Personal computer shipments post worst quarter on record, says IDC

Solid State Technology ^ | 04/11/2013 | Shannon Davis

[oh8eleven]

I, too, am happy with Win 8. Much more stable than any other version I have used.
Define stability. I've had 5 or 6 PCs in the last 10-12 years running NT, XP, Vista and Win7.
I have never had problems.

[chris37]

No, No. I do not need a mobile device OS for my stationary desktop.

I realize that there are downloads to change this, but I am not going to support such obnoxious stupidity.

They will have to be satisfied with the Windows 7 I bought.

[illiac]

Blue screen of death....machine re-boots....machine freezes.....networking suddenly fails...

And I’ve was in the business for 30 years with networking credentials.

[oh8eleven]

Have never had a BSD failure or unwanted re-boot.
Everyone experiences "glitches" like a machine freeze every once in a great while, but it's usually "operator error" rather than OS fail.
They run half a dozen or more programs simultaneously, run their machines w/o ever rebooting, etc., ... and they do it with 512mb RAM ... and then blame MS (not that I would defend MS).

[hattend]

I blame Windows 8.

[Will88]

In another sign of the worldwide shift in preferred personal devices, PC shipments posted the steepest decline ever in a single quarter,

Tablets are PCs, and many have more capabilities than many desktops had only a few years back. Some percentage of PC users will move to tablet PCs, then a point will be reached where the much smaller screen sizes and other factors will cause many users to stick with desktops for the long term.

Desktops, laptops, notebook PCs and tablets serve mostly the same functions. Smartphones are something new, but it remains to be seen how many will use them as their only computer platform.

[MCH]

Yeah, pretty funny. I just ordered a PC yesterday too from a mail order company I usually get them from. I configured it for Windows 7. I was glad to see that was still an option.

A touch screen oriented interface for a desktop machine I plan to use for gaming & internet access with a large monitor that I sit back from in a comfortable chair is the last thing I want, and the legacy desktop option or whatever they're calling it sounds like a kludge. I'll wait for Windows 9 or a new Windows 8 SP update, when they hopefully provide a decent user interface alternative as a built-in option, and get rid of those stupid default UI chiclet things designed for touch devices rather than desktops.

[CdMGuy]

I purchased two HP 23 inch touch screens with Windows 8. They replaced one 8 year old XP Dell and one 6 year old XP Dell.

We love the new HPs. As for Win 8, excuse me but there is so much BS about Win 8. I will take it over Win XP any time.

Everything about these desk top PCs is amazing. For us, we want big screen desk top PCs for use at home, and tablets for use while away from home. We would never consider substituting a tablet for a desk top PC, especially when it comes to using Microsoft Word and Excel.

[Squantos]

We do same with older cpu’s etc ...... Took an old HP laptop, replaced the HD with a SSD and loaded Peppermint 3 on it.... Screaming fast net surfing tool !

.... Old hardware isn’t bad if ya change its diaper once in a while .....:o)

[conejo99]

Microsoft has done themselves and the PC industry a horrible disservice. Let’s say:
50% (high in my opinion) of the people in the market for a PC get a Windows 8 machine and like it,
40% of them get a Windows 8 machine and don’t like it (my situation), while
10% of them delay getting a new PC because they’ve heard bad reviews/experience concerning Windows 8, and almost
0% upgrade early to get a Windows 8 machine.
Where does that leave Microsoft?
Do they really expect to get enough revenue from their Windows 8 app store to make up for this?

[zeugma]

Have never had a BSD failure or unwanted re-boot. Everyone experiences "glitches" like a machine freeze every once in a great while, but it's usually "operator error" rather than OS fail. They run half a dozen or more programs simultaneously, run their machines w/o ever rebooting, etc., ... and they do it with 512mb RAM ... and then blame MS (not that I would defend MS).

What do you mean by "once in a great while. My computer generally runs from one kernel upgrade to the next (5-6 months, if not longer. Now that I'm EOL on the version of Fedora I'm running, I don't expect to have to reboot until I decide to upgrade to the next level, or I lose power for more than 30 minutes.  I fully expect, absent something external (like extended power loss), for my desktop to run for a year or more without issues. I've had workstations go that long without issues that were acting not only as my primary desktop, but as serious batch processors for data reporting and management that have gone that long before I ended up rebooting due to a move or something similar.

I really don't expect my desktop to fail absent actual hardware or power failure.

[oh8eleven]

Now that I'm EOL on the version of Fedora I'm running, I don't expect to have to reboot until I decide to upgrade to the next level
We're talking Windows stability and you pop in with your "divine" Linux experiences. Sigh. BTW, you forgot the obligatory - I don't use AV programs either. More sighs ...
I've run Kubuntu on different systems over the last few years and they too have the once a great while freeze - say, once every 6 months.
Linux is just not as bulletproof as too many try to tell us it us.

[zeugma]

I've run Kubuntu on different systems over the last few years and they too have the once a great while freeze - say, once every 6 months. Linux is just not as bulletproof as too many try to tell us it us.

It is extraordinarily rare for even what appears to be a "freeze" to actually be a halt if you have decent hardware. I can recover from just about anything without rebooting, and actually had more than a thousand days of uptime on my main desktop at work before it was killed during a power outage when the UPS failed.

While not a desktop, I've had AIX servers with more than 6 years of uptime. 

Despite what microsoft and their supporters will try to tell you, It is not normal to have a computer need to be rebooted for just about anything short of kernel upgrades, and there are even ways to upgrade the kernel on the fly these days.