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The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

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Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#351

Post by 6d0debc071 »

Xixi wrote: post #320
josefresco wrote: post #28

It's not that people don't need a new PC because their old PC does just as good a job as it did 5 years ago. It's also not because your average mom and pop are upgrading their own rigs themselves that new PC sales are slow. It's that when tablets hit the scene, people realized they don't need their PC for 90% of what they do on a "computer". Email, social networking, shopping, music, video etc. Us old geeks who swap…

Replace 90% by 100%. The use case of the PC at home is disappearing fast. What can you do on a PC that you cannot do on a tablet? If you really think about it, not much at all. On the iPad Apple's creativity apps [1] go a long way: the basics for the amateur who wants to create content are covered. At home the only thing I actually need a "PC" for is to import CDs, I cannot think of anything else. The rest is a matte…

> What can you do on a PC that you cannot do on a tablet?

Easy copy pasting, selecting specific parts of a document... basically anything requiring precision and speed. You can add a keyboard and a mouse to it I suppose, but at that point you may as well have got a laptop.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#352

Post by Joeboy »

true_religion wrote: post #239
X4 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who believe in being able to buy social status are the ones perfectly fooled by advertisements! Someone can be butt ugly, poor and stupid, but still have the highest social status and popularity in most social environments. What makes one an attractor of popularity is demonstrating power, will and the ability to achieve what you want. Who would be more popular? A) A rich guy who thinks he can buy friends, by i…

If you can't achieve C, you sure can use your money to achieve A or B.

Also if you're lucky enough to be able to carry off C, you're more likely to have options A and B at your disposal.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#353

Post by mattlutze »

GuiA wrote: post #190
johngalt wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would be better off steering into the skid. History has plenty of examples of people who've tried to hang onto the old ways 'because that's how I learned it'. The way forward isn't to try and keep cheap PCs viable for creativity's sake, but to ensure that creative desires are being met on the newer devices. Would I have learned memory management and dual booting if I'd had a tablet instead of a 386? Probably not.…

As a kid, my parents were really anti-videogames (except for a few educational ones), anti-TV (we had one, but it was in its own room and rarely used), and would only let me use the home computer for homework. As a result, I spent all of my childhood and teenage years reading (mostly fantasy and sci-fi; several books a week, at my peak) and programming. I taught myself programming in 7th grade because I really wanted…

"However, my iPad or iPhone will call for my attention every few minutes, which is not liberating at all."

This feeling has been creeping on me ever since I succumbed to a smartphone for work a few years ago.

Instead of releasing me from some of the lower-level tasks I deal with day to day, this phone, these devices, nag me to pay attention to all of my friends back home, all of my old classmates, former colleagues, and all of the things they're producing / forwarding / commenting on.

I moved out of the US this summer and it took me a while to get a SIM here. I had roaming data on my work phone but couldn't use it much for the obvious cost.

It's been liberating to just live inside my head and in my immediate environment these past months. When I finally got a local number, I put the SIM in a 20EUR Samsung flip phone. I find few issues with eventually just living with that phone.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#354

Post by btb »

I guess it depends who "we" are. The average person dont need a new computer, I agree. My mom is still using my old self-assembled desktop from 2008-ish and is perfectly happy with it.

However for those of us that use our computers 8 hours+ every day, I think it makes good sense to upgrade to the newest hardware every 2-3 years.

I just assembled a computer from new parts myself, and its nice now to have a fully encrypted workstation, with zero performance hit. Q87 motherboard with TPM(asus q87m-e) + UEFI bios + UEFI GOP Compliant videocard(EVGA GeForce GTX 770) + M500 SSD + Bitlocker + Win2012R2(or Win8.1) means you can enable the builtin hardware encryption of the M500 SSDs. It gives me a certain peace of mind to know that a burglar wont be able to grab my personal files and source code if my computer was ever stolen. I also imagine the TPM+Secure boot combo will make it harder for a rootkit to go unnoticed.

Not to mention the lower idle power usage resulting from the 22nm haswell and 32nm lynx chipset.

My friends at work seems to think I'm crazy for replacing a 2 year old computer :) Although as I pointed out to one of them, he spent more than twice as much on a new mountain bike, and I'm sure i spend alot more time on my computer than he does on his mountain bike ;)

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#355

Post by josteink »

solnyshok wrote: post #137
Zak wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just plain hard to be disappointed with anything new. That's exactly what I'm disappointed with on everything new. The Thinkpad T60p, from 2006 remains superior on both points to everything new from my point of view.

I also enjoy quite old laptop (HP2530p, 2009, 12", Core2 Duo 1.9GHz, sturdy, lightweight). I upgraded to 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. Plenty enough for the next couple of years, me thinks :) Perfectly runs W8.1/LinuxMint/Android-x86ICS

Completely irrelevant to the rest of the discussion at hand, but if you are going run Android as a Netbook OS on stock PC hardware with keyboard and mouse/trackpad, I've found that everything from Jellybean and up is incredibly much better to work with than Android 4.0.

They've done some deep level fixes which just makes everything flow and stick together as one "netbook" user-experience in a much better way.

My experience is mostly from Asus Tarnsformer type devices and not regular X86 laptop hardware, but I suspect the same improvements should be valid in X86 country. You certainly have nothing to lose by trying it [1].

My 2 cents.

[1] http://www.android-x86.org/releases/build-20130725

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#356

Post by microtonal »

pjmlp wrote: post #326
shirro wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MBP is one of the most functional devices available. The wanky, hipster appeal is way overplayed. Plenty of people use them inspite of their image. Phones satisfy the mobile convergence thing between organisers, phones, cameras and handheld games. Tablets satisfy the "computer as a bicycle" vision of Jobs and bring portable computing to the masses. But neither are really full featured enough for a developer or a…

> The rest of the laptop market is hindered by shipping with Windows only and the difficulty of getting pre and post-sales driver support for the developers and students who require an environment like Linux. The industry has really fucked themselves trying to keep to the model of the glory days. Quite good for those of us that work across multiple OSs. Just install GNU/Linux on VMWare with CPU virtualization enabled…

Just install GNU/Linux on VMWare with CPU virtualization enabled and get two OS in a laptop with the minimum of fuss.

And far less battery life.

I often run Ubuntu or Windows on my MBA with VMWare to compile some software. It's one of the best methods to soak your battery empty quickly.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#357

Post by josteink »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #259
simonsarris wrote: post #96

I've felt this way since I built my last desktop in 2008. I was sort-of waiting for the "gee its time to upgrade" mark to roll around in 3 or 4 years, but it hasn't happened yet. Any games I want to play it still runs very well, and it still feels very fast to me even compared to modern off-the-shelf systems. When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just…

I believe there will be a major cultural shift to tablets/phones/handheld. The social implications worry me -- mainly that the most popular handheld devices (iOS) are _locked down_, you can't actually install whatever software you want on it. I don't know if the actual experience of using Android, for non-techies, might end up seeming similar? The social implications of this worry me. We spend increasing amounts of t…

Not disagreeing with your overall concern about locked down platforms...

mainly that the most popular handheld devices (iOS) are _locked down_

With a 80% market-share[1] I think it's safe to safe Android is by far the most popular handheld platform, with iOS being for the niche market.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/07/android-nears-80-market-sha...

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#358

Post by hvidgaard »

mattlutze wrote: post #353
GuiA wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid, my parents were really anti-videogames (except for a few educational ones), anti-TV (we had one, but it was in its own room and rarely used), and would only let me use the home computer for homework. As a result, I spent all of my childhood and teenage years reading (mostly fantasy and sci-fi; several books a week, at my peak) and programming. I taught myself programming in 7th grade because I really wanted…

"However, my iPad or iPhone will call for my attention every few minutes, which is not liberating at all." This feeling has been creeping on me ever since I succumbed to a smartphone for work a few years ago. Instead of releasing me from some of the lower-level tasks I deal with day to day, this phone, these devices, nag me to pay attention to all of my friends back home, all of my old classmates, former colleagues,…

You can turn all that nagging off, so the only notifications you'll get, will be calls and texts. I really think some people blame the smartphone for being a distracting element, and it's not wrong that it can be distracting, but it's because the user allow it to. You can turn off all notifications, so you decide when to see if there is something of interest. For instance, my phone does not tell me when a mail arrives - the little badge will show how many new mails if I choose to flip to the screen with the mail app. Facebook never notifies, not even with a badge - I decide when I want to see Facebook (which rarely is on the phone, that app is horribly slow). The same goes for most of my apps. Only when people try to contact me directly by call or text will it go off, and if I'm particularly busy I will set it to "do not disturb" and rarely be bothered by it.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#359

Post by etler »

simonsarris wrote: post #96

I've felt this way since I built my last desktop in 2008. I was sort-of waiting for the "gee its time to upgrade" mark to roll around in 3 or 4 years, but it hasn't happened yet. Any games I want to play it still runs very well, and it still feels very fast to me even compared to modern off-the-shelf systems. When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just…

For high performance gaming, I wonder if console gaming has something to do with it. With publishers now focusing on consoles instead of PCs, graphics may be held back to a degree due to that.

But another thing to consider is that the console release cycle has also slowed down, because there's less of a need to upgrade there as well. So you see the lack of desire to upgrade trend emerging for consoles as well as PCs.

I do think that nearly everyone who wants a PC has one at this point. That plus no desire to upgrade means slower sales. If people were actually ditching their PCs entirely, that would be a different story.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#360

Post by eliasmacpherson »

Zak wrote: post #130
simonsarris wrote: post #96

I've felt this way since I built my last desktop in 2008. I was sort-of waiting for the "gee its time to upgrade" mark to roll around in 3 or 4 years, but it hasn't happened yet. Any games I want to play it still runs very well, and it still feels very fast to me even compared to modern off-the-shelf systems. When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just…

When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just plain hard to be disappointed with anything new. That's exactly what I'm disappointed with on everything new. The Thinkpad T60p, from 2006 remains superior on both points to everything new from my point of view.

I'm hoping and waiting for some third party like infocomp to supply proper aftermarket thinkpad keypads for the new lenovo machines, with the buttons restored to proper order. Otherwise I will not be "upgrading", ever.

Don't get me started on the single audio socket for both recording and playback.

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