This is fine from a consumer point of view, consuming content on a phone or tablet is really great! But if you want to create, there is just nothing out there that can rival a keyboard and a mouse. For this reason, 'desktop' PCs will be around for a very long time, in business and for anyone who creates (writes, codes, or creates any kind of media) in any way semi-seriously at home.
back
4 comments
You don't need a desktop PC to be able to attach a screen and a keyboard.
My <$130 7" Chinese Android tablet can drive a full HD 3D TV at full resolution, and can handle both bluetooth or USB keyboards. And many of these tablets can boot full Linux.
The next step up is MHL, allowing the screen to power your phone or tablet while it is using the screen for output.
Increasingly people will have the option of combining the convenience of the phone or tablet with being able to effortlessly connect it to a large screen and keyboard when needed.
This is missing the forest from the trees.
Yes you can attach a keyboard. But carrying a keyboard along with your tablet is more expensive than carrying around a light notebook, like a Macbook Air, which is just as portable, more efficient at certain tasks, less efficient at others.
Also, comparing a PC with a tablet by comparing the hardware and the input interface is totally missing the point. When the PC evolved from DOS to Windows, from single tasking to multi-tasking, from big desktops to laptops and then to thinner notebooks with touch-pads, nobody talked about "post PC", as the evolution was not including regressions of functionality which made it totally obvious that the new devices were just like traditional PCs, only better.
That this happens now only means that these new devices are more limited than PCs, so a hard distinction needs to be made. And going forward, while lines continue to be blurred, the distinction will be extremely simple and effective, by answering just one question ... is software installation from third-party sources easy?
The ramifications by answering Yes to this will be: (1) piracy is easy + (2) mallware is possible + (3) Firefox is available for that device + (4) yes, that's a PC.
> But carrying a keyboard along with your tablet is more expensive than carrying around a light notebook
My tablet was <$130. My keyboard with carrying case was <$10.
But your comparison with a Macbook Air also misses a substantial other distinction: I can, and often do, leave the keyboard at home. The keyboard lives in my bag. The tablet is small enough to fit in my coat pocket, and so I often take it with me in cases where I don't want to drag more stuff with me, but still want something bigger than my phone. It is significantly more mobile.
> is software installation from third-party sources easy? > The ramifications by answering Yes to this will be: (1) piracy is easy + (2) mallware is possible + (3) Firefox is available for that device + (4) yes, that's a PC.
By your argument, any Android device is a PC. Fair enough. But it's quite clear that is not the context of the article being discussed.
I wasn't talking about price, I was talking about how much you need to carry. Having 2 pieces (tablet + keyboard) is worse than having a single notebook (also, don't you need a tablet stand too?). And yes you can leave the keyboard at home, but if you know you'll need a keyboard, carrying your notebook instead is more efficient. I view them as complementary devices, being designed for different use-cases.
And by my argument Androids are indeed PCs, at least for now, because excluding the availability of third-party sources, all other distinctions will get blurred within the next 2-3 years.
> Having 2 pieces (tablet + keyboard) is worse than having a single notebook
It is lighter and takes up less space in my bag, and the tablet attaches to the carrying case, so no, it is not "more expensive" on that measure either.
> And yes you can leave the keyboard at home, but if you know you'll need a keyboard, carrying your notebook instead is more efficient.
Even if I agreed with this - and I don't - having to keep data in sync across multiple devices is a major pain, and reason enough for me to avoid this.
I do have a laptop, but it is just that: A computer I use on my lap in my living room. It is too big for me to want to drag around, because it is a replacement for a desktop - which I haven't owned for 10 years or so - rather than something I see as a mobile computer.
But I increasingly treat my laptop as a dumb terminal. More of my personal data has my phone as its primary source than my laptop, and I do the vast majority of my work on servers, and so most of the local storage I use on my laptop is stuff that is synced to it from my phone and tablets for convenient local access when I do use it. I'd rather see a situation where my phone or tablet is my primary computing device and the rest just provide convenient screens and input devices as needed.
> And by my argument Androids are indeed PCs, at least for now, because excluding the availability of third-party sources, all other distinctions will get blurred within the next 2-3 years.
When you start picking your own definitions instead of relying on those the article are based on, the discussion becomes meaningless.
Well, on any Android device software installation from third-party is easy. 1, 2 and 3 are definitely true, but not 4.
Actually that was my point. Until further developments, most Android devices are PCs and any distinction being made to the contrary are arbitrary and short-term.
DIY and alternative tablets can be desktop replacements, or close to it. But that's not the sort of mass market trend of which you can write these sorts of articles (though in China this may be a large trend compared to the U.S.)
Personally, this is just evolution of form factors. Nothing terribly interesting. As a techie living in Asia, I would either just buy a Chinese gadget (clone) which fits my needs or just build my own. In this sense, the PC lives on. ;)
> DIY and alternative tablets can be desktop replacements
I don't know why you consider this "DIY" or "alternative tablets". Most tablets on the market has these capabilities.
> Personally, this is just evolution of form factors. Nothing terribly interesting.
I find it exciting we're close to the point where we can get convergence and not need multiple different computers for must uses, but you're right: It is largely about evolution of form factors, which is why I find it so amusing that so many people are so insistent the desktop PC will remain important.
The traditional big box desktop has been in freefall for years. It's losing market share at a rapid pace, and what remains of it is shrinking too - it's harder and harder to find full size ATX or Flex ATX, and almost impossible to find towers in shops geared at "ordinary consumers" for example.
Sure, it will still exist. But as a smaller and smaller niche.
> I don't know why you consider this "DIY" or "alternative tablets". Most tablets on the market has these capabilities.
Sure, but I think this space will be constrained by market forces for the next couple of years until we see movements towards these devices actually trying to be desktop replacements. Right now the focus is for these things to be phones and media consumption devices with a long battery life (which is what the masses want.) I'm waiting for the market to settle down enough so that Dell can jump in and make these things boring. Give me a tablet which is power hungry, gives me only 4 - 6 hours of battery but delivers everything I want to make these things true desktop replacements.I don't want sexy, I just want to throw the thing on my desk, plug all my crap into it and get to work. Maybe sometimes I might even take it with me. I do all my work from home though, and when I leave my home I don't want to take my work with me, so my mobiles don't get much mobile action.
> Personally, this is just evolution of form factors.
Agreed. Ballmer was ironically right when he said "they're all just PCs".
What's perhaps more interesting than the form factor is the app-storification of software delivery. I have real concerns about a future where there's no market for hackable platforms.
Open source is going nowhere. I do most of my work on the server, and that's a form factor and ecosystem which isn't being affected by all this tablet / smart phone silliness. ;)
By the time you have to connect three different peripherals to your tablet in order to get the same functionality as a laptop, in almost all cases it's better to simply have a laptop, particularly if you're doing your profession.
> By the time you have to connect three different peripherals to your tablet in order to get the same functionality as a laptop, in almost all cases it's better to simply have a laptop, particularly if you're doing your profession.
Bluetooth. MHL with the device providing power. One cable to give you power and display, and no cables for the other devices.
And the laptop still needs cables if you want a decent sized display, and don't want to run it off battery.
More importantly, once you connect a bigger screen, keyboard & whatnot, you are no longer using a tablet. You are using a PC.
This is the same thing I came to say. Even something trivial like replying to this on a tablet or phone sucks. Quoting you would be utterly painful and it's even worse in a Reddit app. Perhaps it's generational and people will cope but so far creating.anything has.been far more painful for me on global devices.
I've always thought that a laptop-tablet hybrid of the sort Lenovo makes is the best form factor[1] for mobile computing. A physical keyboard and trackpad you can fold away when you're not using but that you always have with you. I used an old x61 tablet that I got dirt cheap for years, and for things like watching video or reading comics or long-form text documents, being able to fold away the base is great.
Are there any machines in this form factor aimed at a general audience? A modern multi-touch tablet screen with a pivoting keyboard and mouse base?
[1]http://shop.lenovo.com/gbweb/gb/en/learn/products/laptops/th...
Also let's not forget about milions of hardcore gamers. I don't think AMD and Nvidia would keep releasing more and more powerful graphic cards for desktops if PCs were dying.