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Tablet Shipments Decline For 13th Straight Quarter (venturebeat.com)
The tablet market has now declined year-over-year for 13 quarters straight. From a report: Q4 2017 saw a 7.9 percent year-over-year decline: 49.6 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 53.8 million units in the same quarter last year. The only silver lining is that declines for 2017 haven't been in the double-digits, like they were in 2016.
I remember the days when ./ headlines told me the PC was on the way out as tablets were the new thing to replace them. I remember getting modded as a Troll when I posted that PCs weren't going anywhere because tablets were a solution in search of a problem. Those were the days.
What are they qualifying as a tablet? I didn't see any mention of the Microsoft Surface line so I'm assuming Android/iPad. One of the reasons for the decline is Windows tablets are getting good enough to replace traditional laptops negating the need for a laptop for work and an additional tablet for lighter activities. I suspect Chromebooks are also eroding the tablet space at the low end for those who need a keyboard. I have stopped using all my tablets since acquiring a 10" Windows tablet a few years ago. I was shocked (not really) when Apple finally released the iPad Pro and gimped it with iOS.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
That is exactly the problem.
My last tablet broke, and I am looking for a replacement: HiDPI screen, 9" or 10", light enough to hold, contemporary amount of RAM (4GB or more).
And where are all those tablets? There is the obscenely expensive Pixel C has been discontinued., and the only slightly less expensive Galaxy Tab S3 does not provide a proper Android experience. Amazon also discontinued the HDX, which never provided a great Android experience. Only cheap Android tablets are left on the market.
I'm sure there's a bunch of reasons that tablet sales have been declining in recent years. Here's some of the ones I can think of:
* A tablet with a decent spec can be pricey (not as mad as the high-end phone market though!).
* There's been a move away from widescreen to 4:3 with Android tablets for absolutely no good reason (don't quote the iPad to me - that's got it wrong all these years!). Since a tablet is primarily a media consumption device, the aspect ratio has to be close to common video aspect ratios (so 16:9 and 16:10 are fine, 4:3 most definitely is not). It's put me (and I suspect many others) right off buying recent tablets.
* People don't have SIM contracts with tablets as a rule, so they don't need to go into that "replace every 1-2 years" cycle that contracrts tend to suck you into.
I've got a Nexus 7 and 10, but refused to buy the Nexus 9 (too expensive, 4:3). I've got a Samsung S 8.4" and 10.5", but refused to buy *any* of the S2 or S3 variants (again, too expensive, 4:3). Eventually found a 10" tablet released last year that a) was cheap (under $250), b) had decent specs and c) was 16:10. It's the Teclast T10 - had to be bought from a Chinese site, but it's a sweet tablet for the price.
The currently available tablets have pretty well plateaued (if not regressed in some cases!) in terms of specs and prices - it's no wonder people are hanging onto their existing tablets for longer. As for some posters dissing tablets - I *much* prefer to use a 10" tablet screen than one half the diagonal on a phone. Just the onscreen keyboard alone is so much better on a tablet, never mind reading Web sites or watching videos.
It went down by the amount that tablets went up. When that stopped, it stopped too.
The truly fucked-up thing is, that to the economists, everything that looks like a stable healthy balance ... the thing that means the ideal state long-term survival in nature ... is called "stagnation" and considered a "bad" thing and the first step to "recession" (which is considered a catastrophe). While exponential growth ... the thing that, by definition, cannot be sustained indefinitely, and is only found things that guarantee death, like pathogens and literal explosions ... is considered the must-have normal/ideal state.
ONLY a "stagnating" market is surviving one.
a 10" tablet is quite silly.
A 10" tablet is actually too damn small for what I want one for.
Why don't they make one (for a reasonable price) that can show a 8.5x11 sheet of paper full size since most of the forms and stuff that you deal with physically is, guess what, 8.5x11.
I've tried using a tablet for my sheet music and the concept is cool (especially with a bluetooth page turning pedal) but the screen is too small so I either have to show part of the page at a time and scroll constantly, or it's too small to read and particularly too small to read quickly.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!