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Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

nytimes.com

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Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#21

Post by Pengwin »

quanticle wrote: post #16
stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

>Phones and tablets? Complete write off. My smartphone is basically a toaster. You say that like it's a bad thing. For the vast majority of people, they wish their computers behaved more like toasters, rather than finicky, customizable, yet extremely powerful pieces of computing machinery that they are.

For some reason this makes me sad, I guess it's similar to a motor enthusiast being angry at someone who thinks a car is "just a car". In my opinion, computers deserve to be more than consumer content endpoints.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#22

Post by taneq »

Saying phones are stealing market share from PCs is like saying that shoes are stealing market share from cars because people spend more time wearing shoes than driving cars. They're different devices with different purposes. Phones are OK for media consumption but terrible for anything creative (other than maybe photography.)

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#23

Post by djrogers »

santaclaus wrote: post #18
kalleboo wrote: post #7

The article seems to be saying that PC makers are looking for some way to woo back tablet/mobile users to using PCs instead. But tablet sales are flat too, aren't they? Rather what they're looking for is to sell some reason for people to upgrade their 5 year old PC that still works fine. And all they can think of is "thinner" and crazy gimmicks.

> But tablet sales are flat too, aren't they? At least for Apple, since 2012 that seems to be roughly the case. iPad sales are about on par with Mac sales, maybe a bit higher, but both iPad and Mac sales are dwarfed by iPhone sales [1]. [1] http://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-rev...

Just for clarification, that's revenue, not unit sales. iPads outsell macs by a little more than 2:1 today based on box count.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#24

Post by ScottBurson »

shirro wrote: post #4
thescribe wrote: post #2

I feel like the features proposed to make PC's 'cool' are all things that a power user isn't interested in or actively avoids. My educated guess is that this won't win over the masses who love tablets and it will further alienate the PC core audience.

Spot on. They went chasing television viewers with 16:9 glossy screens and all the productivity types held onto their old machines and wept for the future. I don't want a paper thin Netflix viewer. I have a tablet and a huge tv for that. And I sure don't want to do work on a tablet PC. I want to see some context on the code I am editing or view a PDF full page. Sure you can go side by side on a huge 16:9 screen but o…

Still nursing along my beloved 17" MacBook Pro with matte screen, now almost 5 years old and irreplaceable.

How ironic that you can get a huge iPhone and a huge iPad, but the 17" MBP is history.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#25

Post by taneq »

quanticle wrote: post #16
stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

>Phones and tablets? Complete write off. My smartphone is basically a toaster. You say that like it's a bad thing. For the vast majority of people, they wish their computers behaved more like toasters, rather than finicky, customizable, yet extremely powerful pieces of computing machinery that they are.

Converting the microcomputer into an appliance was (and is) literally Apple's entire schtick.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#27

Post by buro9 »

Things a PC should be better than a laptop at:

1. Graphics power

2. CPU power

3. RAM

4. Size (smaller)

5. Any/all of the above

(Storage wasn't included in that list as who hasn't already externalised all storage?)

I'm seriously considering not buying another laptop and instead purchasing an Intel NUC.

I've got to that point where owning a laptop has led me to have a NAS, a decent DAC and stereo, a big panel for viewing films... aside from web browsing it feels like the things I do on my laptop are not in the laptop's sweet spot (gaming, graphics, video editing, encoding, compiling, spinning up VMs and dockers, etc).

Then I look at my full-size keyboard, my external display that is better than the laptop display and I wonder why I have a laptop. A machine that is compromised in every way to make it portable when I barely take it anywhere (and always will have a work laptop I do work trips with, and a smartphone for recreation trips).

I'd rather a tiny, but powerful, silent PC.

I view my primary PC (the laptop presently) as disposable... because I've externalised storage, display, audio... I feel I just want a small powerful generalised computing machine. Nothing more.

PS: If anyone can recommend something not far from the NUC in size, but with higher CPU + RAM capabilities, and potentially that looks aesthetically pleasing then I'm all ears.

PPS: Not the Mac Mini, it's ugly, has a large footprint, tops out at 16GB (costs a lot to get there) and all of the ports seem very outdated. More towards a Mac Pro in CPU and RAM, but with a lower price tag and can run Linux (or whatever) without sulking. The NUC for me would be a cheap stop-gap until something like this emerges.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#29

Post by beedogs »

quanticle wrote: post #16
stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

>Phones and tablets? Complete write off. My smartphone is basically a toaster. You say that like it's a bad thing. For the vast majority of people, they wish their computers behaved more like toasters, rather than finicky, customizable, yet extremely powerful pieces of computing machinery that they are.

The vast majority of people are idiots who shouldn't be allowed to touch a computer with a barge pole, though. I don't really care what kind of experience they want.

Re: Outshone by Smaller Screens, PCs Aim to Be Seen as Cool Again

#30

Post by ekianjo »

stegosaurus wrote: post #8

I just wish all devices were more like PC's. My desktop computer is a glorious, glorious device. I have millions of different bits of software for it, many operating systems, open source, proprietary, etcetera. It's all there. It really feels like my machine. If I don't want Windows, I blow it away and install Linux, BSD, Plan 9, code my own bootloader, whatever. My laptop is a bit less so (can't find the perfect for…

> Phones and tablets? Complete write off. My smartphone is basically a toaster. Android and iOS make what could be a general purpose computer into a Fisher Price experience. It's really sad to me.

Yeah. I just realized today (I don't own an iPad but used one from a colleague) that iPads can't even DOWNLOAD files from the browser. From a browser! The level of lock-in of such devices never ceases to amaze me.

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