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Flight of the Desktops
theodp writes "Slate's Farhad Manjoo has seen the future of computing, and it's looking mighty bleak for desktop computers. In the last decade, portable computers have erased many of the advantages that desktops once claimed while desktops have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency — they're chained to your desk. Last year, sales of laptops eclipsed sales of desktops for the first time, and it's been projected that by 2015 desktops will constitute just 18% of the consumer PC market."
When the Amiga finally dies, then I'll take your dire predictions seriously.
And I always will.
If so, I'll buy the premise. If not, it's stupid.
Oh, I'd like a mouse as well.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
My desktop has a far bigger screen than any mobile device would be comfortable with carrying. Two screens some of the time. A full sized keyboard and mouse, which is infinitely more useful than anything other than perhaps touchscreen, and even then beats it in some applications. It's far more powerful per dollar spent than any mobile device from the same year could be, a trend that is still true. It runs cooler, as it can have a near unlimited amount of fans.
So, even though they can now theoretically match it, a mobile device would have a smaller screen, smaller keyboard, cost more or be less powerful. If it did have an equal sized screen, it'd be unwieldy.
The only chance of beating my desktop a mobile device would have is when it's equally priced, transportable, but can be quickly and easily "docked" in so I can use my real screens, keyboard, mouse and speakers. I'm talking about a single override cable into a dock station here, not manually plugging and unplugging each one every time.
Could cpu and ram be added to a docking station as a payoff for bringing the laptop into the office? That is, cpu and ram that could share the laptop's operating system.
Their they're doing there hair.
Desktops are magnitudes more powerful than what most people require from their computer these days. Probably more likely, the 'desktop' will morph into a server to manage all our files and wireless devices. I'm not about to surrender to 'cloud' just yet.
The only chance of beating my desktop a mobile device would have is when it's equally priced, transportable, but can be quickly and easily "docked" in so I can use my real screens, keyboard, mouse and speakers.
But that is most laptops today. If you really need a larger screen, you can use an external monitor. When you go to a fixed working location, you can have mice and keyboards and whatever all set up... the one thing you don't really need, is a great big CPU box.
I personally don't even need any of that. I work entirely on a laptop, when I need more space well that's what virtual desktops are for. I find working without a mouse not hampering in the least.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When laptops and laptop RAM are capable of ECC operation, then I'll eagerly replace the awkward, comparatively noisy desktop with one. I have a friend who insists it's a necessity with the memory capacities we have today and another who declares ECC to be a waste of money and accordingly, time, trying to find a damned motherboard which has BIOS options for it. Thus far, I've been siding with caution.
I just worship those people who make years and decades of conclusions based on hype factor of gadget X.
On the second look, I am 21.321% sure that, by 2015, traditional newspapers will suscessfully move to *Pad computing devices and to A4 sized mobile phones so we'll at least free ourselves from those quasi-journalistic outlets from Internet's Stone Age, when it was still tied to desktops. You know, Slate and likes. :D
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
I haven't read TFA, but I disagree, laptops are only catching up with desktops, because more people want and have to be mobile.
On the other side, desktops have a full-size keyboard, a big and nice display, sitting at the desktop doesn't make you bend down and breaks your bearing (I mean doesn't cause malposture), you can play all the latest games, you can quite easily interchange desktop components and upgrade your PC up to three years after you've bought it, you can enjoy crystal sound (by using a decent audio system/speakers), you don't have to burn your balls and lose your precious sperm cells.
FTA, the article's only novel point is that "the cloud" will do the heavy lifting for gamers and professionals. Yeah right.
Everything else is just the standard mainframe -> mini-computer -> desktop -> laptop -> iPad -> neural link and retinal implants meme that's been done to death more times than I care to count.
Dual 24" screens, one oriented as portrait. 8GB RAM (max 16GB). Upgradeable CPU. Two internal HDs, with space for two more. Upgradeable video card. Full-size keyboard with numeric keypad + trackball. Decent computer speakers. No notebook can offer that.
The netbook market has not yet reached saturation; when that happens, these magical numbers will drop off
Articles like TFA are written by people who don't really know what they're talking about. Desktop and laptop computers serve different purposes - they don't really interchange well. If you need lots of power for gaming / rendering / compliling then you can't really get it from a laptop. Even when they're equipped with high powered processors, the design compromises made in shrinking a machine to laptop size take a heavy toll on performance. If you need portable "use it anywhere" computing then a laptop is your answer.
For heavy work - the desktop machine does the job and doesn't roast your tender bits. That desktop is hard to take along on a trip, though.
What's probably going on is that the "writers" have noticed that Ipads are selling like hotcakes and everybody and his dog has a tablet computer waiting in the wings - they're lumping these in with the laptops and calling desktops dead. That's a pretty poor analysis of what's really going on in the market but we don't expect much from that crowd, do we?
I'm sitting in the living room typing on a laptop right now. I'm noticing that my lap is getting uncomfortably warm so I'll put this thing aside and go in the other room and sit in my comfy chair at my desktop if I'm going to be writing a lot tonight. My Ipad is sitting on the table; it's fine for what I use it for but not for lots of typing - not because the on-screen keyboard is useless - it's actually very usable. You can't use it while you're holding the tablet, though - it needs to be on a table to type on it. Fooey; give me the full-sized keyboard with real key travel and a real mouse.
Please point me to a mobile solution that has three 24" monitors, a decent fullsize keyboard (preferable a Model M) and a top of the range GPU.
No? Well, then I guess my desktop isn't going to be replaced anytime soon. Sure, I have a laptop in addition to my desktop. But that's not replacing, now is it?
A laptop can easily replace most common "office desktop" tasks. Where a laptop doesn't yet really compete, is for the traditional "workstation" jobs, since you rarely see laptops with GPUs that routinely handle a teraflop of computing power (and gulping 300watts of power. There's a reason you don't see those in a laptop).
It will still be many years before laptops are as durable and easy to repair as desktop computers are. Laptops are built with everything crammed close together on the inside. Even a small kinetic shock can damage a part, as can minor overheating from a ventilation problem. Repairing them yourself is quite risky unless you're a hardcore hardware geek, and expensive if you have a pro do it.
Desktops, conversely, have lots of empty space on the inside; they are easy to open up and reach into if you want to swap parts around or clean dust. (At least, the ones I've had are. I can't speak for Macs.) I've had the same desktop computer for six years. It's suffered a dead graphics card, a dead sound card, and a dust-choked fan that caused a CPU overheat. I repaired each of those problems in no more than a few hours each, and gave it a RAM upgrade too. I love my laptops too, but there's no replacement for having a machine you can safely upgrade yourself and won't break by dropping six inches. Laptops may outsell desktops but they won't drive them out of the market completely—at least, they'd better damn well not.
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
Projections indicate that by 2015, just 18% of white collar workers will have cubicles while the others will lurch aimlessly about the building, filling TPS forms while sitting on the floor of the lobby using each others' backs for support.
While I see portable devices only increasing in popularity, It's hard to beat a desktop for replaceable components. Want a ton of storage? Add more drives. Cool new game? Update the video card and add some memory. Something breaks? Grab the stuff that still works and rebuild. Most laptops, netbooks, and multi-touch gadgets are not made with this in mind. Even standardization between makes and models is difficult, with vendors preferring as much lock-in to their platform as they can get. If you like the notion of replacing the whole system every couple years, fine. It's an unnecessary waste and expense. In practical terms many people are quite happy using/reusing many components for as long as possible.
I've noticed for a while. Most of my friends with laptops don't even carry them about. The advantage is that they don't need their own entire desk. Just a bit of space on a shelf or in a cupboard. And you can use it while watching television, or show people something without going to the machine. They're better in so many ways that the price, keyboard and monitor position aren't a big issue.
Atom core processor, 1GB of RAM, 30GB of Disk pace used,mused primarily for web and email. (Actually this is a laptop). I'm probably a more typical user.
I have a 1080p 24 inch monitor. I have yet to see a laptop that does this native resolution. I also have 5 drives in this machine, no room for those in a laptop. I am leaving out the 20 inch monitor that sets besides the main one for watching wants going on on the computer is part of what it is connected via KVM to the Big one.
A laptop will never do here at all.
just remember this ;)
The longer desktops last (and they're lasting longer than ever these days) the fewer sales the PC industry can make. And the lower the overall price tag on a system, the less wiggle room there is for taking on a margin.
But I think the posted article has the wrong focus... Desktop vs. laptop is a non-issue because they both cater to the same "personal computing" way of doing things.
The real drama is now between PCs and managed handhelds like iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. If all these smartphones end up with bigger-brother tablets that sell well, then PC culture will shrink and the new normal will be systems like iPad that operate within walled gardens that have an anti-Web bias.
If you need lots of power for gaming / rendering / compliling then you can't really get it from a laptop.
Only slashdot "nerds" do that. You'll need to take off your "nerd coloured" glasses and realise that the very large majority of the market for PCs are normal people - and they're the ones buying the laptops instead of desktops.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Reading that, made me stupider.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
Everyone here develops software, or is a gamer or does 3D graphics or video, or is just a fan of gadgets and needs heaps of power and lots of screen real-estate.
That's all fine. but you're not a typical cross section of PC users. You would have been in 1990 or so but people want PCs to play videos browse the web, chat to friends, email... You don't need multiple screens, advanced 3D grpahics or a quad core CPU for that.
After owning laptops exclusively for the last 5 years I'm planning on selling my laptop and buying a desktop. Ever sense I bought an iPad my laptop has been confined to my desk. There's no need to take it on trips, to the coffee shop, or use it in my living room anymore. I still need a computer for programming and graphics work, but I'm going to get a nice dual 24" monitor system with an extended keyboard and tons of RAM.
I agree with you 100%. If you look at internet users as percentage of population:
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=it_net_user_p2&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=internet+usage+america
You would see that in 1995 it was 10%. In 2001, beginning of Bush2's term, it finally broke 50%. Now it's 75%. Now, back in 1995, I assume 90% of anybody who had a computer connected it to the internet. That means there was an explosion of computer users as well!
So if the internet is the killer app, meaning that without it people wouldn't have bought a computer, then this was inevitable because today's laptops have easily the power to run any browser.
This type of article is no different than declaring the death of PCs because consoles make up a bigger and bigger market each generation (my video game store hardlly even has two shelves for PC games, around 2000, it was closer to 1/3 to 40% of the store IIRC). But that conclusion would be off the mark as well, because this concerns packaging and the console is just a computer packaged in a way to optimize the overall game experience from installation to playing it, as well as doing more with less hardware just because it's a specific purpose machine instead of a general purpose one.
Now, smartphones are just computers again but yet smaller packaging omitting things like keyboards for size. I'm sure they stole more than laptop sale -- because they are people who need mobile internet but don't need a keyboard. I know my own notebook usage went down. But does that mean notebooks are going to die? No, they'll always be a significant portion of people who need them. Same with desktops. The marketshare is only shrinking because the killer app was not the desktop itself but rather the internet, and since people have been using the killer app, it's delivery has branched into other form factor that are more convenient for their needs. But the desktop has uses that these devices can't address well - compiling code, rendering polygons whether it's for games are animation for movies, CAD, and the like. That core will always stay.
Call me laptops have decent keyboards and screens that can be raised up/away from the base into a position appropriate for viewing without wrecking your posture/eyesight.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
For me, my desktop at home is as much about the situation than its horsepower (at a good price).
I struggle with a work/life balance. At least having a desktop means I cant access work from a laptop or handheld while at my girlfriends birthday, which I would sneak out to do(like an alcoholic sneaks out for a swig).
I sit down at my machine and play some Left 4 Dead 2, or surf the net. I can define it as recreation.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
What makes the Desktop model work is:
- ordering the parts
- interchangeability of the parts
- price of parts
- choice of parts
- longevity of parts
- upgrades are easier
- a learning tool
- pride
- fun
It used to be that when you bought a "boxy machine that sat on or under your desk" you (and usually a friend that knew way more than you) would sit down for months figuring out what parts you were going to put in. When the parts finally came, it was like a second christmas. You (and usually a friend that knew way more than you) would sit down and put all the bits into the proper places and pray you would got only one beep when it would post. Then you would set about installing all the software from floppies most of which was pulled off a BBS somewhere. When it came time to upgrade, your friend or someone your friend knew, would know someone that was in the market for a new computer or an upgrade. A deal was made, you'd get some cash or do a swap, and the whole process would start over again (Incidentally, most people that made it to this point eventually started learning something about software programming).
The *whole* process of researching/learning/building/selling a desktop is where the legacy of the Desktop comes from. You can't do all these things with a proprietary piece of locked up iCrap that needs center-pin metric torx bits to open and violates some warranty for even thinking about it. The parts in portables have very little interchangeability. Geeks love investigating where the magic smoke comes from, but portables just aren't that accessible. The knowledge factor has devolved as well; used to be everyone knew what kind of cpu, ram and video card was in their "boxy machine that sat on or under your desk", but these days the only knowledge anyone really cares to retain is what colors are available.
The Geek is what has taken flight, not the Desktop.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
"Desktop" units may go away, but our computing needs aren't going to be "enough" anytime soon. The non-portable unit is many times more capable, consequently more detail in games, more room for pictures/videos, etc. Why portable when same money will buy you a more capable home rig?
Also, in the long run, computing installments may (in part) replace the home heating systems. Think about it. Why run a 2kW dumb electrical heater when you could heat your apartment while "folding" for community benefit? Electricity is high-quality energy, converting it to low-temperature heat is wasting it.
Yo grandma, 2002 called and wanted to let you know you can do this sweet thing called "DPI scaling"
2002 also had something else to say: A lot of applications never got tested by their developers under DPI scaling, so they break in interesting ways.
I use desktop machines purely for CPU now-a-days; my time (except for data-wrangling) is spent on my laptop.
By the way, was I the only person who thought that "Flight of the Desktops" was going to involve, you know, actual desktops actually traveling through the air ? Suckered me in.
If you look at the data (Forrester Research) in the Slate article, you'll see that it's for SALES, not UNITS IN USE.
If you look at the data that way it makes sense. Laptops/netbooks/iPads have a much shorter lifecycle than a desktop PC. Heck, most of us techies are still using a desktop "PC" box we bought in the 1990's, just upgraded CPU/memory/hard-disk/power-supply wise every couple of years. In the Forrester Research stats I bet that counted as one PC sale.
OTOH while there do exist hard drive and memory upgrades for laptops, the tendency is not to replace a laptop every few years.
So yes, in terms of sales I see this trend as absoultely necessary. But sales are not units in use.
The overall trend I see, is that there will be big screens at home, and they will be hooked to a computer. That computer might be called a media center. Or a desktop.
Desktops don't have problems with them. Invariably laptops have a tiny fan spinning at maximum speed to keep the CPU cooled when under stress. It gets even worse when you try to play a game on a laptop.
Exactly what has a portable ever replaced from a desktop? Nothing I can find.
To this day, any portable that can deliver, "near" desktop power is pretty much a desktop effectively. This laptops are ridiculously expensive (so the portable factor is more from this desk to that desk; and not much for playing Crysis in the woods on a rotting tree stump while hunting deer), fans everywhere so you have to find a decent surface to place them (again, no rotting tree stump, or dusty hood of a truck at a construction site). They get too hot for your lap even if you ignore it's needs for air flow (not a good choice for the flight). Then, we connect gaming mice to them... requiring more accommodations and making them that much more semi-permanent once settled (again, the table at your seat on an airplane just won't do for this).
At this point, your laptop may not be "chained" but it is glued to your desk. At least we accept the "chained" aspect of the desktop. I've had a number of "bad ass desktop power" laptops... and the "glue" factor really becomes a massive annoyance and deterrence to portability. Even the mediocre laptops sometimes have these stupid little maintenance issues that "glue" it to a desktop or table top... heck, even finding a power outlet and having to heave that adapter around with it everywhere is a major pain. My laptops are desktops virtually. They never move, too much of a hassle to move them, they weigh too much, the brick adds a few more pounds, it's just too much to hassle at Starbucks. I'll keep my iPad for mobile movie watching and checking email and I'll keep my desktop for playing games, CAD or everything else that requires a lot of computing power.
The laptop will disappear, not the desktop.
Desktops will always have a space advantage over laptops, and thus will always be able to be more powerful than laptops. The vast majority of the driving force behind computer purchases over the last 30 years is "which one is the fastest". This means more people will still buy desktops.
"There's a star ship circling in the sky.
It ought to be ready by 1990.
They'll be building it up in the air,
ever since 1980."
The difference between Paul Kantner's Hugo nominated album (and soon to be Broadway musical) and TFA is that despite having equal veracity as predictive statements, the former was intended to be taken as a work of fiction.
I wish someone would start collecting such futurisms and create an award ceremony a la Ignobel Prize, to honor them when time punctures their balloon. They could sell tickets and use the proceeds to buy a flying car to give away as a door prize. I'm betting they could actually do that before desktops (READ: floor sitting equipment boxes that keep the desk clear) disappear.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
1. 3 monitors and over 4.6 million pixels of desktop space.
2. A full-size keyboard and mouse.
3. 3.5TB of on-board storage and I can easily add more.
4. Real gaming.
5. Ability to transcode movies and music in real-time.
6. Enough processing power to do 3D modeling.
7. Enough processing power to do serious scientific research.
8. A comfortable movie/tv watching experience.
Sorry, the iPhone, iPad, or a laptop just are not going to be able to do any of those anytime in the foreseeable future.
Many smaller shops such as currys.digital only sell laptops now, you have to go to places like PC world or online to find desktop towers.
I have a mix of laptops and one tower desktop. The tower is mostly used for games and downloading on to its bigger hard drive.
The laptops are used for causal browsing and computing. I also have an iPad that is much easier to use for browsing so I don't h ave to sit up to surf.
The desktop will exist as the SUV of computers while the others will be the minis and fiestas on the road.
i've been using laptops more and more up until this past year.
now i'm finding myself moving back to a desktop.
i can upgrade the hardware on the desktop. the laptops, you get what you get.
In the last decade, portable computers have erased many of the advantages that desktops once claimed. While desktops are very fast machines, portable computers have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency -- they're fucking SLOW!
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
If all things were equal or a relative tradeoff who wouldn't want a portable battery powered light desktop?
My problem is they are not equal for my needs (but I'm a computer minority which sucks for me in the long term future price wise) I need large multi-screens, as much processing power as I can afford, as much data retention and array of addins.
Soon laptops will be replaced by phones with docking stations.
Imagine a world where your phone acts as the processor, data storage, and videocard. You could then just plug it into a laptop-like portable dockingstation for heavy use typing / interface / port expansion.
Then we will have pointless news about how the laptop industry is quickly dying away against the IDOCK / IPUTER configuration.
Header says it all. With the attached big screen and wired internet I keep forgetting it is not a desktop. Also the profile makes it run faster when it is docked.
The article mentions the 'big drawback' of desktops, ie being 'chained' to the desk, but that drawback has existed since laptops first existed and the desktop has held on to it's position regardless. ... to a repairshop who's people will never have to look you in the eyes
And that one drawback is the only thing a laptop can claim to do better than a desktop.
The flipside of the laptop is:
increased fragility
vendor lockin
insurance
heating problems when used continuously
poor hardware customizability
if it needs repairs, the whole machine has to go, including your prön collection, credit card & social security nrs, candid pics of your husband/wife/maitresse,
increased chance of theft
45 minutes battery life when doing anything "serious" with it
But all that doesn't matter, because all these drawbacks have existed for years (contrary to what the article claims), so why would any of it lead to increase in laptop sales now?
There has to be another factor at play, the most obvious suspect would be web 2.0 content causing a rise in the numbers of casual couch surfers.
"WEB 2.0 has entered the living room" is a much more likely explanation for the rise in laptop sales.
If you look at the data that way it makes sense. Laptops/netbooks/iPads have a much shorter lifecycle than a desktop PC. Heck, most of us techies are still using a desktop "PC" box we bought in the 1990's, just upgraded CPU/memory/hard-disk/power-supply wise every couple of years. In the Forrester Research stats I bet that counted as one PC sale.
In the Forrester Research stats nerds like us don't even appear. You have to understand that the basic retail market accounts for not just the vast majority of sales, but that of installations. And one thing that ordinary people do is buy a whole new computer when theirs fails. In my living room, connected to my HDTV, there is an Athlon 64 X2 4000+-based gateway which I got with 250GB disk, a 20" 1680x1050 LCD with VGA/DVI/Component/Composite/S-Video inputs and a Microsoft Laser Desktop 4000 or something like that, which is very handy in front of the TV indeed. The cost at Wal-Mart at the time (without the $100 keyboard/mouse combo) was $750. I paid $125 or so at a garage sale because it was "broken". Brought it home, recovered the Admin password, ran system restore, and it was back to factory settings. Installed Ubuntu over the included Vista, and it became useful :)
Further, you can buy amazing amounts of machine, like quad-core 3+ GHz intel boxes with a good video card, prebuilt for about $400 if you shop around a bit. Point is that there are statistically so few of us building our own machines that we might as well not show up on the radar at all. My machine doesn't count as a desktop sale at all for obvious reasons: as you say, I built it. But even I own an actual desktop machine.
However, this also indicates that PCs becoming more reliable would reduce sales! And Windows 7 accomplishes that, at least over Windows XP, due to increased security features. I would bet that most PCs that are replaced outright instead of having them repaired are malware-infected.
OTOH while there do exist hard drive and memory upgrades for laptops, the tendency is not to replace a laptop every few years.
The tendency is to buy laptops with little CPU, and then have to replace them. This trend is however slowing since even a netbook can serve the needs of most people.
The overall trend I see, is that there will be big screens at home, and they will be hooked to a computer. That computer might be called a media center. Or a desktop.
The new generation of netbooks has the balls to push 1080p video when you figure in the GPU, and some of them even have an HDMI port. With a wireless input solution these $350-500 machines can handle doing everything the typical user will want to do for years. So I definitely see the desktop waning. It's not going away, but it certainly will be reduced in number. The place it really seems to be sticking around is the corporate desktop, where thin clients have mostly failed to fulfill their promises.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One still pays a hefty premium for a given level of performance in a laptop versus a desktop; and size constraints of a laptop make cooling far more of a problem.
And to what extent is one's laptop really portable if its lack of decent-sized keyboard and adequate screen real estate blown off with "that's what docking stations are for"? That would be as if radios in cars had lousy antennas and poor speakers, but you could connect to outside antennas and speakers only available at home and at your destination.
This, friends, is why we shouldn't get our software developed in a third-world country like India. They can't even consistently power the computers they're using to fuck up our software.
Our software was already fucked up before the "Event" (aka "offshoring") - the trend some of our own incompetent software force dreads. I would agree with your sentiment so long as there is agreement this country has been equally incompetent in writing software (15 years of watching *and fixing* some of the most atrocious code *here*, even in supposedly *good* development shops tells me so.)
Otherwise, your post reeks like a steaming pile of crap dropped from a position of false technology&quality confidence.
I read all the responses here and I think, "so that's why it's 18% and not 0%". Yes the slashdot developer crowd will keep their big monitors, but the rest of the world, that only needs an occasional glance at a monitor screen, doesn't need that expense or inconvenience.
(...you insensitive clod!)
But really, a notebook could be nothing like a desktop without becoming all but useless as a portable PC. You can't put 2 terabytes of storage into a notebook, particularly if you want an SSD.
As cheap as computers are becoming, getting one of each has its advantages.
When asked why, he said, "because there isn't room for eight."
No, the desktop isn't going away.
I piss off bigots.
I have one of Dells XPS M1730 laptops. It was purchased in the final few weeks of production before Dell stopped competeing with itself (Alienware) and I ordered it as tricked out as possible. SLI, 8GB, BluRay, etc. Its the machine I take if going away for the weekend and is powerful enough for anyting I need, including modern games.
When at home, I have a 24" LCD, Razor mouse, and nice keyboard attached to it. I was getting tired of building a killer rig every year and it was getting damn expensive, especially when slot form factors would change, PCI, AGP, PCIe, etc.
I have 4 other desktops, 2 Dell notebooks, and 1 netbook in the house (3 teenagers). The desktops get the most use when the kids are home and they take the portables to school with them. None of these are high end, just run of the mill stuff, 2 years old or so.
I tried the netbook but hated it. For the rare occassion I really needed a mobile device, my Bold 9700 is "good enough" for directions, or what have you.
Lately I've been ordering fairly high end Dell workstations for the people at work because the lower priced stuff is, well, crap. We have about 30 workstations and only the senior management get laptops which they barely use anyway. Blackberrys are "enough" for most of them.
I think the upswing in laptop sales is mainly due to price. Its come down so far that $500.00 buys a 16" laptop that for the majority of users is more than adequate.
It's looking mighty bleak for cubicles too. Unlike mobile pieces of paper which can be written on pressed against the wall while standing in the hallway, a cubicle just takes up room and chains people to one place where their managers can easily sneak up on them.
Projections indicate that by 2015, just 18% of white collar workers will have cubicles while the others will lurch aimlessly about the building, filling TPS forms while sitting on the floor of the lobby using each others' backs for support.
Replace that with "where managers can do their supervisory job" and it will be more accurate.
no 80+ hour work weeks did that look at EA games and that is way alot of code is crap.
I and most of the people I know like to sit in a comfortable chair in the living room to do my recreational computing. I have a desktop and a desk chair for work at work. My personal desktop sits lonely in my disused office with Windows 2000 and Ubuntu 6.10 waiting for the day I will boot it again. I believe this has to do with the social aspect, because most of my friends are married or at least in a long term committed relationship. Sitting at a desk, even side by side, is not the same as sitting on a couch together.
I think this can be boiled down to a few points -
1) laptops are now cost competitive with any desktop pc
2) laptops are, in general, performance competive w/ deskops for most tasks
3) almost everyone has a pc/desktop available to them at work
4) a large percentage of work pc's have outside internet access.
5) 3+4 above allow people to do much of what they used to do at home on their own deskop on the corporate dime
6) 5 above combined with attributes of 1 and 2 and portability make it more likely a home user will chose a laptop for their remaining needs.
Even so, there will always be a group who are not willing to accept the ergonomic and possible performance downsides of the laptop
"The only chance of beating my desktop a mobile device would have is when it's equally priced, transportable, but can be quickly and easily "docked" in so I can use my real screens, keyboard, mouse and speakers." -
I'm with you, & I'm going to "expand" on what you've noted (which imo, IS in favor of desktops over laptops/mobile units) - So, I figure it this way, from a performance perspective (mostly):
I have YET to see a laptop (or other mobile device) have:
---
1.) Disks that are as quick in response as desktops possess, and, for BOTH reads &/or writes (this is where FLASH "SSD's" (I think of them as 'non-"True SSD's"' because of this, especially vs. units that are based off DDR2 such as the Gigabyte IRAM) are not as good as performers in the latter area, & work I do is often largely based off of File I/O is why)).
Sure, the advent of the FLASH RAM based "SSD" helps READ SPEEDS a great deal on laptops (& yes, most folks do far more reading than writing on a PC), but not the writes (even w/ tricks like delayed-write caches), are still slower, and when a laptop uses std. mechanical disks? I am not aware of it, but I have never seen a laptop with a 10k-15k HDD in them (heck, even 7,200 rpm disks are a RARITY in them, & going from a 10-15k HDD down to say, a 5400rpm HDD?? HUGE "World of Difference" in responsiveness exists & once you get used to it? You have TROUBLE, @ least I do, "going back" to slower ones (disks are a HUGE performance booster is why, & speeding up the SLOWEST PART OF A PC, yields HUGE performance gains imo @ least)).
2.) Video speeds - when I want more here? I sell off the vidcard I am going to update/upgrade to a faster one to offset the costs of a newer/faster vidcard, & then pop in the new one + its drivers & I am "off to the races"... I can't do this on laptops, as they usually possess integrated onboard mobo video... you're "stuck", in other words!
Point #2 above really tends to lead to this part as well that's in favor of desktop units also - Upgradeability!
3.) AFFORDABLE UPGRADEABILILTY: I.E./E.G.-> I also have yet to see a laptop computer be able to be as upgraded as easily as desktops are or can be rather... yes, a few of you may state things about "the upgrade trap", but when you can "boost" your performance via a fraction of the cost of a BRAND-NEW laptop system (which is the usual course most folks will have to take when updating a laptop, for performance purposes, & especially in the areas of disk OR video (especially this latter one))?
(This 3rd part really speaks for itself!)
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Well, that's my take on "laptops/mobile devices" vs. desktop personal computers... upgradeability, overall ease of use (other than being mobile) with peripherals I even like better (mainly keyboards here imo @ least), & more cost-effective means of maintenance & updateability for more performance IF/WHEN desired on the part of the user/owner is possible on desktop PC's...
Sure, you can "pop in" more RAM into a laptop, or even a newer/faster CPU, but when it comes to the OTHER parts (disk &/or video especially)? It's NOT always as easy to do, if @ all for many people, and you don't have as much potential for it... or, ease of doing so either. Closest you'll get to 10-15k RPM diskdrive performance on a laptop is to use an external disk perhaps, but that's not the same & your OS will be booting from the slower internal HDD's (or even FLASH, slower on writes again, mind you) in them anyhow.
(Plus, in the end? A computer's more than just "CPU &/or RAM" only... it's overall performance IS "greater than merely the sum of its parts" & they ALL act in concert for performance, inclusive of disks &/or video also! Especially in disks... when you speed up the traditionally SLOWEST part of a PC, in disks?? You see HUGE performance gains that are tremendously apparent!)
APK
P.S.=> I know that "PC Perfo
Portable devices barely even come close to the performance of a desktop computer. Ram is very limited in portable computers, so is hard disk, and processing speed... and battery life, and screen size.
Its just dumb. Stop. The desktop is here to stay. I work on them all the time, and theres no way I could use a laptop to do 3D animation, or photography, or browse the web as easily etc. Did i mention gaming???????????????!
These death of desktop stories are ridiculous.
It's not just laptops that are taking away the advantages of desktops, but all the accessories and appliances are making a bigger difference... ./) and community servers.
- Are you a gamer? Try an XBox, wii, etc
- Do you need a full sized keyboard and monitor? Get a docking station.
- Need a library of removable media? Online storage and memory cards mean you no longer need space for a big library.
- Need a printer, get a networked one
- Need a network connection? wireless
- Need an extra hard drive? We finally have cheap NAS boxes
- Like downloading stuff? Cheap NAS boxes can do unattended downloads
- Need a media server? We have unattended ones.
- Want to publish something? There are many many forums (like
- Want your own website? Renting space is cheap enough that it's almost always a better idea.
One thing missing is an easy "cloud" appliance running VMs, and anyone who knows they need one can easily build one themselves. I just need one of those and another laptop or two, and I'll be very happy with my network services.
Ok, maybe we also need ISP routers to start coming with VPNs but that's not something people generally realize they need until they get it.
seems to me most people buy laptops because they think that's what they need. Then they just sit on their desk all day every day. People also don't seem to get (As this bit shows) that you don't have to put your desktop on your desk. I have one in my bedroom as a media center machine but also do all kinds of work on it while laying in bed (Monitor arms are great). The machine cost me far less than a laptop and I can fix it if it breaks.
While laptops can to one degree or another be upraded they really lack the flexibility of a decent desktop case... Your computing needs change and you've got a cheep laptop its throw away and buy a new laptop, with a desktop you can upgrade alot easier the bits you need.
My desktop case is 5 years old, the cpu / motherboard 8 months, the 'main' drivers 10 months, the slower storage drivers god knows - couple of old ide drives I keep moving, the power supply 3 months old, graphics card 6 months. If I'd gone laptop route that would probably equate to two or three new laptops in the same period. So 3 laptop sales for probably 0 PC sales as I've only picked up components since I first built a PC.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
More and more schools require students to have laptops.
There's your "explosion"...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Has anyone considered the other possible reasons for larger sales of laptops? First, laptops tend to wear/break more than desktops (as they are being carried around), leading to more replacements needed. Second, laptops tend to be peoples' personal computers, and desktops are often the computers of their employers. Employer owned desktops get upgraded far less than personal computers. I know this is definitely a fact at my workplace, where many of the computers are several years old. Just because desktops compromise less than half the market, it doesn't mean that they are used less/ultimately doomed. When working long hours on a computer, it is far preferable to have a desktop, and that will probably never change. Even if there are more laptops purchased, I'm sure people spend more time on their desktops, especially work time.
For those of us that can actually use the speed, having a desktop is all benefit and no drawback. I don't want to lug a laptop back and forth to work every day and risk the Drive of Shame by forgetting it, or worse, lose or drop it. What about when I work in the office? That's what subversion is for. Yeah a laptop has its uses, but these in large part are now better served by smaller devices. When my old one dies, I'm not replacing it.
From the structure of that sentence, I assume that you work 80 hour weeks?
desktops have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency -- they're chained to your desk
If it's not chained to your desk, then it is not -- by definition -- a desktop.
Newer versions of Displayport can run just about anything over one cable. Multiple displays plus an auxiliary channel that can be used for USB or other peripherals. Sounds like just the docking solution you're looking for.
Really? Again with the "desktop dead" speech? Haven't I heard this in 2006, 2007 and 2009? Does this guy really need to redo the same article we've been hearing for 4 years?
Author claims 2009 was the first year laptop sales surpassed desktop, but they were saying the same thing in 2008 and 2009.
The "desktop dead" story is dead, stop beating a dead horse.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Welcome to the year 2010!
We now have common USB peripherals, and even docking stations!
If you can make back to the early 90s be sure to sell all of your IBM stock, take a second mortgage on your house and buy up all of the Microsoft stock you can, also this coffee shop company out of Seattle, I know it sounds ridiculous, but trust me...
Oh, and sell it all and buy Gold in late 99, trust me..
"My desktop has dual six-core Xeons, an internal SAS RAID array, two dedicated video cards and three widescreen 24" monitors. No laptop can match that, ergo, desktops are the future!"
Meanwhile 90% of the population walks into Best Buy, sees a $600 desktop with a Core i3 and integrated graphics, and a $700 laptop with about the same specs, shrugs, and buys the laptop.
Or we just grew up.
Seriously, I used to do that crap. Spend 2 months trying to find parts that all played nicely with one another and were reasonably priced. Ordering from 3 different vendors online. Spending half a day putting it together, and hoping you didn't accidentally ESD damage something on the way. Spending another day setting up Windows or Linux the way you wanted it.
Then, 6 months later, spending half a day figuring out which part just went bad, where the reciepts were, and which parts to RMA first. Being out of commission (or using the older box in the corner) for a week or two until the parts came back. Upgrading little bits at at time, till you hit the upgrade cycle where everything had to go at once anyway: new processor needs new MB. New MB needs new RAM and power supply. May as well upgrade to SATA while I'm at it.
Then, we grew up, got real jobs, and had better things to do with our time than babysit hardware on an upgrade treadmill. So I started buying Macs. If something breaks, it's 20 minutes to drop it off at the local Apple store and let them deal with it. No chasing down half a dozen dodgy Taiwanese companies, half of which are out of business now. The hardware and the software works, and I get reasonable lifetimes out of it. The MBP I'm typing this on is pushing four years, and other than a couple replacement batteries (which Apple replaced for free, the second one out of warranty) and adding another stick of RAM last week, still holds up as my daily workstation in the office and at home.
Sure, I'll replace it eventually, but I don't need to tinker with something that just works every six months just to be on the bleeding edge anymore, and I don't need to replace every part in a computer three times because I can. I can pick something off the shelf, use it for 3-4 years, and then trade up to something where every part has been improved substantially in the meantime.
This
Tell ya what I want, a good smartphone that is built on purpose to snap into a netbook (as in integrated by the manufacturer, no kludge, a smooth good design), or snap into a docking station at home. Phones are powerful enough now for everything except extreme gaming, and seeing as how I don't game, that means they are powerful enough. Your home "desktop" is just a bigger screen and full sized keyboard, and an optical drive and NAS. Out and about, you carry it by itself or snapped into a netbook or laptop. When you upgrade your phone every 2-3 years, your two other "computers" are automagically upgraded as well. Added bonus, you now have two screens with your laptop and desktop by default, if you design it so the phone screen is right there visible however it fits into the docks.
With cloud computing and the massive proliferation of the Internet, and wireless networking, it seems we're moving back to the old terminal/server model for computing, albeit on a larger scale. If all your apps are run in a web browser, there's no need for high powered hardware, thereby making it less expensive for the end user. The only advantage desktops ever had was higher power than your average laptop, and less expensive. That's changed quite a bit in the last couple of years, and now you can buy a $300 laptop that is perfectly adequate for doing what most users use their computers for. About the only thing desktops are really good for anymore is high powered gaming rigs. And eventually even that is going to change. I fear the desktop is going to go the way of the old landline wall telephone. Some people will hold onto them, but by and large the population is going to all end up with laptops and netbooks.
I am big. I have carried large amounts of weight into the wilds (like 50 lbs pack up a mountain at 1000 feet per hour climb rate).
However, I detest looking like I'm on an expedition when I go to work or non-wilderness travel. I use a 12" Thinkpad X200 that weighs about 3 lbs, and I even avoided the larger battery because it makes it more bulky. It can disappear into a padded pocket on my little day pack when I travel, and sits at home for casual email and light work duty. I have a massive workstation at work, and don't even bring my 3 lbs laptop unless I have extended meetings on the calendar. I prefer not to have any bags when I commute by car, and I prefer to limit my backpack to a change of clothes when I bike to work.
I don't travel as much as some folks, but I have racked up about 500k flight miles and have a very refined idea of how to minimize my own stress through airports, taxis, etc. both domestic and international. I will embark on month-long international trips for work or pleasure with a small roll-aboard style suitcase (a bag I usually check) and a little day pack (which is always carry-on). If I am going somewhere with extreme weather changes, I will even unzip the expansion gusset on the little roll-aboard, so I can pack warmer clothes.
And when I want to upgrade my processor...
Sorry man, but almost no-one does that anymore, not even with desktops. Yes there are still some but you have to admit that practice is declining. At this point you get a few more cores - maybe - and possibly an incremental boost in clock. For what? A 10% gain?
I used to be on that ferris wheel but I got off long ago when consoles started being a decent gaming alternative. I still play some things on the computer, but I'm way more into the practicality of a system and not tweaking to the nth degree.
Laptops these days are powerful enough to serve even as halfway decent gaming systems. I generally keep them about three to four years before upgrading, and that strategy has worked out very well.
In some ways laptops are better than they used to be too, because laptops used to be a bitch to get into but now a lot of laptops offer somewhat easy paths to change out RAM and your HD, and those are the things people upgrade anymore if anything.
Laptops are too expensive to use as a regular computer
I found desktop systems to be hellishly time consuming to maintain, laptops simply do not need as much fiddling with. The time savings alone is a huge boost.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just like an AC!
"It's not possible to drive my MASSIVE 1080P monitor from a laptop"
"Oh actually Macbook Pros have been able to do that for a few years now"
"Your Macbook Pro is too expensive! Never mind it can do what I said it can't Never mind I am comparing the cost of a giant honking desktop to a portable system. I'm still right dammit!"
BTW, one of the reasons why we buy the systems "that cost way too much" is exactly so that we can drive things like external 30" monitors (with far more resolution than you are driving) and still have a portable system.
It doesn't cost too much if it does what you need and you can afford it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
amen, brother. I just did the same, thing and got a MBP i7 . Saves space, more powerful than my previous desktops. keep for 3-4 years and then reassess my options.
Personally, I find this trend sad. I like desktops, and I absolutely hate laptops for a variety of reasons:
1) Small displays (17" is the smallest I consider acceptable, and at that size the laptop is fairly cumbersome to carry around)
2) Flat keyboards - I just hate those. No real reason, I just do. Yuck.
3) They are definitely not ergonomic.
4) Far lower performance than desktops.
If I needed to, I could probably come up with more reasons, but these are the main ones. And I like desktops. Very much. I hope they keep existing for all my life, so I can keep using them...
while desktops have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency — they're chained to your desk
In other news, boats have been unable to shake their one glaring deficiency of requiring water, nor have airplanes been able to eliminate their dependency on wings.
I don't know if the article is worth reading as the summary was retarded enough to make me shrug my shoulders in apathy at another pointless /. submission.
Slashdot seems to be less "news for nerds" and more "idiotic summaries of shitty articles".
laptop -> iPad
This is the link that worries me. I don't necessarily want a third party to censor applications. For example, I'm a programmer, and I won't replace a laptop that can run programming tools with an iPad that can't because programming tools are censored. So I'll stick with my Dell Mini, which is fast enough at compiling as long as it isn't C++ template-hell.
the console is just a computer packaged in a way to optimize the overall game experience from installation to playing it
The console is not optimized for people who want to express themselves through the creation of games. There are some publicly available game-making tools targeting consoles (RPG Maker 2, LittleBigPlanet, WarioWare DIY, and to a lesser extent level editors in Tony Hawk series and Super Smash Bros. Brawl), but these are A. substantially limited in scope, and B. few and far between.
But the desktop has uses that these devices can't address well - compiling code
The laptop can compile code. The locked-down appliance can't.
"It remains to be seen if the Macbook Wheel will catch on in the business world, where people use computers for actual work, and not just dicking around" -The Onion
Had one of our old family PCs die a few months ago and needed to replace the machine (for school use) very quickly. There was little choice in desktop models at local retailers and most of these machines were priced at or above comparably equipped laptops. I'm used to being able to buy a decently-equipped tower cheaply. Those days seem to be gone, at least for the big-box and mall stores.
There, instead of the wall of towers and monitors you saw a few years ago, you'll see laptops, netbooks and monitors. My choice was pretty simple for this replacement machine, especially since I couldn't wait for parts to come in the mail. We now have a shiny new laptop in the house and one more empty desk!
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
Producers = Desktop
Consumers = Everything Else
When laptops match or beat desktops in performance for price, then we'll have something to worry about.
It's funny how everyone talks about longevity and upgrades. My last full desktop machine was an AMD Athlon 64, it was a fabulous machine but within a few years of purchasing it AMD had a slew of new multi-core processors available... unfortunately they required the new AM2 socket and not my legacy 939 socket.
Bummer. After maxing out the RAM at 4GB there wasn't a lot more I could do. The caps on my video board blew up at one point, so I upgraded to a snazzy new board but it never did much for my Compiz effects or any of my Windows gameplay for that matter. I did add a hard drive to it, but between Firewire, USB 3 and eSATA this is something you can do now pretty easily on a laptop.
I've gone through this same experience a few times before, usually the upgrade path ends up getting thwarted by a new memory format / speed, CPU socket changes, or new card slot formats that obsoletes everything you've got. Sometimes there are things you can keep, with hard drives typically being on that list, but there are always improvements in capacity / performance that virtually warrants the new disk.
At this point, my expectation is that every system upgrade will require a new system. So... why not just buy a laptop? It provides the added benefit of being portable. For casual computing, I'll probably start looking at a tablet (slate) PC once the selection of systems matures.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
I have a HP Mini 311, yes, an Atom, but with a ION chipset, 3GB of DDR3 max, it can nicely play 1080p videos or play 3D games in low/medium settings.
Display is a 11.6" in 1366x768, battery last almost 5 hours, no CD/DVD but i never used them anyway, I have a DVD burner on my desktop PC to backup personal pictures/movies. But on a laptop? I never used it.
The 11.6" form factor is way better than the 10" netbook that are in 1024x600.
Also the Atom can be o/c to 2.2GHz easily and the ION GPU can be o/c too, which brings you a very powerful netbook the size of a letter paper!
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Same here, except I went with Thinkpads. On-Site repair service is a godsend...
THE BOTTOM LINE: I have a budget and I will definitely place the priority WEIGHT on THE COMPUTE MIPS/$ CRITERIA. If it happens that there are cheaper laptops with a higher MIPS/$ value without any sacrifice in terms of digital freedoms than desktops, then I will possibly consider it.
EXAMPLE RESTRICTIONS ON DIGITAL FREEDOMS:
1)USING LINUX TO CONNECT TO YOUR PHONE, YOU'RE DIGITALLY RESTRICTED: Portable devices are slower, and increasingly restrict your digital freedoms. I've also been disappointed by a recent purchase of my Motorola Milestone. Motorola Milestone support for (Ubuntu) Linux directly from Motorola is nonexistent, if not superficial. I can't connect to the Motorola Milestone from Ubuntu 9.10 with the USB cable and mount it as I do with an mp3 player or a camera. BITPIM, GAMMU, and moto4lin(unofficial 3rd party) don't connect. What's up with that? Where is the digital freedom with that? Now I have to resort into buying an SDCARD reader to mount my sdcard and not my phone! That's crazy!
2)USING ANDROID AND WANT TO BUY SOME APP IN ANDROID MARKET, YOU'RE DIGITALLY RESTRICTED: Being in China, I also have other disappointments with respect to digital freedoms. I am discovering I can't buy any android apps through the market because the Android Market app is blocked in China. I don't care the reasons, but I do perceive inequality in terms of digital freedoms when I experience situations like this. I perceive it as false advertising on the behalf of cellphone vendors in China for selling any Android phone without access to the Android Market for buying non-free apps. I DON'T PERCEIVE HAVING TO PURCHASE A VPN SUBSCRIPTION IN ORDER TO JUMP OVER THIS CONSTRAINT AS AN ALTERNATIVE. It was never perceived as part of the up-front cost of using the phone normally. Normal users shouldn't need to use a VPN! I consider Chinese users as normal users. THE ANDROID MARKET SHOULD PROVIDE THE VPN PATH considering the normal users want to buy some apps no matter how low the cost of the app.
MY DESKTOP VS THE MOTOROLA MILESTONE: MY DESKTOP WINS! DIGITALLY FREE! FASTER! NO PLEASE CHARGE BATTERY NOTICES! I CAN INSTALL WHATEVER HARDWARE/SOFTWARE i WANT WHEN I WANT!
WILL I BUY ANOTHER DESKTOP? YES
WILL I BUY ANOTHER PHONE? YES, BUT NOT FOR A LONG WHILE BECAUSE THIS ONE COST AN ARM AND A LEG.
Where do you get 5" 1024x768 monitors?
From the same company that makes the "retina display" for the iPhone.
This is all well and good, but what about PCs as gaming machines?
Every year for the past ten years, some hack has popped up to claim that this year will be the year of the mobile revolution, where gaming laptops will become cost-effective enough to warrant buying one and keeping it as a replacement for a desktop gaming PC. It never happened. Why?
1. PC gamers tend to like to tinker with their PCs - not just with the OS, but with the hardware. You can't realistically overclock a mobile GPU, and you can't upgrade properly (save for CPU, memory and hard drives) without investing huge sums of money. I built my gaming PC in 2007. It's seen a few hardware updates in the past couple of years, not least my ATI HD 4890 and my Bluray drive - neither of which would have been upgradable in a laptop.
2. You cannot get the GPU performance from a high-end graphics card on a laptop. High-end video cards simply require too much ventilation and too much power to really be realistic in a laptop. There are "high-end" laptops with reasonable GPU performance, but who pays out €2000 for a gaming machine.
3. Purchasing a laptop with comparable performance to a specific desktop machine will usually be at least 50% more expensive.
PC gaming is perhaps the most prominent example of why laptops still don't fulfil all the needs of the PC user. Laptops only offer more advantages to those often on the move or who like to move around in their home or office, and only then if they are performing simple tasks such as word processing or web browsing. For anyone who is dependent on CPU or GPU performance, nothing beats a desktop for cost-effectiveness. I have a dual-boot laptop (XP and Ubuntu 10.04) and a tri-boot desktop (XP, Vista, Ubuntu 9.10), and the desktop gets a surprising amount of use because the laptop is simply too underpowered for many tasks. In fact, I even have to do some translations on the desktop because the CAT software is fairly CPU intensive with larger projects - who'd have thought that? The only advantage my laptop offers is the mobility, and that means that the laptop will be replaced by a netbook as soon as it kicks the bucket.
I intend to buy a high-end desktop. Please advice me.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga