apparently a small business with just a few retail locations running out of California.
      - scholia 11y ago
        You can still build your own PC today ;-) Compaq's pricing was clever. If you bought one, everyone knew you bought it because it was better, not because it was cheaper than the IBM model. (And it was better because Compaq was shipping 386 machines when the IBM PC AT still had a crappy 286.)
- ktRolster 11y ago
  High end gaming PC (that you build yourself) always costed about 1500-2000$ In real terms, that means the cost of a PC has been reduced quite a bit (because of inflation: http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=10&year=1990 http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=10... )
  - Eric_WVGG 11y ago
    Mac SE w/ HD in 1987 — $3900, $8,175 adjusted for inflation. Makes the head spin, remarkable that I even got to see computers like that during my childhood.
petra 11y ago
Phones are a status symbol, in many cases, which shifts the sale price. PC's much less so.
- philjohn 11y ago
  PC's were a status symbol for a little while back in the late 70's/80's ...
  - frostymarvelous 11y ago
    For us it was the 90s/2000s. Ahh the good old days of having to visit friends to see a PC running Windows 95. Don't you just feel blessed?
    - frostymarvelous 11y ago
      And oh, I knew what an IPod was before I ever knew a Macintosh existed.

tetraodonpuffer 11y ago

now that phones are quite fast and have good cameras, what is the main driver towards upgrading? so that you go from 300ppi to 500ppi? not going to make much of a difference and for most people not worth the upgrade costs. The only issue is that phone manufacturers have even more of an incentive to bloat the OS more and more (and make it slower and slower on old models) and to deprecate it faster (on older models) so they can sell more hardware if people want to get the latest security fixes / software

bduerst 11y ago
Screen DPI will affect VR headsets that utilize mobile devices, if demand for those ever take off. Other than that the major change on the horizon that would drive mass upgrades is any advancement in battery tech.
exacube 11y ago
in general, hardware improvements will drive new swanky software, and make computing on smartphones closer to a first class citizen (remember motorola's laptop+phone dock, where the phone powers the laptop?). another big pain point is battery (and battery consumption). still waiting on hardware (and software in conjunction) to get more efficient. you'll remember how power hungry PCs were in the beginning and how much better they are now (laptops notably). feels to me like we still have many years to go, and many more "big" technology investments.
- scholia 11y ago
  > another big pain point is battery (and battery consumption) True, but you could easily make it less of a pain point by making the device 1mm thicker ;-)
- petra 11y ago
  Xiaomi's redmi series can last a day of heavy use and even 2 days with lighter use. So i wonder why isn't this solved for others already.
martinald 11y ago

eva1984 11y ago

Yes, you better assume the smartphone golden era is already over. It is super hard for the manufactures to get people hyped for their new gears.