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Laptops are not innovating and to me that's what really killing laptops. Sad that people are hardly innovating in the laptop space and blindly following the tab

Laptops are not innovating and to me that's what really killing laptops. Sad that people are hardly innovating in the laptop space and blindly following the tablet money without understanding why tablets are making money

Zak 12y ago
I'd say what's killing laptop sales is older laptops. The software most people run on their laptops is not especially more demanding than it was say... five years ago. Even for hackers, a five year old Thinkpad or Macbook Pro with its RAM maxed out and an SSD is a perfectly viable computer. We've seen plenty of innovation during that period in the laptop market. Entry level machines haven't changed a lot, but they cost half as much. At the high-end, much of the focus has been on size, weight and design. The Macbook Air, when it first came out in 2008 was pretty revolutionary. Then, a laptop was considered thin if it was under an inch thick. Now it's common to hear people protest that they couldn't possibly lug around anything so bulky. Maybe these aren't the kinds of innovations you care about. I'm with you there, and a lot of the features I'd like to have aren't even available, but there has been considerable progress.
- MBCook 12y ago
  As someone using a four-year-old MacBook Pro I can tell you that the thing got a whole lot better soon as I put an SSD in. It's not that heavy and it's easy enough for me to use so I don't really have a compelling need to replace it. It's got more than enough power for my everyday tasks. I think the other thing it's really killing laptops is people who didn't want to buy one in the first place. There are a lot of people who just wanted a portable computer they could use to play around on the Internet. They were the people drawn in by $300 laptop, since laptops no longer needed to cost thousands of dollars. But now that you can get a smaller lighter tablet that's easier to use for about the cost of a poor netbook that market has mostly dried up. At this point people who are buying laptops are people who need real computers. Just like desktop sales are down, but are still purchased by the people who need to power and don't mind immobility. Another way to phrasal this might be "the laptop bad fad is over".

Zak 12y ago

I'd say what's killing laptop sales is older laptops. The software most people run on their laptops is not especially more demanding than it was say... five years ago. Even for hackers, a five year old Thinkpad or Macbook Pro with its RAM maxed out and an SSD is a perfectly viable computer. We've seen plenty of innovation during that period in the laptop market. Entry level machines haven't changed a lot, but they cost half as much. At the high-end, much of the focus has been on size, weight and design. The Macbook Air, when it first came out in 2008 was pretty revolutionary. Then, a laptop was considered thin if it was under an inch thick. Now it's common to hear people protest that they couldn't possibly lug around anything so bulky. Maybe these aren't the kinds of innovations you care about. I'm with you there, and a lot of the features I'd like to have aren't even available, but there has been considerable progress.

MBCook 12y ago
As someone using a four-year-old MacBook Pro I can tell you that the thing got a whole lot better soon as I put an SSD in. It's not that heavy and it's easy enough for me to use so I don't really have a compelling need to replace it. It's got more than enough power for my everyday tasks. I think the other thing it's really killing laptops is people who didn't want to buy one in the first place. There are a lot of people who just wanted a portable computer they could use to play around on the Internet. They were the people drawn in by $300 laptop, since laptops no longer needed to cost thousands of dollars. But now that you can get a smaller lighter tablet that's easier to use for about the cost of a poor netbook that market has mostly dried up. At this point people who are buying laptops are people who need real computers. Just like desktop sales are down, but are still purchased by the people who need to power and don't mind immobility. Another way to phrasal this might be "the laptop bad fad is over".