Windows 10: Desktop PCs and the Windows desktop: Endangered species?

Nope, not watching for 3 hours. If I could build my own starship, doubt I could afford it.

 

It's simple folks.
Their are new markets and well established markets.
Their are those that travel to do their work and play and their is those that sit at a desktop to do their work and play.
Microsoft wants a big chunk of all computing markets. I believe they are reaching for that goal with W-10.

 

Agreed.

Laptops are horrible (those awful scratch pads).
For me, they only become usable once they are on a desk, connected to a monitor and mouse.

 

And a decent keyboard.

 

I can put up with the horrible keyboards. *Biggrin

IMO, you are right though.
A good keyboard does make a significant difference.

 

True. Even laptops sport with complete keyboard buttons like the desktop keyboard has the desktop is still far more superior than the laptops.

 

Laptops do have their use as do tablets. But they are not really replacing desktops. Sure, if you're buying a PC just to surf the net, check your email, and maybe watch YouTube, then any tablet would do. In fact, that's a lot of people and that's what those sales figures tell you. But this does not mean that nobody actually works on their PCs and for actual work a lot of people need desktops. Not everyone is constantly on the move. Not everything can be done in a coffee shop.

 

I know many people that use laptops as their primary desktop. They have docking stations, and plug it in, then take it home at night. I know whole companies in fact where they have very few actual desktops and almost everyone is entirely on a laptop. So it's not correct to say that they don't replace desktops. They clearly do. There are use cases where they do not, for sure.. particularly when you need lots of storage, or lots of expansion... or when you need the fastest possible speeds (laptop components are low-power so they often trade top speed for lower power consumption) but it all depends on your needs.

 

Many companies from my understanding have employes bring their own computing device to work and take them home when done. That is done because the company thinks they are saving money and in some cases that might be true. In most cases that is just one great big security risk that will cost more in the short and long run. Those companies are hoping that Cloud computing is the answer to not having a server with work stations. Some day that might be the answer but as far as I'm concerned Cloud computing security is still in it's infant stage and is not able to keep up with the use of Cloud computing as it is today.
When someone does a lot of typing one need a quality mechanical keyboard. It is unbelievable how much better they work and without pain.
My first mechanical keyboard (Das 4 Pro) proved that to me. I will be getting another one for my other computer. It takes about a week to get use to the soft touch of the keys and then away you go.

You could carry your laptop to work and a Das keyboard but then you have a much better monitor at home that you would like to have at work for those 8 hour days you are starring at the monitor. Now you need a wagon to carry all the good stuff to work and back home again.

Then to top it all off the internet goes down (opps, where is the Cloud). Well every bodies work just stopped. Okay Mr./Mrs./Miss or what ever employer what do you do with a building full of employes that can't work until the internet comes back up again.

Portable devices don't replace Desktop. They should work in conjunction with Desktops, servers and workstation. That is why a operating system must work well on both types of hardware; portable and non-portable and having the ability to set up the operating system to work just like we want it to on each device.
I think that is the direction Microsoft is heading for with W-10.
Is that not exactly what many of us have been asking for?

 

I don't mind either. But, for myself I prefer a Laptop. There are 2 Laptops and 1 desktop in our house. The rest are smartphones (iPhones, an Android), and tablets (an iPad and an Android tablet). I have a laptop and an iPhone. My mother has an Android and a desktop. My sisters have iPhones, an iPad, a tablet, and a laptop. Laptops run Win 7 Home Premium x64, desktop runs Win 8.1 x64. The iPhones run iOS 8, and the tablet and the android phone run the new KitKat OS.

 

I have never heard of such a company, much less "many" of them. Particularly in the US, any company of any size has various laws they follow such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, or they need to conform to audited policies such as PCI or ISO 900x.

Yes, there is a trend of companies *allowing* you to bring your own device, such as tablets and phones.. but they aren't mandating it.

And yet you have no experience with it... Office 365 works quite well actually.

Ever heard of a docking station? You can use whatever keyboard you want, and whatever monitor you want with your laptop.

Why on earth would you do that when you can just leave your company owned docking station and keyboard at work, and take your laptop home and use your personal das keyboard there? This sounds like a strawman to me.

You obviously have no experience with cloud computing... You are using applications, installed on your computer. If the internet goes down, you just keep working. No, you can't save your work to the cloud until it's back, but you can save it locally if need be. "the cloud" doesn't mean your computer stops working if your internet connection goes down.

You are conflating portable devices with cloud computing. They're not the same thing. Even if you are using both, they don't mean what you think they do, or are trying to convince us you think they do. You can use a portable device just like a desktop, with a docking station, and they *DO* replace desktops... so claiming they don't is just ridiculous. That's provably false. Yes, there are certain use cases where a mobile device cannot replace a desktop, but for 95+% of users, that won't be the case.

 

IMO, there is something worse than total failure; partial failure.

Recently our Internet has been cycling from a few kb/s up to ~5 Mb/s (normal maximum speed, but only for a few seconds).

When I:

• Start downloading the browser states that it is only going to take a few minutes.
• Come back 30 minutes later, it has only managed to download a few percent. *Mad

Even worse when this happens the download often crashes around 95% completed, meaning I have to start again "from scratch". *Mad

At least when there is a total failure, I know that I can shut down the browser and do something else.
If it is downloading then I can't shut it down and I just have to wait for it to finish.

 

Yes, I expect the desktop PC is already dead. Shame all those fancy graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, CPUs will be stuck in the warehouses for ever more.Microsoft should tell those silly companies still manufacturing desktop PC components that there is no future for them!

 

Heh...*Wink I enjoyed your sarcasm! Yep, the PC-desktop peripherals business is through the roof...as one can see just by looking at motherboards, ram, PSUs, GPUs and CPUs sold separately through Amazon...dozens and dozens of product pages, and Amazon is merely a single source.

This is an old thread, I saw...Intel just the other day reported record revenues and said the lion's share of them came from its PC chips and other strictly PC-related products...and they've said their PC business is booming. Of course it is...cell-phones can't do 1/10th of what average PCs can do and touch-tablets can barely do 1/5th of what a decent PC can do in terms of hardware, application, and raw performance support. The other devices generally are not user serviceable and upgradable as is the very, very consumer-friendly desktop PC. It's by far the best product available for personal computing, both in performance *and* value--you just can't beat a desktop PC. The very best of all possible routes, of course, is to build it yourself and use the components you choose...! It doesn't get any better than that...*Biggrin I saw just today an ad for a 1TB SSD that reads data at ~500MB/s through a SATA3 connection and comes with a factory warranty of a cool ten years (at no additional cost.)

Before he passed on, Steve Jobs started the nonsensical "post-PC" drivel...for completely self-serving reasons from Apple's point of view (just like he said mini-tablets were "DOA", etc.) The amazing thing to me was that *anybody* believed it. Apple's still selling desktop PCs and laptops, and was selling them even when Jobs made that silly remark, and Apple is selling more of them now than it was when Jobs was first credited with the phrase. If there's a replacement for the desktop PC I surely don't know what it is...! But what I do know is that cell phones and touch tablets surely aren't it...

 

It is for people that never needed a PC to begin with.