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[TheBoy]

Doom and gloom in the PC market due to falling sales, blamed on Tablet use.

But is it tablets?

I'm not sure. I wonder if its just because the previous generation of desktops and laptops are still good enough, and with everyone watching the pennies, why upgrade if the existing kit is good enough?

For example, whilst I have tablets, I mostly use my laptop or desktop.

Laptop, 5yrs old maybe, HP business notebook, Core Duo. Only upgrades its had are an extra 1Gb RAM to bring it to 2Gb as soon as I got it, a 120Gb SSD to replace the HDD 2 or 3 yrs ago, and upgraded to Win7 Pro 32bit from Vista Business when Win7 came out.

Desktop, similar vintage, maybe older, Core2 Quad, pair of 360Gb drives in RAID0, and upgraded to 4Gb when I flirted with 64bit Windows, now back on Win7 Pro 32bit, originally supplied with Vista Business.

Both of these machines are still plenty quick enough, and capable of the varied workload they get, so why should I replace them?

And there lies the PC manufacturers' dilema. And Win8 is not the answer.

[TheBoy]

Aside from the guts of the Nedia Center replaced last year, courtesy of Mr Nectar, these are the newest personal machines I have (Mrs TBs lappy is slightly younger, but still Vista vintage)

[Jimbob]

There is certainly a subset of users for whom a tablet is all they need, and probably a far better choice than a pc.

PC's are one hell of a lot more powerful than they used to be, and the shelf life of a lettuce no longs seems to apply, they offer far more power than most need or will ever use.

Its gotta mean a longer life before they seem to sluggish.

[TheBoy]

There is certainly a subset of users for whom a tablet is all they need, and probably a far better choice than a pc.

PC's are one hell of a lot more powerful than they used to be, and the shelf life of a lettuce no longs seems to apply, they offer far more power than most need or will ever use.

Its gotta mean a longer life before they seem to sluggish.

And a longer life than tablets...

[Kevin Wood]

Yep, little to be gained from upgrading, and anything you buy these days will have Windows 8, so the average Joe will probably be scared off at first sight of the GUI.

I'm sure many are finding that they can do what they want on a tablet or their gayphone whilst sitting in front of the TV and that there's no need to shut themselves away in the spare bedroom in front of a desktop machine.

PC gaming is not worth the ballache these days, and that used to be the main reason for constant upgrades.

Lots of new "shiny" devices to soak up people's discretionary spending these days too, so non-vital upgrades get shelved.

The combination of these factors is probably enough to bring the sector to a standstill.

[chrisgixer]

I don't know a great deal about winDoh's as I'm sure you know, but it seems to me everything produced by Microdroop since Xp has done nothing more than piss their customers off. Their may be a few improvements I dare say, I wouldn't know, but if I think that I'm sure there's a few more out there that feel the same

That being, its basically the same package, but if you upgrade from xp all your doing is making basic operation and functions harder to find.

Its like going to Sainsburys that's now owned by Nokia. You know what you want and where it is, but when you get there the oppsing w@nkets have moved it and are trying to sell you sumat else instead. I don't want an update, I don't want to f@ck about with security, I just want to search the web or change a setting. Easily and simply. And if I do want to update or sort the security DONT KEEP MOVING THE GOAL POSTS.
 Then, like Nokia, when the upgrade comes along, Afaict, they can't be bothered to tell you why it's better.

Dont get me wrong its always nice to have the latest software, until I have to pay for it. Even Apple understand this. (Not sure about their desk tops or lap tops? )

Why do I need anything better than XP? Serious question.

[chrisgixer]

Oh, and it would be quite nice if the poxy thing turned on inside a half hour.


Rant over.

[cem_devecioglu]

imo mobiles and tablets are the answer as others pointed out.. younger generations dont want to spend time with a bulky machine..

anyway they are after internet and messaging which those devices can do  so they are the main driver in the market..

[MaxV6]

i've just had to replace my 17" macbook pro, after a fatal accident , where it fell 4 foot on to concrete....  hard drive survived intact,  and the thing even powered up, but failed to boot,  collected a logic board fault , screen survived as well... but the thing was deemed uneconomical to repair,  case was a bit mangled on one end.....         so,  an immaculate C2D 2.93GHz 17" MBP off ebay for £780 (needed for assorted features, like 3/4 pci-express slot,   and work related mac only software....  ) 


typically a mac lasts me 5-6 years before i need to upgrade ...    and then usually only because of compatibility issues with clients and their current software versions...

8GB ram, and a 750GB hybrid SSD/platter drive , it's not the quad core i7 i would have liked,  but it's left me enough money to buy parts for the omega out of the insurance settlement,...     thank god......   (i could have bought the i7 , but need the mv6 sorted....   so bit the bullet and got the lower spec machine....  it's not like it's short on grunt ) , so cam belt ,  drive belt,  oil and coolant ,  amongst other things....    got a rear tyre to sort, then the MOT at the weekend...   

fingers crossed...

still don;t own a tablet....    quite fancy an iPad,  but really cannot justify the expense.....  it's not like it does anything i can't do on the laptop....   i debated getting the wife a used  one of egay,  ,   but instead bought her a new battery and trackpad/keyboard/top plate for her ageing 15 inch macbook pro.....     make it shiny and useful again..... 

   

[chrisgixer]

Surely pc's only use these days is for work/desktop use.

I mean who sits at a desk these days, if not for work use?

A poll perhaps?

[MaxV6]

PC's are handy for wedging doors open,..


 

[TheBoy]

I don't know a great deal about winDoh's as I'm sure you know, but it seems to me everything produced by Microdroop since Xp has done nothing more than piss their customers off. Their may be a few improvements I dare say, I wouldn't know, but if I think that I'm sure there's a few more out there that feel the same

Sadly, most of the crap written about Vista was originally written by thick IT journos, the same ones who said XP was crap when that was launched.

Vista is actually very good, both as a OS and as a UI. However, people slated it on 2 fronts due to lack of willingness to use things slightly different - the interface being based around search (you don't need to know where something is, only more or less what its called) although you could do things the old fashioned way, and UAC, that fantastic security device to stop people who must run as administrators from buggering their OS with every virus/nasty/shite available. Shame so many retards think their cock is larger than their ego.

Vista's only real downside is it's successor, Windows 7, is even better.

Why do I need anything better than XP? Serious question.

XP is old, and ultimately broken. It was written in a time when the Internet wasn't invented (its basically an evolution on the 20yr old NT3.1), and while security is strong when the OS performs to spec, there are too many flaws that can cause it to be compromised. However, keep the patching up to date, it remains pretty good, although a lot of software won't run on it now, in much the same way that a lot of iPhone software needs IOS6 or later now.

However, the one single reason to move off XP before next March is that MS are pulling the plug on it. That then means any flaws are not fixed, thus making every XP machine connected to a network ultimately insecure.

It will be 13yrs old by then. MS are very, very good at providing support for that length of time.

[Kevin Wood]

I think MS continuously messing with the Windows GUI must be putting a lot of people off. No sooner has the punter got used to the Vista/7 way of doing things than their entire desktop gets turned into some sort of giant tablet clearly designed by Duplo. They now have to grapple with a touch screen AND a mouse AND a keyboard to get anything done. My boss loves gadgets, and got a very sexy ultrabook a couple of months back. Normally, it would have been the centre of his universe by now, but he took it on one business trip, utterly failed to get on with WIndows 8, and it's been gathering dust ever since. He never stops talking about the Apple he bought for home use, and how he'll never buy another Windows 8 machine. This is someone who's used PCs as a developer from the days of DOS, through every version of Windows there has been.

An OS is a purely utilitarian creation. It needs to be there to do basic things then get out of the way to let the user do something more interesting. It's a toaster in a kitchen full of different jams. Sell a new type of toaster, by all means, but tell the punter that he's now got to use a special type of bread, and cut it at exactly the right angle before lifting the toaster up and shoving it in the bottom.. and he'll laugh at you and stick with what does the job.

No point in talking about how much more secure it is. The punter just knows that his machine gets borked every so often, and that's the way PCs are, and always have been. Security doesn't cross his mind until the machine dies, and soon passes when he's back up and running again. I'm not even convinced UAC helps at all for a non-IT savvy user. My MIL still kills her machine on a regular basis. When a UAC notification comes up it's just "Yeah, whatever" and before you know it, she's owned. Allowing a pleb to raise something to root privileges at the click of a button is all very well and good if they actually read and understand what's happening.

Somehow, I think the future is in machines like tablets that exist in their own walled garden and "just work" without the need for the user to make decisions they lack the knowledge to do.

[chrisgixer]

So the only reason I need to update from xp is because WinDohs has moved on, ok.

And the only advert for the update is, they've changed it all around. Why am I interested ?

Oh, sorry I forgot, I'm not interested(as a customer) which was the original point.

It's not doing anything new
It's not convenient to use a pc.
It's not convenient to re learn the same shit a different way to achieve the same result.
Oh and did I mention...
It's not convenient, to even turn it on.

I don't need a pc. I didn't need a pc since the n95, or even before that. The only reason I ever used a pc at all is because that was the form access to the internet came in. I now have that in my pocket.

If Microlimp need that explaining to them, they are in real trouble, surely?

Do they think they are too big to be the next "Nokia" so to speak? They need to be where their customers are, not expect customers to come to them.

[chrisgixer]

It just works.

That's what everybody wants. I mean nobody is going to pay good money for something that doesn't. But how it works is key.

Apple just works. Google android doesn't. by that I mean people want to be able to mess about with it, play with the nuts and bolts, push the envelope of the device os and come up with something new.

Two distinct camps. There's a market for something in between that somebody needs to fill. IMO.

I don't like Apples (uphill) Garden such as it is, but I'm not prepared to cock about too much either. Its my device, there are many like it, but this one is mine. And I expect it to still work after I've gone off the map by a few feet.

In short, Progress. Windows has none, ESP as a pc. At all. Its dead. Accept it and move on.