PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed • Hacker News Board

Re: PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

#51

Post by WettowelReactor » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 1:01 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #29

zmmmmm wrote: post #26

Purely anecdotal, but I'm currently in the market to replace my now 4 year old laptop. My problem? The top of the line laptops do not have touch screens. If I want to have a touch screen I have to settle for compromises elsewhere. It seems, a high resolution touch screen is a hard thing to do. If I buy a laptop now I will actually have to accept a downgrade over my 4 year old laptop. Even if it's not a real issue, ps…

Not only that, it's hard to find a decent high-performance laptop that has a decent screen. If I were to upgrade now I might think of going with the Lenovo T430u, except it has a 720p 16:9 TN screen. How long until it's possible to buy an ultrabook with a 1080p or higher resolution IPS display? And hoping for a 16:10 aspect ratio is probably out of the question.

Have you looked at Vizio's new ultra-book lineup. They have all been upgraded to touchscreen and the 15in models run at 1920 x 1080

Re: PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

#52

Post by uslic001 » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

I like Windows 8. The Metro UI is great on a touch screen. For desktops either work from the desktop which is one click away or install Start8 or Classic Shell or one of the many other programs to make it more like Windows 7. I have installed Windows 8 on two of my 5 desktops. It also came on my new Asus touchscreen notebook. At my office we are replacing all of our old Windows XP machines with new Windows 8 computers this year before XP support ends. I think desktop sales will increase as the year goes on for this reason.

Re: PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

#53

Post by WayneDB » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

RyanZAG wrote: post #23

I just got a new desktop this month - faster CPU, more ram, SSD, etc - it really is a lot faster than my 3 year old one. So I don't think hardware improvements are an issue, computer speed is still increasing heavily, and dropping compile time and allowing more programs open at once is always great. However, since I built the PC myself, I could choose what OS to install, and I'm using Linux and Win7. If I was a more…

I'm using Windows 8 and Windows 2012 Server for desktop operating and I couldn't disagree more.

What's the problem? Is the new start menu really that scary? I spend more time tweaking a new Windows 7 installation than I ever will on Windows 8.

Re: PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

#54

Post by zmmmmm » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 11:47 PM UTC

WettowelReactor wrote: post #51

InclinedPlane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, it's hard to find a decent high-performance laptop that has a decent screen. If I were to upgrade now I might think of going with the Lenovo T430u, except it has a 720p 16:9 TN screen. How long until it's possible to buy an ultrabook with a 1080p or higher resolution IPS display? And hoping for a 16:10 aspect ratio is probably out of the question.

Have you looked at Vizio's new ultra-book lineup. They have all been upgraded to touchscreen and the 15in models run at 1920 x 1080

Those are getting there ... but the GPUs are all weak.

The closest I have seen to what I want is the ASUS u500vz which has a decent mobile GPU, but it's extremely hard to get hold of (at least in my country).

Re: PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

#55

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 11:52 PM UTC

pointyhatuk wrote: post #31

That'll be because of three reasons I think, only one of which is mentioned: 1) The last generation of computers that people already own (Intel i3/5/7 with Windows 7) is actually pretty damn good and covers most requirements perfectly well. In fact my 5 year old Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz ThinkPad T61 with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD is really fast to the point I have no plans to upgrade any time soon. I see people hanging on to th…

[deleted]

Re: PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

#56

Post by joenathan » Fri, Apr 12, 2013, 3:57 AM UTC

virtualwhys wrote: post #35

joenathan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main speed increases as of late have been in CPUs adding more cores, most apps people use don't take advantage of all the available threads. Here I have a top of the line i7 3770k, a Samsung 840 Pro SSD, 16GB of RAM and Firefox will freeze up maxing out on 11% CPU usage and 3.5GB of RAM. I do use some apps that take more advantage of my hardware but most of the time all that horse power does me zero good. Most co…

Firefox consuming 3.5GB...well, there's your problem, must be a memory leak in whatever version you have. Upgrade/downgrade or try Chrome as alternative until the FF issue is resolved. Agreed re: most users not requiring a high end quad core CPU to browse the net, listen to music, use an email client, etc. Those cores do come in handy with virtual machines, however. With hyper threading your quad core turns into 8 vi…

I have over a 100 tabs open in 15+ windows, plus all my addons, the only reason I haven't switched to chrome is my because how deeply extensions can integrate with FF.

I do love the fact that you can build a decent server with consumer grade products, I can deliver low cost servers for my customers using an i7 and setup remote desktop services. The extra cores are great for such uses, but the masses will probably never need that much power, especially when you add an SSD to the mix. The PC market is mature, unless something drastically changes sales are going to stay flat.