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Why would grandma want to buy a powerful $1000 tablet when a $200 tablet can do everything she wants to do perfectly fine? The main issue is that the vast majo

Why would grandma want to buy a powerful $1000 tablet when a $200 tablet can do everything she wants to do perfectly fine? The main issue is that the vast majority simply don't need all that much computing power, it was the lack of alternatives to the PC form factor that kept CPU power, prices and Intel's profit margins inflated. I don't doubt that there will be a market for powerful tablets. But it's a small market; the grandmas of this world won't be buying them any more than they used to buy powerful workstations.

bad_user 14y ago
> a $200 tablet can do everything she wants to do perfectly fine? Show me one table at $200 that does everything a grandma would want. > The main issue is that the vast majority simply don't need all that much computing power That's just wild speculation that needs a reference, especially since the history of PC proves otherwise.
- onedev 14y ago
  Nexus 7? Or for a $100 more, an iPad Mini...
  - mitchty 14y ago
    Yep, basically we've hit that point where computers are the appliances people always wanted them to be. Intel is going to have a hard time keeping high profit margins on lower cost chips. If any company can handle it though they should be able to.
- j-g-faustus 14y ago
  There was a time when many people looked forward to a faster CPU, because it meant you could open Word documents more quickly. That time is long gone. As a developer, laptops have been fast enough for my purposes since around 2000. Coding Horror, 2010: CPUs? All stupid fast at any price, with more cores and gigahertz than you'll ever need unless you're one of those freaks who does nothing but raytracing and video transcoding all day long. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/revisiting-solid-state-hard-drives.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/revisiting-solid-st... Excluding servers and scientific computing, the only groups I know of that still want more power are hardcore gamers and video editors. Even for these, the bottleneck is frequently somewhere else than the CPU. I think my mother and sisters represent mainstream computing better than I do: The check mail, watch YouTube videos and look at pictures of the family. There's nothing there that requires more computing power than what tablets have today. The Google Nexus 7 is $200. It has enough computing power for what most of my family uses computers for. It still has other limitations that may make it unsuitable as a wholesale PC replacement - say ports for plugging in a large monitor, options for printing, drivers for various USB devices - but those limitations do not primarily call for a faster CPU. If you disagree, I'd be curious to know where you see a mass market for significantly more CPU power than what we expect from the natural evolution of ARM.
- tr4656 14y ago
  Nexus 7 isn't enough for a grandma?
ghshephard 14y ago
$200 today. I'm willing to wager that Grandma will get by just fine with a $100 tablet in three years. Geeks tend to forget that a vast portion of the population just needs a web browser, a handful of popular games, chat, and email. With everyone hopping on the Facebook train, it's not even clear that chat/email is really that required anymore.

bad_user 14y ago

> a $200 tablet can do everything she wants to do perfectly fine? Show me one table at $200 that does everything a grandma would want. > The main issue is that the vast majority simply don't need all that much computing power That's just wild speculation that needs a reference, especially since the history of PC proves otherwise.

onedev 14y ago
Nexus 7? Or for a $100 more, an iPad Mini...
- mitchty 14y ago
  Yep, basically we've hit that point where computers are the appliances people always wanted them to be. Intel is going to have a hard time keeping high profit margins on lower cost chips. If any company can handle it though they should be able to.
j-g-faustus 14y ago
There was a time when many people looked forward to a faster CPU, because it meant you could open Word documents more quickly. That time is long gone. As a developer, laptops have been fast enough for my purposes since around 2000. Coding Horror, 2010: CPUs? All stupid fast at any price, with more cores and gigahertz than you'll ever need unless you're one of those freaks who does nothing but raytracing and video transcoding all day long. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/revisiting-solid-state-hard-drives.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/revisiting-solid-st... Excluding servers and scientific computing, the only groups I know of that still want more power are hardcore gamers and video editors. Even for these, the bottleneck is frequently somewhere else than the CPU. I think my mother and sisters represent mainstream computing better than I do: The check mail, watch YouTube videos and look at pictures of the family. There's nothing there that requires more computing power than what tablets have today. The Google Nexus 7 is $200. It has enough computing power for what most of my family uses computers for. It still has other limitations that may make it unsuitable as a wholesale PC replacement - say ports for plugging in a large monitor, options for printing, drivers for various USB devices - but those limitations do not primarily call for a faster CPU. If you disagree, I'd be curious to know where you see a mass market for significantly more CPU power than what we expect from the natural evolution of ARM.
tr4656 14y ago
Nexus 7 isn't enough for a grandma?

ghshephard 14y ago

$200 today. I'm willing to wager that Grandma will get by just fine with a $100 tablet in three years. Geeks tend to forget that a vast portion of the population just needs a web browser, a handful of popular games, chat, and email. With everyone hopping on the Facebook train, it's not even clear that chat/email is really that required anymore.