At what point do you think a phone/tablet will replace a desktop?

[Fritzo]

I love my keyboaded laptop and desktop. I will most likly NEVER use a tablet. I don't have a damn smartphone either just a blackberry like Tracphone. I would like to have Google glass though.

Do you drive a Buick by chance? Just collecting data for a hypothesis I'm working on.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Never. Small screens and the lack of a keyboard and mouse make them just toys to use in a pinch.

Those toys can access teh intrawebs and people not rolling in fat stacks aren't upgrading existing systems. While that may not define 'replacement', because they never chucked their old system, the tablet and smartphone markets are eating marketshare from PC/Laptop manufacturers. It's been especially a trend since the iPad generations have slid through the secondary markets and undercut most budget laptops/desktops.

 

[olds]

Never, since I use my desktop for gaming, TV/Movies, Music and working the excel/word and photo editing.

This

 

[Jeff7]

That Surface Pro 3 is looking pretty sweet. May look into getting one of those since it would be a nice way to bridge the gap between my desktop and my tablet/phone.

KT

Boo, only one USB port.



Yes, it has Bluetooth. My experience with that: "I'm going to work normally for a few hours, but every so often I'll just fire a few keystrokes or mouse movements at the Moon and make sure that the transceiver never sees any of it. I just want to be sure that you're paying attention." Or "Windows just threw up and fell flat on its face and now it won't boot properly. I sure hope you've got a USB keyboard and mouse, cause this newfangled Bluetooth won't do squat until Windows is working."

 

[KeithTalent]

Boo, only one USB port.



Yes, it has Bluetooth. My experience with that: "I'm going to work normally for a few hours, but every so often I'll just fire a few keystrokes or mouse movements at the Moon and make sure that the transceiver never sees any of it. I just want to be sure that you're paying attention." Or "Windows just threw up and fell flat on its face and now it won't boot properly. I sure hope you've got a USB keyboard and mouse, cause this newfangled Bluetooth won't do squat until Windows is working."

Hmm, did not realize it only had one USB port. That is stupid. I have never had Bluetooth work properly on any device I have ever owned.

KT

 

[Blitzvogel]

The future is software platforms that are compatible with both x86 and ARM, and we'll never see hardware as homogeneous as it was before this mobile revolution. It's funny that no one ever talks about MIPS, and POWER still exists (barely, though POWER8 supposedly released in June).

 

[ponyo]

NUC and Chromebooks are taking over. Phones and tablets are yesterday news.

 

[alkemyst]

For many their phone/tablet has replaced their laptop/desktops as most really just email, facebook, surf the web.

In reality, a small device will never replace a desktop monitor...however; I feel soon handheld devices will have all the power that a full sized machine will have.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I have a android phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop. Could the phone and tablet replace the other 2? LOL no.

My laptop did replace my desktop, though, but it has a docking port, and its pretty beefy. Not the light, portable sort of laptop.

I don't game either. I do CAD work, FEA, programming, write papers, Photoshop, do research on the interwebz with 30+ tabs open.

Tablets and phones are only good for dicking around on the internet. They are toys.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

NUC and Chromebooks are taking over. Phones and tablets are yesterday news.

printing is still an issue though. its sort of ridiculous to have to have another computer on or have a printer networked to print from your printer. linux can print from most printers, i dont know why they dont just incorporate that into chromeos

 

[kalster]

i see smartphones + chromebook type device being sufficient in the future for almost everyone but power users (developers/photographers etc)

 

[Ken g6]

I guess my biggest problem with a tablet-with-keyboard as a desktop replacement is that the tablet browsers don't have HTML inspection tools. There's Firefox on Android, but no Firebug!

 

[Schfifty Five]

Tablets can do about 90% of what most people use their home computers for. Browsing, checking email, social media, watching streaming content. So we already kinda are at that point.

But not as efficiently.

Typing is significantly more difficult on a tablet using touch screen controls than it is with a physical keyboard. Of course if you have a keyboard with your tablet, that will help, but that also creates an additional piece of hardware to carry around which starts to defeat the purpose of the mobility/portability of tablets.

 

[Schfifty Five]

For many their phone/tablet has replaced their laptop/desktops as most really just email, facebook, surf the web.

In reality, a small device will never replace a desktop monitor...however; I feel soon handheld devices will have all the power that a full sized machine will have.

Unless desktop computing hardware stops progressing, I doubt you'll see tablets or phones be as powerful or capable as a regular desktop computer.

 

[shortylickens]

Playing with new (refurbished) RT right now and I can say we arent anywhere near having tablets replace desktops.

I just tried to download Chrome.
IE said the site was malicious and should not be visited.

The onscreen keyboard is not good for anything besides the occasional Youtube search. For any school work I'll need a case/keyboard, and those arent cheap.

Keeps trying to make me use MS stuff I dont want and dont have and dont like, such as their document cloud and picture cloud and movies and music and special app store. As well as the calendar and gimped Office and such. In fact the only thing it does really well is direct me to places I can spend more money.

 

[zinfamous]

when you can type on them and do real work.

so, never.

 

[Rdmkr]

Processors are cheap. No need to consolidate multiple of them into one device. It's the peripherals that define the devices and their suitable use cases.

 

[pcgeek11]

Never. Apples & Oranges

 

[lxskllr]

I think it could go two ways:

1. Portables get powerful enough to dock

This, and we're almost there. I like having a tower with parts I chose and installed myself, but I'd totally use my phone(loving my new S5 btw) in a dock to turn it into a laptop or tower. Current phones are powerful enough to do what I want in a portable computer. They just need to be dockable. That Ubuntu phone that was kickstarted would have been perfect, but a bit spendy.

For /average/ person, the power's already there. For the high end pro, it'll be awhile longer, but not that long. It's in the foreseeable future. The biggest restrictions are cost and size at this point.

 

[shortylickens]

playing with asus transformer right now. Its not great. Prefer a basic laptop.

 

[Jeff7]

Never. Apples & Oranges

Agreed.

Tablet: One quad-core power-efficient processor and a graphics chip optimized for HD video.


Desktop user: "Could I get sixteen of those processors in here? I've got room for 2lbs of heatsinking if that helps. Oh, and I'd like something that can do 3d processing and drive four 1080p screens."

 

[Red Storm]

Agreed.

Tablet: One quad-core power-efficient processor and a graphics chip optimized for HD video.


Desktop user: "Could I get sixteen of those processors in here? I've got room for 2lbs of heatsinking if that helps. Oh, and I'd like something that can do 3d processing and drive four 1080p screens."

Even among strictly desktop users, that's quite overkill and not representative of the general populace. Mobile phones and tablets are never going to replace specialized/extreme hardware requirements, but that's not what's being asked. Will they replace the need for general desktops? I think the answer is without a doubt, yes.

 

[zCypher]

I think that the whole "ecosystem" thing is definitely taking some usage away from desktops, but I don't know about phones / tablets entirely replacing desktops. There are tons of things that I "can do" on my phone. Just because I can do it doesn't mean I want to or should do it. Even if it was super powerful and you could dock it to a station that has more storage, power, connections to big screens, etc - it's no longer a tablet at that point, plus, you're leaving that station useless and still taking up space if you do that, when the tablet is not around.

I love being able to move seemlessly between devices for certain tasks, but for productivity and even for much of general use, PCs are much more well suited to the task.

 

[zinfamous]

This, and we're almost there. I like having a tower with parts I chose and installed myself, but I'd totally use my phone(loving my new S5 btw) in a dock to turn it into a laptop or tower. Current phones are powerful enough to do what I want in a portable computer. They just need to be dockable. That Ubuntu phone that was kickstarted would have been perfect, but a bit spendy.

For /average/ person, the power's already there. For the high end pro, it'll be awhile longer, but not that long. It's in the foreseeable future. The biggest restrictions are cost and size at this point.

This would be great, and I hope it happens--but at what point are you starting to carry all of these full-size peripherals with you on travel, in order to do real work...that you realize you are now simply back to the early 90s laptop profile? 😀

Strangely enough, consider the current growth in cell phone size (those without an Apple icon on their backs). It's strange to me, but the fad of portability is getting replaced by a necessary increase in size, in order to accommodate more functionality. Honestly, I like that we are getting more use out of these devices, but it's still strange to me when, recalling the uber chic of the declining device size in the early 2000s (think: Will Ferrel SNL sketch with his fingernail-sized clamshell phone), to now, when I see the cutting edge user walking around with a waffle iron-like Galaxy Note on the side of their face.

Back to dockable, full-function tablet. Aside from bringing the docs with you, which most people will do, it is still a portable device that will see countless abuse compared to a desktop. I wonder what the lifespan of these will be?

 

[T9D]

You guys are nuts if you think it's not already happening. Years ago massive amounts of people dropped the desktop for laptops. Now most people actually use their phones 90 percent of the time. The younger generation is really big on this. Eventually we'll have full fledged OS's on a phone and just drop it in a dock that is attached to the huge TV and wireless keyboard and mouse. The normal desktops will be bought so little that the prices will just get to high and will be cut off at some point. Just left with really expensive server parts. That will probably be based on high efficiency designs of the tech they got from making stuff fit in phones and such anyway.

I'm on a laptop now as my main system. Hooked to my external harddrive for tons of extra space, and connected to my 42" TV and wireless keyboard and mouse. Love this setup, does everything I need. Oh and it's just a 13" laptop. I can grab it and run if I want also. I'd love to have a 7" full OS and powerful tablet hooked up in it's place. Then someday just a phone. That would be awesome. The day is coming.

You guys think you need the cutting edge in a desktop but most don't really, chances are you really don't either, I don't care if it take a couple extra seconds to encode a video or something. Most people will never know the difference except what some benchmark graph shows you. Some hardcore gamers aren't going to be able to prop up the desktop market either when the ball finally drops.