Intel's Q2: Meh

[boozzer]

get a asus zenphone 3 with 7 inch displays problem solved. I mostly use my phone for email + news and the occasional phone calls anyway. I love phablets.

 

[Roland00Address]

Sorry to say but there is absolutely no way my S7 Edge will ever replace my Galaxy Tab S2.

Maybe if i am on the go and i am worried about losing it, but if i am on the couch, or relaxing on my bed, or even walking my dog, i do that on my tablet.

You did not understand a major point I made

Talking about tablets like its a universal category is like talking about dogs as a universal category. Jack Russell Terriers are very different dogs than Great Danes, just like 7 and 8" tablets are different categories than 9.7", 10" , and 12" tablets.

The 7" and 8" tablets are being cannibalized by better and better phablet sales (when I am defining tablet with current generation naming, phablets are 6" or larger phones, they used to be smaller phones, but now adays phablets are 6" or bigger). Now "mainstream phones" that are android size are 5.0" to 5.5", your S7 Edge is a 5.5" phone.

A 4x3 ratio 9.7" tablet is a much different category than a 16x10 ratio 7" tablet that you see in things like the 2013 nexus, but also the really really cheap windows tablets for $99 to $199. For screen comparison sake look at this link for an image size comparison

http://www.displaywars.com/7-inch-16x10-vs-9,7-inch-4x3

In the link you will see that the 9.7" 4x3 tablet (that is what your Tab S2 screen size is) is more than double the size of screen than the 7.0" 16x10 tablet that things like the nexus 7, and the really cheap windows tablets are.

Now visually compare a 7" tablet vs a 6" phablet with this link

http://www.displaywars.com/7-inch-16x10-vs-6-inch-16x10

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Now what will one day cannibalize your 9.7" tablet are more and more convertibile windows and android tablets. They have already captures the large screen tablet market which was 11.6" and bigger. That said 9.7" and 10.1" are in an area that is too much in the middle, too far away from the 11.6" and bigger convertibles, and too far away from the 6" phablets that this market for tablets will last the longest amount of time.

That said it will probably will go away eventually the lighter and lighter you can make convertibles, the more you can add kickstands to the super large tablets like the surface pros and the ipad pros. The more easy you can make external modes of input for these 9.7" devices such as active digitizer styluses, and good keyboards in small and light packages. (good keyboards being not desktop good, but instead good enough to type while still being light and portable. Aka something you would type something that has more than 300 words as a response, aka more than 5, but especially 10 twitter messages)

 

[sxr7171]

Laptops/convertibles are eating into them from one side and smartphones from the other. My family (younger members especially) seem to think smartphones are great for surfing the web, online purchases, banking, texting, social apps, etc. So that kind of eliminates the need for a tablet. Personally I still find a 7 or 8 inch tablet much easier to use than a smartphone, but the disadvantage is you have to have a wi-fi connection, at least with the cheaper tablets.

I'm in that boat. I've bought several tablets over the years. iPads, Kindle Fire, Nexus 7, Win 10 Toshiba etc. I have never really used them and I won't ever buy one again. I use my phone for a lot of surfing and my proper 13.3" Windows Laptop for the rest. I don't see where tablets fit into my life.

They are cool for business applications, I see them at bars/restaurants/coffee shops as POS devices. They are great there. But for personal use none of them are as comfortable as my laptop or as portable/pocketable as my phone. I think many people are seeing it this way. I know a few people that used their iPad for surfing and then the Macbook came out. They are Apple types I guess, but so many Windows machines are great too. So many sub 3lb machines with 13.3"-14" screens and the keyboard doesn't fall off. The keyboard is the absolute best prop for in bed use or for on lap use. Those snap on keyboards to a grossly underpowered machine don't cut it as a combo. The only good consumer use is on a table/airplane tray table. Even there a good laptop is still better.

Then there's pricing. The iPads are grossly over priced IMHO just iPhones with a bigger screen. Then again the iPhone is also grossly overpriced carrying a premium for cellular voice capability. The real comparison is an iPod touch. i don't see how $600-1000 is worth it. The surface machines are cool but again grossly overpriced given that you need the keyboard to do any real work and who wants to compromise with a setup that needs a table to comfortably use? A laptop, hence the name, works great on a lap, on your chest in bed and on a table. Sure tablets are cool but the cool factor cannot overshadow the loss of usability. I'm not planning on holding up a 1lb machine for more than 5 minutes no matter how cool it is. It was a great fad while it lasted.

 

[t0mt0m]

Improved yields, Kaby Lake coming - two things to see as positive from around earnings call?
7700K soon maybe if they do similar to Skylake and bring those chips out first? AIO and desktop machines might enjoy the fruits of Kabky Lake first - shame if laptops have to wait even longer for Kaby Lake

 

[witeken]

The title says 'Meh', but I don't really understand why. Intel's earnings were exactly as they had predicted.

But sure, if you remove something like 400M from Altera revenue, it isn't too much.

But I care more about (the absence of!) product delays.

 

[frozentundra123456]

The title says 'Meh', but I don't really understand why. Intel's earnings were exactly as they had predicted.

But sure, if you remove something like 400M from Altera revenue, it isn't too much.

But I care more about (the absence of!) product delays.

They have already taken care of that (delays).

I would consider it Meh as well, but not disastrous. Biggest negatives I see are the small gain in data center and the failure of IoT to meet expectations. I fear Intel has already missed the boat on IoT, and it could easily become another smartphone/tablet fiasco. I mean, we have Apple and Android wearables (smartwatches), but what chip does intel have to compete in that area? And there are a lot of innovations in the automative sector as well, but I believe nVidia and Arm are moving in much faster than intel.

But there is just nothing to generate excitement. AMD has new dgpus, Zen, and the console wins, nVidia has high end new dgpus that are selling all they can make, while all intel gave us is lackluster BW-E. Worse, there is nothing on the horizon to really get excited about, except a few percent gain in performance every couple of years.

 

[StrangerGuy]

They have already taken care of that (delays).

I would consider it Meh as well, but not disastrous. Biggest negatives I see are the small gain in data center and the failure of IoT to meet expectations. I fear Intel has already missed the boat on IoT, and it could easily become another smartphone/tablet fiasco. I mean, we have Apple and Android wearables (smartwatches), but what chip does intel have to compete in that area? And there are a lot of innovations in the automative sector as well, but I believe nVidia and Arm are moving in much faster than intel.

But there is just nothing to generate excitement. AMD has new dgpus, Zen, and the console wins, nVidia has high end new dgpus that are selling all they can make, while all intel gave us is lackluster BW-E. Worse, there is nothing on the horizon to really get excited about, except a few percent gain in performance every couple of years.

The data center CPUs segment may have already peaked, ironically from a strategy completely opposite from the mainstream consumer segment. Data center customers are more than happy to pay less per core per socket for lower overall TCO over the past few years, but even that has limits in the real world.

 

[lefty2]

Intel's amortization this quarter is only $90 million. I thought the exit from mobile would be a lot more. The partnership with Spreadtrum and RDA cost 1.5 billion and then there's development costs of Sofia and Bronxton. Maybe they are going to declare those loses in next quarter?