The fact remains you can't work on a tablet and you can't talk on a tablet. You can, but it's not enjoyable. I would ditch my phone if they would give me a talk and text plan for my iPad mini. Instead they're just making the phones bigger.
Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
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Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#22Sales are down because no new ones have came out in a while.
I upgraded from my iPad 3 to a Retina Mini, but I didn't really need to, I just did. A co-worker gave me more than I could sell it for on eBay and I found an open-box Mini at Best Buy, so it wasn't like I spent $200 to switch.
I use it all the time. It's easily my primary device. It's to the point where I certainly wouldn't sell my laptop (2013 MacBook Air 13") but I'd consider downgrading it since I don't use it enough to justify the $1300 cost.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#23I basically use my tablet for three things: web browsing on my couch, as a companion lookup device when I'm reading a book or paper that's challenging, or for the occasional game. I've had it for like 3 years now, and I can't think of any reason to upgrade it unless it breaks. I like it, but it's basically useless as a content creation device, and it already does everything I need it to do.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#24I 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 multip…
No. In Western Europe, where I live, we also have a lot of mobile packages that bundles a tablet/phone for 1 euro and a data subscription plan that is often limited to 50 or 500mbytes.
For instance my mobile phone plan includes 60 minutes of free phone call, 50mbytes of data, free call to people on the same operator on the week-end and unlimited SMS for 9euros/month. There's a 15euros plan that includes 500mb and 150 minutes that I might switch to in the coming months.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#25Question to HN: has anyone tried the Onyx Boox series of ereaders sized 9" and over ?
I am getting tempted, no small part of the temptation is the fact that its software stack seems entirely open source, based on Linux and the source code is on Github. That seems just perfect. The only thing that bothers me is that it is somewhat pricey $300+ and am not too sure about its performance.
I lug around quite a big pile of technical pdfs. If something can reduce that weight I am up for it. So the decision for me is whether to go for a tablet or a e-reader like onyx boox, it seems to be a "few of a kind" if not one of a kind.
EDIT: Thanks, whoever upvoted this back up from grey, it seems to have annoyed someone.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#26It 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)
That's been done (Motorola, ASUS...), but people don't buy them.
Unless you're on a really tight budget, there's no point in having a device with no less bulk than a small laptop but that becomes useless without your phone docked inside, and obviously not as good as a laptop (ARM, Android vs a desktop OS).
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#27I'd love a tablet I could do real work on. The Surface comes closest with the fold-out keyboard, but it's a bit expensive. I live at the command line when I do dev, so installing something like Ubuntu would be ideal.
I'm not convinced this is a niche need, either. Manufacturers are just slow to catch up.
I have another rant in me about the entirety of tech chasing Joe Average, but that's for another day.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#28The "super tablets" that the article claims as the next step are what every nearly tablet before the iPad tried to be, and they universally fell on their face.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#29It 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... http://w…
The Motorola was doomed from the start, IMO.
Take a phone - which to all extents is relatively locked down.
Add a Linux operating system - in which people don't know. What you mean I can't use Office 2007?
Further restrict the OS - even if you know how to get around, odds are you can't just install the stuff you want inside the Motorola garden.
Then to put the nail in the coffin... Make all the accessories overpriced. What you mean, I just signed years of my life away, paid a few hundred and still have to pay $300 for a lapdock (That runs a gutted OS)?
The idea is great... but beat to death by a corporation trying to lock down and monetize every piece.
Just my opinion.
Re: Why Are PC Sales Up and Tablet Sales Down?
#30It 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... http://w…
I wonder if it would be better now that mobile GPUs are pushing as many (or more) pixels as desktop screens have. I agree the software is the problem and still probably not there yet, and it's unlikely any company is going to put the development resources into it needed to get it right.
The solution is (maybe) to go commodity for everything. Maybe a partition on your phone with ubuntu on it and just boot into a different OS when you dock? You'd need it to boot fast, and you'd probably want to share files between desktop-mode and phone-mode, which is going to be difficult. Hardware-wise, screw the laptop form factor and just go for the monitor/keyboard/mouse that many many people already have in their house. The only hardware you sell is a cord splitter that plugs into the phone and triggers a fast OS switch when you plug it in.
ChromeOS might work ok, too, if you're ok with just a browser; it could be just a little Chromebox already built and ready.