Desktop PCs and the Windows desktop: Endangered species?

gator said:

Honestly, I don't see myself ever converting fully to laptop/tablets. I'll be that 80 year old still clinging to his desktop 50 years down the road. I don't feel like I can get anything done with a laptop or tablet.

Not only that, but the older we get, the older our eyes get. Looking at my 17" laptop screen is bad enough; ain't no way I can really see the 15.6" laptop screen! I have a 13.6" Android tablet, but don't use it all that much because of the very small screen size.

Now, with this 23" monitor on my desktop . . . at least I can see the screen. I really would like for my font to be darker, though.

Lee said:

For those who are still pushing the desktop these are some sweet numbers. . .

And where did choice go? Out the window because someone else knows better than I?

Imagine this: you play this ancient Samurai movie (Zatoichi as example?) with the original Japanese sound, and English subs, on a IPhone...
I wonder how many will be able to actually read them subs.

MikeHawthorne said:

Hi Guys

I really don't get Microsoft's thinking, there are close to 2 billion PCs in the world.

Many of them are used by businesses to do Graphic Design, Spread Sheets, Video Editing, and a zillion other things you can't do easily or at all on a pad.

A large number, (half the people I know) use their computer for gaming.

What do they think all of those people are going to do?

In a way it's like they are trying to force people who want a desktop to go to Apple.

Sure there are going to be a lot of pad computers, I have an iPad myself.
Because of that I'm fully aware of what you can't do with a pad.

I'm not exaggerating when I say you can't run Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign or Premiere on a pad style computer that doesn't have a keyboard and mouse, and it's pretty hard to find any pad that would have the power to run any of these anyway.

The closest would be a new Surface 3 and they cost as much as a much better performing desktop.

I can't carry my PC around and take picture and video with it, but I can't edit the stuff afterwards without it.

They just don't serve the same purpose, and they need different operating systems.
I don't see why they didn't figure that out before Windows 8 was released.

Mike

Let those who want use 'droid tablets, iPads or even laptops. Leave the rest of us alone!

markweatherill said:

Yes, I expect the desktop PC is already dead. Shame all those fancy graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, CPUs will be stuck in the warehouses for ever more.Microsoft should tell those silly companies still manufacturing desktop PC components that there is no future for them!

I think they're trying to, Mark, but I'm not listening. :)

AMEN!
(Do see it as Pinhead, just before his demise in Hellraiser 4: Bloodlines, as effect)

Mark Phelps said:

With the technology that's available today, what is really a "desktop" and what is really a "portable device" when the latter can be connect to a dock, a keyboard, a mouse, and a large flat panel -- and then offer the same functionality as what used to be considered a "desktop"?

Last major project . . . issued a high-end HP laptop. And the first thing that everyone requested <snip>: 1) a dock, 2) a keyboard, 3) a mouse, 4) a high resolution flat panel monitor.

<snip>

So basically, what I'm saying is -- you plug enough stuff into a laptop or tablet, it becomes essentially, a desktop -- and then, the argument about which is better (in THAT environment) becomes nonsensical. In such cases, the laptops (or tablets) function as portable desktops.

One thing this thread has brought out is the possibility of "upgrading" laptops and tablets. :)

I have been using 'droid tablets for a couple of years and have "upgraded" them to a Logitech bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mouse. The keyboard will handle three tablets.

The thing is, though, that if one "upgrades" all these (in my opinion) inferior products to desktop quality, more has been spent on the peripherals than would have been spent on a nice desktop machine.

Further, when the graphics went out in my HP laptop a few months back, the whole thing was toast. Not so with a desktop! Just replace or add (if it was onboard) a graphics card and you're good to go.

Exactly.
Want a bigger HD? Swap it out or add one.
Better video card? Try that one in a floptop or a "device" heh....
In a desktop, YOU are the master.

I think that the sales of desktops are likely to be lower because they are expected to last for years.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

"...scratch pads." That's one of the nicer names I'bve heard for those misbegotten abominations! I can live with the keyboard and the smaller monitor but a mouse is a necessity for my. I even keep a spare mouse in my notebook case in case the one I use dies.

As a matter of history, Lady Fitzgerald, one of the first "computers" I worked on was a Xerox Word Processor. On the keyboard there was a round disk-like thing that you stroked to get to where you wanted to place the cursor when you wanted to change something in the text. I still don't know why they called it a mouse unless it was because it skittered all over the page when stroked. :)