Popularity of tablets to blame for expected decline in annual PC sales

Shawn Knight

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gartner tablet sales pc shipments

Global shipments of personal computers are expected to drop 6.6 percent this year compared to 2013 according to the latest report from research firm Gartner. Tablet shipments, on the other hand, are forecasted to shoot up 38.6 percent courtesy of strong demand outside of North America.

Worldwide combined shipments of devices including PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones are projected to reach 2.5 billion units this year, up 6.9 percent compared to last year. Unsurprisingly, mobile phones are the largest segment of the overall device market with 1.9 billion units.

Traditional PCs will continue to hold back overall growth, however, and the number of people going from PC to tablet is also expected to slow. Only two-thirds of those with PCs now are expected to replace them. The remaining third will either move to ultramobiles or not replace systems at all.

The reason for this, it seems, is that the overall device market is starting to saturate. This will put increased pressure on margins and vendors will ultimately look at alternative ways to deal with lower margins.

Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, said tablet substitution of notebooks will start to dissipate from this year onwards as consumers and businesses align the right device with the right usage pattern. As they do this, he noted, we will see where dedicated devices (such as tablets) or hybrid devices (detachable or convertible devices) fit in the overall portfolio of devices.

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Looking at that picture, I doubt any of those pc's are gaming so why are consumer pc's so large? Use an AMD APU with a laptop hdd and embedded sound plus wifi/lan on the motherboard, and I don't see why these tower pc's are not half the size or on the backs of the monitor. Perhaps small is what consumers want. A large tower is so yesterday. (I know gamers and enthusiast might disagree with the above but I think we can still keep you all happy and make these towers half the size or smaller.)
 
Looking at that picture, I doubt any of those pc's are gaming so why are consumer pc's so large? Use an AMD APU with a laptop hdd and embedded sound plus wifi/lan on the motherboard, and I don't see why these tower pc's are not half the size or on the backs of the monitor. Perhaps small is what consumers want. A large tower is so yesterday. (I know gamers and enthusiast might disagree with the above but I think we can still keep you all happy and make these towers half the size or smaller.)

Most vendors don't want to focus on Mini/Micro, ATX boards compared to standard ATX boards. I'm guessing they get a better deal or better yet, those are just usually higher demand overall. So there's a serious saturation of ATX compared to Mini/Micro, along with E-ATX and so forth really.

Those are usually for specific groups of people, and the mainstream computer makers don't see a point. I guess being in the end people are used to, the general mid-tower setup to do most things. Burn a CD, watch a DVD, etc. That's all people usually do and then we get those, who usually just want to go online for browsing and such but the costs outweigh benefits of smaller formfactors.
 
I built my main core of the pc around vista. I've been adding on since then. a q6600 quad-core lg775 from 5 years ago with 8gbs ram, ssd's, 2 tb hdd's is still more than enough to run anything now. there's no reason to run out and buy a new one. anything that can run vista is perfectly suited to run windows 7 /8 and any linux distro. I've put windows 8 on a dell xps 420 and an h/p. both ran perfectly. for less then $100 they get a new computer. why buy an entirely new system at some outrageous asking price?
I also have an android, which I find is nothing more than a toy and completely useless. my asus windows r/t tablet that came with microsoft office is freaking awesome. I can't understand the hate for it unless you were clueless to what you were buying. the battery has never died once and the wifi is one of the best I've used for a mobile device. my favorite is my chromebook. light weight, looks cool and does what I want when I'm just doing casual online browsing. I use my chromebook more than anything else now.
 
I'm planning to buy a tablet for some specific scenarios, but the notebook I bought 3 years ago still gets the job done and I built my desktop PC some months ago and won't build a new one for a few years to go. That doesn't mean I'm not using a full computer or don't own one.
 
I don't get the popularity of tablets, I understand they're cheap but still. I bought one, used it for 6 months or so and realized it was useless and everything I do with it can be done with my smartphone, so I sold It and went out and bought an ultrabook, only two devices I need IMO.
 
ajm123 said:
I don't get the popularity of tablets, I understand they're cheap but still. I bought one, used it for 6 months or so and realized it was useless and everything I do with it can be done with my smartphone, so I sold It and went out and bought an ultrabook, only two devices I need IMO.
you've probably had android tablet\ipad and its indeed just oversized smartphone, windows tablets are totally different, modern windows tablets have same if not better specs than ultrabooks
I always thought that ultrabooks were DoA just like netbooks
 
How about instead of running these articles about how much PC sales have dropped or are going to drop, we get an article about PC Hardware sales and see what these numbers look like?
PC sales, in my opinion, have dropped for multiple reasons:
Lack of need (this is covered by older PC's still being able to run newer software, so not as many people are running out and buying new just so they can run current games/programs);
Wanting mobility (more and more people are on the go - so they want something that is more portable - ie Laptops, Tablets and Smart Phones);
And last is Cost (this varies for reasons but mostly why would someone spend money on something new when they can either upgrade what they currently have for less or they might not have the money to buy new - Economy).
I don't know how many will agree or disagree, we can't pinpoint any ONE reason that PC sales are declining. They are because times changes and people's needs & wants change.
 
Has anyone actually went out to buy a Laptop? It's nuts. I have a 2008 Laptop with 2.4 Ghz Intel and a Geforce 9600M GT graphics chip. It broke and I fixed it for $100. Bought I thought about new laptops, and looked around. For about $400 I get a similar laptop in performance or maybe worse, and for $500 I get a 100% performance upgrade. Performance I don't really need.

So it makes sense to repair this old 2008 laptop. Also, why the super huge selection of CPU's? Intel Pentium, Celeron, i3, i5, and i7. For the most part, Pentiums and Celerons are crap. The i3's are Ok, but has to be 2Ghz+ to be worth getting. More then likely the CPU's are all soldered onto the damn boards too.

Even if you're no tech expert, you'll avoid the upgrade when most laptops have CPU's that run less then 2Ghz and your laptop has a 2Ghz. Even though a i3 is 100% faster clock for clock, the Celerons and Pentiums are not. Why put them there other then to confuse customers? It just forces them to keep using their existing machines cause they think bigger numbers are better. They see 2.4Ghz is better then 1.4Ghz. A Geforce 9600m GT is better then integrated graphics, even integrated got faster. Also, it takes a $500+ laptop to out do a 2008 Laptop.

Industry has nothing to blame other then themselves.
 
Has anyone actually went out to buy a Laptop? It's nuts. I have a 2008 Laptop with 2.4 Ghz Intel and a Geforce 9600M GT graphics chip. It broke and I fixed it for $100. Bought I thought about new laptops, and looked around. For about $400 I get a similar laptop in performance or maybe worse, and for $500 I get a 100% performance upgrade. Performance I don't really need.

So it makes sense to repair this old 2008 laptop. Also, why the super huge selection of CPU's? Intel Pentium, Celeron, i3, i5, and i7. For the most part, Pentiums and Celerons are crap. The i3's are Ok, but has to be 2Ghz+ to be worth getting. More then likely the CPU's are all soldered onto the damn boards too.

Even if you're no tech expert, you'll avoid the upgrade when most laptops have CPU's that run less then 2Ghz and your laptop has a 2Ghz. Even though a i3 is 100% faster clock for clock, the Celerons and Pentiums are not. Why put them there other then to confuse customers? It just forces them to keep using their existing machines cause they think bigger numbers are better. They see 2.4Ghz is better then 1.4Ghz. A Geforce 9600m GT is better then integrated graphics, even integrated got faster. Also, it takes a $500+ laptop to out do a 2008 Laptop.

Industry has nothing to blame other then themselves.

Bought my dell xps 1340 laptop in 2009 and it's still going strong. I'd like to get a MB Pro, but this dam xps refuses to die, lol talk about value for money.
 
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