One thing that's interesting about China is there are literally 10s of thousands of independent manufacturers. In the U.S publicly traded companies raise and borrow money for incredibly cheap and buy out and consolidate everyone but in China this doesn't seem to happen.
Hardware is dead
41–50 of 155 posts
Re: Hardware is dead
#42Well why do you think that Apple has so much cash in the bank? (it is only partly from the App Store skim).
Re: Hardware is dead
#43Hardware is dead; long live hardware. The free-fall in PC prices in the 90s "killed" the PC, except that every major PC manufacturer still sells high-end models, and retailers still make money on them. The free-fall in automotive prices in the 20s "killed" the automobile, except that people kept buying faster, sleeker, newer models anyway. Like so many other electronics and everyday devices, the commoditization of ta…
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Re: Hardware is dead
#44"At these levels there is almost no profit margin left in the hardware business. A $45 tablet is cheap enough to be an impulse purchase at the check-out line in Best Buy. A $45 price puts tablets within reach of a whole host of other activities not traditionally associated with computers. Tablets could be used by waiters in restaurants." I've been to plenty of restaurants where waiters having been using handheld, wir…
"... then we are entering a golden age of hardware ...
It can also herald an era of 'mom and pop' hardware companies."
Exactly!
I never understand bloggers and pundits who analyze these things from the perspective of the stockholders or owners of the large players instead of the consumers/small players.
Why the hell would you cheer about the high margins charged on the products you are paying for? Is marketing getting so good that consumers are now complaining about too much competition among those they buy from?
Re: Hardware is dead
#45Here's a link for anyone who feels like exploring the wonderful world of cheap generic Chinese tablets: http://www.dealextreme.com/c/tablets-1409 Or cheap generic Chinese anything, for that matter.
Your implied negative standpoint, with the products are "cheap" and "generic" and "Chinese", is rather naive and amusing. The entire point of this article is the fact that these products are indistinguishable from the same ones with a HTC, Samsung, HP or Apple logo emblazoned on the device. Hardware will truly be dead when people realize just how much they're paying for the brand name and nothing more.
I wish that were true...but look at the fashion market. It seems a portion of the populous will pay for brand name goods at a premium that keeps these brands at the top. I suppose that's why Goodwill exists in accounting.
Re: Hardware is dead
#46Here's a link for anyone who feels like exploring the wonderful world of cheap generic Chinese tablets: http://www.dealextreme.com/c/tablets-1409 Or cheap generic Chinese anything, for that matter.
Anyone know of any good review sites useful to someone interesting in buying some? I imagine there is huge variation in quality among the tablets on that page.
Re: Hardware is dead
#47"At these levels there is almost no profit margin left in the hardware business. A $45 tablet is cheap enough to be an impulse purchase at the check-out line in Best Buy. A $45 price puts tablets within reach of a whole host of other activities not traditionally associated with computers. Tablets could be used by waiters in restaurants." I've been to plenty of restaurants where waiters having been using handheld, wir…
"... then we are entering a golden age of hardware ... It can also herald an era of 'mom and pop' hardware companies." Exactly! I never understand bloggers and pundits who analyze these things from the perspective of the stockholders or owners of the large players instead of the consumers/small players. Why the hell would you cheer about the high margins charged on the products you are paying for? Is marketing gettin…
Not sure if you were referring to the article author, but Jay Goldberg is a financial analyst with an investment bank.
Re: Hardware is dead
#48I've already started sticking them to the walls of my house to control lights, the thermostat, the garage door etc. This didn't make sense at $400/device but as soon as they hit $100 or so the game was afoot. Now they're so cheap, its literally cheaper to grab one from "the pile" and whip up a nice html5 interface for the task than to buy a dedicated Insteon controller or Nest thermostat. Hell, it was cheaper to auto…
What hardware are you using? I've wanted to try home automation for a while but all I can find is either the lowend stuff (X10) or the really highend stuff that requires a dealer to install it for you.
I have an eclectic blend of old X10 and Insteon devices. I've got an antique serial interface for querying and setting the statuses of the modules. The shipped software was win3.1. The hardware control devices were awful. Hooking the serial device to my home server and writing a restful web app with control screens for various tasks for use with my smartphone and junk tablets scattered about was magic.
I also replaced a thermostat and the ridiculous "mainboard" in our home security system with beaglebone boards.
I've been working on that stuff for years. The missing part was always a cheap, always on touch screen device to give it a reasonable interface. The day is finally here. I'm really excited about the kindle paperwhite for this purpose.
Re: Hardware is dead
#49I guess the key will become content. Tablet makers will want to be "the only tablet that can do X" where X won't necessarily be a technical hardware feature but rather a deal made with a content producer to be the only platform for their content to be distributed on. That way you can sell devices at a huge markup despite the hardware being identical to lower end models.
This is what Amazon seems to believe, although they are marking down prices, not marking up.
They appear to be fine with producing cheap, commodity tablets as a means to enable more content distribution from their services. Classic razor blade model. It's worked well for Kindle (ereader version) so far, and I imagine it will work pretty well for their tablets.
When you have good content, you want to practically give away the vehicle that delivers that content.
Re: Hardware is dead
#50Here's a link for anyone who feels like exploring the wonderful world of cheap generic Chinese tablets: http://www.dealextreme.com/c/tablets-1409 Or cheap generic Chinese anything, for that matter.
Heh, I see a LOT of Android 2.2/2.1 and even a few 1.6 devices on that page. Most of the ones claiming 4.0, if you look closely at the pictures, it's not the 4.0 interface (some of them have the old search bar from the 1.6 days). I don't know if the pictures are just wrong, but I certainly wouldn't trust them with my money. The few that did claim 4.0 and did have accurate pictures, the specs were pretty poor and the…
dealextreme really aren't at the cutting edge of things in this market. They are trading on the fact that they have 'brand-awareness' and trust and that people assume they are the cheapest. Reality is they have a bunch of out of date stock that people in china wouldn't buy.
If you want to explore this wonderful world, i'd look at the manufacturers first. Ainol (worst name ever) are the dominant force in the market IMO. The novo-7 fire is basically a nexus 7 with a microSD slot, for (in the west) ~60% of the price.