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Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

nytimes.com

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Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#31

Post by ekianjo »

quanticle wrote: post #16
stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

>Phones and tablets? Complete write off. My smartphone is basically a toaster. You say that like it's a bad thing. For the vast majority of people, they wish their computers behaved more like toasters, rather than finicky, customizable, yet extremely powerful pieces of computing machinery that they are.

> yet extremely powerful pieces of computing machinery that they are.

It's a bad thing because they are not behaving like general purpose computers anymore. Locking you in every corner you go.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#32

Post by ekianjo »

kalleboo wrote: post #7

The article seems to be saying that PC makers are looking for some way to woo back tablet/mobile users to using PCs instead. But tablet sales are flat too, aren't they? Rather what they're looking for is to sell some reason for people to upgrade their 5 year old PC that still works fine. And all they can think of is "thinner" and crazy gimmicks.

> But tablet sales are flat too, aren't they?

Yes, yet the hipster journalists are not claiming the "post-tablet era" yet. Maybe they will realize it in 10 years from now.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#33

Post by bitJericho »

voltagex_ wrote: post #11

When I was young, my Dad paid $4000AUD for a 486-DX clone. I can see the day coming where I'll have to pay that again to get a decent desktop. Have you seen the low-end laptop market? 1366x768 and terrible build quality everywhere. Everyone else might love their tablets and phones, but you can pry my desktop from my cold, dead hands.

Second hand server and workstation equipment is extremely cheap, high quality and powerful. Take a look at z600 and z800 workstations. I'm eyeballing getting a pair of 4.4 ghz dual core CPUs for fast single threaded compile times. They don't require any particular special heatsinks and reach nearly 5ghz with turbo boost. And that's under 600-700 dollars total for those chips. It's a great time for desktop users.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#34

Post by ktamura »

buro9 wrote: post #27

Things a PC should be better than a laptop at: 1. Graphics power 2. CPU power 3. RAM 4. Size (smaller) 5. Any/all of the above (Storage wasn't included in that list as who hasn't already externalised all storage?) I'm seriously considering not buying another laptop and instead purchasing an Intel NUC. I've got to that point where owning a laptop has led me to have a NAS, a decent DAC and stereo, a big panel for viewi…

I have a friend who does exactly this. He has two NUCs, one at work and one at home. When I asked him about working away from his desks, he said, "I shouldn't be doing that =p"

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#35

Post by voltagex_ »

bitJericho wrote: post #33
voltagex_ wrote: post #11

When I was young, my Dad paid $4000AUD for a 486-DX clone. I can see the day coming where I'll have to pay that again to get a decent desktop. Have you seen the low-end laptop market? 1366x768 and terrible build quality everywhere. Everyone else might love their tablets and phones, but you can pry my desktop from my cold, dead hands.

Second hand server and workstation equipment is extremely cheap, high quality and powerful. Take a look at z600 and z800 workstations. I'm eyeballing getting a pair of 4.4 ghz dual core CPUs for fast single threaded compile times. They don't require any particular special heatsinks and reach nearly 5ghz with turbo boost. And that's under 600-700 dollars total for those chips. It's a great time for desktop users.

Heh, at least I'd save on my heating bill in winter. Where I live I pay about 30c/kWh. I wrote about that the other day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11378704

I'm not sure I share your enthusiasm for fast single threaded compile times. Some basic testing on AWS showed benefits jumping from c4.xlarge all the way to 4xlarge (but not 8xlarge) and using appropriate -j parameters. I'm not sure you're IO bound at that point either because compiling into a RAM disk didn't seem to make much difference.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#36

Post by alkonaut »

taneq wrote: post #22

Saying phones are stealing market share from PCs is like saying that shoes are stealing market share from cars because people spend more time wearing shoes than driving cars. They're different devices with different purposes. Phones are OK for media consumption but terrible for anything creative (other than maybe photography.)

I think the thing is that 90% of computer/internet users are media consumers and very few are media creators, apart from as you say - photos.

Writing the occasional email is clunky on a phone but the experience of using a phone still beats worrying about your backup, the location of your photo files, the OS license or Antivirus on the PC.

"People in general" simply don't write large documents, programs, create music etc. They email a friend, browse instagram and take photos. The smartphone form factor happens to be the perfect match for this usage pattern. So much so that if there was a fraction of the use cases they can't do on their phones - people much rather just skip doing those activities entirely and stay on the smartphone.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#37

Post by bcook »

voltagex_ wrote: post #17
stegosaurus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interested in the Nexus 7 progress. I may have to pick one up and grab a hardware keyboard. Killing off Android and getting X11/Wayland on there with a regular DE would be amazing. I can deal with WiFi only - a workaround would be to just carry around an android device or similar as a hotspot.

2013 Nexus 7s appear to go for $1000 in Australia, which is insanity. I've got one here but some emails sent to me in private have caused me to hold off on running anything custom on it (email for details, not sure if I can release publically).

Wow. Can you share a reference to that insane price?

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#38

Post by fractallyte »

stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

The Jolla smartphone (https://jolla.com/phone/) is a handheld Linux computer - definitely NOT a toaster! (Here's my comment from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11278620). Overlook the mediocre hardware, it's the software (OS and apps) that defines this phone; there's nothing else like it, anywhere. (It's made by the same engineers that developed the legendary Nokia N9.)

Access via SSH from your PC, or use its native terminal app. Mine is even running Emacs (natively!), plus Android applications. I haven't even mentioned 'The Other Half' - which allows for hardware expansions such as e-ink displays, keyboards, sensors, etc.

With a bluetooth keyboard - the best options are currently a Jorno (https://jornostore.com/), but soon a TextBlade (https://waytools.com/) - this is a marvellous machine. Sure, I'm telling everyone about it - this is the smartphone I always wanted; it deserves to succeed!

Incidentally, I have both a Psion 5mx and Revo. This is the first device that truly feels like a successor.

[Aside: after a long delay, the TextBlade is finally being beta-tested by users, and should be shipping soon.]

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#39

Post by voltagex_ »

bcook wrote: post #37
voltagex_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2013 Nexus 7s appear to go for $1000 in Australia, which is insanity. I've got one here but some emails sent to me in private have caused me to hold off on running anything custom on it (email for details, not sure if I can release publically).

Wow. Can you share a reference to that insane price?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Asus-Nexus-7-Tablet-Quad-Core-201...

I may have over-generalised. They're not manufactured any more, are they?

At the time I found that price, I was trying to filter out all the 2012 Nexus 7's (product marketers, please don't use the year to differentiate).

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#40

Post by qplex »

stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

>Phones and tablets? Complete write off. My smartphone is basically a toaster. Android and iOS make what could be a general purpose computer into a Fisher Price experience. It's really sad to me.

I'm not sure where are you coming from with this?

With the stock roms the "Fisher Price" experience as you call it is perhaps somewhat true.

A lot of Android devices are very much rootable so once you get a modified recovery software flashed to the device.

Then you're pretty much set to do whatever you like.

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