Is the Era of the Personal Computer Over?

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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It’s been coming for a while and it’s looking like little can be done to stop the decline of the personal computer. The pendulum has moved past the halfway point of memory chip usage in favor of tablets and other handheld computers.

But the PC always held sway as the home base of any digital person’s daily life. Now, it’s entirely possible, though not yet common, to get through modern life without one.
 
Why must a tablet not be considered a personal computer? The form factor is changed as is the GUI, and HID, but the principal is the same.
 
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err not sure, just a few days ago there was an article about those ipads that were being exchanged for laptops after people believed that tablets are replacing personal computers, tablets have their places, computers have their own, I still believe its like comparing apples and oranges,lol
 
I'm sorry, but I don't see myself without a PC ever, tablets are nice and all, but I don't want to do a day email on one, or really much else that I do daily on my PC.
 
What do you think was the platform responsible for the development of the software for these tech gadgets (which is all they are). A PC! PC's will rule the roost for a long while.
 
The literal form factor of PC is declining, and will continue to do so, until its a niche market mainly for gaming and specific business roles. I suspect all-in-ones may become more popular in the interim.

Laptops are being deployed in greater numbers each year, as business move to more mobile operations and laptops are able spec-wise.

I have been suggesting laptops for the last year or two, to anyone that asks "What computer should I buy" They meet their needs (unless gaming) and is mobile, no reason not to go with a laptop now that $500 will get one that will work fine.

Heck I have a laptop for work, and I run multiple VM's on it to do my job, it meets my needs.

Now in the future will tablet hardware and software be at a point to over-come the need for laptops? Maybe, then we might see docking stations and/or keyboards for tablets being more popular. Win8 probably has the best chance right now of bridging that gap, we will see...
 
There's places for both in my personal usage, as well as what my family uses. It's easier for our home-schooled kids to do their work on a laptop, no way could a tablet do that for them. My wife gave up her laptop (netbook really) for a tablet because she finally figured out that all she really does is look at the web and check email - anything else, she can use my computer. We have an HTPC for housing the family pictures and home videos on, more out of convenience than anything, but it could honestly go away if I took the time to build a different pc for myself. Seriously, there's no way I would be able to give up my pc even if the market information says overall usage / market share is declining. Silly.
 
Why must this subject surface every week?

Because if you say it every week for the rest of eternity, then when the meteors and aphid people take over the planet and humanity lives in the forests they can go "look I told you!!!"

I'm going to predict now that one day we wont wear shoes!
 
Yay! Because it's all about the tablets.... and before it was all about how integrated cell phones were.... that is until people realized that staring at a 4 inch screen and having to type on a glass screen to do anything fucking sucks, it's great for portability and convenience when you're out and about but sucks if you need to do that all the time. Tablets will meet the same fate, only quicker, they're too fucking big to really be portable, and they really don't do anything more than a smartphone.

Oh and watching people hold up a tablet to take a picture is the most retarded thing ever... well ok maybe not ever but it ranks up there!
 
Tablets and modern day smartphones serve an completely different purposes. Sure, they retain some translated features from a PC but a PC it does not make. The personal computer will not go away until such a day that augmented reality arrives at a point where the hardware is so small, powerful and as effective as seen in such films like minority report. And since I seriously doubt that will be an issue in my life time, this subject is a horse... a dead one.
 
I mean, sure, they have their purposes, like e-books, e-newspapers and so forth. But for actual work? Actually replacing a proper computer? Nope.
 
Its going to be both with a mix of specialized devices for a long time.
No one device is more relevant than another.
Some kiddies need to pull their heads out of the text cloud to see the street before they get hit by the bus.
 
Personal computer? It is simply a matter of definition. We personally own more computers than ever before, and our computer use has just started. Technology has found its foothold and is here to abandon the modern blue-collar worker, empower corporate wealth, and form the global village. Terrorism is more of a response the the globalization of communication than it is a religious debacle.
 
It just turns out that combining a mobile phone with a PDA was a great idea. The PC isn't dead.
 
It just turns out that combining a mobile phone with a PDA was a great idea. The PC isn't dead.

I'm still trying to figure out what this "PC" thing happens to be. Does it have to have a mouse? What size screen need it have? Does the keyboard need to be detached?

I guess it is this thing that I am typing upon. Computers transform -- funny how so many were happy about the transformation when the computer arrived upon center stage, but now there is a group of people that fear its transformation continuing.
 
Okay, lets go down the list. With my PC I can:
-Do easy Photo Editing
-Record gameplay from the PC and a Console,
-Render said gameplay
-Live stream said gameplay
-Edit said gameplay/recording to my liking
-Oh right, I can play video games that aren't designed with grandma in mind
-Use the PC as media hub to store & stream massive amounts of movies
-Work more efficiently(yay having more than one monitor that's larger than my head)
-Work/play for hours without fatigue due to proper ergonomics
-Upgrade without throwing away the entire unit
-If it breaks, and is out of warranty, I(or someone you know) can fix it
-You don't have to sign any ToS which reserves the right to remotely brick your device at their discretion
-It can't drop and break
-Offspring cannot 'borrow' and misplace it
-Fingerprints, Screen Scratches, Haz None
-Multitasking; Calculate Pi while uploading a video and listening to truly HiFi music
-Tasks will not remain incomplete due to the reasoning "I can't do this because my computing device isn't a tablet"
 
I think the writer of this article doesn't understand what the definition of "personal computer" is.

Lets break this down:
Personal - something for yourself
Computer - a device capable of computing

Tablets and smartphones are personal computers.

They just arn't called that because 99% of the world is afraid of the word 'computer.'

Also, just because there's a decline in the memory used in desktop and laptop personal computers doesn't mean the end of those devices... It just means that they need less memory.
 
If you all want to believe that a tablet and a PC are different things you are WRONG

Surface Pro would be your first real example of what is really happening these days in the industry. Same reason MacOS is being turned into the next iOS, writting is on the wall.
 
-If it breaks, and is out of warranty, I(or someone you know) can fix it

Speaking of, I tried taking apart a laptop relatively recently and it was the biggest pain in the ass ever. I'm impressed at how well they managed to pack everything in there but trying to troubleshoot a fan issue really opened my eyes to the whole dilemma. You really learn to love a normal size ATX motherboard and the space of a full tower after dealing with the hardware of a laptop.
 
The literal form factor of PC is declining, and will continue to do so, until its a niche market mainly for gaming and specific business roles. I suspect all-in-ones may become more popular in the interim.

The "literal form factor of PC"s (not sure what that is supposed to mean) is certainly not declining. It may be that temporarily because of the world economy people are cutting back on their PC hardware budgets--but I've seen no indication that *fewer people* are using PCs now than has ever been the case.

Comparing cell phone sales to PC sales, which is what the guy who wrote this article does, is about as smart as comparing PC sales to underwear sales. I'm sure that underwear sales this year will dwarf PC and cell-phone sales alike, but that doesn't mean underwear is going to take the place of PCs...;) Ever. Likewise, people can buy all of the cell phones they want, but that will have nothing to do with the number of PC's people will buy or build this year. (Another analogy: mobile homes will overtake and replace traditional homes simply because they are mobile: not going to happen.)

And when the author of this nutty story talks about the PC market (which includes Macs of course) using less "ram" than the smartphone/tablet market (whatever *that* is), we find later, buried in his text, that what he's talking about is FLASH ram. Well, duh. My box at home is a full-fledged "PC" but has 0 mb of flash ram on board. 99.9% of PCs don't use it directly. As far as normal DDR is concerned, the PC walks off with it. I've got 8 gigs in my box at home--name me the tablet or phone with 8 gigs on board. Storage? The PC walks off with that one, too. Graphics horsepower? No comparison, the PC is often several hundreds of times more powerful than the most expensive tablet or cell phone.

In short, the author has to fudge and misrepresent many statistics to make his case, unfortunately. It's always the same.

Laptops are being deployed in greater numbers each year, as business move to more mobile operations and laptops are able spec-wise.

It's because laptops have never been cheaper--and the same is true for desktops, of course. The only thing, and I mean the only thing, that cell phones or tablets excel in is portability. A PC by it's very nature is not portable--it's like the 100" TV some folks have on their walls--it was never designed for portability, but for other things, entirely.

I have been suggesting laptops for the last year or two, to anyone that asks "What computer should I buy" They meet their needs (unless gaming) and is mobile, no reason not to go with a laptop now that $500 will get one that will work fine.

So what do you say to someone you have so advised who needs to replace his hard drive, screen, etc? Do you also inform them that they'll need to box it all up and send it back to the factory for between 2 & 6 *weeks*, (if it's under warranty, that is)?

If you don't *need* portability then buying portable is always more expensive and less practical than buying a desktop. I always advise people to buy desktops unless they have a definite need for portability--or to buy the desktop first for home use and the portable device later, if they have to make a decision between them.

Desktops are an order of magnitude easier and less-expensive to service and to upgrade--indeed, most portable devices are "throw away" in the sense that they cannot be upgraded internally at all.

Heck I have a laptop for work, and I run multiple VM's on it to do my job, it meets my needs.

Lots of people are supplied laptops for work because the portability is required. But if you don't need the portability, then the desktop PC is the only way to go. PCs are still by far the best buys--you often pay through the nose for portability, and I could care less about allowing Apple to keep its miserly profit margins...;)

Am I going to give up 27" of screen real estate and a large, comfortable, human-sized keyboard with *real feedback* and a 2000-dpi precision mouse for something as clunky as an iPad? No way!...;) And of course, it's such freedom to be relieved of constantly having to think about battery-life, recharging, and the whole shmear.

Now in the future will tablet hardware and software be at a point to over-come the need for laptops? Maybe, then we might see docking stations and/or keyboards for tablets being more popular. Win8 probably has the best chance right now of bridging that gap, we will see...

Problem is that if tablets ever do "bridge the gap" then they won't be "tablets," anymore, will they? Indeed, for a tablet or a cell phone to be such in the first place is *not* to bridge such gaps...;)

Considering that dollar for dollar and pound for pound the PC blows away devices like cell phones and tablets in terms of computational power, cost, serviceability, and ease of hardware upgrade potential, I wonder that we ever have these conversations. Personally, I love being able to travel at will without having to constantly monitor the location of my tablet or laptop lest someone steal it or I leave it behind! Ah, the freedom of it...;)

Portability has its place and its value, no question about that. The mistake is when these very limited devices are compared directly to desktop PCs. The only thing these devices have going for them is portability. On every other count they lose dramatically to the traditional desktop PC.
 
Speaking of, I tried taking apart a laptop relatively recently and it was the biggest pain in the ass ever. I'm impressed at how well they managed to pack everything in there but trying to troubleshoot a fan issue really opened my eyes to the whole dilemma. You really learn to love a normal size ATX motherboard and the space of a full tower after dealing with the hardware of a laptop.

More money for the manufacturers. Needless to say that they don't have the proper incentive to construct a laptop with that keep be serviced by the user.
 
More money for the manufacturers. Needless to say that they don't have the proper incentive to construct a laptop with that keep be serviced by the user.

I'm amazed I didn't mangle the little flimsy data strips used for the display and keyboard. That really thin kind that can rip at the slightest act of careleness. Screws in amazing places. Was a nightmare, almost needed a magnifying glass. And it wasn't like I was just mindlessly taking it apart, I had the manual there and everything. The best part is it still worked after I put it all back together. :cool:
 
is part of the reason for this is the rather 'incremental' performance gains for new desktop cpu releases that has been going on for awhile.


i.e. if you have built a pc is the last what 3~ years ... I had a i5-750 i went to a i5-2500k and the difference was not really "wow" or whatever (i just wanted to use the i5-750 for my home server). So yeah ...i think for a lot of people they haven't ditched their home tower they still "good enough". So maybe they are spending money on tablets because they don't really have a compelling reason to upgrade their PCs.


I don't have any compelling reason to go with ivy over my i5-2500k...the only reason i will possibly upgrade w/ haswell is so that i can give my wife my i5-2500k to upgrade her computer setup..which is getting a little sloooow.
 
With the economy being as it is, gaming companies desire to appeal to a wider customer base, and the increasing power of consoles and computing devices outside of the traditional "PC." the need for the most powerful home computing devices has receded.
 
There is a reason people buy monitors bigger then 10-12"...

and? Windows tablets will almost all have displayport/hdmi outs (android tablets have display outputs as well)....

These tablets already can be used for general purpose computing, once docked, they'll be just as good as any other laptop computer...

There are already IDEs for Android, and x86 Windows on tablets will be full blown computers.... so yea, the "PC" really will live on in the tablet space, there literally is no production scenario possible on a laptop computer that the tablet paradigm will eliminate....
 
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