Tablets vs laptops: is the PC dead?

Can I have one of those dust gathering tablets please? Even if wifi only...

Agree with some, content creation and some types of gaming are not Tablet friendly.
 
cerebus said:
There is no chance of PCs dying off anytime soon. But sales are going into a long term decline because people are choosing to buy a new tablet rather than a new PC, and just holding onto their aging core2s on Win7 or whatever. The margins and the growth that were there are no longer there and may never recover to their former level. Even before the iPad came along, it was clear with the first iPhone that there was a serious threat to the PC, because if you can have a full browser in your pocket that's immediately challenged a large chunk of your PC usage.

But I pity the man who tries to replace his PC with an iPad.
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The problem is that the PC market is being lead by both tablets and consoles. They stay quintessential because the developers of both tablets and consoles have not been around for as long but they are catching up.
 
Fudzy said:
The problem is that the PC market is being lead by both tablets and consoles. They stay quintessential because the developers of both tablets and consoles have not been around for as long but they are catching up.
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There's also form factor to consider though. Form and function are interrelated. I can just about get away with typing meeting notes on a bluetooth keyboard attached to my iPad but it gives me cramps after a while. That's about as far as I'd even consider doing work on it.

PC(s) at home for doing stuff. Laptop for work and also doing stuff. Tablet for collecting dust. When I plug a decent monitor and wireless keyboard + mouse into my laptop I have a decent 'desktop' anyway. Tablet was a complete waste of money and everything it can do my current phone can do now anyway.
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Really? oh ok we have 2 iPads in our household and both are nearly dead at the end of each day. I'll settle for a midrange phone now so long as I can have the iPad.
 
cerebus said:
There's also form factor to consider though. Form and function are interrelated. I can just about get away with typing meeting notes on a bluetooth keyboard attached to my iPad but it gives me cramps after a while. That's about as far as I'd even consider doing work on it.
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Yeah I have paid the schoolfees for trying out a iPad case keyboard, damn fingers are way too big and it only works in very limited circumstances.
 
A personal computer (PC) is a general-purpose computer, whose size, capabilities, and original sale price makes it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.
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Yes, yes indeed, the PERSONAL COMPUTER will one day die.

/facepalm
 
With phones getting bigger I dont see the need to have a tablet as its more convenient to just use the phone.

If I need to do something that needs more power or a keyboard I'll get out the laptop, I built an i5 desktop when they just came out and I've used it maybe 20 times.

So for me its decent phone and decent laptop and console for gaming the others are not needed.
 
Fudzy said:
So what were you expecting to do with it?
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Watch movies/series in bed. Surf the interwebs. Youtube. Read ebooks. Play simple games. All of which I did do initially. To be honest it is a useful device - I just don't use it.
 
abandonallhope said:
Yes, yes indeed, the PERSONAL COMPUTER will one day die.

/facepalm
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I think it was assumed in this thread that by PC they're talking about the desktop form factor, even though, of course, "PC" correctly refers to pretty much any individual computing device but *please* can we not start this semantic debate about what a "PC" is??
 
garp said:
I think it was assumed in this thread that by PC they're talking about the desktop form factor, even though, of course, "PC" correctly refers to pretty much any individual computing device but *please* can we not start this semantic debate about what a "PC" is??
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Lets be PC about it.
 
garp said:
I think it was assumed in this thread that by PC they're talking about the desktop form factor, even though, of course, "PC" correctly refers to pretty much any individual computing device but *please* can we not start this semantic debate about what a "PC" is??
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I'm gonna post about how broadband will one day die, because ADSL is inferior to fibre.

Saying the PC will one day fade away amounts to the same.
 
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Personally I think serious data input still requires a notebook.. what u will see in future is the emergence of personal cloud computing to be a central underlining theme. e.g. at home i have a little micro server which hosts vm's and personal data. i am planning on using an ipad to remote into a vm to do some work from time to time but for more intense things i have a work notebook. See what the ipad(and new phones and tvs) is separate content viewers from content creators and even then.. there is a question of how much content creation needs to happen on device with serious capabilities.

So yah.. traditional models for computing ecosystems are changing fast, number devices increased(maybe stayed the same even) while the killing of traditional pc is dying.
 
abandonallhope said:
I'm gonna post about how broadband will one day die, because ADSL is inferior to fibre.

Saying the PC will one day fade away amounts to the same.
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Yes, we agree with you. Now *please* don't go there. We meant big mostly ugly beige boxes plugged into 240V mains with 30 cables plugged into the back of them, fans grinding away and R5000 water cooled graphics cards screwed into overclocked motherboards.
 
I use a tablet more than my laptop on any given day but it doesn't mean it can really replace it. Nor can I imagine life without the tablet.
 
All depends what you do on PC. IF you use PC purely for content consumption (as most of people do), you will switch to tablet soon, if you didn't do already. You don't need PC at all. Games are already served by consoles. But all creative work will be done on PC as it is now.
 
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