Posted on 01/13/2016 10:41:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It's no secret that PC sales are shrinking, as everybody and their mothers turn to smartphones and tablets. That has led to miserable holiday PC sales, with worldwide PC shipments down 10.6% year-over-year in the final three months of 2015, research firm IDC announced on Tuesday. Sales of PCs for all of 2015 came in at the lowest level since 2008, IDC said in a press release.
By the second half of 2016, IDC says, things should stabilize a little bit in the PC market: Enterprises and consumers alike will turn to Microsoft Windows 10, the latest version of the PC operating system, as their existing systems run into security and performance issues.
But the biggest takeaway from the IDC report, by my reckoning, is the idea that laptops with detachable tablet portions -- like the Microsoft Surface Book -- could mitigate the decline in the PC market.
If you factor in these so-called detachables, IDC estimates that the PC market's expected 3.1% decline next year becomes a positive 1% to 2% of growth. It's not exactly a barnburner of a statistic, but any positive growth is better than the alternative.
When Microsoft first announced the Surface Book laptop and Surface Pro tablet, the company said the whole idea was to give its PC manufacturer partners a little shove in the direction of the detachable market. And while that market is small today, IDC acknowledges, it's growing quickly, spurred by the massive interest in the Surface Book and the copycat devices it's inspired.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
One of the main reasons PC sales have fallen off is that since Vista, hardware requirements haven’t really increased... Except for RAM, anyway. Vista likes 2 gigs to run well, and everything since does well for most tasks with 4. A 5 year old machine is plenty fast for the typical user.
I'm not sold on the detached keyboard form factor .. FOR ME..
I prefer the lenovo Yoga type fold over....(I have a Dell XSP 11 2 in 1 same fold over form factor that I got dirt cheap...i5 4 gig 250 ssd for >$250)
Reason being I use more as a laptop so prefer the weight in the bottom keyboard part....
And when I do tablet I do not want a separate part, the keyboard, floating around to keep track of....
But the small, with full PC OS and power, big hi res screen, super thin, super light, long life on battery(5/6+ hours)..SSD drive(no moving parts anymore)....AND Touch Screen (touch screen, once you get used to having it you can never go back)...are all now a must
... and win 10 is a good os
Why is it so hard to find a tablet with Windows OS and internal GPS?
If anything Apple computers suck now. They are the highest in vulnerabilities. I switched very thing over to Windows 10. Only Apple product in my house is an Ipad.
Apple screwed up with the New Mac Pro and killing off software I needed which forced me to Windows.
with Steve Jobs dead so is Apple.
Wow a whole 6%. I dumped Apple after the new Mac Pro came out and switched everything over to Windows 10.
From this article, over 7.5% market share in 2015 up from 6% in 2014 for Macs. From another article, 6% growth for each of last 3 years for Macs:
http://www.voanews.com/content/apple-defies-industry-trend-as-pc-sales-fall-again/3143303.html
But the small, with full PC OS and power, big hi res screen, super thin, super light, long life on battery(5/6+ hours)..SSD drive(no moving parts anymore)....AND Touch Screen (touch screen, once you get used to having it you can never go back)...are all now a must
You NAILED IT.
You can't go back. That's exactly what I think.
Win 10 is great. I still use Chrome, gmail, Google's calendar and other Google product assortments, but Google screwed up with their flash player problems and related plugins; they took away Google Voice and replaced it with the horrid Hangouts. But my home team favorite Microsoft is coming along and getting a tad smarter in apps arrangements but they have a long way to go yet to catch up with Google's mastery of some critical nuances.
Windows 10 will have the opposite affect. My next PC will run Linux.
I'm calling a giant BS on this one. Tablets and phones don't have any sort of serial port, nor do they have slots for arbitrary expansion devices. Can you run a printer/plotter from your phone? How about stepping motors?
I do know on the surface pro you can reattach the keyboard backwards to fold it away... I don't know on the surface book
Detaching the keyboard is not an issue for me. Perhaps it is for those that use tablets to present marketing materials; I don’t know.
The Surface Book that I tried out at a Microsoft Store seemed to have the keyboard firmly attached. But I guess you are right. It had a touch screen which is an incredible aid when using the keyboard, not having to rely on a touchpad.
Touch screens and keyboards seem natural with each other as the keyboard is best suited for entering info while the touchscreen is just so natural to sweep around the screen. Once you get used to it, it’s difficult to imagine it any other way.
Yea on my company laptop that not touch.. i find myself trying to fiick the screen to scroll when reading
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.