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The Desktop -- Time to Start Saying Goodbye?
Lucas123 writes "Robert Scheier at Computerworld writes that while worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow 12.2% this year, portable PC volumes are expected to grow 28% and will make up more than half of all PC shipments in the U.S. this quarter. Notebooks will dominate the worldwide PC marketplace by 2010. 'One researcher predicts it will be five to seven years before only the "die-hard" desktop users are left.'"
when you pry it from my fat, cheetos encrusted dead fingers.
1. Cost 2. Upgrades
So does that mean that this time it's PC gaming that will die out and not console gaming?
I don't think its really a black and white comparison. Obviously desktops have advantages and laptops have advantages. You dont want to lug around a 22 inch screen on your laptop but for your desktop, you want that. You're not going to get the latest and greatest hardware on a laptop, but you can on a desktop. Laptops are portable and good enough for most people, but a bit pricier than desktops.
It's a different tool for a different job kind of thing, the summary makes it seem simpler than that.
So by then I won't be such a pain to upgrade the hardware on a laptop right? I'll be able to pick my hardware in the same way that I can pick my hardware for a PC.
You mad
I guess we can bury the desktop along with the mainframes which have "disappeared".
Ain't going to happen. Laptops have charged into the fray because they've finally become price and performance competitive. They're not desktops, and they're not the same things.
Ten years ago I owned 2 desktops, and 1 laptop. Today I own 4 laptops and 3 desktops. They're all heavily used, but for home use doing heavy duty, big screen, heads down coding and computer work, it's always going to be the desktop that makes the most sense.
The percentages may change as laptops finally "emerge", but desktops, IMO, will stay.
The only thing I can think of needing a desktop for is to play games. Video cards for laptops are usually under powered, mostly because of heat, space, and power issues of "real" cards.
For most everything else, my two year-old $400 Dell laptop works fine. It plays movies, browses the web, and runs productivity applications without a problem.
If and when a laptop can get a nice big 24" screen or larger, can have ultra fast, high capacity hard drives with kick-ass 3D graphics and components I can upgrade...then I'll get one. I don't see that happening in the next 5 to 7 years.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
The big problem I see with this will be if lack of demand means that it will become more difficult to "build your own" to get a box with the specs you really want.
But even in my own experience, I find myself looking more at the ads for the latest laptop, rather than reading the specs on the motherboards.
I do have fond memories of browsing computer shopper (back when it was large format and over 1 inch thick).
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
People predicted that offices would go paperless, and that cars would fly too. But the reality is, if you don't need the portability, why spend the extra money to get a laptop? Plus desktops will always have greater power, easier upgrades, standard hardware, and more perhiperals.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
the year of Linux on the...laptop?
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
Laptops don't have a monitor at eye height, or a decent keyboard. They're limited by their geometry.
We may see the desktop computer disappear into the monitor, though.
'One researcher predicts it will be five to seven years before only the "die-hard" desktop users are left'
Then I'll be one of them. Unless one of you Slashdotters makes me look like an idiot for saying that I like to upgrade my computer myself, and if I'm having a problem I like to look in the box of the computer myself, and you can't do that with a laptop.
Of course, I'm hoping somebody does make me look like an idiot for that, because I'd be very interested in the laptop brand they come up with.
I have a notebook, and I do use it. But for the "real" stuff, I prefer a full sized keyboard and monitor.
The world is my oyster. That's why it's always in a stew.
What about university (and other similar instituitions) provided computers with a plethora of licensed software on them... Especially for CAD and graphics, the desktop wins hands down in cost, and probably will continue to have such an advantage.
:)
Though it would be neat to see a system of renting out laptops with that sort of software. The logistics of such an approach aren't something I'd want to manage, personally though.
Another thought is the extent to which external monitors (and keyboards) will be used. Dell does have that rather new "laptop" model with the 19" screen that can act like a separate monitor. The keyboard detaches and uses bluetooth.
Here in Brazil, due to some tax cuts for Notebooks and dollar fluctuations, prices dropped from 1400 USD to 1000 USD (basic configuration). As a result, sells increased 67% during from Jul/2005 to Mar/2007.
I prefer to be called a PC Enthusiast, not a die-hard desktop user. Besides, this is moot, because the PC enthusiast is what drives the mobile and PC innovation. You don't get a Pentium M, without a Pentium, you won't get a Mobile Core 2 Duo Extreme processor without a Core 2 Duo cpu.
This is like saying handheld gaming devices like the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, or MS Zune maybe? haha, will trivialize a Wii, PS3, or Xbox360.
Believe me, desktop users will also have the best hardware =) We don't have to be die-hard, we just have to be willing to accept nothing less than the best!
I just got a laptop for the first time ever, and I'm surprised how much I can do with it. The only thing it doesn't quite shine at is games, since the GPU, although pretty good, is not able to compete with high-end models. The TFT also isn't that great, to be honest, compared to my 21" dual trinitron CRTs. Bearing these points in mind, it's premature to predict the demise of the desktop in the near future, although office workers and even a lot of designer types will be able to make do with a good laptop just fine. The cost of a high-end laptop compared to a high-end desktop is pretty high, though.
I like my notebook keyboard, but i like my desktop keyboard a lot better.
I don't like my notebook screen. I like my dual widescreens.
I think notebook shipments are going up not because people are choosing notebooks over desktops, but rather because people / families / business types who already have desktops are adding notebooks for on the go / around the house use.
Desktops are usually more powerful, have more storage capacity, have bigger screens, and cost less than notebooks. Sure, being portable is nice, but methinks as long as there's a demand for the best, most cutting edge machine (and as long as developers produce games like Half Life 2 have massive hardware requirements to run), there will still be a desktop market. Besides, just because people are currently buying notebooks doesn't mean that they won't buy a new desktop as time passes. It probably just means that more people are getting both.
I think that's a bit premature. I see lots of nice new laptops coming through where I work, and I've never once felt the need to replace my desktop with one...It's a performance hit, it's a usability hit, it's a hit in screen size...The work I do doesn't benefit from working in a coffeeshop.
I have a laptop. I use it every few months. I'll get a new one when it dies, and I happen to notice because I need to use it. One of my desktops on the other hand, I'd notice if it died within hours, and I'd either fix it or replace it within a few days.
When laptop technology moves to the point where you only need to recharge 'em once a day, and they're the performance equal of a desktop with the same stats, I'll start thinking about scaling back my desktops.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Just as I'm sure that by 2008 there will be no desktop applications or OSes left, as we will all be using distributed apps from teh interweb. Well, that's what some Very Smart People said in 2001.
Another day, another ridiculous prediction.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Even though I'm a Linux guy, the closest I've seen to a possible laptop that could replace my desktop and be feasible is the latest Macbook Pro. DX10 graphics card, plenty of RAM, solid speed, LED LCD, good battery life, Superdrive, and big hard drive.
Once I see and read the reviews of the next OS X it may be time to make that jump to all laptop.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
People want something that 'just works'. Laptops aren't that much more expensive than desktops and they're way more convenient. The downside of laptops is that they are more expensive to repair. They are also more attractive to thieves.
My guess is that desktops will persist in organizations. The ability to fix a desktop cheaply will keep them there. The bosses will all have the latest laptop and the workers will all have desktops.
Preparing to say goodbye
Saying goodbye commencing
Saying goodbye complete.
the year of Linux on the embedded device/internet tablet/MID/etc.
Bought my last desktop in 1996. The desktop at work is being replaced by a laptop.
My personal laptop has much more performance than the desktop on my desk. And that laptop is already 2.5 years old. And we have a hierarchy for laptops in my household. Every time I upgrade, the old ones bounce down the chain.
Such is the way of slashdot these days. Try to get something that you FORCE to be controversial, and you get 400 stupid replies...
Thanks, Zonk!
What percentage of PC users EVER upgrade their hardware? I prefer a desktop for the ability to upgrade parts, and (currently) for the price. But the majority of people? Never gonna worry about it.
I'd say desktops are likely to be more limited to high-end users in the future. (As laptop prices continue to fall.)
Desktop will never go way for 3 reasons (2 related).
1)its much easier to steal a laptop. how many companies, and personal users are gonna want to have to deal with that security problem?
2)Desktops give your more flexibility. Parts can be changed, like monitors, number of vid cards, and other accessories. Try running 3 graphics cards with 2 outputs off a laptop and see where it goes you.
3)Processing power. Desktop have more space and more power(AC Line). This means you can build hardware with bigger power requirements and get better performance. While this may not matter to your local office clerk, graphics and processing intense applications like CAD, and video work will always run better off a desktop. which leads me to one of the driving factors in the PC world...Games, laptops will always be behind Desktops in either cost or power (desktop lvls of performance are gonna cost you.)
So while i do agree we will see many more laptops in the future, it wont just be "Die Hard" desktop users keeping their boxes on, or under, their desk.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not too keen on using a microscope and optical tweezers every time I want to upgrade my PC. Everything is too small and packed in too tightly in Notebooks. Another issue is that with a PC you can easily upgrade your monitor and perhaps sell the old one. With a Notebook you are stuck with the one it came with. A lot of the time we have so much paraphernalia around our PCs, like graphics tablets, USB hard drives etc that portable PCs aren't so portable anyway.
Hmm... maybe people will have *gasp* a desktop and a notebook?!? Desktops still have many big advantages over notebooks; mainly, you aren't tied to a particular screen or keyboard. There are two good reasons why notebook sales (especially in terms of % of computers sold) are growing--the PCs people bought in the last few years are still "good enough" and don't need to be replaced just yet, and notebook prices continue to drop, becoming more and more attractive with each passing month--but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll eventually be >90% of the market.
Yes, you can use external keyboards and displays with laptops, but that isn't an ideal solution. And leaving a notebook plugged in all the time kills the battery. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple do something really cool that would let you easily sync your notebook with your desktop. All they've got to do is expand what they've done with the iPhone. (And, while they're at it, they should introduce a 10" subnotebook with no optical or hard drive--just ~10GB of solid-state storage. Think of the boot times! *drool*)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm not sure I agree. I have two desktops at home as well as my laptop. I am a gamer, and when I play I use my workstation. It has better graphics, more memory, better sound, and bigger hard drives. Also, because I build my own systems, I do not have to pay what I do for a laptop. I also do not have to pay it all at once. I am in a constant upgrade cycle using towers that I originally purchased around 2002. Because I do not have to replace everything at once, it is less of a financial burden to keep the machine up to near cutting edge.
OK, maybe I am just one of those "die-hard" desktop users.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Well, for me - I still have a desktop at home that was essentially bought in 1998 (1,2 GHz Celeron). It works for me for everything (including World of Warcraft). At work I have a dual-processor Athlon (1 GHz), bought at 2001. It still works for me - does everything I need it to do at work (ie. Wireshark, SSH, browsing, e-mail, office and some custom network analyzing applications).
Why I haven't upgraded is 1) these computers still do everything for me. In 2001 I purposefully specced my work-desktop to have two processors so that I could run lots of computing power-requiring non-interactive processes in the background without bogging the system down.
The second reason, and the point that I'm getting here, is that 2) Apart from a broken fan, those desktop machines STILL work just fine.
In the same time, I have went through 5 laptops (currently using Lenovo Z60m) that my company has issued me. Usually not anything "destructive", but batteries dying, keyboards getting sticky, plastic parts (display, PCMCIA ports) breaking...so basically, when I have asked IT to fix it, they have just given me a new one.
Meanwhile, my desktops just keeps on going.
So, I wonder - is the "growth" in laptop sales a result of the fact that they force you into upgrade cycle since they don't have easily replaceable parts that you can fix if things break, so you're essentially getting a new comp everytime something breaks (even if you have insurance footing the bill).
Is the unreliability of the laptop. They remain the only thing (in my experience) that it is probably worth spending the extra money to purchase the extended warranty. I have yet to see one perform reliably over a 3-5 year period without need of repair.
The one question that the article needed to ask was how many people who buy a laptop don't already have a desktop in use? I suspect that number is minimal as well.
So you're telling me that the hundreds/thousands of desktops for the Worker Bees in every medium/large sized company in America are being replaced with laptops? Laptops cost twice as much as equivalent desktops. Good luck! I might believe it if this article limited the conversion to home computers, but businesses will continue to use desktops as long as they are cheaper. Note: Laptops do use less power than desktops. If a laptop uses 100W less power than a desktop, and the computers are left on 10h a day, thats 1kWh of saved energy per day per computer. At $0.10 per kWh, if the computers run 300 days a year, thats $30 a year saved. It would take approximately 10 years worth of life for a laptop to be cheaper than a desktop when to factor in energy usage. Clearly, computers don't last this long.
1. Cost. Laptops cost almost twice what comparable desktop systems cost. This gap could close when flat displays become cheaper and production numbers increase considerably.
2. Upgrades. Upgrading a laptop means currently that you have to throw out the old one and buy a new one. This, too, could be seen as a minor problem, with the Joe Average User buying a new computer every few years rather than doing midlife upgrades and laptops that come across as "barebones" with interchangeable parts.
3. Vendor lock-in. Even if upgrading is possible, you often need very specific Dell/IBM/Toshiba-only parts that fit only in this brand of laptop, often also only in this series (anyone who ever wanted to up their ram in the IBM notebooks knows what I'm talking about). This is unlikely to change, since companies DO want you to be locked in. I highly doubt they'll agree to a standard.
4. Heat. The most advanced and fastest CPUs and even more GPUs produce an incredible amount of waste heat that a notebook cannot sensibly get rid of. Usually you do get a "notebook" version of those chips, but they are usually either slower or a generation behind, when more advanced production processes allow the same speed with less heat.
5. Displays. Notebooks are supposed to be small, displays can't be large enough. Unless we find a way to "fold" displays, people who want more than a 17" display will not enjoy the notebook experience. Either that or they'll grumble when they get to haul around a notebook that can house a 20" display...
5. Space. Notebooks only have so much space, unless you increase their size to inane proportions. This is most noticable for HDDs, which are hard if not impossible to upgrade, and even current notebooks hardly come with more than 200GB of storage space, something that is allright for travels, but I doubt it would make them popular with people who have a need for a lot of storage.
6. Defects. When a part of the notebook fails, you have to send it in for repairs. No user serviceable parts inside (with most models at least). When the graphics card in the desktop fails, rip it out and replace it.
The list goes on. While notebook use will certainly increase over the next years (points 1 and 2 can pretty easily be taken care of, and will), I do not see them as the all powerful replacement of desktops. They might have their place in work environments, especially when mobility is an issue, but in the private sector (and especially amongst hardcore gamers, video/audio junkies and graphics artists) the desktop will most likely survive.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not when cost are still much higher and space is limited. The heat and smaller space in a laptop keeps high video cards, and fast hard disks out of them also when $1000+ $1500 even some $2000 ones have on board video that too is a trun off as well even more so with windows vista and laptop ram costs much more then desktop ram and most systems only have 2 slots.
At Home its all about the Desktop since I maintain the hardware and I have to pay the costs of the machine (Desktop hardware is comparitively cheaper and more powerful). This is mostly to support my gaming habit I upgrade the machine every few years in a major over haul it might get one small componet add or swap a year in between overhauls.
At Work My primary machine is a laptop, I have a desktop as well but its only used for very specialized tasks. The Company pays for all the hardware and except for hardware issues for which we have a vendor, I do most of the other machine manintance. I much perfer the laptop for work since I can move it around with me during the day, take it on trips, and bring it home to access the company over VPN.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Are almost as accurate as those of scienticians
And servers won't be going away....
It'd be a bitch to try and install two or three PCI tuner cards in one for a mythtv setup, and pretty few laptops come with digital audio out, much less HDMI ports.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
These same "researchers" predicted that computers would make paper disappear from the office. Today offices deal with more paper than ever because electronic documents just don't do the job.
Laptops are popular with businesses because they can do double duty: plug into a docking station with a fixed monitor and keyboard for desktop use, but allow employees to take it home to do work after hours or on weekends. At the same time, though, those laptops are no end of hassle when dealing with the corporate network. Desktops, being nailed down to just one network, can just be configured and you're set. The laptops have to be able to deal with being on insecure outside networks, and the extra software to handle that is just a nightmare when they're attached to the corporate network. Not to mention that almost all of them currently are infected with several viruses and they're spreading them to the company net. The desktops aren't nearly as much of a problem in this regard. Business likes the cost savings, but a lot of people where I work are opting to keep their desktop boxes and use their own laptops instead of having the company give them a laptop (and take away their nice reliable desktop machine).
Then of course there's gaming. Very few laptops compare well to a desktop box when it comes to gaming performance. Gaming hardware eats too much power and throws off too much heat, and gamers don't like sacrificing performance.
My sense is that desktop PC shipments are dropping not because of any lack of demand for desktops. It's more that most people are satisfied with the box they've got now and are just upgrading components for a couple hundred dollars rather than buying a whole new system, and that people are going to white-box builders locally rather than buying from the big-name vendors. I know I can find higher-spec systems locally for better prices than I can find at Dell or the like. I mean, I built one for my niece earlier this year with hardware the equal of Dell's best gaming box but a cost around that of their mid-range non-gaming boxes. I've had to decline 4 requests to build systems since then, and pointed all 4 to local shops. I'm not surprised to see the big names seeing a drop-off in shipments.
When your LANparty opponents frags you for the 7th time in a row, you'll THROW your laptop at him/her/it.
Sure, as laptops get more powerful, they'll be able to handle even the most intense games. (by todays standards) However, as we get more power in our laptops, won't the games get even more hardware intensive? There will still be desktops around to handle those, and handle them well. Of course... I run a Mac, so it doesn't matter to me. =D
Beau West - http://budgety.net/
Why the hell would you ever need 4 laptops? You'd need Popeye arms to carry more than two.
More than one or maybe two laptops makes no sense to me. They have a much higher failure rate than PCs, they cost more for less performance, and they're far more likely to be stolen or misplaced.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I'll be damned if I ever play EQ2 on a laptop!
-50 DKP for lame post!
They're overlooking one very simple and obvious point. Ownership of a laptop does not prevent you from using a desktop and vice versa. It's only recently the laptops have become cheap enough that you can buy one before you need that money to drop on a desktop upgrade. Laptops are only catching up to desktops. I think what's more likely to happen is that people will start having two computers, a desktop and a laptop, and will use both.
I call bullshit.
Receptionists, shipping clerks, call center reps, cashiers, nurses, and most day-to-day office workers don't need the portability and form factor of a laptop. Furthermore, it's a lot more likely that a company will let a new hire or someone who has dealing with the public at the system use a desktop that's cumbersome to unhook and carry out the door than a machine designed for that purpose. People might not be any more likely to steal a laptop than a desktop in principle, but making it easier for, say, the guys who visit the Public Aid office to get in and out with them isn't necessarily a good idea.
Desktops are a lot cheaper to design and build for the budget role, and are more easily customizable for all the myriad business machines out there that require computer control. USB and Firewire are great, but they're still not as flexible as PCI and PCI Express. Extra drive bays make it much easier for IT to add storage or unusual hardware (ZIP, HD-DVD, some new memory card reader) that would have to be a separately inventoried if it was an external add-on for a laptop.
A desktop can easily be expanded into a cheap, low-end server. Most laptops don't meet this criterion very well. Memory limits asre often lower, the memory is more expensive, and you only get one hard drive in 99.8% of models out there. Lots of small businesses or working groups in larger ones tend to turn an old PC into an impromptu server for a while until the budget allows a proper server.
There might be some split into laptops for the masses, workstations for high-end work, and servers for rack-mount applications, but you can be sure lots of businesses will the just buy workstation or server machines as desktops. As long as the business world demands the mini tower, it'll be available for you to buy from Dell and HP. The enthusiast sites will probably still offer them long after that.
Besides, when has "lower growth" ever meant "decline in number"? Last I checked, growth meant more units sold, period. Less of an increase than last year, maybe, but still an increase. What if one day the market saturates and everyone only buys replacement systems? Will all the suppliers of hardware close and not bother?
A lot of us laptop users have a large, 24" external screen we use while sitting at a desk. The 3D graphics cards aren't that bad, and they aren't a generation behind any longer. The biggest problem with laptops is the IO speed. However, the ability to take the computer home or on trips and still be able to work or play games is totally worth the performance loss.
That more and more portable music players are sold does not mean that home stereos are on the way out!
...but I'd have to plug a full-travel keyboard into it. And a proper mouse. And a set of loudspeakers. At which point, it pretty much becomes a desktop.
-Stephen
Most laptops sit on a desk!
The evolution of the computing industry has been fascinating to watch. I got into it as a kid in the late 80's. The first computers I lusted after were Atari ST's but I ended up with an XT when the family had enough money to buy one. Portables at the time were compromises in misery. Remember the old IBM luggable? I think their marketing slogan was "You WILL pray for death!"
For the longest time, the truism was that computing did not get any better than the desktop. You could get a laptop for roughly two to three times the cost of the equivalent desktop and you'll still prefer the desktop. Laptops were one of those strange and exotic luxury items like Italian sports cars, beyond the ken of mortals. And even at that, you had home docking stations so you could at least get a proper goddamn CRT before you went blind from looking at those dual-scan screens.
Laptops kept improving, though. The bang for the buck kept increasing up until the point where a proper laptop was at least as cheap as a good PC. Hell, remember the 80's and 90's where the starting point for talking about a good system was $2000? I'm not talking a balls out system, I mean anything in general! And now you can get nice laptops for $600.
Like most of us, I do tech support for the family. My mom's last computer was from 1998 and was getting a little long in the tooth for her. I got her a new laptop and she's fallen completely in love with it. With the wireless card, she can use it anywhere in the house. It can go on the TV stand and do video output for downloaded movies. It can be with her at the desk when she's working on serious stuff. She can lay in bed with it on a breakfast tray when she's reading and answering emails. It completely frees her from the "sit at a desk until you die from deep vein thrombosis" syndrome you get from a desktop.
For the average user, a desktop is a pretty dead concept. Unless someone is looking to go really lowball and get something cheaper than a laptop, they'd be better served with the laptop. The exceptions will be those people who need to do more than the laptop can offer, more than casual stuff. Musicians, videographers, programmers, gamers, photographers, those are the people who will need a pimped out system. Latest graphics card, multiple monitors, super-fast internal drives, various input devices, boatloads of ram, etc.
I think the whole "upgradability" thing is a bit of a non-issue when discussing laptops because really, how upgradable are PC's anyway? My desktop is usually running a fixed configuration for years. By the time I'm ready to upgrade, the motherboard will need replaced to account for the latest RAM and CPU. Of course, I'll also need a new graphics card. Sound and network are onboard. A faster OS drive is a given. AT best I'm reusing the old DVD-ROM, several internal hard drives, and maybe the case. But those old parts aren't bad, I'd want to keep them in functional form so that means they need a case and a CD drive so why not just leave them in the old machine, strip the extra hard drives and throw them in the new beastie?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I personally thought and assumed that I would always have a desktop.
However, last week I sold my G4 PowerMac MDD, my Mac Mini Intel and my iBook G4. Took the money and got a brand new Macbook Pro. It's faster than all of the others, and does everything that my desktops did and more. For me, it worked as a desktop replacement. I've probably owned 15+ personal desktops of mine, and 100+ ones that I've bought and rebuilt for others (family and friends) that I used for a week or two while tweaking them.
I suppose I do still have one desktop, my C64, which I use for Music applications.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
My point being that the stats used by this company to make their bold statement about 2010 only went back to 2005. Sure, computers are a new and exciting technology, but at this point, we have around 15-20 years of history in which computers have been sold to consumer-level society on a mass scale. Of course if you compare the actual technology to that of 15 or 20 years ago, there are drastic differences and I'm not saying they should be overlooked. But completely ignoring this wealth of relevant statistical information in order to make a wild proclamation that does little more than sell advertising space on the webpage doesn't score high in my book. Even though it may successfully shock some uninformed viewers, those kinds of people are rarely the ones making the big decisions that actually matter anyways (although I'm sure some people would gladly call their high-powered boss "uninformed").
Somewhere between a super nerd and a rock star...
There are now so many more people using desktops for cheap servers -- music, video, other files. I know fewer and fewer people who don't have something like this going on, even among those who are less technically inclined. So I don't see desktops going away unless manufacturers really start bringing down the price of actual servers or those networkable storage things (which are only good for storage, though I guess that's mostly what homes would be doing with a server on the network anyway).
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Did somebody say paperless office?
3. Reliability
The reason I like my desktop (computer) is because of the amount of desktop (display area) real estate I have. I have a 24" wide screen LCD as my center screen, flanked by a pair of 20" widescreens. I will eventually upgrade to all 24" panels. Show me a laptop that even comes close to competing with that (while still being "portable") and I'll consider this "it's the end of the desktop!" notion to be valid. There's only two ways I can think of this happening, moving forward. Option one is that my laptop will have a built-in projector that can display the ginormous desktop I desire. Option two is a HUD that projects said desktop directly onto my retina. I would surely welcome either option, but neither is really technologically nor financially feasible right now nor do I see them being so within the projected 5-7 year timeframe.
Also, as others have mentioned, I can get superior graphics performance from a desktop because it's easier to manage thermal output and you can therefore utilize video processors which have greater thermal emissions. "Graphics performance" isn't limited to games here, either; I enjoy being able to do high-polygon work in SketchUp with 4x anti-aliasing turned on.
The cause I see for the spike in laptop purchases is twofold. One, more people are buying them because they're affordable. Two, they're replaced more frequently than desktop PCs because they are abused (and therefore broken) more frequently than desktop PCs. I don't drop my desktop on the floor regularly, but everyone has been known to drop their laptop bag now and again without thinking. I don't have a tendancy to block the air vents on my desktop, but laptop air vents are often placed in very inconvenient locations. etc, etc. These two aspects are related, really. The drop in the price of laptops is mostly due to them being made more cheaply (not a "more bang for your buck" cheap, but a "lower quality" cheap) and therefore more prone to failure when mistreated/misused. I think that people are replacing laptops on a more frequent cycle than desktops, and that's why we're seeing this surge in laptop purchases.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
What about the whole digital convergence thing, like with TVs? I personally want more and more screen space. A laptop is kind of a limited paradigm - looking at the world through a 15" window.
The supply of desktop parts is likely to continue also for this reason: Newer tech is easier, though more expensive, initially, to produce "large." The newest nVidia card will be big (sometimes requiring 2-slots). Only after a new design has been tested, produced, sold (recovering -some- capital) can the process of optimizing and miniaturizing begin. Yes, a manufacturer could step out-the-door with a very small, low-power, low-temp chip, but only by skipping all of the revenue they could have received by marketing earlier revisions of the tech... for the desktop, of course... And I'll be happy to buy it, handing down my previous "best card" to one of my other computers. I upgrade my best computer, and pass on the replaced part to one of my other 5 desktop machines. All my machines slowly get upgraded. The cycle takes longer when I have to buy a whole new mobo/cpu/ram/vid card (PCI-Express). But in any case, my DELL laptop is left out in the cold... becoming a relic that must be replaced in its entirety, or nearly so. Mind you, the manufactures might well prefer that incremental upgrades not happen, and that, in order to get an extra 5 fps in your FPS of choice, you must replace your entire system. However, I am comfortable that the death of the desktop would NOT be in the best interest of the consumer...
For new, casual users a laptop is great, because it's over all simpler to use. But for us nerds who must have a media server, upgrade frequently, hack and costumize the poor thing to death, a desktop is best. Maybe it's true that laptops will take over the over all market for normal users, but the desktop will remain as long as I'm around! Heck, we're keeping the Amiga alive, what makes them think we won't keep the desktop alive?
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
That's not a laptop, it's a desktop replacement.
all that at only 20lbs!
This is coming from a guy that is very technical, and can tell you how to design a processor chip, code my own device drivers, etc. As a techie, still, I am one of the last adpopters of "new" tech (laptops?). I just got a CD burner. Ha.
I know that /.ers are mostly early adopters... or are they?
Are you an EARLY adopter of new hardware/software? Do you have an iPod, iPhone, Wii, etc. - or are you still reading this on your Windows 98 machine?
Hello, world.
Well, I'd wait untill desktop shipments start to reduce until I call it dead.
It's not quite sane to call dead something that is growing 12% a year.
Rethinking email
So it will end up like it started. I was there with my desktop when only "die-hards" had ever even used a computer, and I'll be there with one when die hard users are the only ones left (and everyone else has moved on to some kind of cellphone). Eventually I'll probably look as silly as a Civil War reenactor, but so what.
Laptop hardware is never even close the top-end of the performance curve that hardcore gamers like to inhabit.
Also you can't just do partial upgrades e.g. just swap out your video card.
That is why hardcore gamers will always prefer desktops.
I've always had problems with Linux and power management on laptops. Without proper power management support, having a laptop is pointless - you're paying more for a smaller, less comfortable desktop.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
I agree with everything except the part about graphics. As an IT manager, I have a nice Sony Vaio, with a large screen built in, as my only work machine. Yes, when I sit down at my desk I have a nice large monitor, which becomes my second screen, giving me a useful two screen environment. However, In terms of video hardware, what I got is what I got, and this is the way with pretty much any laptop. Either you have shared video RAM, which is definitely a generation or more behind in performance compared to a dedicated RAM high speed card, or you have x amount of of Video RAM, which cannot be upgraded. These are almost always less RAM then you can get on the newest cards, and even if you pop for the ultimate primo top of the line king of the hill video setup for your laptop, within six months, you existing on board Video will be blown away by the latest greatest available, with no opportunity to upgrade. Add to that the fact that you only get ONE adapter on a laptop, and current technology allows you to bridge multiple GPUs for ultra-screaming performance, you are just not going to be able to get top end desktop performance on a top end laptop. When the fate of human race depends on it, a laptop just isn't going to be top line cutting edge. Only a desktop can insure the ultimate gaming experience. Now, for spreadsheets, databases, and all things boring, yea, a laptop is as good as a desktop most of the time. Better in some cases, with it's built in UPS...
$3,500+ for an almost 20lb laptop that I still can't upgrade sound and graphics on, when I can build an equilvelant, upgradable desktop for about half that price?
Hah, that's a good one...
Slackware
...but it'll basically be relegated to niche markets in the years to come.
Obviously desktops have advantages and laptops have advantages. You don't want to lug around a 22 inch screen on your laptop but for your desktop, you want that. You're not going to get the latest and greatest hardware on a laptop, but you can on a desktop.
Laptops are the winners here though--laptops CAN be had in very cutting-edge configurations, and when you get into that performance level both the laptop and desktop form factors get pretty expensive--and when you factor in all peripherals you need for a desktop that are integrated into a laptop then the price gap closes quite a bit. Also, the full sized display, keyboard and mouse is not a huge advantage for the desktop because all laptops can be plugged into those components when at the desk anyways. The only difference with the desktop is with price at that point.
The jobs that are better suited to a desktop are pretty limited I think, so therefore I think it'll be a niche market consisting of:
1. ultra-budget market (think the $300 system from Wal-Mart) for the starving student, pensioner, etc who wants a "good enough" PC for essential tasks
2. entry-level server market--for small and medium operations that want a value priced server solution that doesn't require rack mounting hardware, yet has the physical capacity to hold RAID configurations and be upgradable and expandable.
3. "geek hobbyist" market--hardcore gamers, system builders who like to pick and choose "best of breed" at a component level and the rice-burner-pimp-my-ride case-customisers.
The one advantage that desktops had aside from a price advantage was expandability/upgradability. However, as with price advantage narrowing there is not advantage in upgrading beyond boosting hard drive and memory anymore--it makes more economic sense to replace beyond that, and laptops are already easily expandable in terms of memory and hard drives.
Your right about that, but I can guess a rebuttal: But, what if your laptop gets 120 fps at 1440x900 at full detail? And the repsonse to that would be:
Great! That means my desktop can hit 120 fps at 4800 x 1200! Yay! tripple-screen output!
However much of an exageration that is, the point is that however powerful laptop hardware gets, more performance will come form the hardware that is free from the power, heat, and size restraints of the laptop.
And for hardcore gamers, it's not about whether "it's fast enough" it's about whether "it's faster than YOURS."
Many people here are complaining that displays on laptops are too small. Read the title of this post.
Yes, cost, and performance are OF COURSE the only reasons to buy a desktop over a notebook.
Yes, only experts tend to do serious upgrades, but many novices call the Geek Squad or some such for for repairs. In fact, it's often the novices who keep their ancient machines limping along for years. Laptops break much more easily, and the custom parts you need to fix them tend to be expensive. When was the last time you broke the case on a desktop (don't answer that!)
is closing, making it much more affordable to choose that $700 Presario over that $500 Dell desktop with the same specs. I replaced my aging desktop with a cheap laptop recently and I get the benefit of taking my desktop anywhere I want. Not to mention WiFi means I can geek out from the couch, bed... my GF played WOW from the exercise bike once... There is still money to be saved, if you need higher end computing, from a desktop over a laptop.
I do wish though that laptops could be made as modular as desktops are. I can't change the video card, sound card, or monitor of my laptop, add a second hard drive, etc.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
...I predict that by 2010, the breed of people who feel they need to compulsively predict the end of everything, will be extinct.
Mind you, Moose bites can be pretti nasti.
-Styopa
A lot of people are talking about how laptops are slower/more expensive/have smaller screens, and those are all true, but those aren't -- IMHO -- the main problems with laptops.
When I went off to college I got a laptop -- before that I had always used a desktop. It was pretty nice being able carry my computer (life) around with me. Then I slipped while going down some stairs, my laptop took a spill, and the hard drive went into a death spiral. I was able to get the data off it (and I had an older backup) but it made me realize that it probably wasn't a great idea to have such a vulnerable device for my main box. Now I have a desktop with a RAID sitting in my room. It's not going to get dropped or stolen. If I need something on it, I can ssh in. I still find my laptop very useful, but not as my main computer.
So how do you get a 20.1" screen to measure 24" or larger, or increase the limit over the 240GB hard drive capacity, or did you simply ignore the requirements to push a particular laptop?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
As soon as I get home I connect my notebook to my Dell 24" LCD. It has a USB hub into which I have plugged a wireless keyboard and mouse. So, I connect 1 VGA, 1 USB, 1 CAT 5, 1 speaker plug, and AC power and use it just like I used to use my desktop. It just sits off to the side with the lid closed and is a quieter version of what I used to use.
Laptops are bad because there is no one good posture to use them with. Check out this illustrated article about laptops forcing you to use bad postures no matter how you try. You may not suffer from that problem now, but remember repetitive use can worsen things and also some people have bone and muscular problems that can exacerbate this
The fact that a laptop keyboard and monitor do not adjust independently of one another forces a user to choose between comfortable hand/wrist or head/neck posture. This puts the laptop user into awkward or unhealthy postures which may lead to short- and/or long-term discomfort or injury.
The only way out is to mount the laptop in this fashion but it needs a separate keyboard and mouse and is not a very portable solution on the move.
This space for rent.
They say you don't pay thgat much more for a laptop, but they're kinda wrong, they're right in straight forward terms, its clear to see, but for me a laptop isn't a laptop really untill its portable, and really protable laptops are MUCH more expensive. Not to mention the fact you can't get large screens while being portable (its fine for out and about, but I'd have to keep my screens at home cos I do want my two screens)
The biggest "peripheral" for desktops, which typically laptops are not used with, is a DESK. While it's certainly possible to use a laptop with a DESK, you need to plug in keyboards/mice/external displays if you want to be comfortable. That stuff never moves for desktops. (You can use docking stations, but don't get me started on the problems with those...)
Back a decade ago docking stations were great. But today for most laptops not so much. I have a USB Hub so I plug most of my devices one plug, and power is easy (I am using a MacBook Pro those magsafe power adapters are damn cool and easy to plug in) and the external monitor is the toughest part. Granted a docking station in theory requires one connection but I have found that they usually can get finicky and disconnect at wierd times, where just plugging it in with USB and power and Monitor you get a good solid connection all day at work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have come to the conclusion that today there are very few reason for a desktop.
1. Cost - but most cheap desktops are rubbish
2. Screen Size - but then most laptops allow you to run dual screens. I only use a laptop at the moment at home and believe me I love using two screens. Try this on many desktop Pcs without buying a new graphics card, unless you have an Apple that is.
3. Lack of internal upgrades - but most new desktops have smaller chassis and after a few months it will still become difficult to upgrade without changing the motherboard, essentially replacing the whole computer.
4. 3D video cards - My laptop has a reasonable video card ofr the day (it is two years old). It will not play the latest games, but then if I wanted to play games I would by an XBOX360/PS3/WII because I wouldn't have so many constant you need to upgrade issues and the basic hardware is soo much cheap.
5. The old chassis form factor is too big for the modern office.
The advantage of a laptop is a computer that takes up less space. The problem is that most of them are not very portable.
The problem will be is that the latest PDAs and Smartphones (iPhone included) that have wifi and standard web browser can easily be used to virtually control a desktop or laptop using remote desktop software, some of which is free. On this basis, I think that the large laptop will become obsolete in the next few years, to be replaced by small form desktops and larger screen PDAs.
Apple are well ahead with the MINI, IPhone and IMAC.
Personally I see desktops all but disappearing in the average home. Sure, the die-hard gamers and work-from-home coders will still need their monster desktops, but they're not the typical bunch. For most people I see no significant future for desktops, they'll become a niche item for sure.
But that doesn't mean doom and gloom for the desktop, it just means it'll be pushed into serving more niches. Hardcore gamers will still spend a ridiculous amount of cash on hardware, as will professional-level people who need the raw performance (3D artists, anyone?). Not to mention the fact that I really don't see offices moving away from desktops. Some people will need them, most do not, and if I were running a business I'd try to keep as many computers chained to a desk as possible. I don't want my information walking around leaving the office with every single employee.
So yeah, you will get the hardcore performance monsters for media-heavy workers and gamers, and you will get the el-cheapo desktops for secretaries and data entry guys. I would say... beyond that, most people will move to laptops in due time.
When you figure out how to fit 4gb of 1ghz+ DDR2 ram and a GeForce 8800GTX into a laptop and make it still portable under 7lbs let me know and I will gladly trade my desktop for that laptop and just use a dock and monitor at home. As long as PC gaming exists there will be a need for desktop pcs. Laptops are moving towards smaller, lighter, and faster stuff for basic computing. They still have gaming laptops but they are heavy, almost twice that of desktops and not nearly as good. A nice gaming desktop can still be bought for about $1500. I know because I have one now...and a laptop of the same caliber as my desktop is yet to be made.
That's no laptop, it's a space station!
I don't have a laptop. I have a Zaurus SL-C3100 clamshell for my pocket, and various homebuilt desktops/servers. That's just me. Let's back off a little and consider our longer term cultural experience. We have desktops because we have desks. Why do we have desks? Because we like to have a comfortable, focused place to do certain kinds of work. Back when all of that work was done by pen and paper, the paper could unfolded from a pocket and we could do much of the work anywhere. Or we could carry a (real) notebook or folder with many papers. But despite that great portability, most everyone who did much paper work recruited a desk for the procedure. Desks turn out to be one of our most successful inventions.
So if you've got the desk, why not park a desktop machine there? What's not to like about a large screen at the right height, and individually chosen keyboard and mouse or whatever, already set up just how you like them when you do deskwork? Is it really more convenient to bend over a laptop, then have to plug it into power and printer and whatnot, not to mention ending up with something that when you carry it around in the larger world risks having its entire contents stolen or destroyed? Laptop-only life makes sense in two categories; either you don't do anything important on it, or your entire career is on the road so the bulk of your work can't be located to a single physical desk anyhow.
For everyone else, you have your desktop for your main work, and your notebook for when you're traveling - just as it's been for centuries, every since "desktop" and "notebook" had as referents real things having nothing to do with computers.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
As simple as it would be, the one thing I never understand is why no one creates an intelligent system for dealing with the battery when it is plugged in for long periods of time (desktop replacement use).
How hard is it to detect the charge state of the battery and once full, bypass it, sending the power only to the laptop... Then have it intelligently condition itself as needed instead of the "dumb" way it is handled now?
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Oops...
s/equilvelant/equivalent
Slackware
Most people with a home computer rarely have a desire to power down and go to Border's Books or the Bagel shop to do exactly the same thing.
Gamerz are still Gamerz and they only want the fastest biggest gear.
Laptops still have a 2x price premium for the same performance of the corresponding desktop.
Cheap laptops are much lower end machines than cheap desktops.
Desktops are upgradeable, laptops are not.
People like larger screens than the usual 15.4" laptop screen. And 17-19" monitors are pretty cheap.
But I will give you this - what the home user needs is a much smaller machine, like an all in one form factor of an iMac or miniMac or an ITX form factor, small fanless design with enough power to make it cost effective.
I bought a 17" MacBookPro loaded with the max ram and a fast disk (7200rpm) and it has done everything that my dual G5 tower can do but faster; I use Final Cut Pro for making videos (using an attached FW800 disk similar to what I have on the G5), the screen is large and sharp (and I could add an additional monitor if I really needed to, but with 17" I haven't needed to), and what I've got is essentially a portable editing studio that I can put into a backpack. It even plays games well. It's true that I can't upgrade the video card, but I've never done that on my G5, or any machine I've built. Typically if I'm thinking of a video card upgrade, it's because performance was starting to suffer in a game I was into at the time and what I really needed to do was a full upgrade of the box (ditch those 4200rpm disks, more faster ram, etc.).
So yeah, I realize I can do without a desktop and am not thinking of a new one anytime soon. That doesn't stop me from drooling over the idea of an 8-core machine, I just hope that in a few years it will be available in a laptop.
Laptops are great for a lot of stuff, and I can see them taking over for productivity.
:).
But in my world, HD video, desktops are here to stay. We need multiple big monitors, 5.1 audio systems, and crazy amounts of storage. And our need for storage pretty much scales with improvements in drives. My desktop had 2.5 TB of RAID three years ago, and the best laptops are only up to ~500 GB today.
Also, video processing is "embarrassingly parallel" when done right, and give the different temperature ranges for desktops and laptops, I imagine we'll have many more cores available in a desktop than a laptop for a long time. The best desktops have long been 2-3x faster than the best laptops, and I expect that gap to stay relatively constant for the forseeable future.
Now, laptops can still do a lot - I've logged many hours doing HD work in After Effects in my Core 2 Duo laptop with dual drives and 1920x1200 display. But there's only so far you can go with the laptop form factor. And it's not like that's a laptop I can use in coach either
My video compression blog
as in, are we talking about the classic gray box, or are we talking about the UI metaphor?
imo, both is getting long in the tooth...
and its not getting better by trying to squeeze the latter into smaller and smaller screens (see umpc and similar).
as computing becomes more personal and more mobile, we need to find new ways to interact with the user.
some ideas, like apples selfcontained apps, can be brought onwards, but overlapping windows? thats a no go.
i suspect that microsoft is on to something with their origami experience. as in, custom interfaces for different jobs.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
(Or square meter, in some countries :)
In the 35 years that I have been a computer professional, I've observed that the form factors change very little. The computing power and storage available per square foot has gone up radically, and some new form factors have emerged -- lap top, palm top -- but the fact remains that, by and large, the "square foot" categories remain the same.
1975: Pheasant Under Glass computer rooms.
2007: Lights out server room.
1975: PDP-11/35
2007: Single rack departmental server stack.
1975: 24x80 "glass teletype" time shared VAX.
2007: desktop
1975: first "lugables" on the drawing board.
2007: lap top.
1975: HP-55 calculator
2007: Palm (or whatever they call themselves today).
The desktop will not die until the desk dies. It may change form, as the mainframe has been largely replaced by racked up servers, but the *footprint* still exists.
My company recently switched to only getting laptops. What a piece of crap it has turned out to be. They got me a Lenovo T60 (Centrino Duo) Actually I'm on the third one in 1 month! It is so slow that my 4 year old Athlon 64 desktop runs circles around it. I am now in the position that I will have to get my department to buy a desktop directly, circumventing our IT group. Here's the problem: Desktop 4G RAM and not maxed out! Laptop maxed out at 2G Desktop 3 x 10000 RPM 250G hard drives, Laptop 1 x 4700 RPM 80G. Desktop SCSI port, Gigabit LAN, two DVD burners, Floppy Drive, etc. etc. Laptop: none of these. I support several real-time systems and the laptop is WAY TOO SLOW for what I need. Bottom line laptops (at least this one) suck for anyone needing a FAST computer. (Gamers, you aren't the only ones needing flat out speed)
.. Poor battery lifetime ... The wearing out of laptop clamshell hinges. The low quality of laptop keyboards
*Every* single company that retails computers sees higher unit sales when you mention those features. While laptops aren't designed to break as much as they are designed to meet an ever-declining cost, breaking works out great for the laptop retailers.
The room inside a desktop for various hardware add-ons
I don't think you understand the tiny number of people that want this feature. Nearly all consumers *never* open a case.
No doubt the typical atx computer is failing. It's been known for a long time the space the average american **wants** to devote to office/computer is tiny. As in laptop tiny. They just bought the ATX style computer because it was cheap.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
"Ten years ago I owned 2 desktops, and 1 laptop. Today I own 4 laptops and 3 desktops"
I think regularly using 7 computers makes you pretty hardcore and in the minority. I'd say the majority of people who own a computer (which is not 100% of the population over aged 10), have just one computer, or share one in some manner across their household.
Probably a few have "their old computer in a cupboard" because they can't believe that their expensive personal purchase of ten years ago is worth nothing or they can't work out how to recycle it.
I think the majority of people will purchase whatever carries out the functions they need to achieve, which is likely to be email/web browsing/office work/games/movies. If the platform is laptop or desktop, they'll go for it.
The prediction overlooks far too many inconveniences that technology hasn't yet resolved.
I don't know about you, but I need to plug in my desktop more often than my laptop.The need to regularly plug in the laptop.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Seriously I don't get why so many people spend hours upon hours in front of their notebooks. When I used one as my main working machine my shoulders hurt and I had to be way more careful while typing because of the keyboard. Why are so many people assuming that heavy notebooks are better? I much prefer having a small notebook and a larger desktop. Best of both worlds in two distinct package.
Sure, a desktop is plugged in all the time,, but that just means you plug it in once and forget about it.
With a laptop, every time I need to plug it in, I get to climb under my d desk on my hands and knees, getting covered in dust and crud, and fumble around in the dark with the spider-web of cables and wires trying to find an empty outlet.
There are many cool and exciting new uses for laptops/PDAs/tablets, but desktops have many uses as well. For example, most computer users have a desk at home or work where they get a lot of work done: there's no need to have that computer be mobile, and desktops are CHEAPER and MORE UPGRADABLE and MORE RELIABLE.
Upgradibility in particular is a huge issue for power users and hardware enthusiasts:
By contrast, with my laptop, it takes maybe 5 minutes to replace the hard drive, and I have to mess with a bunch of fiddly little screws. To replace the RAM or optical drive I have to remove several panels and it probably takes 10-15 minutes. Replacing a MiniPCI wifi card is a huge pain and probably takes at least half an hour. And everything else simply can't be upgraded.
My bicyles
Laptops are far more expensive when looked at beside comparable desktop hardware. They also lack the appropriate level of possible upgrades and are uncomfortable to use (and arguably lacking in ergonomics) unless set up at a desk with an external mouse and keyboard. Besides, I still prefer CRT monitors.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
The end-state of computer tech IMHO, is to have two devices. One device that coordinates all your household media/data needs and then a device that you carry with you that acts as a mobile media interface. The mobile device will conntect to the home device and sync such things as phone records, downloaded music/pics/videos. We already see the mobile industry adding soo many features that it's hard to tell where phones start and PDAs end. You will always need a device at home that can coordinate the massive amounts of information we are bombarded with everyday. This is even more true when you consider the fact that soon such appliances such as refrigerators and ovens will have IP addresses and can be access remotely.
Will this correspond with a decrease in the price of laptops (or laptop components) to the point where I can, for under $600, build a laptop that corresponds to (what will be) modern technology in the same way that my current desktop corresponds to modern technology? Between 2 and 3 years behind the cutting edge, that is. This probably will not happen, unless there is a huge push to make laptops modular, like desktops currently are. Laptops may replace average desktops, but for system builders, it will still be easier to get more power, for a better price, in desktops. Unless production of desktop systems stops ... in which case, everyone who wants power will start using servers.
And, as a side note, how many desktops have two screens? Once you get used to working with two screens, it's very, very hard to voluntarily go back to one, unless the operating system forces you to.
Everything is subjective.
about the same time the floppy disk does.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Keep that laptop off your lap. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,118884-page,1/ar ticle.html Laptops may be the perfect gift for those id10t users who should have a little chlorine thrown in their gene pool. However until they fix the Darwin Award Winner generation issue, I think the popularity of laptops will be... muted.
The other issue is the ergonomic nightmare that is the modern laptop. http://web.mit.edu/atic/www/disabilities/rsi/lapto pergo.html Add-on devices for ergonomics defeat the portability purpose of laptops, so with increased laptop use there will be increased RSI and soon the laptop surge will lead to the "Coming Dominance of the Desktop PC" articles.
That's my take on this article.
I'm a happy pessimist. I expect and prepare for the worst, when it doesn't happen I am pleasantly surprised.
I don't think desktops are going away any time soon, especially in the enterprise. A laptop is far more expensive to support than a desktop. Not only is the hardware more prone to damage with users moving it around more often, it's also typically more expensive to repair. A spilled drink could mean a new motherboard is required whereas on a desktop a new keyboard would suffice.
A laptop is more vulnerable to data loss, not to mention complete loss of the hardware itself. It is more prone to virus infection since it can be connected to a network outside the company if a user takes it home.
Most users don't even need a laptop to do their job. Why give them one and incur the additional costs when a desktop would do?
Typing on the keyboard of a desktop computer is much easier than with the keyboards on laptops. As a middle aged person who needs reading glasses, I need to use a 20 inch flat-screen monitor to be able to comfortably see 1600 x 1200 resolution. In recent years, using a 19 inch CRT monitor at any decent resolution became uncomfortable, so I moved up to a 20 inch flat screen monitor. Flat screen monitors are measured differently than CRTs my new monitor is actually 2 inches larger. It's great! Do they have laptops with 20 inch screens?
With a desktop computer, I know how to easily add or change hard drives, motherboards and other components, but have no idea how to do that with a laptop. I suppose I will also be one of the "diehard" desktop users. We don't use computers where I work, so it is not an issue for me there. However, I do realize that the article was mostly talking about using laptops at work.
If I did have a laptop with a large enough monitor, I would probably hook an external keyboard, external mouse and a large external hard drive to the USB port. I would then end up something that looks much like a desktop computer anyway.There is still a major point being missed here. Even low-end laptops are more than capable for the average user. We bought one so we can play with it while sitting in front of the TV or even take it outside on our deck and not be confined to the single room in the house where or desktop lives. I barely use my desktop now, its more of a server to attach my printers, and I could buy a wifi device for that.
The only reason I see the desktop surviving is for either very high-end applications like gaming, or for business environments where it makes sense to have a stationary machine. Everybody else will likely purchase a laptop for the convenience because the performance is good enough for most use.
Cost? I just bought a laptop with decent specs (Intel dual core T2080 processor, DVD-RW, 160 gig HD, etc.) for $550 and that wasn't the cheapest one offered at the store but the better bargain. It will do everything the average user needs and more, and is better than the high-end desktops produced just a couple of years ago. If they ever come out with a capable $100 machine, maybe that will sell, but low-end laptops are now price-comparable with low-end desktops. Most consumers won't know the difference between the desktop and laptop in the store, they will just compare the price.
Upgrades? I can upgrade the memory and hard drive, plus I have three USB ports and one PCMCIA slot to add additional peripherals. That is as much or more than the average user needs. The average user will never do any more than that on their desktop either. I haven't upgraded my desktop in years and I used to buy individual parts to build my own system.
Heat? Get a chill pad if it is too hot on your legs, or set it on a desk. As far as limiting the performance, like I have said several times, laptop performance is good enough for the average consumer.
Display? Most people can live with the screen on the laptop. If not, every laptop on the market supports an external monitor of any size and many support dual screen (most people will never want it) and S-video.
Space? Buy an external hard drive. You can get a powered 500 Gig external drive for around $100 if you look. You can now buy 160 Gig and larger USB-powered drives. It is hard to find an advertisement for an internal drive, but everybody advertises cheap external drives now. The only reason most people need even a small portion of the available space on their computer is to store video.
Defects? Do you really think the average user will be able to figure out what is wrong with their desktop without lugging the entire thing to a store for repair? Good luck in getting a store to honor the in-house contract you purchased (last time I tried, they wanted me to restore the base image first before they would believe my DVD drive was defective). Laptops are easier to carry to the store for repair. Quality is generally high enough these days that you may never need repairs unless you get a defective model.
1) People with kids or teenagers who don't want their expensive equipment walked off with or left at school or borrowed by other kids, etc.
2) People who live in a place where petty break-ins occur. A bulky desktop isn't worth the effort to steal and makes you more likely to get caught.
3) Large companies who don't want employees 'walking off' with machines. Plus the $100-$200 extra does make a big difference when it is 100 or more computers. I'm not talking about people who might work from home... I'm talking work stations like at a call center where machines are routinely used by more than one employee.
The laptop has many conveniences but there are several serious issues that laptop have that desktop don't. One of them is that components in the desktop are more robust than those on the laptop so desktop last longer than laptops. The other is the portability is convenience to you but it is easier the thief to take whole thing.
It depends on your situation, if your a limited in space then a laptop is a great thing since it doesn't take that much space... as long it is not those monster laptops like the Dell M90. If you can afford it and have the space then both a laptop and desktop/workstation is the best. You can sync your information between the laptop and desktop/workstation so you some redundancy.
Maybe the workstation will become the desktop of the future.
"The reason laptops are starting to outsell desktops is simply that the cost premium has all but disappeared."
If I were to sell my MacBook Pro to get the latest model (gaining me an upgrade from an ATI X1600 128mb to an nVidia 8600M 256mb, a newer chipset, a 2.4Ghz CPU from a 2.16Ghz CPU, and an LED backlit display), it would cost more than a recent desktop upgrade I did. This desktop upgrade was roughly $800, and got me a 2.4Ghz AMD X2 CPU (vs. a 2.0Ghz X2), a 256mb nVidia 8600GTS (vs a 128mb 6800), 4gb of RAM (vs 2gb of RAM), and a much better motherboard (an Asus M2N-Sli deluxe).
The thing is, I got to keep all the old parts of my computer as well (allowing me to trickle them down to other machines) -- unlike the laptop situation, where I have to roll along the money by selling the old one to pay the majority of the difference on the new one.
My entire desktop setup, with 24" monitor, 5.1 speakers, and a local storage of 1tb of HD space cost $500 less than my MacBook Pro (which has a much smaller monitor, crappier video card, 1/5th the HD space, slower CPU, less RAM, etc). MacBook Pros, given their specs, are within $200 of similarly equipped Dell and other name-brand laptops. No-name laptops tend to have the kind of parts I wouldn't buy (Via Unichrome chipsets, for example), so aren't in consideration.
The funny thing is that a 17 or 20" laptop has an even larger price premium -- I could easily have a 30" monitor with my setup for the same price as one of those laptops.
Name for me 1 laptop that I could buy for less than $800 CAD that would let me play Oblivion at 1920x1200 45fps with all the settings turned up. My desktop rig can do that.
This price premium you speak of seems alive and well to me!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
2010? Who cares, the world will end in 2008, anyway.
... fact is there are only so many desks to top
This prediction is like saying you predict all station wagons to disappear in the next few years because city runabouts exist. Some people need to be able to move larger loads of cargo (desktop). Others need the ability to park in a tight space (laptop). While trends may shift predicting percentages sold the complete demise of one is bone headed. Don't forget upgradability is one thing that contributed to the PC revolution and laptops are light on it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
its all about minipci -> pci -> pci riser..... sure your balls will be uncomfortable but you can then use pci on you laptop.
The 'future' is in cellular phones and PDA's. Soon you will not even be able to buy a computer with a hard drive on it. It will all be done through ram with user settings that are downloaded wirelessly from either a phone or a database on the internet.
Apparently no laptops today currently support OpenBIOS, according to the RMS talk in an earlier topic.
He said the reason is "Trusted Computing", which is a hardware component that allows, among other things, something called Remote Attestation.
Remote Attestation basically allows software running on the system to be unchangeable by the user, and to take control of the computer away from the user. This can be done, for example, to enforce DRM.
As Mark Shuttleworth has pointed out, firmware is not the only non-free part of computers. The BIOS is important too.
Desktops have, or have the potential to have, usable interfaces. Web apps, cellphones, PDAs and iPhones do not. It's a bit harder to create a good crossplatform desktop app than a cheesy flash-bound website, but the benefits are worth it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
...the video cards. Sure you can get a docking station to provide all of the other fun stuff that a desktop has (like (additional) serial ports, more USB ports, an extra LAN jack, etc...), however laptops still haven't overcome the limitation of un-upgradable video cards. Sure you can get expensive laptops with high-end cards, but when all of the games move to the newest version of DirectX, if you want to play them and keep the FPS up, you have to get a new laptop. Until the industry moves to swappable graphics cards, laptops won't be the be-all-end-all replacement for the desktop computer.
Hell no. I don't look forward to OEM, or on-board parts. The serious computer users wont tolerate it.
Desktops serve a different market segment than laptops. To say that desktops will 'disappear' is silly.
Laptops will definitely be more common than desktops, for all the reasons the article discusses. But desktops will not disappear at all... a significant chunk of computer users will always be tinkering with their computer, just like a noticeable chunk of car drivers tinker with their cars. The vastly greater ease with which desktops can be customized will make them a permanent part of the computer lineup.
It's also important to note that the computer media (and the Internet in general) is controlled by these very same geeks. This is a powerful influence on what is advertised out to the consumer.
Additionally, while big mostly-empty generic computer cases may slowly become more and more niche (for the enthusiasts), desktop computers in the form of tiny, difficult-to-upgrade office PC style cases will take their place for the desktop. The desktop PC will be 'consolized'; a non-upgradable box that you just plug into your monitor, keyboard, and mouse. These business desktops will spread to the consumer space, because they'll be tiny and cheap. The desktop won't die, but the big generic box might become marginalized.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
How come the whole debate once again boils down to "gaming vs productivity" apps? One comment, above: "My 400$ Dell laptop is good enough... for browsing the web, getting email and productivity apps." (like what, Word or Excel?)
:P)
I use a lot of professional sound editing and composition tools, as well as video editing tools. I understand the specs of firewire and usb but i can tell you: playing 75 1-8 second 96kHz stereo samples with a 8-second seek-ahead buffer off a usb-or-firewire external drive just blows wadly chunks, causing latency problems in the audio hardware and screwing up live overtracking. Add to that the overhead of SMPTE, midi and a software synth and i'd like to see the notebook that won't crumble with that kind of I/O. So, sorry; the "use an external drive" approach just doesn't work in this situation.
You can compose on a notebook, maybe even lay down some scratch tracks, but you aren't going to produce an album on one.
My laptops are satellites; useful for checking email, playing with drum loops, writing the occasional hate mail to the MAFIAA, etc. Two of them serve as troubleshooting and analysis tools and only have system software and utilities on them (of course running Linux
I'm only using them because clients have given them to me when they've rushed on to the next "upgrade" because they think they need 3GHz, 1GB DDR-2 and some craptastic ATI gutted integrated graphix to read their Hotmail or watch their cracked "Clueless" dvd.
You cannot replicate my full tower with 4 internal RAIDed hard disks, two cd/dvd disks, dual network cards and dual graphics cards in a laptop package; just no way. And i USE that power.
And, incidentally, it does come in handy for the occasional frag-fest x.x
"while sitting at a desk"
Doesn't that defeat the whole point of being portable?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
once they can fit 2 quad core processors into a notebook and 1 TB of hdd space then i am not going to switch
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
Darn it...
Just when Linux was finally ready for the desktop, the desktop is dying! (Did Netcraft confirm?)
So now that we are all going to switch to laptops, off course the question is : But does it (the laptop) run linux ?
In the year 2015, when all new computers are portable, one man still works at a desk...
"Yippie-kai-yay, motherfucker!"
Die Hard Computer User. Rated PG.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
I also understand that computers are going to replace paper in the workplace in a couple years.
In 7 years I'll no longer need my desktop. I'll have my laptop next to me in the passenger seat of my flying car.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
That's what the low-end laptop is becoming, for all intents and purposes-- cheap, portable, and adequate for basic computing. What more does the proverbial Joe Six-Pack need?
You say we need the desktop because it's powerful, easily upgraded, and configurable ... but all of that could be relegated to a server rack. Face it -- the only reason we have our giant, noisy towers at our *desk* is because video cables can only stretch so far. In a future where bandwidth exists to beam video signals across a house easily, our desktops will likely disappear in favor of servers.
... The only people left using desktops are those who need them, as they are a substitute good for the options gained from a nice, lightweight laptop and a base station.
The laptop is simply a thin client. Thin clients are wonderful: You can carry around all your personal workspace preferences with you around the house, to the office, and to other countries while leaving the heavy duty stuff in your basement. It's no wonder the desktop's days are numbered
Desktops fulfill different requirements and because of this, they will continue to exist. Desktop users sacrifice the mobility deliberately in order to acquire the following great advantages:
-better performance/price ratio. Generally laptops are less responsive than desktops because they are made to save battery power and use energy saving features everywhere.
-desktop parts are less expensive that laptop parts
-the original IBM PC Keyboard Layout. Laptop keyboard layouts are not to my liking. I come from the electro-mechanical typewriter trained generation so I identify more closely with the desktop keyboard layout. I am not fond of tri-function keys. They slow me my keyboard input rate which is the same problem with cell phones which is why you won't ever catch me composing SMS text messages on cell phones.
-easily replace the internal hard-drive to try out different operating systems
-easily replace video capture cards
-easily replace audio cards
-easily add RAM
-cooling/silencing features are customizeable. The PC box can be simply opened to let in more air. TRY THAT Mr. Laptop lover. Putting a laptop directly onto the lap without wearing any pants can be a scorching experience from what I hear.
-theft deterrent. PC boxes are heavy and clumsy to carry along with the fact if you are carrying one, you are easily noticeable. Laptops get stolen so easily. I have heard of cases of laptops being stolen at bookstores, universities and restaurants in plain view during daylight hours.
Cheers
I CAN'T build a laptop. I will never buy a pre-built computer EVER. There is nothing else like building your own computer.
I had my first Compaq luggable in 1990 for work, then a string of portables, notebooks and laptops with monochrome screens, fold out keyboards, bad heat problems that can burn your nuts off, dead pixels and more crapware than I care to mention.
After a number of years, I came to the conclusion that laptops are great for being able to work anywhere I like. And that is the reason that I use a desktop now, my designated workplace.
Task Mangler
Laptops use the same video connector as desktops, so whatever 24" screen you like on your desktop, then use it on your laptop.
:)
Having direct-attached very-fast, very-large disk storage is out of the reach of laptops, but you can get pretty close. External drivers (raid arrays as well) that connect via firewire, usb2, or gigabit ethernet.
And plenty of laptops have available as an option high-end 3d cards with 512MB of onboard memory. You cant get quite as high-end as the highest-end desktop cards, and you cant do SLI, but you can have a pretty damn good gaming video card if you want in a laptop.
Of course it wont be cheap.
Seriously though: Either you have shared video RAM, which is definitely a generation or more behind in performance compared to a dedicated RAM high speed card, or you have x amount of of Video RAM, which cannot be upgraded. Plenty of laptops have 256 or 512MB onboard (not shared) memory, with current-gen engines.
You're right you cant upgrade it. hese are almost always less RAM then you can get on the newest cards, and even if you pop for the ultimate primo top of the line king of the hill video setup for your laptop, within six months, you existing on board Video will be blown away by the latest greatest available, with no opportunity to upgrade. Do you really buy the latest, greatest video card every 6-months? That is a lot of money, and you're way out on the bleeding edge with that kind of a computing lifestyle.
And even if you dont have the absolutely greatest video card in 6-months, who cares? Is your goal to play video games or show up your neighbors? Because you can certainly get a good enough card to play the latest and greatest video games. Add to that the fact that you only get ONE adapter on a laptop Not true at all. The laptop chassis itself may only have on output, but its a dual-head card, and as soon as you plug it into the docking-station/port-replicator, you get 2 outputs. And if you have a docking station with the right video card, you can have a 4-monitor system at your desk (though the docking station card will be pci, so no big 3d).
End of the desktop? Last I checked sick ass insane video cards are always getting BIGGER. not SMALLER. My Nvidia BFG 7900 GTX OC is god damned HUGE. How you gonna fit a card that can run games like Crysis and UnReal 3 into a Notebook? Answer: You not, EVER. By 2010 I cannot imagine how big video cards will be, but smaller is one thing that they wont be. Gamers will never turn from the desk top. And there a a shit load of PC gamers worldwide.
Personal server whatever you want to call it, any more than CDs killed the floppy disk. What killed the floppy was when data "chunks" got to large to fit on a single device. Floppies died because they no longer where useful. Desktops et al will die when they no longer can meat some kind of need. I've 3 at home, One my File server, One my wifes "Photo Server" and my Sons homework system. 3rd is my TV unit/dhcp/dns server. Oh and the wife and I both have laptops and palmtops too. Each of them fills a niche (the laptop is for work for example.) But for the most part none of them are unused.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Until they come up with a standard that allows me to upgrade my laptop CPU, video, audio, etc. easily I won't be replacing desktop. The big advantage of having an open standard PC is the choice and ability to upgrade.
. . . and anyone who's used the crap that comes in floppy drive boxes knows why the way to go with HD diagnostic and other "floppy-only" images is to transform them into CDs that play on anything. . . there are too many business niches where portability really isn't an asset (how many articles have you read about important business/government databases disappearing because some moron took them out of an office on a laptop?) but low cost, easy maintenance, and easy customizing are assets to make it reasonable that the desktop will go away in the next decade timeframe.
Put this with "the mainframe is disappearing" and "paperless office" and "we'll all have flying cars in the 21st Century (where's mine?) predictions. Get the name of the "'One researcher predicts it will be five to seven years before only the "die-hard" desktop users are left.'" and don't take anything else he says seriously.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Almost every laptop I've ever worked on, from my Compaq LTE Elite 4/50CX to HP dv9000s, all have had removable processors. Some laptops now ship with the ability to swap graphics cards (HP nx9420/9440 and some Dell models) and that will be a norm soon enough. RAM's always been upgradable, and the wireless in many notebooks is one of two slot factors, and easily accessible in most cases. Laptops will eventually be as easy to upgrade as desktop systems, from what I've seen in my own work experience. The najor challenge is engineering the board and case just right.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Certain Dell and HP laptops have this ability. Dell's done it for a few years, in fact with I think the 9800 Inspiron model (someone fact-check me, it was a THICK laptop!) HP uses a tiny 4"x3" card that fits in what looks like a mini pci-x slot. Not easily upgradeable in terms of assembly, but still upgradeable nonetheless.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Dicksize competitions aren't really that fun after awhile.
1. Cost - You're wrong, at least at the price points consumers care about. Gaming 'laptops' can be very expensive, but only because they try to cram 4-8 gb of ram, a massive video card, a dual or quad core, 200 gb hd....into a laptop. Realistically for a core 2, if you sacrifice for the mobile core 2 and accept 2gb of ram, you can come out within 200$ for most models.
2. Upgrades - Beaten to death, but most users don't care enough to upgrade. This will be especially true as laptops (and computers in general) continue their price descent.
3. Vendor lockin - number 2.
4. Heat - Are you seriously contending that desktop processors generate LESS heat per performance measurement than a laptop? Heat is wasted electricity, and people like battery life. Laptops lead the way in this front, which is why core 2 is descended from the centrino line rather than the monsters that the P4 was. Yes, they're a bit slower, have lower FSB, and slightly smaller cache. I'll explain later why this is irrelevant.
5. Displays/space (since you can't count) For both these, add external displays to the list. You can't travel with the display anyways, so you'd need one at any location you want a large screen. You're saying that re-purchasing the computer attached to the monitor is an economically valid reason why? Also external hard drives are good enough for the data you typically need to store beyond 100-200 gb, which is....data. Your programs will fit fine on a 160 gb hard drive.
6. Defects - The average user doesn't replace the graphics card in their desktop, so this isn't a good point either.
My counter
A lot of this depends on trends in computing, but even running vista and doing any amount of day-day routines (to the point of light graphics/home video editing), but lacking some new, killer app, there isn't a oft used piece of software that the consumer is going "I need more power!" What, does word take another quarter second to open? Firefox can only handle 30 tabs open at once? Seriously, name a commonly used application that a mobile user can't run at sufficient speed. Beyond games released 1+ years after the laptop, there aren't any that i can see. And any number of gamers play console games anyways, so the market for a desktop is really the hard core people who need bleeding edge speed, or who want to be able to tweak their parts. As computing is accepted by more and more people, this will make up a decreasing percentage of the market.
I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
bravo *slow clap*
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
VIA already has a credit-card sized motherboard for point-of-sale equipment. Maybe I'm way off here but I think the day may come where Citrix becomes a household name. Portables will be everywhere and embedded technology will drive IPv6. Network speeds will be high enough to run most applications over the wires and the software will be run from multi-terabyte servers with polycore processors. With embedded technology allowing for smaller boards, desktops will shrink dramatically. Of course, I could be totally wrong. Embedded uses specific hardware and not the diverse configurations that exist on desktops now.
Most of the posters describing the choice between desktops and laptops seem to be making the false assumption that users have a choice between the two. I don't really think that's the case anymore. I need to be able to take my computer with me...it's not every day, not every week even...usually my laptop sits on my desk and gets used as if it were a desktop, but when I need to take it along, there's no alternative. The choice I face is not "do I want to spend $200 extra for a laptop", but rather, "do I want to spend $300 (minimum) extra for a desktop?" The answer is no, I don't. A desktop computer is one peripheral I can't afford.
Most people that buy laptops buy big 17" wide screen units and barely does it leave their desk, not to mention their home.
They use it as a replacement desktop and sometimes take it on a trip so they can use it on the flight.
I have both desktop(s) and a laptop. My laptop has a 12" screen and is very light. It is no powerhouse and would never perform well trying to play a game but I have always thought of a laptop as something that was meant to be portable and a quasi replacement for a desktop that was mobile. That is what I use mine for. Though I see more and more that I am in the minority. Most people are going for powerhouse laptops that would put my desktop(s) to shame. Though doing so at the expensive of the weight of their big portable desktops because when is the last time you saw one of the beasts in someone's lap? The heat would probably make you sterile!
So, I could see a future where the desktop is portable but not because it makes any sense but because that's what the majority wants. I could list all the reasons desktops are superior to laptops but I am sure many have already done so in this thread.
With that said I also must add that I am big into embedded computing and seeing that market develop and how powerful and compact those devices are getting I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't very long before people are making their own laptops. I know people doing this with PDAs right now.
I think there will always be a demand for desktops / workstations. I see the possibility of thin clients taking over before laptops kill the desktop market but I am forever the optimist.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
If the space-saving feature of laptops is desired, look into thin client technology. The boxes are the size of chocolate/cigar boxes and can sometimes be bolted to the back of an LCD monitor or included inside the monitor. A thin client is way cheaper than a laptop, too. I do not see the value of a laptop being twice what a desktop device is. Why can I get a good desktop for a few hundred dollars but a laptop is starting at $600? If we were all salesmen or writing novels on the bus, I could see a laptop, but most of us are moving from one flat spot to another. We can afford a PC at both places for the cost of a laptop.
Here is an image of a thin client setup. Monitor and keyboard are way larger than a laptop but it takes up very little space/material/money/maintenance compared to a laptop. Combined with a network and a Linux terminal server, setups like this enable a whole department to be maintained by keeping one server going so we can compute instead of labour.
The one situation where I personally would use a laptop is if I were moving around and giving presentations and needed an application like OpenOffice running where I went. I am looking at one of those Dell laptops with Linux and in bright yellow... They do not sell them in Canada yet.
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
Let's not forget the various needs for mobility besides work and home. For example, taking the laptop in the garden on a quiet summer evening; or using it as a multimedia station playing your favorite movies and songs while doing work in the kitchen; or moving it from the bedroom to the living room. Or taking it with you on vacations, filled with all your favorite movies, songs and photographs, and your favorite photo editing programs.
Laptops also take much less space and they are far less noisy than desktops (you can leave them on all night, downloading your favorite linux distro and sleep in the bed in the same room).
I finally gave up trying to build a "quiet" desktop - I replaced my desktop with a laptop - just because the freaking thing is quiet
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I expect this to happen, but of course not until after we complete the transistion to the paperless office. LOL
I see absolutely no need to continue developing the desktop (workstations are another story). Here is what is out for the laptop.Core Extreme from Intel. 250 GB hard drives from various vendors. Great graphics solution from Nvidia and AMD. Notebooks can be fitted with up to 4 GB of ram. Notebooks utilized power more efficiently which is important in this energy conscience age. I personally have no need for desktop and will never buy one again. A laptop combined with a good display is enough. It is time for the OEM to get clever and start experimenting on new designs built around mobile components. Imac is a good example of a destop built from laptop components. Maybe special docking station for the hardcore users who want more expansion that the express card slot. A eSATA for notebooks perhaps for extra hard drives.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
That is what people have said for years, when GPUs were only used for games (which is what you seem to assume). But then this Vista thing came along, and suddenly you needed a decent level graphics card just to have a half-way responsive desktop.
There is an army of not that bad, not that old laptops (Pentium Ms and the like) out there that are WORTHLESS with Vista because even though every other component is good enough, the impossible to upgrade graphics card is too weak to run Aero (and I know you can run Vista without Aero, but it will be slower than XP by so much that you might as well just run XP). Yet almost all the desktops made in the same generation are $50 at Newegg away from Flip3d fun.
The GPU will never again just be about gamers. Apple started the trend and MS and Linux are more than happy to copy- in the modern age everyone needs some GPU power. Heck, I don't game at all and I have still spent over $400 the last two years upgrading the video cards in my machines to take advantage of Beryl....
Open Source Sushi
Last week I had to use a brand-new MacbookPro. I was reminded that, having used a multitude of keyboards (going back to a Model 19 TTY), I can't *stand* those dinky, squashed little keyboards.
Apart from that, there'll always be a sizeable contingent of geeks who actually want to be able to put custom boards in their machines. That may have been on the wane, but it may even perk up (Make magazine anyone?).
REAL computers need BIG FANS. Keep your hipster luser boxes.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
I see people talking about the mobile market. But just about not one talking about the stationary market. I see that small devices will become popular but so will the PC's at home. The difference is that just like your hot water heater or your A/C, the PC will disappear into the home. You can already see the new Windows Home Server. The stupid guys that sell these things did not make it a kit that anyone can buy. All they have to do is make a cheap kit that can get the PC case out of the living space with a combination wireless and wired setup. Also make a kit for new homes and apartments still being made. The PC will see its end. The future has a mobile (or stationary) user friendly device and a heavy weight server to keep the device useful. Many of the new items for the home (like Microsoft's Surface) could in fact be handled by a server that interfaces with the device. The only reason this has not already happened is that the PC market was changing too fast. Anything you bought would be outdated soon after. But this is now not no the case. Too bad no one seems to realize that. The only thing really advancing right now is the video game market. But you see video game consoles selling like hot cakes not PCs. The future is the home server supporting lots of toys and the toys having what is needed to handle the job they are dedicated to (i.e. ipods with what is needed to play music, game consoles with graphic power, TV's with a big displays, etc,.) all kept running with a home server. It seems people don't think this stuff through enough when they create a story like this one. The result is very expensive devises that have to do everything because they are not supported.
I guess all those Apple 30 inch displays are just going to end up in the dump with no one using them. All those dual monitor setups that people have will go there as well. Righhhhht.....
Hey, you think your house is cool?
greg_barton@yahoo.com
xsauronx@cox.net
That is, if you need to do computing on the move. Well, there is one more reason - to act as backup if your desktop goes down temporarily.
Otherwise a desktop is by FAR the superior solution as a primary machine for all sorts of reasons it would be tedious to list here, especially since other posters already have.
Of course, that doesn't mean the article is wrong - most of the world does stupid shit every day and continues to do so no matter how incorrect it is.
So, yes, the desktop is "dying" in the sense that I get more and more home clients only running a laptop as their primary machine.
I do not recommend anyone do this, but, yes, they are in fact doing this. I can understand individual users who need computing power both at home and on the move doing it, because they can't afford to buy both, or don't want to. But it's still an incorrect decision.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Desktop computers are steadily increasing their lifespan. In the early 90's you were lucky if you could get two years' usage out of a desktop. Now we're looking at desktops that last four or five years or more depending upon their usage (typical office user, gamer, print server, dedicated task). Laptops have not increased their longevity that well. In the early 90s you could expect to replace a laptop every two years while most executives wanted a replacement every year. That's still the same schedule for a laptop. Three years is the maximum life expectancy of a laptop and that's only because accounting practices enforce it. It doesn't mean the same person will have that laptop for three years, more likely it will be passed down to users with less demanding tasks.
Because desktops have increased their life expectancy and laptops have not, of course laptops are outselling desktops because they have to be replaced more often. Add factors that others have mentioned here (non-upgradeable, battery life, power deficiency) and laptops start falling into the "disposable" category, like an inkjet printer.
Raw sales are not enough information to justify such a prediction.
Personally, I'm a gamer. Until a laptop matches the power, graphic capability, comfort of interface and upgrade ability of a desktop, they'll always be a runner-up IMO. They always have been for the 23 years I've been working with computers. Laptops have their place, but they're only a desktop replacement when you're willing to sacrifice many things.
"As an IT manager, I have a nice Sony Vaio Well, thats your first mistake. :)"
Actually, I am pretty happy with it.
"Do you really buy the latest, greatest video card every 6-months? "
NO, but with a laptop, you CAN'T.
"The laptop chassis itself may only have on output, but its a dual-head card,"
I know, I run dual monitor, but that still ONE adapter.
With the newest desktops, you can bridge multiple GPUs together from multiple cards to get absolutely screaming edge performance. Can't do that in a laptop. Not diss'en the portables, I love em. But there will always be a need for something more expandable, which means desktops of one form or amother will be around for a while.
I concede defeat in the pedantic nerd contest.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Well, if you want to call pointing out a significant change of meaning pedantic, then OK. Wait, was that pedantic?