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Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

pcadvisor.co.uk

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Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#51

Post by Swizec »

tdicola wrote: post #18
scoofy wrote: post #3

Wait... 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?

> Why on earth are laptops not selling? If someone had the answer to that question then Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, etc. would be much, much happier. The entire PC industry has been shrinking for the last few years, sometimes with double digit declines. Nobody wants a heavy, hot, loud, and crappy laptop when a tablet like an iPad can do everything that matters to most people (email and web) and then some.

> Nobody wants a heavy, hot, loud, and crappy laptop when a tablet like an iPad can do everything that matters to most people (email and web) and then some.

Anecdotal counterevidence:

My mum is almost 50 years old. She has never been computer savvy. All she ever does is read email and browse the internets. Barely browse the internets. She uses her TV cable far more than she does internet.

Last year I bought her a tablet. One of those big fancy Galaxies with a stylus and everything.

Not six months later she started begging me to get her a computer because "This tablet thing is just so useless. I can't type (she got an external keyboard too), I can't tell which app I'm in, what I'm trying to open, and it's just so damn small. I don't like using this stupid thing."

She's been using it as her only computer regardless, but she's been complaining all along about how small it is, that she has to hold it up and a bunch of other things. This year I'm getting her a refurb MacBook Air. We'll see how that goes.

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#52

Post by showsover »

Roritharr wrote: post #49
showsover wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you connect 2 screens to it? What software do you run on it? Does it run Visual Studio well? This looks awesome, tell us more!

Those are 2 older Korean Crossover 2560x1440 MDP Screens with Display Port. Technically the Surface Pro 2 is able to connect to both of them over its one Mini-DP Connector via DP 1.2 Daisy Chaining, but since those Monitors only support DP 1.1. i tried connecting them over the MSI Multi-Stream-Transport Hub, which didn't work reliably enough, the monitors weren't always recognized instantly and it felt to fickle to w…

Thanks for the detailed info. You have a sweet set-up.

I'm also looking at the Surface Pro, but sadly I have no need of a laptop or an extra tablet right now.

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#53

Post by Alphasite_ »

chx wrote: post #12
rurounijones wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Indeed. If you have a late 2008 all Intel laptop with a Penryn CPU and an X25-M SSD (fiendishly expensive at that time) to this day, six years later, it's hard to see what's the point of getting another laptop. For a few more years, the decreasing costs of SSDs were giving incentive but yes, once you have that, what incentive remains? The high resolution screen is still more trouble than advantage. I was purchasing n…

The substantial improvements in battery? Better screens (brighter, better fov, more resolution 2008 laptops had atrocious screens)? More portable designs? USB3? Better trackpads and keyboards? More durable designs?

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#54

Post by yaeger »

ekianjo wrote: post #39

> "It's common knowledge that the PC market is in decline." Mmm, not so much. Apart from what you hear from tablet makers. It's stagnant, but it's not in sharp decline. Source: 2Q13 shipments : 75,700,902 VS 2Q14 shipments : 75,763,725 Yeah, it's "common knowledge" as they say, if you don't bother checking numbers. https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2793921

All in all I feel that the market is basically seeking equilibrium.

For years, you had to buy at least a laptop if you wanted your mother to be able to use facebook to stay in touch with the family that maybe moved away. Even back then, for such a usecase a laptop was overkill. But it was still a sale for the vendor.

Now, phones and tablets cover these things very nicely so it is only logical that sales of laptops decline. What also helps explaining the lower sales is that quite frankly, for many many usecases where you might prefer a laptop over a tablet, a laptop from a couple of years ago is still very much sufficient to get the job done. There is simply no need to upgrade as frequently as we did in the past. Edge cases like heavy duty movie editing or rendering of course still require a more up to date machine, I imagine.

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#55

Post by richardkeller »

hartror wrote: post #5

This 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.

Same thing in South Africa. Very unfortunate - Series 9 was pretty much the best available line of laptops available here.

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#56

Post by prithvitheprime »

Sony is just forcing most of the persons to buy windows anyway. Its their downfall in Europe. But as we can see the growth of tablets; its going to be end of the road. It don't think Samsung will be back on manufacturing laptops again in Europe. Like places in India still Samsung, Sony, Dell, Lenovo are still competitors; even they are now realizing the dead line for laptops

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#57

Post by 72deluxe »

Throwaway12830 wrote: post #30
scoofy wrote: post #3

Wait... 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?

I agree with all the other posters, and believe performance and form factor have reached a point that makes frequent upgrades less common. However, I'll add one more point into the mix... Modern computer specifications are confusing. Back in the day it was extremely linear. Oh, your computer is 233 MHz, this new one is 300 MHz, or 450 MHz, or 1 GHz. It was like owning a Supersoaker 2000, and wanting the newly release…

It isn't that different though. You still look at clock speeds on the CPU, as well as the burst speed for what it can ramp up to. So that's the 233/300/450 comparison done.

Then perhaps look at whether it is i3/i5/i7 - the higher ones are better.

But then instead of just thinking that your processor is one CPU, count how many logical processors are in there: dual core, quad core etc.

It's still the same - the higher numbers are better :-)

Of course, other things to take into consideration (like it has always been) are FSB speed, RAM clock speeds, disk cache size, disk type, amount of RAM, GPU processing capability (use the same rules as the CPU - count the RAMDAC speed, the amount of RAM, the number of cores), and so on.

I don't think it's changed that much. Just there are more brand names and model names on things now, perhaps?

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#58

Post by 72deluxe »

Roritharr wrote: post #32
tn13 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience is probably anecdotal. I have been using Surface Pro 3 and if that is not cool I am not sure what else could be.

I'm a Surface Pro 2 User and a Software Dev and couldn't be happier. I only have to carry 1.1kg of Hardware around to have my full Workstation with me and when i'm in my office i've got a perfect Dockingstation. No fiddling with cables: https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t31.0...

I am impressed that you've got the moon in your garden. I can clearly see it reflected on your monitor.

My garden doesn't really compare.

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#59

Post by 72deluxe »

Swizec wrote: post #51
tdicola wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why on earth are laptops not selling? If someone had the answer to that question then Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, etc. would be much, much happier. The entire PC industry has been shrinking for the last few years, sometimes with double digit declines. Nobody wants a heavy, hot, loud, and crappy laptop when a tablet like an iPad can do everything that matters to most people (email and web) and then some.

> Nobody wants a heavy, hot, loud, and crappy laptop when a tablet like an iPad can do everything that matters to most people (email and web) and then some. Anecdotal counterevidence: My mum is almost 50 years old. She has never been computer savvy. All she ever does is read email and browse the internets. Barely browse the internets. She uses her TV cable far more than she does internet. Last year I bought her a tab…

Weirdly, my mum used to have laptops for years, which she used for running at an obscenely low resolution, making it practically unusable.

She played solitaire on it, and used Facebook. And I think that was all!

She bought an iPad (finally) and doesn't make a fuss about not changing the font size (she can't, so she doesn't make a fuss anymore), and seems really happy with it. But she isn't trying to create things on it. That could be what's different with your mum.

Re: Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

#60

Post by 72deluxe »

Alphasite_ wrote: post #53
chx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. If you have a late 2008 all Intel laptop with a Penryn CPU and an X25-M SSD (fiendishly expensive at that time) to this day, six years later, it's hard to see what's the point of getting another laptop. For a few more years, the decreasing costs of SSDs were giving incentive but yes, once you have that, what incentive remains? The high resolution screen is still more trouble than advantage. I was purchasing n…

The substantial improvements in battery? Better screens (brighter, better fov, more resolution 2008 laptops had atrocious screens)? More portable designs? USB3? Better trackpads and keyboards? More durable designs?

I second the battery and screen improvements.

And perhaps increased CPU performance because I like short compile times please.

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