Tablets are simple appliances limited to consuming content . My IPad 1 lets me watch Netflix, Youtube and surf the web just as well as the latest version of the IPad .Therefore I see no reason to buy the latest version. I have in the meanwhile bought/upgraded laptops thrice for myself as I see an immediate improvement in my productivity with faster CPU and more RAM or bigger SSD.
Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
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Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#12It is only a matter of time before someone sells a "docking station" for smartphones with HDMI outputs to a monitor and a keyboard/mouse setup as a replacement for a desktop. (if it doesn't exist already)
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#13Tablet sales are down because 10" tablets are not very useful devices, and 7" tablets are increasingly having their lunch eaten by phablets. (edit: And because manufacturers push 10"s over 7"s, and some other reasons)
The article is all about the purported benefits of tablets as being low maintenance, lower user burden, but a tablet is a form factor. There's no reason why you can't produce a machine with a keyboard and monitor that has the limited options and simplicity of set-up as a tablet, and indeed there have been periodic attempts to do that -- ChromeOS is perhaps the latest. It turns out that, contra the article, they haven't been wildly popular.
The tablet form factor is never going to be a good choice for office workers who use MS Office, even with various plug-in keyboards and other hybrid approaches.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#14Anecdotal: the PC and laptop I bought around the time tablets started coming out are starting to show their age. So now I'm in the market for their replacements. Could a factor be the fact that the age of the tablet market currently equals the average lifetime of a PC?
I would expect PC end-of-lifes to be distributed randomly or on a yearly cycle, not on a three-year cycle.
Good point. Here's a theory: laptops were running out of time and people had to opt for a new laptop or a tablet (which, at the time, had the novelty factor) and most of them decided to try a tablet. Tablets did not replace the old laptops so (some) people have since bought a new laptop. This could explain why laptop sales were down during the first stages of tablets' market penetration.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#15Because tablets don't have an effective medium for user input. Had there been some sort of space age motor cortex uplink for effortless, easy to learn, consistent and efficient command entry, then tablets would eliminate desktops for good.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#16https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA&t=2m24s is why
Seriously though, the Economist speculated it's because XP is being phased out.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#17My tablet, which I bought 4 years ago, collects dust in the closet and I use it maybe twice a year - I just can't find a single reason to use a tablet on a daily basis and yes, I had the new iPads, Surfaces etc. in my hands. Everything I need to do outside home I can do on a smartphone and if I need to do real work, I just use a laptop.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#18I guess 5 - 7 years are over and people replace their old desktop/laptop PCs this year. As for tablets: They are pretty boring content consumption devices. Why would you buy every year a new tablet if all you do with them is surfing the web/watching netflix? Also there's no mobile network operator who will give you one "for free" every two years when you renew a contract.
"Also there's no mobile network operator who will give you one "for free" every two years when you renew a contract."
I live in South Africa, and that regularly happens here. People take out 2 year contracts for "data" and get tablets/laptops for free along with it. I suppose it's not so common in more developed countries where most mobile internet packages are "unlimited". Here, they're very much limited to multiples of 500MB/month.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#19It is only a matter of time before someone sells a "docking station" for smartphones with HDMI outputs to a monitor and a keyboard/mouse setup as a replacement for a desktop. (if it doesn't exist already)
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Lapdock-500-Pro-Smartphones/d...
I give you, the recent past! I used one once, the experience was underwhelming. It could have been good (my phone had more than enough power to run a lightweight linux window manager and web browser pretty well, the android software just wasn't very polished)
And it's untimely death
http://www.cnet.com/news/motorola-confirms-death-of-webtop-l...
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#20Well, a harder question would be: why is this surprising? (How can a tablet ever replace a PC? How come leading companies thought/think that it could?)