back to article Dead PC market? In the UK? NEVER

Thought the UK PC market was like a dead mule? Wrong. There's life yet in those age old desktop and notebook nags, according to distributor shipment data. Numbers from venerable analyst Context, the gentle purveyor of sales-out figures - the stuff that users are actually buying - showed Q3 was not bad, not bad at all. The …

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  1. Arctic fox
    Windows

    You have be careful old chap..........

    ........... anything that suggests that Win 8 has not sent the entire PC-market down the toilet will get you absolutely hosed.

    1. Vociferous

      Re: You have be careful old chap..........

      Even Win 8 can't keep a good platform down.

    2. Oh Homer
      Paris Hilton

      Lumping tablets in with PCs

      Then claiming the "PC" market isn't dead.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it's called...

    a dead cat bounce.

  3. Tom 260

    "How do we make ready-built PC sales figures look like they're increasing when people are buying tablets instead?"

    "Let's combine tablet sales with PC sales!"

    To be fair though, a lot more people are savvy with building their own home desktops these days, perhaps they should count system sales by total motherboards sold in the country, which would take in both home built machines and those sold at PC World/Dell/etc.

    1. Al Jones

      235K desktops in the quarter, about a million a year. Just how many people do you think are building their own systems these days? If it's more than 3% or 4% I'd be surprised, and that doesn't take account of the laptops, where DIY hardly exists.

  4. Frumious Bandersnatch

    like a dead mule?

    "Beaten(*) like a borrowed donkey" was the phrase that sprang into my mind.

    * By netbooks tablets, obviously, though that sense of "beaten" kind of ruins the analogy.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PC's work perfectly well with Linux on board. As my overclocked, liquid cooled, eight core monster out games any five consoles put together I'll be a PC person for the foreseeable future.

    I build my computers from quality component parts, not pre-built.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You are so cool!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Just pray you are not in Blighty

      I would hate to think what your leccy bill would be after one of the big six mugs you for your life savings. Why do you think the Pi is selling so well ?

      1. JEDIDIAH
        Devil

        Re: Just pray you are not in Blighty

        > I would hate to think what your leccy bill

        It's not 2003 anymore. Powerful desktop CPUs aren't nearly as bad as they used to be when it comes to power management. The marginal improvement represented by a PI is probably not nearly as good as you think.

        Not that the electrical bill would be that bad anyways.

        Plus you can actually do some computing on your CPU rather than needing some other real PC shoved away somewhere to help you get over the lameness of ARM.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Just pray you are not in Blighty @ JEDIDIAH

          I suggest you look at the wattage figures for an over-clocked water cooled system, it rises exponentially and can give some eye watering current draw.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just pray you are not in Blighty

        Not just the leccy bill.

        The main reason I gave up on PC gaming was that I seemed to be running to stand still to keep up with game's system requirements, each incremental upgrade costing hundreds of pounds.

        A console isn't as powerful or have as high a resolution output as a PC with a decent video card and monitor, but the outgoing gen consoles could've been bought in 2005/6 and still function with the latest releases - GTA5 being the big sendoff.

        (And even the PS2 is getting it's last FIFA outing)

  6. TWB

    PCs now quite good

    Armchair analysis here....

    I think there are several reason that PC sales are down, but one is that that most PCs are now quite good performance wise and getting the newest model does not give a massive improvement for many ordinary users - (email, internet browsing, media consumption)

    Many ordinary users I know, tend to get a new machine as they think their old one is getting worn out when if fact it probably has a full hard drive and simply needs a tidy-up or a bigger hard drive.

    I say this as a contented user of a 2008 Macbook - it still seems plenty fast enough for everything I do including video editing and transcoding. My wife has a much newer Macbook Air and as much as I'd like it* I have not noticed it being much snappier.

    *Can't afford any new CE at the moment.

    1. busycoder99

      Re: PCs now quite good

      Are you implying there are analysts who don't use armchairs?

    2. JEDIDIAH
      Devil

      Re: PCs now quite good

      > My wife has a much newer Macbook Air and as much as I'd like it* I have not noticed it being much snappier.

      A MBA is a latter day netbook. It's no surprise that it doesn't seem any faster than your older Macbook. It's simply not a performance machine. That's not what it's sold for.

      1. TWB

        Re: PCs now quite good

        'A MBA is a latter day netbook. It's no surprise that it doesn't seem any faster than your older Macbook. It's simply not a performance machine. That's not what it's sold for.'

        Really - an i5 vs a core 2 duo, faster RAM, better graphics, an SSD instead of spinning disk and a 2012/3 vs 2008 design?

    3. annodomini2

      Re: PCs now quite good

      Depends on the segment of the market, with operating systems not consuming as much of the system as they used to and most performing relatively light tasks, going from an i3 to i5 will make little difference.

      The bulk of the performance loss is in the disk acess (a machine is only as fast as it's slowest part).

      Hence why SSD's offer such a boost.

      However heavier duty users e.g. Gaming, Photoshop, CAD etc will observe a benefit.

  7. Greg J Preece

    PC gaming is back on the rise, too. After the original Xbox One announcement I heard plenty of voices within the gaming community saying "right, that's the final straw, back to PC". Steam has apparently just eclipsed Xbox Live in terms of active subscribers, and the PC platform has really been leading the way in gaming in recent years, more so than usual. Better online services, cross-platform gaming, cheaper prices, more games, more peripherals and huge support for a thriving indie scene full of interesting ideas.

    Given that my preference has always been for the PC platform, it's great to see the revival happening, especially after a period of time where it looked like PC versions of games were either going to be half-arsed across the board, or abandoned altogether.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I bought Lenovo as their BIOS/drivers support Win XP and Win 7

    There - it is all in the title. Windows 8 supporters make of it what you will .. the only company who openly supports Win 7 and Win XP does best in the market...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I bought Lenovo as their BIOS/drivers support Win XP and Win 7

      You can thank the corporate world for that one.

      As much as I think their quality has dipped a little over recent years, they do look after their target market very well.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I bought Novatech as their systems are without O/S

    There - it is all in the title. Install Linux. Job done.

  10. Slap

    PCs / Laptops will ultimately become a niche market

    Yeah, 3 years ago I wouldn't have ever believed I'd be writing a title like that. But the fact is that outside of business and creative tasks such as photography, videography and music (high tend gaming as well) there is little need for a desktop, or even a proper laptop.

    If all you do is consume, rather than create, then to a large extent the traditional high powered laptop, or desktop becomes for the most part redundant.

    Take my mother for instance - she was always upgrading her computer every 3 years, because that's what you do when you've got two sons in IT. When she visited me last year in Zürich we found some bargain basement iPad 2s and bought a couple of them. One for me and one for her. Since then the only time she actually turns on her PC is to backup the iPad, or install new apps or new iOS versions.

    There are millions of people out there that simply require web, email, Facebook and Twitter. Previously you needed an expensive computer to do that, these days you only need the cheapest android device that you can find.

    The PC as a device in the home is facing death.

    1. Nuke
      Thumb Down

      @Slap - Re: PCs / Laptops will ultimately become a niche market

      Wrote :- "There are millions of people out there that simply require web, email, Facebook and Twitter. ... you only need the cheapest android device that you can find. ....The PC as a device in the home is facing death."

      There are also millions of people who do more than look at email and Facebook, and it's more than a niche market. Sure, many people will find a handheld enough, but many won't. I'll use a handheld when I am out, but prefer the comfort and experience of a big screen at home and in the office, rather than making my eyes ache looking at a small screen, thanks.

      These things go in fashions. When the Austin Mini came out in the 1960's people went crazy about it, and excited journo's predicted the death of all larger cars. But cars got larger again after that (today the "Mini" itself is larger), now 50 years on cars are geting smaller again. What goes around comes around.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Slap - PCs / Laptops will ultimately become a niche market

        "prefer the comfort and experience of a big screen at home and in the office"

        You and lots of other people.

        Of course the sensible way of doing that for most folk is to plug a non-PC handheld into an HDMI monitor, and connect it to a keyboard/mouse that suits their needs, and maybe connect a USB hard drive of their choice for archival/backup if "the cloud" is no longer as attractive as it was a year ago.

        "many people will find a handheld enough, but many won't"

        As the numbers needing a classical desktop go down significantly, the unit costs will go up significantly. The price increases will further decrease sales as people delay replacing, or as they go down a different route. Those that need Windows-specific software (why else does anyone *need* a PC?) will find themselves increasingly isolated.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: PCs / Laptops will ultimately become a niche market

      I'm not trolling, nor trying to be snobby, but I look forward to the day when this will be so.

      It'll be like the early to mid 90s, when a PC was something special to behold, rather than everyone buying Currys specials that you're trying to get spyware off.

      It'll be back to a power user / enthusiasts machine, facebook and twitter consumers will be happy with tablet devices (handy machines for living room browsing admittedly).

  11. Vociferous

    There'll be an unexpected bump in PC sales in 2014...

    ... as next-gen games start getting ported to PC, and people realize that for the first time in six years their computer no longer cuts the mustard.

    Mark my words, there'll be a lot of people acting surprised starting the second quarter.

  12. Tezfair
    Thumb Up

    Good year for us

    We have shifted a fair few PCs and laptop this year, ALL were W7.

    So as long as the manfs keep selling them with W7 pre installed with the W8 landfill DVD we will keep buying.

  13. Chris G

    Desktops are delicious

    A few years ago I got involved in a lot of research online for a product we were developing, as a lot of comparison of images and information was required we hooked up a pair of screens in tandem. Now even at home I like to use two monitors so I can research, have emails open, read a book keep my notes going and pipe some TV through. I tried running a pair of laptops by borrowing the wifes, she was not very happy and it doesn't work very well.

    I also use a netbook, a large smartphone and a slab but the desktop is the one I really like so I am about to rebuild, a stronger faster machine with a couple of really nice monitors.

    1. Anonymous Crowbar

      Re: Desktops are delicious

      I find it almost impossible to work on anything less than three monitors in this day and age.

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