Sales Of PCs, Laptops, Tablets Continue to Fall, Hit Lowest Point Since 2011 (canalys.com)

According to the latest numbers provided by marketing research firm Canalys, the shipments of PC devices -- which includes desktops, notebooks, all-in-ones, two-in-ones, and tablets -- amounted to 101 million units in the first quarter of 2016. The number underscores a 13% decline from the same period a year ago, and it is also the lowest volume since the second quarter of 2011. Apple led the chart among PC OEMs, moving 14 million units (suffering 17% fall), followed by Chinese conglomerate Lenovo. HP assumed the third position, with Dell and Samsung closely following it. Tim Coulling, Canalys Senior Analyst said in a press statement: The global PC market had a bad start to 2016 and it is difficult to see any bright spots for vendors in the coming quarters. The tablet boom has faded in the distance and the market is fully mature. Global shipments declines are expected to continue unless vendors bring transformational innovation to the market. Apple and Microsoft are propping up shipments in established markets with their detachables, but price points make them less affordable in low-income countries. Although other vendors are coming to market with cheaper alternatives, they are unlikely to have a big impact on volumes in the short term. The number of people looking to buy their first PC is at an all-time low and 2016 is likely to bring yet more turmoil to global PC vendors.

Comments

Saddled with Windows 10

[QuietLagoon]

Why buy a PC when it is saddled with the data harvesting of Windows 10? I do not want Microsoft to be monitoring me and my family via Windows 10.

Re:Saddled with Windows 10

[Tablizer]

I do not want Microsoft to be monitoring me and my family

Yeah, that's Google's job!

Re: Saddled with Windows 10

[saloomy]

I still use my MacBook Pro Mid-2012. Because it was not upgradable I purchased it with at the time 768GB of Solid State Disk, 16GB of Ram, and the higher end graphics options. It still runs El Capitan really well, and aside from generational CPU differences, there is nothing that makes me look at a 2015 MacBook Pro and makes me think it's worth me parting with $2500. There isn't the ability to add more ram that 16GB (which I use primarily for running various VMs I work on to develop), more internal storage (which is leaps and bounds more than 640k, which honestly should be enough for any body), and has the same display and form factor as the current one does. The battery has recently asked to be serviced, and it came in at 5:30 hours of Netflix at full display, still enough for me since I have multiple chargers and Displays as docks. There is nothing today that makes me think I want a newer one.
What I would like to see is a MacBook Pro that has thunderbolt 3, a 4K display, MAYBE MAYBE a keyboard from the new MacBook, which I have tried but I'm still undecided on, and an A10 or A11 coprocessor for running apps on a low power mode sparing the big hunking desktop-class skylake CPU. 64GB of ram as a max would be nice, as would 2TB SSDs. I don't need it thinner, as I can comfortably tote this one around now as is. Just give me as much battery as can be.

Re:Saddled with Windows 10

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You can't chalk all of it up to Microsoft fear/hate, certainly, but that might be one factor.

One of my own small businesses is a clear example. We would have bought a handful of new laptops and desktop workstations for various people at least 2-3 years ago, but the usual complaints about Windows 8 put us off and we were waiting for 10 to fix the problems. Since 10 is a complete non-starter for that business because of the privacy and robustness concerns (dealing with potentially sensitive information = instant compliance violations if we can't fully control our equipment) we're still making do with 5+ year old machines.

That's increasingly painful, because we're talking about laptops that now have sub-2 hour battery life if they're not plugged in, several machines that have small, spinning disk storage, and so on. We would drop thousands on new PC hardware in a heartbeat, if someone would just give us anything close to what we actually need, which is basically modern hardware + Windows 7 + a couple of the updates that newer Windows versions do offer to support that modern hardware (USB3, hi-res screens, etc.).

That doesn't surprise me

[damn_registrars]

We really haven't had a lot of advancement in consumer PCs for consumers to get excited about. It was easy to get consumers to want to upgrade in years past but what do they need now? They have the monitor they want, they have enough storage, and their applications all run well. We were able to previously sell them on "new is better" but now the best we can do is sell them on "replace instead of repair". We used to be selling PCs to people who want to run the latest game or the newest office suite. Now most PC time is spent on facebook, which doesn't require much more than the fanciest version of solitaire.

Moores law is done?

[SmaryJerry]

I haven't upgraded in 5 years because for building the same price computer I can only get a CPU twice as fast and a graphics card 3 times as fast as 5 years ago. It is a far cry from doubling every single year. It just isn't worth it to upgrade quickly anymore.

Re:Moores law is done?

[MitchDev]

When the OS starts costing more than the CPU....

Unless...

[MitchDev]

...you are a hardcore gamer or a business needed lots of power, there is no real reason for regular or average computer users to upgrade constantly.

Windows is an awful mess and people are tired of the constant upgrades and changing featuresets/UIs. The computer you bought 3-5 years ago, barring mechanical failure still meets or exceeds your needs for the most part, so why waste the money?

Computers are too common, so the "WOW" factor that tells folks to buy a new one all the time just isn't there. Tablets/Smartphones are starting to hid the same skid.

Re:Unless...

[jawtheshark]

I'll image the Windows 7 installation I currently have and move that over to the new system.

Doing this naively is going to fail. Assuming this is a full retail version, because technically you're not allowed to do what you want on a OEM or SystemBuilder version. "Techncially". So I am assuming a full retail version of 7.

What you want is using sysprep to generalize your system before moving the disk/image:

sysprep.exe /generalize /shutdown

When it's done with that, image and/or move the disk. You *will* have to activate.

Good luck

Spent $700 On Phone

[zenlessyank]

Can't afford PC, laptop, or tablet.

Not a difficult problem to solve

[geek]

The industry just needs to get off its laurels and stop pushing cloud. Since everything is going web application, there is little reason to have a beefy desktop system. The software vendors are pushing leased software that's cloud based, meaning the money hardware vendors would have made is now being spent monthly/annually by the software/cloud vendors.

If the hardware industry decided to standardize and actually push a free OS like Linux and tout the advantages to owning your own data, they would be back in business. Its wishful thinking and the hardware industry as a whole has never been very good about acting in their own best interest, preferring to suck the dick of their sugar daddy Microsoft but we could hope.