the expected demise of the desktop PC
Articles about the expected demise of the desktop PC
I'm a little irked at the talk that desktop PCs are soon to be phased out, because most consumers are preferring to purchase tablets and smartphones instead. (Tablets replacing laptops.) And also gaming console systems that use the large screen TV versus a PC.
I prefer the ergonomics of sitting in a comfortable chair at a desk, in a room with a desktop computer surround sound system, manipulating a mouse, and enjoying it all in one 27" monitor (I'll probably eventually upgrade to a bit larger screen than that, but not too much). That to me is the ideal ergonomics for gaming.
The iPad is actually a bit unwieldy to play a game with. I mean, it has it's uses. But I would not want to be restricted to that mode of playing the game. And I have no interest in console systems. Tried a Xbox some years ago and really disliked it.
Now the stores that I use to build my gaming rigs are disappearing right and left, forcing me to either use Best Buy or Staples, or learn how to assemble a home built PC myself.![:\](https://forums.beamdog.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
Just venting, lol!
I'm a little irked at the talk that desktop PCs are soon to be phased out, because most consumers are preferring to purchase tablets and smartphones instead. (Tablets replacing laptops.) And also gaming console systems that use the large screen TV versus a PC.
I prefer the ergonomics of sitting in a comfortable chair at a desk, in a room with a desktop computer surround sound system, manipulating a mouse, and enjoying it all in one 27" monitor (I'll probably eventually upgrade to a bit larger screen than that, but not too much). That to me is the ideal ergonomics for gaming.
The iPad is actually a bit unwieldy to play a game with. I mean, it has it's uses. But I would not want to be restricted to that mode of playing the game. And I have no interest in console systems. Tried a Xbox some years ago and really disliked it.
Now the stores that I use to build my gaming rigs are disappearing right and left, forcing me to either use Best Buy or Staples, or learn how to assemble a home built PC myself.
Just venting, lol!
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Comments
The laptop came, PC's were sure to be obsolete.
The consoles came, PC's for gaming were sure to die.
E-pc's came, both PC's and laptops would definitely die out.
And now tablets will absolutely destroy PC's.
Nobody prefers typing on a touchscreen over a keyboard. Nobody prefers gaming with a touchscreen over a mouse and keyboard. The advantages of a Tablet are size/weight and the mobility that comes with it, making it convinient for doing a little work/play on the train/bus or while in a waiting line.
For every business, PC's are and will stay the norm. For practicly every household, the PC will stay the norm. Will a tablet take over some features? Sure, for music, quick games, notes, watching a movie alone. For hardcore gaming, researching and writing school/work projects, database and file management, storage of massive amounts of data (more than 10 movies for instance), the PC will not be replaced.
Also, googling "Demise of the PC" garners around 15% of the results about "End of the world".
So...don't take those articles, or the amount of them, so seriously.
Those articles are always way more sensationalist than accurate.
Once the trial period was over, I purchased Win 8 Pro and did a fresh install on the same computer. That's when things got wonky. Metro apps wouldn't work at all, programs that seemed to be compatible started crashing, and so on.
I ended up rolling back to Windows 7. That's the first time I've ever done that after testing out a new Windows.
Don't see the need for a touchscreen interface on a device that has a mouse and keyboard. Don't fix what isn't broken.
BUT, there will always be applications, whether its business or gaming, where the desktop will be the superior machine. As others have pointed out, it has ergonomic advantages, bigger display, potentially better sound, and many others. Now I do think the technology will continue to morph. And who knows if Microsoft, Apple or Google will even still be a player ten or twenty years from now. But some sort of desktop/workstation sort of computer will likely be with us for a long time.
Speaking only for myself, I would love if eventually my tablet and desktop became the same computer; you know, like dock the tablet at home for a bigger screen, real keyboard, mouse, better sound. Then take it with me on the go so my mobile experience has identical content to my home experience. I'm not big on putting all my stuff in the cloud, but who knows. The future is a great unknown.
I think it holds up :-p
A laptop or tablet would be a considerable step backwards in entertainment technology for me. One which I hope I will not have to spend huge amounts of money in the near future to avoid.
I don't often see my particular concerns discussed when this kind of topic is brought up. HDTV's can be used for computer monitors. This has been true since about 2005 or so. PC's are easy to hook up to your main home entertainment center. My PC is an entertainment component, and sits physically near my amplifier, dvr, and blueray player.
The high quality of picture and sound that I am used to is not something I am going to want to give up. My fear is that the niche market I represent is so small, the prices we have to pay for what we want are going to get higher and higher, perhaps to the point of unaffordability for middle class consumers.
I know, for example, that Mitsubishi has stopped producing large-screen (greater than 60") DLP and CoSA televisions. I own two of them, a 72" CoSA, and my current 81" DLP. The older one has a slowly fading light engine that cannot be repaired, since it is out of production. If my DLP ever breaks down irreparably, which may be inevitable, I don't know what I am going to do.
My home-entertainment PC gaming is such an integral part of my lifestyle, I'm actually rather worried.
The ma 'n pa local computer repair shops that will assemble a rig for you are disappearing. Their only market is now gaming rigs and servers for small businesses. The shop I had been using for the last dozen years went out of business. The other one nearby had 10 stores throughout the state about 10 years ago and is now down to 1! (I live in a densely populated area, mind you.) The owner says the causal computer user either a) doesn't own a PC anymore, or b) if they do and it needs repair, they either just buy a whole new ready-made system, or take it to Best Buy or Staples for repair.
Like @belgarathmth for a while I had our big screen in the living room hooked up to a PC. I thought my wife and I would use it to watch stuff streamed from the Internet. But we ended up not using it that way very much. Once in a blue moon maybe. Last Fall I moved that PC to my office because it was the rig I could play BG:EE on (the other one has an Intel CPU and NVIDIA graphics card--BG:EE is completely unplayable on it). I didn't bother to put the other PC in the living room, since we weren't really using the big screen TV for the Internet anyway. We have an iPad and a Kindle Fire for when we're sitting in the living room watching TV.
But eventually I might try to set up something like @belgarathmth describes for my office... i.e., something more like Jim Kirk's chair on the command deck of the Enterprise. Versus sitting at a desk, I mean.
Your lifestyle sounds good.
The success of the iPhone and iPad (and their derivatives) stems not just from the fact that they're mobile, but also that they're vastly simpler to use and at the same time severely crippled devices compared to a PC, and that these are good things for a large amount of users. Even when they don't need the mobility, they'd certainly still use this small, friendly and intuitive device with an email and facebook button on it, over anything else.
That said, I entirely agree that the PC will remain relevant, but only for the category of people who actually takes advantage of its power and versatility, for whom the conceptual overhead of something like the Windows Desktop is worth going through.
For games like WoW or Skyrim, or Might and Magic for that matter, which require either a lot of ten key use, or, require the keyboard for movement, I turn the keyboard up vertically onto my stomach and chest, with the 10-key pad toward my head. I then place my left hand on the four arrow keys. If movement is on wasd by default, I remap it to the four arrow keys. Might and Magic uses the four arrow keys by default.
From left hand on the arrows, I play a game like World of Warcraft by using my index finger on the num pad - I can do it by touch - the "1" and "zero" are very convenient, and I can find all the other numbers by feeling from the "1" as my homerow key. And I only need to do that in dungeons. I can control the single player portion of the game just fine with only my right hand.
I don't need the keyboard at all to play Baldur's Gate. Space for pause is on the mouse. I *really* love games that I can control by mouse only, because then I can hold a nice drink in my left hand while controlling the game with my right.
For Might and Magic, my little finger controls "enter" for "pause" and "shift" for "run-walk", while my index finger operates right arrow or "1", my middle finger operates up and down arrows, my ring finger operates left arrow, and my thumb operates right arrow when my index finger needs a break. - I can also use my thumb for "0", and I can reach up my index finger conveniently for "delete" or "page up/page down" for flying.
All space bar functions are mapped to my left programmable mouse button, and executed with the right thumb. A second frequently-used key function goes on the right programmable mouse button and is executed with the right ring finger, usually quicksave.
I developed this technique years ago, (around 1997, in fact), so I could play Might and Magic the way I wanted to.
My creativity in indulging my own laziness knows few bounds. I am typing this to you in a reclined position, almost lying down, on an 81' HDTV, with my keyboard in my upper lap, and a blanket over my stretched out legs, with a cat lying on the blanket. I keep an extra footrest at the end of my recliner legrest, so that my feet are supported in comfort. Ah, this is the life, I tell you.
My first self-bought PC I added 320 GB of storage to, thereby tripling it's storage capacity, my second one I put two extra hard-disks to and later I had the motherboard replaced when it broke down, thereby lengthening it's lifespan (it's my mother's rig now), my third and current PC I have added 2 TB to, making the total of harddisk space 4 TB on my current PC. Plus I can add 3 external harddisks and a printer to it, without plugging and unplugging devices all the time.
All these things I can't do with my laptop. It's just sitting on the living room table for watching documentaries and checking mail and fora (but risking backache if I reply from there). A modestly-priced laptop hasn't even got 1 TB of drivespace and it can't be upgraded. A tablet is even more handicapped, it's only use being you can read ebooks and visit the internet while lying down in bed or when travelling by train because of it's light weight.
Edit: I don't believe PC's will disappear, there far too useful for users who want more than just checking email and browsing the net (how do tablet users even write their e-mails on such a clumsy on-screen keyboard?)
The only thing that can make qwerty speedtyping truly obsolete would be reliable electronic voice recognition. And, indeed, we are headed that way, but there is still a *long* way to go on it. The way our American corporations pander to the lowest common denominators of our society through their marketing mind control, ever motivated by profits and CEO pay, it wouldn't surpise me a bit if technological, economic, cultural, and then military superiority passed to China and India by the end of this century.
Oh, and don't forget passwords! Although I suppose this could be covered by eye or fingerprint scanning.
I think the best of both worlds would be having devices with reliable voice recognition AND an onscreen keyboard (or peripheral keyboard support) as an alternate input method.
But then again, I don't think we will be alive to see that technology become reliable and popular. Or maybe we will. Synchronicity, anyone?
A hyper-lightweight laptop with a built-in touch screen that enables it to be used as both a laptop-with-keyboard and as a tablet. A lot of product developers are working on these, and the price points for them aren't significantly higher than they are for a tablet or a laptop.
Once Apple gets on-board with the idea, I think we'll start seeing more and more users gravitating toward laptop/tablet hybrids, more so than one or the other.
And, no, desktops are not going anywhere. Not unless Intel, AMD, and nVidia all stop producing hardware for desktops. Just look at this glorious thing (the COSMOS II Ultra Case, superb airflow as well). Perhaps glorious is over-doing it, it's what's inside that counts, but why would I trade that for something that can fit in the palm of my hand and can do almost nothing that my desktop can do? I wouldn't even trade my Linux machines. I would, however, considering getting something like an Android device as a phone. I doubt I would ever be able to completely convert to anything that is not a desktop.
@Aosaw, I clicked the link against my better judgement
Still, I don't know about that. Phones, such as the Nokia N97 (which I have) and Blackberry smartphones, don't seem overly popular when coupled with a proper keyboard these days. So I'm not sure whether or not tablets with keyboards will have that much popularity, either. If anything, I can see laptops dying a slow death in favour of tablets. I know a few co-workers who have switched over to using an iPad for their work when they are out of the office - mainly for taking notes - instead of having a laptop, and have gotten rid of their laptop. Most of the people I know who have made such a change have also kept the desktop for home use.
The reason Apple isn't making those is that Apple knows what it's doing, IMO.