Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
1–10 of 90 posts
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#2This is the end game for smartphone OEMs as well.
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#3Wait... what? I'm a bit confused here.
Can someone please explain why Samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "It's common knowledge that the PC market is in decline."
Is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? Why on earth are laptops not selling?
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#4Wait... what? I'm a bit confused here. Can someone please explain why Samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "It's common knowledge that the PC market is in decline." Is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? Why on earth are laptops not selling?
PC sales (laptop and desktop) in general have been on the decline since 2010 or so and the margins in that market for players who aren't Apple are generally so low that the declines don't have to be that bad to really put a squeeze on manufacturers.
The iPad/Tablet market gets almost all the credit for this decline in the media but while I'm sure that's part of it I personally think the fact that we hit a point around 2010 where desktops and laptops were just plain good enough (truly good enough, not 640k good enough) for almost everything people normally do was as much or more of a factor than tablets. Short of having a machine die on you there are precious few reasons to run out and buy a new system anymore.
I'm a software developer, a hobby photographer who shoots in RAW and a gamer and even I haven't bought a new desktop or laptop in 4 years (and I used to be someone who would build an entirely new desktop system yearly with major upgrades 6 months in to boost it up).
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#5This happened in Australia as well and it really sucks. I run a 15" Series 9 machine and the only thing you can fairly compare it to is a Macbook Air. They're beautiful pieces of hardware somewhat let down by their crappy LCDs.
I guess my next machine will be a Macbook.
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#6I wonder if differences in implied warranty cut into margin in Europe.
It's not super clear what the actual standard is, but I know that (for example) a laptop that I had failed at about 13 months old because of a design flaw and in the US I was SOL, but other complainants with the same flaw in the UK had the motherboard replaced because the laptop was considered "not fit for purpose" which if I understand the Sale of Goods Act in the UK is good for 6 years after purchase — that could really eat into the margins in the hardware industry
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#7Wait... what? I'm a bit confused here. Can someone please explain why Samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "It's common knowledge that the PC market is in decline." Is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? Why on earth are laptops not selling?
Basically, in my experience, Dell and Lenovo now rule the corporate market, while the consumer market is now 1) smaller (since tablets and smartphones cannibalized some of it) and 2) clearly split between Apple and "everything else", where "everything else" runs on thin margins and is perceived as cheap and uncool. My anecdotal datapoint is that, in the last 5 years, I haven't seen anyone in my sector (finance / IT in the UK) using anything but Dell, Lenovo or Apple laptops (with the very occasional Sony Vaio, which Sony recently stopped selling).
On a larger scale, the rise of smartphones and tablets has clearly shrunk the traditional PC market, a market that already struggled with the end of Microsoft-led forced upgrades (that "good enough" level others mentioned; Microsoft used to periodically redefine what "good enough" was, but their products have substantially fossilized in the last decade). This doesn't mean PCs and laptops will go away for good; it's just that large margins are now elsewhere, so the industry is adapting.
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#8Wait... what? I'm a bit confused here. Can someone please explain why Samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "It's common knowledge that the PC market is in decline." Is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? Why on earth are laptops not selling?
PC sales (laptop and desktop) in general have been on the decline since 2010 or so and the margins in that market for players who aren't Apple are generally so low that the declines don't have to be that bad to really put a squeeze on manufacturers. The iPad/Tablet market gets almost all the credit for this decline in the media but while I'm sure that's part of it I personally think the fact that we hit a point aroun…
Agreed, the last great upgrade was the SSD. After that, for people using their laptops as non-intensive consumer devices, what else do they need?
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#9Wait... what? I'm a bit confused here. Can someone please explain why Samsung isn't selling laptops besides the article's dismissive "It's common knowledge that the PC market is in decline." Is it that they are spinning off their laptop division, or is there is some other dominant manufacturer? Why on earth are laptops not selling?
PC sales (laptop and desktop) in general have been on the decline since 2010 or so and the margins in that market for players who aren't Apple are generally so low that the declines don't have to be that bad to really put a squeeze on manufacturers. The iPad/Tablet market gets almost all the credit for this decline in the media but while I'm sure that's part of it I personally think the fact that we hit a point aroun…
Lenovo is doing good and getting better.
http://www.cnet.com/news/lenovo-earnings-soar-on-solid-pc-sm...
Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe
#10The Samsung Q30, that many of you might know as the Dell X1 was a subnotebook so far ahead of its time. It was 12", pretty decent 1280x800 resolution, 1.1kg, fanless, less than an inch thick at its thickest.