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Anybody else notice how kind of short lived laptops were, major popularity wise?

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Vishera

Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2013
So for a good portion of the 2000s they were the new thing, and the only way to compute on the go, but by the time they weren't severely underpowered battery hogs, smartphones had started rolling out. And then when laptops actually got good, smartphones had, for a lot of people, already replaced them. Nowadays, if someone needs a mobile computer they use their smartphone mostly, or a tablet. I guess they were the very definition of a fad.

 
^

The way we use the Internet has changed since the early-mid 2000s. Laptops are nice, but are far more of a utility than a toy now.

Facebook, Google, and any other company most end-users want access to is available on their phone. As far as most people are concerned this is all they know and care about. I still meet people to this day that don't understand that their phone is far more powerful than a computer from 10 years ago.

The other side of this deals with the fact that laptops were not distributed by major phone companies at a fraction of the cost to lock the customer into a 2 year contract. Just sayin'. :)

Somehow these days even the homeless have smartphones.
 
^

The way we use the Internet has changed since the early-mid 2000s. Laptops are nice, but are far more of a utility than a toy now.

Facebook, Google, and any other company most end-users want access to is available on their phone. As far as most people are concerned this is all they know and care about. I still meet people to this day that don't understand that their phone is far more powerful than a computer from 10 years ago.

The other side of this deals with the fact that laptops were not distributed by major phone companies at a fraction of the cost to lock the customer into a 2 year contract. Just sayin'. :)

Somehow these days even the homeless have smartphones.
I've seen that, it's the most confusing thing to me.

And yeah, that's true about the contract. It seems that the only people buying laptops these days are people that wanna game on the go or who need to do content creation on the go, or college students. I see very few "normal" consumers going and buying new laptops. Those who have one have typically had it for a few years.

My question now is, will we see a sudden drop off of the low end laptop market? And be left with only the $600+ market?

 
It's all going to go the way of 2-in-1 until a tablet experience is seamless. MS has the game won currently with the Surface Book in terms of design, but the problem is price. They want to compete with Mac Books instead of making their tech mainstream and affordable.

There's an excessive amount of different devices in the low-end market for mobile right now. I think there's enough idiots out there buying enough of the crap to keep them making it forever. I don't think we will see entry level ever go away.
 
They want to compete with Mac Books instead of making their tech mainstream and affordable.

Apparently way overpriced hardware is the way to success. Except Mr. Gates missed the part about building an irrational cult around your brand first. LOL
 
I have moved my parents and my wifes parents onto tablets. Much easier to use and they can get into less trouble.

For school use, I bought my daughter a Surface Pro 3 that absolutely rips. The amount of power in that little thing is amazing.

The only actual laptop that I have seen purchased (lots of company issued stuff in my family) is my sons friend whos father knows nothing about computers. He wanted to play Infinate Warfare with my son so the father bought him a basement spec ACER....... Play? the kid cannot even open the game.

I guess my point here is other than business applications, the only laptops I see are bought by the ill informed.
 
I'm surprised at this thread as I've been reading that tablet sales have been tanking across the industry for the past two and a half years. Most of that being due to larger screen smartphones making 7-8" tablets irrelevant but also because lightweight ultrabooks with built-in keyboards have nullified the advantages of tablets when it comes to weight and battery life. People also want a mobile device with a full-on real OS like Windows instead of a watered down mobile OS. Tablets have basically been reduced to toys and time-occupiers for children, or portable TVs (Netflix, etc) for adults.

The laptop market isn't going anywhere anytime soon, certainly not to be replaced by tablets anytime soon. For the laptop to die we need a solid, easy-to-use and accurate replacement for the keyboard for the majority of users and we're nowhere close to that. The keyboard is still the best and most accurate way to input text and that's not changing anytime soon, and typing on a glass touchscreen OSK sucks.
 
I'm surprised at this thread as I've been reading that tablet sales have been tanking across the industry for the past two and a half years. Most of that being due to larger screen smartphones making 7-8" tablets irrelevant but also because lightweight ultrabooks with built-in keyboards have nullified the advantages of tablets when it comes to weight and battery life. People also want a mobile device with a full-on real OS like Windows instead of a watered down mobile OS. Tablets have basically been reduced to toys and time-occupiers for children, or portable TVs (Netflix, etc) for adults.

The laptop market isn't going anywhere anytime soon, certainly not to be replaced by tablets anytime soon. For the laptop to die we need a solid, easy-to-use and accurate replacement for the keyboard for the majority of users and we're nowhere close to that. The keyboard is still the best and most accurate way to input text and that's not changing anytime soon, and typing on a glass touchscreen OSK sucks.

I agree. Right now a majority of the users I support want a physical keyboard. I have very few who prefer a touch screen, but of course they do exist and demand it.

I just got one of these in today: 15.6" Asus ZenBook Pro

It's nice, but it is a beast of a laptop for someone who travels and concidentally the person who requested this travels a lot so it will be intresting to see how it pans out for them. Battery life with a 4K screen as well will test the limits of mobility.

I wish the damn thing was just the screen to be honest. It has one of the best touch screens I have used with Windows 10 - super responsive and accurate. It could also just be the fact that the touchpad is utter crap bringing me to this conclusion.

Lightweight Ultrabooks are definitely where it is at right now. I find the best price range for laptops is between $700-1500 - most laptops outside of this range usually are overpriced for what they come with or are just complete garbage if you spend anything less then 700. It is pretty hard to find a good system that consists of a good weight, size, and flexibility between tablet/laptop function. I have been looking for over a year now for a good solution for my girlfriend who works in the medical field. Really the only thing out there that would fit her needs 100% is the Surface Book. Everything else just falls way short of what my expectations are for a fully functional 2-in-1 and I am not interested in buying a folding notebook.
 
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