Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

pcadvisor.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

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

#71

Post by iSnow »

toyg wrote: post #7
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?

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 i…

I work for one of the larger corporations on the planet and in a recent presentation it was announced that employees will have a choice between a laptop and a Surface. Quote "our sales people are looking positively old-fashioned visiting their customers with laptops".

So, expect the corporate computer market to take a nose-dive in the next years too, I guess.

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

#72

Post by irv »

hpaavola wrote: post #40

If you are looking for a Linux compatible laptop that is somewhat similar to MacBook Air, look for Asus Zenbook UX* line. Excellent display, good but not awesome battery life, fast hardware and really good keyboard for its size. I've bought two UX31A's, one for myself almost two years a go and one for my dad last Christmas. Everything else works straight away with Ubuntu other than ambient light sensor. I think there…

Yes, I have the 2013 model of the X1 carbon and it's about perfect for me (running Debian). But I have no idea why they ruined the keyboard on the latest model.

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

#73

Post by voteapathy »

In a similar vein, I feel that there's a sense that consumers feel tablets are "vaguely better." By this, I mean a number of things. For example, laptops often by and large are still sold with hard disc drives instead of solid state, and therefore tablets are actually a faster experience. tablet and smartphone UIs do a 'better job' at handling errors; by this I mean keeping redundant error message pop-ups to a minimum and attempting to more elegantly kill an app. An app store is a simple and safer place to download new software than the awful method Windows had going through the 90's and 00's of venturing out and downloading mysterious programs (which in it of itself has greatly damaged the Windows reputation).

I guess my point is that these issues are not inherently solved due to the tablet form factor, but rather better UI and more pointed hardware directed toward consumer use cases.

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

#75

Post by parag_c_mehta »

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

The advent of SSD has been redefining moment in PC history. Earlier when friends or relatives complained about slow PC, solution offered was add more "RAM" which was not possible as "RAM" always kept evolving with tie up to motherboards.

But now my first suggestion for them is to go for SSD, which instantly fixes their old "slow" PCs. Thus eliminating the need to buy a new PC/laptop.

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

#76

Post by ekianjo »

parag_c_mehta wrote: post #75
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

The advent of SSD has been redefining moment in PC history. Earlier when friends or relatives complained about slow PC, solution offered was add more "RAM" which was not possible as "RAM" always kept evolving with tie up to motherboards. But now my first suggestion for them is to go for SSD, which instantly fixes their old "slow" PCs. Thus eliminating the need to buy a new PC/laptop.

Very true. SSD make a huge difference no matter your hardware, and certainly makes any old system look fresh as new.

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

#77

Post by dragonwriter »

dalore wrote: post #74

I literally just bought the Samsung chromebook. Should I return it and get another chromebook?

Why would the fact that Samsung is no longer selling Chromebooks in Europe make you want to return the Chromebook you already purchased?

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

#79

Post by jessedhillon »

ekianjo wrote: post #44
jessedhillon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding the term decline as used here. See the following link, http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/decliningindustry.asp

There's plenty of life in the PC platform. When you'll want to have high quality VR at home, it won't be on PS4 nor on Gear VR, it will be on a High specs PC with an Oculus or Valve headset. So not sure where you see this as an ongoing decline, when new uses are on the rise. EDIT: besides, based on your link, it should be classified as Mature Phase and not Declining phase. See sales numbers.

First, we're talking about laptops not all PCs. Second, the chart is of profit, not sales volume -- the number you gave. If you have not grown your sales by a rate that is at least in line with economic growth, you're in decline. The term describes a simple economic fact, and is correctly used.

You're upset because you see some kind of conspiracy to defame the PC or whatever, but the industry has not grown in sales while the economy has.

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

#80

Post by rm445 »

72deluxe wrote: post #57
Throwaway12830 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Realistically, consumers choose based on the clear numbers, disk space and memory. 1 TB disks and 8 GB of RAM have recently hit the low-ish end of laptops so at least there's that to go on.
Post reply on HN