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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."
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.
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.
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.
I think people who are comfortable with one or the other won't necessarily understand the other sides' attachment to their equipment of choice.
I can't stand working on a laptop unless I happen to be "on the move", and then only for short periods. A docking station would help to some degree, so I do understand your point there.
I can replace parts in my desktops, I prefer the full size keyboard and a useful mouse. The GPUs are superior to anything available in a laptop.
In the end, it's just a preference.
I also prefer desktops, but where I am from, (India), we do have power cuts quite often. Since there is no battery, it means that a UPS is a necessity. Also, here, most desktops do not sell with wireless adaptor - which means I have to buy the wireless adaptor separately.
Now, considering all those, the price difference does not match up - and most UPS can carry 20 minutes worth of power, so compared to my laptop (4-5 hours battery on average), it does not even come close.
I would guess that in India, one of the major reasons people shy away from desktops is because of these factors - many friends who moved from desktop to laptop - is because of this. Most have a desktop setup though - with multiple monitors and keyboard, and they dock their laptop to it.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
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.
Heck a better future form factor would be a small portable computer whose display outputs feed directly to your brain's auxiliary inputs. And it's main input comes from some device that reads your brain patterns. No physical display, keyboard or mouse (but it may have the connectors for those if necessary).
:).
;).
That way you can just think (stuff between < > are your own personal thought macros/patterns that you've trained your auxbrain to recognize):
<start><recall><object's pattern><do it><recall><another object's pattern><do it><end> followed by normal thought stream that's ignored by the computer.
Of course if you only want to recall one object quickly you'd use:
<start><recall><object's pattern><do it and end>
The object could be a picture, audio, video, file, etc or even the computer's representation of a stream/group of thought patterns (based on what it reads from the sensor).
As a result we might still have desktop computers since they would still be way more powerful, but notebooks, laptops and PDAs could vanish
Of course the **AA would want DRM built in, so certain things might have limited recall
I noticed I got single bit errors during big copies (about 1 bit error / 100 GB copied). I could not find the cause, and I could only conclude the data being transferred was damaged in memory before being stored again to an error correcting medium (harddisk). The busses used for the transfers also use CRC/ECC so I don't think they could cause it.
The problem was reproduceable (and different every time). Memory checks resulted in nothing.
Since then I always verify the big copies. After upgrading to ECC RAM, I haven't seen anymore verify errors.
Whether I had bad RAM, or some other problem, I don't know. I do know that the price difference between a regular system and one that can support ECC RAM is very small.