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.'"

Comments

You can have my desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

when you pry it from my fat, cheetos encrusted dead fingers.

Re:You can have my desktop

[fyngyrz]

The prediction overlooks far too many inconveniences that technology hasn't yet resolved.

The need to regularly plug in the laptop. Poor battery lifetime and recharge cycle performance (but see ultracapacitors for the impending doom of the battery industry.) The need to plug in various I/O devices (hard drives, scanners, various others for various needs.) The wearing out of laptop clamshell hinges. The low quality of laptop keyboards as compared to the awesome stand-alone keyboards available. The need for mice and drawing pads. The limited screen size of a laptop (you can of course make an ultra-large screen laptop, but then it doesn't fit in your lap very well.) The room inside a desktop for various hardware add-ons, such as PCI bus hardware, or highly accelerated graphics engines. Room for multiple drives.

A few of these things - such as connectivity, which will probably go entirely wireless - will resolve themselves as technology advances. Most will not. So as an IMHO, but one with a lot of data behind it, I call nonsense on the entire proposition.

Re:You can have my desktop

[tirefire]

There is no reason for someone who only wants to do email/web/schoolwork to buy a full on desktop computer. I would bet money that most laptops being sold today are going to people who are not transporting them very far.

You have just made an excellent case for why these people should not buy laptops. Desktops are way cheaper to purchase and own than laptops. You never have to replace batteries (short of a CMOS), and if you want to upgrade them a few years later, it's easy and cheap. Laptops, with their soldered-in processors and graphics chips, turn into paperweights within a few years. Laptops sacrifice everything for mobility. If all you want is email/web/schoolwork, a $300 beige box is the ticket for you.

2 words for the desktop

[Romwell]

1. Cost 2. Upgrades

Re:2 words for the desktop

[644bd346996]

1. Cost In TFA, they point out that fewer and fewer consumers mind the $100-$200 premium for a laptop with comparable specs.

2. Upgrades People who upgrade critical components like motherboards, cpus, and graphics cards are already very much in the "die-hard" category. Normal consumers never upgrade those things except by replacing the machine. For almost everything else, USB and Firewire suffice. (The exception being, of course, RAM. But most laptops produced in the past 10 years have had upgradeable RAM).

It seems to me that the only people who will stay firmly in the "desktop" category are people who by definition don't need the mobility. They are the people running computer labs, servers, and office computing systems. I expect even the high-end professional users to migrate to laptops except when laptops don't offer enough raw performance at any cost.

The interesting thing to note is that, from a technological perspective, desktop vs. laptop doesn't matter anyways. So much of the desktop market it migrating to iMac-like all-in-ones and other small enclosures that they will pretty much all be using laptop chips, too.

okay, goodbye desktop.

[yagu]

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.

So, 2010 would be

[presidentbeef]

the year of Linux on the...laptop?

Almost there...

[rAiNsT0rm]

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.

Re:Not until the keyboards improve

[sgant]

We may see the desktop computer disappear into the monitor, though.

Hmmm....we may see that one day.

Quite doubtful

[Opportunist]

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.

Not dead yet

[marcosdumay]

"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."

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.