Have mainstream PCs finally hit a wall?

H

HOCP4ME

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 1, 2005
Messages
2,959
I'm typing this on the Toshiba Satellite laptop that has served me well since I purchased it. It's just a budget model - only cost $500 with discounts - as I don't have time for games anymore and have found a budget PC to be more than capable of handling everything I need it to do. It came with an AMD dual-core processor, 3GB of DDR2 memory, 320GB hard drive, integrated graphics.

Now, we're coming up on the two year mark since I purchased my laptop, and the lithium battery is nearing the end of its life, so I'm considering replacing it. I was shopping around for various laptops, and found that in the same price range, I can buy: AMD dual-core processor, 3GB of DDR2 memory, 320GB hard drive, integrated graphics.

Am I just not looking in the right places, or has the mainstream laptop market really not moved at all in the past two years? Granted, I've been out of the loop, but I haven't heard anything about computing technology getting more powerful recently: it's all been about miniaturization (netbooks) and software.
 
There has been a slight change in the mobile computing market: The release of the Core i3/Core i5 mobile CPUs guarantees the capability to have HD processing/encoding offloaded to the integrated GPU meaning lesser CPU usage and therefore lower power usage.
 
a big portion of it I think is the netbook craze.. it cause MS to make an OS Lighter on its feet so a 2 year old PC with the same generalized specs running vista is nothing like a new one with win 7.. Plus as Danny pointed out the technology although generalized the same even with comperable software will still be faster today..

IMO I Would probably buy a new battery & a copy of windows 7 & Call it good.
 
I'd think ssd's would be perfect in laptops. I certainly don't need much storage space in a laptop. I think it makes sense even in a mainstream context, if not now then very soon.
 
I think that once they hit the sub $500 price point they have stalled them there on purpose. Desktops did the same thing back when they first went below $1k. In mostconsumers eyes those price points are pretty fair and until sales start to slow down they won't be dropping them.

I suppose its possible that 2 years ago when you got it that was a really hot smoking deal though and now its just common. Watch the sales. I bet you won't get a great one for much less, but you should be able to get more computer for that price these days.
 
bastage has a point: The whole netbook thing pretty much showed that the average consumer didn't need that much horsepower to write an email and browse youtube. As such, to the average consumer, why buy a full fledged laptop for $450 when you can get a pretty decent netbook that does all you need in terms of average usage and is significantly more portable for $300? For many people, portability was the key term here.

Also, while you may have a "AMD dual-core processor, 3GB of DDR2 memory, 320GB hard drive, integrated graphics" now, I'm willing to bet that the new "AMD dual-core processor, 320GB hard drive, integrated graphics." are faster despite being of the same general category types. So in other words, you might be generalizing things a bit.

In addition, one of the things that has definitely changed in the laptop market is the introduction of relatively affordable quad-core laptops. Back in 2008, those tended to cost around $1600 and only in a 17" size laptop. Nowadays, you can get faster quad-core laptops for $900 in a 15.6" size laptop. So at least in the quad-core laptop and $1000 to $1500 range, there has been definitely some movement.
 
I'd highly suggest picking up an SSD instead of a new laptop, along with a new battery. I used to only use my laptop when I needed its portability, but now that I've got an X25-M 80GB in there, I've found myself using it more often recently than I would have in the past.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top