4 ms·

Post PC era passed faster than teenage fads, and we are back in PC era.

SwellJoe 10y ago
Are PC sales increasing in any segment? The article mentions 2-in-1 convertible laptops "cannibalizing" tablet sales, but I don't know if that convinces me that we are going to see the PC reign supreme again.
- walterbell 10y ago
  Worldwide PC sales were up in Q1 2017 for the first time in five years, https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/pc-market-sales-increase-in-first-quarter-of-2017/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/pc-market-sales-incr...
computerex 10y ago
I don't think we'll ever be in the PC era ever again. We are in the mobile era right now, not PC era.
- barking 10y ago
  My theory: 1) The sort of people who had pcs before everyone got them, use pcs as much as ever, though they also use mobile. 2)The sort of people who got pcs because of the internet have moved to mobile and won't get another pc. 3) Tablets are being replaced by smartphones rather than by new tablets.
  - walterbell 10y ago
    Someone with access to historical sales data for PCs, tablets & phones could check the data for support of this plausible hypothesis.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  The line will blur pretty quickly, I suspect. I look forwards to being able to just dock my phone into any monitor and have it be my computer for the day.
0xffff2 10y ago
Yeah, but one of my PC's is a Surface Pro now, which as far as I can tell is a tablet by the article's definition.
- wand3r 10y ago
  The tablet w/ keyboard is interesting to me. The touchscreen laptop form factor was pretty bad; bulky and really unlikely to be leveraged as a tablet or touchscreen. The newer surface pros seem to actually nail the form factor: small enough to be a tablet, powerful enough to be a laptop. The Mac ecosystem is slower to adapt but I think the air & MacBook will be a single line; either a combo or one will get dropped. The iPad (really most of their products minus iPhone) need a significant upgrade in terms of computing power and batt life. I honestly think the declne in tablets is surface pro style form factor winning over a tablet w/ aftermarket keyboard etc
  - valuearb 10y ago
    Not sure why you think iPads need computing power upgrade, their mobile SOCs consistently benchmark as the fastest available. And iOS is far more moemory efficient than he competition. Now their laptop line on the other hand... And I can't think of convertibles as anything but a niche product or even a fad. Jack of all trades, master of none, wuth bonus fingerprints all over your screen.
    - wand3r 10y ago
      To be honest that's news to me I don't use tablets. I think potentially ios makes it seem less palatable to something like a MacBook air and I don't believe they are on par w/ a surface pro-- although you might be right about performance / convertibles but I'm not sure. I see Apple maybe even killing iPad now the plus is released and just blending the air, MacBook, and iPad into 1 device. I agree about the laptops, I had an i7 MacBook pro from 2011 and it was powerful; still competed w/ newer offerings. I sold it for $500 and built a i5 6500 hackintosh it's quirky of course but 33percent more powerful than the laptop and minus the screen it's on par w/ a 1999 iMac and including a Mac pro mouse and Mac keyboard it was about $560. The laptops are not only disappointing; but I just can't even afford them
digi_owl 10y ago
Thats because post-PC devices infantilize the user. Just watch the number of "permissions" involved when dealing with Android apps. Something that also crop up if you attempt to use Windows UWP apps for anything productive. Effectively for profit malware and big media fretting over piracy has lead to an attempt to cram the freedoms afforded by the PC platform back in the bag. This in turn result in a generation of products that are useful only for posting selfies and watching the latest slapstick on Youtube. I wonder how long it will be before MS require a registered company for buying anything running "pro". Something akin to requiring that one is a legally certified and registered computer engineer before one can own and operate a debugger.

Are PC sales increasing in any segment? The article mentions 2-in-1 convertible laptops "cannibalizing" tablet sales, but I don't know if that convinces me that we are going to see the PC reign supreme again.

walterbell 10y ago
Worldwide PC sales were up in Q1 2017 for the first time in five years, https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/pc-market-sales-increase-in-first-quarter-of-2017/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/pc-market-sales-incr...

computerex 10y ago

I don't think we'll ever be in the PC era ever again. We are in the mobile era right now, not PC era.

barking 10y ago
My theory: 1) The sort of people who had pcs before everyone got them, use pcs as much as ever, though they also use mobile. 2)The sort of people who got pcs because of the internet have moved to mobile and won't get another pc. 3) Tablets are being replaced by smartphones rather than by new tablets.
- walterbell 10y ago
  Someone with access to historical sales data for PCs, tablets & phones could check the data for support of this plausible hypothesis.
ceejayoz 10y ago
The line will blur pretty quickly, I suspect. I look forwards to being able to just dock my phone into any monitor and have it be my computer for the day.

0xffff2 10y ago

Yeah, but one of my PC's is a Surface Pro now, which as far as I can tell is a tablet by the article's definition.

wand3r 10y ago
The tablet w/ keyboard is interesting to me. The touchscreen laptop form factor was pretty bad; bulky and really unlikely to be leveraged as a tablet or touchscreen. The newer surface pros seem to actually nail the form factor: small enough to be a tablet, powerful enough to be a laptop. The Mac ecosystem is slower to adapt but I think the air & MacBook will be a single line; either a combo or one will get dropped. The iPad (really most of their products minus iPhone) need a significant upgrade in terms of computing power and batt life. I honestly think the declne in tablets is surface pro style form factor winning over a tablet w/ aftermarket keyboard etc
- valuearb 10y ago
  Not sure why you think iPads need computing power upgrade, their mobile SOCs consistently benchmark as the fastest available. And iOS is far more moemory efficient than he competition. Now their laptop line on the other hand... And I can't think of convertibles as anything but a niche product or even a fad. Jack of all trades, master of none, wuth bonus fingerprints all over your screen.
  - wand3r 10y ago
    To be honest that's news to me I don't use tablets. I think potentially ios makes it seem less palatable to something like a MacBook air and I don't believe they are on par w/ a surface pro-- although you might be right about performance / convertibles but I'm not sure. I see Apple maybe even killing iPad now the plus is released and just blending the air, MacBook, and iPad into 1 device. I agree about the laptops, I had an i7 MacBook pro from 2011 and it was powerful; still competed w/ newer offerings. I sold it for $500 and built a i5 6500 hackintosh it's quirky of course but 33percent more powerful than the laptop and minus the screen it's on par w/ a 1999 iMac and including a Mac pro mouse and Mac keyboard it was about $560. The laptops are not only disappointing; but I just can't even afford them

digi_owl 10y ago

Thats because post-PC devices infantilize the user. Just watch the number of "permissions" involved when dealing with Android apps. Something that also crop up if you attempt to use Windows UWP apps for anything productive. Effectively for profit malware and big media fretting over piracy has lead to an attempt to cram the freedoms afforded by the PC platform back in the bag. This in turn result in a generation of products that are useful only for posting selfies and watching the latest slapstick on Youtube. I wonder how long it will be before MS require a registered company for buying anything running "pro". Something akin to requiring that one is a legally certified and registered computer engineer before one can own and operate a debugger.