Will the desktop PC become obsolete?

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

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Was listening to LBC radio and they had their 'gadget guru' Darren Tossel on
http://www.lbc.co.uk/the-gadget-guru-11368

He was talking about how popular the kindle and tablets currently are, and when asked by the show presenter for predictions for 2013 gadgets, Darren was saying how tablets and touch screen gadgets would continue to get more popular, but he threw in .. "and as desktop pc's become obsolete .."

I can't see it myself. There's always people like us who like to upgrade components. That's something that tablets can't do, and which laptops are very limited in. Or is it likely there'll come a time where we can't buy a graphics card, a cpu, psu, ram, motherboard anymore and a lot of the component companies will go out of business?
 
The market share will drop, it already is. However, there will always be a need for high spec computers in every sector. Media, music, gaming, distributed computing etc.
 
Yes, they'll become obsolete, but I wouldn't like to guess exactly when.

Nowadays you need a good reason to buy a desktop PC. Most things the average user wants to do can be achieved more conveniently using smart phones, laptops, and tablets.

The upgrade-ability of PCs is irrelevant to most people as they never get touched unless they break, and then it's usually a third-party doing the repairs (if it's even viable).
 
The same thing i hear from my boss at work
We fix laptops and he is going all about that people are not buying pc anymore
They all get laptops
Wait for the next generation colsols to come out
Games requirements will go up instantly
At the moment they are still releasing games to run on xbox360
To appeal the mass market for best margin of profit
And tablets are...never had one but for noooobs users they are gold
 
Being on a pc-orientated forum you perhaps don't get the best perspective of the common man, but the majority of households are already void of a PC. I know maybe 1 person out of 50 friends that have a PC and that person is me. The common man only buys laptops.
 
In ten years time, screens will have dumb terminal hardware. Your specs will be irrelevant, you pay a sub for more cores/GPU grunt via an Onlive type service. Intel and AMD will be a distant memory ;)
 
The moment you can get a 300 quid laptop that can play recent games the PC market is dead
Until then i will recycle case HDD and other parts and save me a fortune
 
d_brennen said:
In ten years time, screens will have dumb terminal hardware. Your specs will be irrelevant, you pay a sub for more cores/GPU grunt via an Onlive type service. Intel and AMD will be a distant memory ;)
Click to expand...

I'd agree to a point, but it does assume that cheap, fast, reliable broadband becomes properly widespread.
 
bremen1874 said:
I'd agree to a point, but it does assume that cheap, fast, reliable broadband becomes properly widespread.
Click to expand...

Look how far we have come since 2003. Iirc I was on an expensive 512kb connection and services like iPlayer and YouTube were all science fiction :p before that I remember being blown away by playing Quake 3 on a 56.6k dialup modem in 1999
 
bremen1874 said:
The PC market isn't driven by people playing games.
Click to expand...

This is what I said above; people from this forum don't, through no fault of their own, see the bigger picture. Most people, if they game at all, do so on consoles. If you're a casual computer user then a laptop will do everything you need and be mobile at the same time. Most modern laptops can even play games on low settings (i.e. source games)
 
desires said:
This is what I said above; people from this forum don't, through no fault of their own, see the bigger picture. Most people, if they game at all, do so on consoles. If you're a casual computer user then a laptop will do everything you need and be mobile at the same time. Most modern laptops can even play games on low settings (i.e. source games)
Click to expand...

Anything with an AMD A8/10 APU can run Source games at typical laptop resolutions with all the bells a whistles bar AA perhaps
 
broadband in the UK is a nightmare
Or at least for me
All big firms get laptops for employ
Users get laptops with reasoning of saving space
Virtualization is endangering workstations
Only power users buy PC hardware at the moment
But the everyday ``bob`` gets a laptop and mistreats it
The uk citizens are like that
But the global market is not like that, from where i come you get a pc
 
tres_kun said:
broadband in the UK is a nightmare
Or at least for me
All big firms get laptops for employ
Users get laptops with reasoning of saving space
Virtualization is endangering workstations
Only power users buy PC hardware at the moment
But the everyday ``bob`` gets a laptop and mistreats it
The uk citizens are like that
But the global market is not like that, from where i come you get a pc
Click to expand...

Is Glasgow that disperate from the rest of the UK?!
 
d_brennen said:
Look how far we have come since 2003. Iirc I was on an expensive 512kb connection and services like iPlayer and YouTube were all science fiction :p before that I remember being blown away by playing Quake 3 on a 56.6k dialup modem in 1999
Click to expand...


Things have come a long way, but there are still significant areas where any sort of affordable high speed broadband is impossible.

Even 10 years ago, when I bought my current house, I made sure it would get a decent broadband connection (NTL 512K at time). I now have 72Mbps FTTC with the option of 120Mbps Virgin cable if I wanted it. If I drive a couple of miles to some of the local villages they're lucky to get 1Mbps ADSL.
 
There will always be stragglers. When the motor car was new there were many, many places that were unreachable. Progress pulls everyone along, even if its not as quickly as you'd like ;)
 
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