Weekend Open Forum: Desktops doomed to irrelevancy?

[ET3D]

I agree with the guest above. Notebooks already sell more than desktops, and smaller devices are becoming more competent in giving people what they want. When it comes to gaming, the majority of game buyers are on consoles anyway, and thanks to the cloud these devices could also become PC replacements in other ways. Within 3 years the cloud will also provide a decent gaming experience, so people who want to play the latest PC games without having to pay for the hardware will be able to do so (although they'll require a very fast internet connection).

It's an interesting prediction, though, and since 3 years is not too far off, it's worth remembering it and checking whether it comes true.

 

[cyrusjumpjet]

Portability is increasingly attractive and very realistic in recent days, but I don't think the desktop will go away for a while.

Personally, I enjoy coming home to a media station with a big monitor, speakers, and full keyboard without sacrificing anything for the sake of "space" or portability. Laptops are great but I love my desktop.

 

[eltigre4jc]

of course desktop's wont dissapear...there are many thing that can't be done with laptop/smartphones....let's think how the desktop parts get better and better and what power do rthey have...

 

[buendia]

PC offers higher computing power than most of other devices out there, so it very unlikely it will die (definitely not in the given time time frame).

 

[kazarm]

Laptops will take a bigger and bigger market share, but stationary computers will not disappear in many years.

If you want bigger screens and keyboards and do not need the mobility you will be better off with a stationary. A laptop with a docking station is more expensive

 

[davimous]

There is something about a desktop that feels so much like home. I love my laptop and Ipod but sitting down in my nice chair with my speakers all set up and ready to use is priceless.

 

[slh28]

While smartphones and netbooks, etc. are becoming more popular, there is a serious limitation - their physical size. As far as I know humans are not evolving so fast that we are going to get hawklike vision in the next 3 years, so we will still be squinting at a small smartphone or netbook screen.

Portability is great, but in the end most people work at the same desk and go home to the same house every day so having a big screen and a powerful computer is still preferred. I can imagine smaller form factors becoming a lot more popular though.

 

[nazartp]

Desktops disappearing in 3 years - no. Laptops or other mobile devices taking, I'd say, about 60-80 percent share of computer base in the next 5-10 years - quite likely. I think most of us agree on the main points. Stationary computers will be used by people who prefer to customize their computers and/or that need significant computing power. Most of other tasks are better suited for laptops. With prices of laptops going down so much in recent years they became a viable alternative even to cheap desktops.

To give an example, my computer-illiterate friend just bought himself a brand new laptop for $300. Pretty slow, but can play DVDs, browse the net and has built-in camera for Skype. After uninstalling all the garbage it came with, it is not snappy but serviceable. When I asked my buddy why he went for laptop, he said that (1) he's sharing network connection with his neighbor and wants the ability to move where the signal is better; (2) wants to hide his computer from his kids, otherwise they will break it; and (3) wants to be able to bring it over to me so I can teach him to use computer.

 

[Ritwik7]

"Doomed to irrelevancy" - Impossible.

When it comes to high performance computing and gaming the desktop has no substitute. The biggest advantage being the upgradability factor.

In the workplace though, one might expect to go the laptop way.

 

[nazartp]

Desktops disappearing in 3 years - no. Laptops or other mobile devices taking, I'd say, about 60-80 percent share of computer base in the next 5-10 years - quite likely. I think most of us agree on the main points. Stationary computers will be used by people who prefer to customize their computers and/or that need significant computing power. Most of other tasks are better suited for laptops. With prices of laptops going down so much in recent years they became a viable alternative even to cheap desktops.

To give an example, my computer-illiterate friend just bought himself a brand new laptop for $300. Pretty slow, but can play DVDs, browse the net and has built-in camera for Skype. After uninstalling all the garbage it came with, it is not snappy but serviceable. When I asked my buddy why he went for laptop, he said that (1) he's sharing network connection with his neighbor and wants the ability to move where the signal is better; (2) wants to hide his computer from his kids, otherwise they will break it; and (3) wants to be able to bring it over to me so I can teach him to use computer.

 

[Puiu]

Maybe in 10-20 years when mobile devices will be powerful enough to satisfy everyone. I don't believe we'll use our mobile phone to play crysis anytime soon.
We need a good solution for a big screen for mobile devices. Like a that you fold or a similar tech that allows you to increase/decrease the size of the screen without having to change the size of the entire device (think digital newspapers).

 

[Recipe7]

If they can create gaming laptops which are up to par with gaming desktops, maybe.

But many, including me, hate playing on a keyboard which is inches away from a screen.

 

[LGraves]

Agreeing with recipe7. I guess this Google guy forgot about gaming.

 

[ken777]

I guess you could say desktops will become irrelevant in 3 years if you think 30-40% share of the PC market is "irrelevant." Laptops and other mobile devices will be good enough for the vast majority of users, but for anyone who needs/wants the highest performance or best performance/dollar, the desktop is still unbeatable. Maybe some day laptops will become so ridiculously powerful that desktops will become the new mainframe, but that's not happening in the next few years.

 

[Guest]

until the PC Gaming industry goes out of the door completely, desktops will never be anywhere close to being "irrelevant". Games on high end PCs will ALWAYS look and run better than the same game on consoles. Even then, there will be the loyal few (such as myself) that will do our best to keep desktop PCs alive and kicking ^.^

 

[DarKSeeD]

That's plain "Are PC gamers a dying breed?"!
I think desktops will be here for at least another 10 years. Simply there is still not enough power to keep mobile devices going on for a number of days without an extra battery or so.
The CPU and GPU may be more efficient but not energy efficient.
How many of you use a typical mobile device for 3 or 4 days without recharging it? Doing the usual stuff: call, text message, web, picture - just to name a few.
Besides that not many companies will afford to switch from the desktops to mobile devices.

 

[vegasrez]

I agree at least until they can put full power computing and graphics into a mobile device which is probably quite some time in the future.

 

[mrtraver]

Rrrriiiigghhhttttt....
And 640K is enough memory for anyone.
And PC gaming is dead. (Well, OK, Ubisoft and Activision are actively working on that one.)
And Larabee will kill ATI and Nvidia.
And the sky is falling.

 

[Chazz]

3 years is way too soon. You'd have to be retarded to suggest something like that. Google really wants this cloud computing thing to be mainstream. They are working their asses off to host our files on their servers. It makes me question their motive.

 

[Punkid]

yea princeton said it right, putting 2 5970s and an i7 in a laptop.....

 

[Kovach]

NO, I don't think so that mobile devices, like laptop will replace desktop versions. There are a lot of factors and limitations that are always there in mobile, you can't avoid it. the fact is, that the mobile systems are growing very well (in way of performance)but at the other hand, desktop components will be there always, better and with much more performance than ever before.

 

[Guest]

I used to have a gaming laptop. It already had an anemic (8600mgt) video back then.
Now after the bloody LCD didn't work and cost to fix approached 1/2 of a new desktop, I decided to go back to desktop.

I'll prolly get a netbook if I need to be mobile, but desktops are SO much easier to upgrade and fix.

You only realize this after (like I) spent over $1400.00 to buy a gaming laptop with anemic video card, when I could have built 2 gaming desktops and be future proof.

Ahh well.

 

[timeless52]

Until I can go out and custom build a notebook just like I did with my desktop, I don't see them going away any time soon. The biggest problem I have current notebooks is the lack of multiple DVI or HDMI ports.

 

[levar]

there's no way desktops will be doomed USB 3.0, new version of SATA, SSDs heading on there way into desktop, 64-bit this is just the beginning of desktop getting ready to show just how far they can grow there's still a long way to even think about desktops going away, there's till Windows 8, 9 we still have to wait for, there are still companies using desktops though right now I work in a company as a student and when ever I go to work hardly none of the employess are working at work most work at home either on there laptop or blackberry, there's maybe some aspects of how you use mobile & desktops. But, there's no way in hell desktops will become irrelevant.

 

[shoeseat]

i agree with google executive but he missed '0' after '3'.