5 ms·

Notebooks now make up over 70 percent of Mac sales

16 points by transburgh 18y ago

mdasen 18y ago
That's not so surprising. Notebooks as a whole are gaining a lot of ground and have been since LCDs became standard as monitors and Intel moved away from the Pentium architecture for their Core processors which bring mobile processing power not into parity, but close enough that people prefer the portability. Plus, how much value does an iMac give you? I'm not saying it's a bad machine, just that the big advantage over my MacBook Pro is the screen. Yeah, it's a little cheaper and a little more powerful, but (apparently) that's not enough for people to sacrifice the mobility of a notebook. Even beyond that, I think it's safe to say that people are starting to demand mobility over power. Netbooks look like the next big thing, web browsing is often one of the most taxing things many people do on their computers, etc. The argument for desktops is diminishing - it's easy to get more than enough power for 95% of users in a notebook form. And Apple buyers tend to be a little avant-garde (or at least we like to think so).
- ROFISH 18y ago
  "Plus, how much value does an iMac give you?" I do care gaming. It came with an 8800, mobile variant of course, but good enough of a reason back in April. It's still quite a bit better than the stock 9600 the new MBPs have. Plus the 24" screen is nothing to sneer at when you have to code all day. The 24" screen is an IPS screen compared to all MBs and MBPs TN screens. (Higher quality) I'd much rather have those three than a beefy laptop. While not truly "coffee-shop mobile", it's still useful for when you drive to your parent's place for the holidays since all you need is iMac, keyboard, and mouse.
quoderat 18y ago
I find any computer without at least a 20" screen unusable, so no notebook as a desktop replacement for me. My custom-built desktop is also about 1.5-2x faster than any laptop currently made, so also no thanks in that respect.
- gravitycop 18y ago
  I find any computer without at least a 20" screen unusable The new 18.4" (though widescreen, which is not as large as squarescreen) laptops get close. http://news.google.com/news?q=18.4+laptop http://news.google.com/news?q=18.4+laptop
  - cubicle67 18y ago
    There really has to be some sort of phallic thing going on for someone to decide to get something that big.
    - PieSquared 18y ago
      They're just portable desktops, no surprise that they're huge.
- pclark 18y ago
  maybe so, but a new 15" MacBook Pro should be plenty fast enough to do whatever you do. MacBook Pro + 24" LCD = no wonder desktops arent selling as much
- cubicle67 18y ago
  Interestingly, I just purchased a new MacBook, and I find myself using it in place of the 20" screen. Not sure why. Speed is not the issue I thought it might be, and I love the multi-tough thingy; exposé and app switching via touchpad is brilliant.
- raamdev 18y ago
  When I got a 15" MacBook Pro (2.4ghz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, Glossy LED screen), I quickly discovered my desktop became obsolete and I unexpectedly stopped using it. It's not that it became obsolete tech-wise; there was just no reason to continue using it. My MBP has enough power to run OS X + two VMs (Debian and WinXP) so everything I could ever need to do, I can do on my MBP. (For gaming, I installed Win XP on a second partition and boot to that when I need to get some FPS in.) And since I bring it to work and use it there too, it's basically the only computer I use from day to day. (Of course, the downside to this is that it's also a single point of failure. Just yesterday I got to work and discovered my laptop's screen was blank. It turned out to be the infamous NVidia defect that created much commotion last year. But, even though I was 6 months past the warranty, Apple is fixing it free of charge: http://tinyurl.com/ctz3h9 http://tinyurl.com/ctz3h9. Luckily, I also create bootable backups on a fairly regular basis.) On the big screen issue, I've found it has less to do with the physical size of the screen as it does the screen resolution and your multi-tasking habits. If you really need more screen real estate, use the Unix screen utility or some form of desktop switching with keyboard shortcuts.
pclark 18y ago
even if I worked in a windows environment I'd try and get a MacBook and install XP.
jcapote 18y ago
This isn't surprising as their desktop lineup is rather extreme; Your choice on the desktop is either a toy computer (that can't drive dual displays), an overpriced/overpowered super computer, or a monitor-computer chimera (that isn't upgradeable). I'm not sure if this is done on purpose, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just eventually stopped making desktops.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

16 points by transburgh 18y ago

That's not so surprising. Notebooks as a whole are gaining a lot of ground and have been since LCDs became standard as monitors and Intel moved away from the Pentium architecture for their Core processors which bring mobile processing power not into parity, but close enough that people prefer the portability. Plus, how much value does an iMac give you? I'm not saying it's a bad machine, just that the big advantage over my MacBook Pro is the screen. Yeah, it's a little cheaper and a little more powerful, but (apparently) that's not enough for people to sacrifice the mobility of a notebook. Even beyond that, I think it's safe to say that people are starting to demand mobility over power. Netbooks look like the next big thing, web browsing is often one of the most taxing things many people do on their computers, etc. The argument for desktops is diminishing - it's easy to get more than enough power for 95% of users in a notebook form. And Apple buyers tend to be a little avant-garde (or at least we like to think so).

ROFISH 18y ago
"Plus, how much value does an iMac give you?" I do care gaming. It came with an 8800, mobile variant of course, but good enough of a reason back in April. It's still quite a bit better than the stock 9600 the new MBPs have. Plus the 24" screen is nothing to sneer at when you have to code all day. The 24" screen is an IPS screen compared to all MBs and MBPs TN screens. (Higher quality) I'd much rather have those three than a beefy laptop. While not truly "coffee-shop mobile", it's still useful for when you drive to your parent's place for the holidays since all you need is iMac, keyboard, and mouse.

quoderat 18y ago

I find any computer without at least a 20" screen unusable, so no notebook as a desktop replacement for me. My custom-built desktop is also about 1.5-2x faster than any laptop currently made, so also no thanks in that respect.

gravitycop 18y ago
I find any computer without at least a 20" screen unusable The new 18.4" (though widescreen, which is not as large as squarescreen) laptops get close. http://news.google.com/news?q=18.4+laptop http://news.google.com/news?q=18.4+laptop
- cubicle67 18y ago
  There really has to be some sort of phallic thing going on for someone to decide to get something that big.
  - PieSquared 18y ago
    They're just portable desktops, no surprise that they're huge.
pclark 18y ago
maybe so, but a new 15" MacBook Pro should be plenty fast enough to do whatever you do. MacBook Pro + 24" LCD = no wonder desktops arent selling as much
cubicle67 18y ago
Interestingly, I just purchased a new MacBook, and I find myself using it in place of the 20" screen. Not sure why. Speed is not the issue I thought it might be, and I love the multi-tough thingy; exposé and app switching via touchpad is brilliant.
raamdev 18y ago
When I got a 15" MacBook Pro (2.4ghz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, Glossy LED screen), I quickly discovered my desktop became obsolete and I unexpectedly stopped using it. It's not that it became obsolete tech-wise; there was just no reason to continue using it. My MBP has enough power to run OS X + two VMs (Debian and WinXP) so everything I could ever need to do, I can do on my MBP. (For gaming, I installed Win XP on a second partition and boot to that when I need to get some FPS in.) And since I bring it to work and use it there too, it's basically the only computer I use from day to day. (Of course, the downside to this is that it's also a single point of failure. Just yesterday I got to work and discovered my laptop's screen was blank. It turned out to be the infamous NVidia defect that created much commotion last year. But, even though I was 6 months past the warranty, Apple is fixing it free of charge: http://tinyurl.com/ctz3h9 http://tinyurl.com/ctz3h9. Luckily, I also create bootable backups on a fairly regular basis.) On the big screen issue, I've found it has less to do with the physical size of the screen as it does the screen resolution and your multi-tasking habits. If you really need more screen real estate, use the Unix screen utility or some form of desktop switching with keyboard shortcuts.

pclark 18y ago

even if I worked in a windows environment I'd try and get a MacBook and install XP.

jcapote 18y ago

This isn't surprising as their desktop lineup is rather extreme; Your choice on the desktop is either a toy computer (that can't drive dual displays), an overpriced/overpowered super computer, or a monitor-computer chimera (that isn't upgradeable). I'm not sure if this is done on purpose, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just eventually stopped making desktops.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]