Don't fear PC-pocalypse, Chromebooks, two-in-ones 'will save us' Growing sales of ultra-portables and Chromebooks will help to offset the drop in PC shipments. This according to a report from analyst house ABI Research, which predicts that between 2015 and 2021, notebook shipments will remain steady as Chromebooks and ultraportables (tablet convertible notebooks) take up an increasing share …
"isn't there a build of W10 for the Raspberry PI?"
Yes. But that would be Windows 10 InternetOfTat.
Which has little (except the name) in common with what the rest of the world calls Windows 10.
Don't worry, you're not an idiot, nor have you been misled, because MS wouldn't do that would they. It's absolutely unthinkable. Like corrupt policemen are unthinkable.
Typical Pi customers, probably not but it is of interest to people who use SBCs (single board computers) professionally and think of "Windows" in terms of WinCE and Win7/Win8 Embedded etc.[*]
There are "Windows" BSPs (board support package) for hundreds of different ARM variants and Win10 IoT is an evolution of these product lines rather than PC/Intel Windows.
[*] Personally I use Linux but in this space that tends to mean Yocto rather than Ubuntu or Android.
Errr... isn't there a build of W10 for the Raspberry PI?
Yes, and I agree with you that it shows MS is starting to take ARM seriously. Something they didn't do first time round.
The RPi2 is okay for desktop use (processor speed is less of an issue than I/O). The RPi3 is more than adequate, albeit with the same provisos. Single-thread performance is still poor in comparison with x86 but more cores can generally make up for this as long as you're not repeatedly parsing a large DOM.
However, I wouldn't expect MS to lead here as it still does not have a very convincing strategy for multi-arch binaries: you cannot run x64 binaries on a 32-bit version of Windows.
Based on what I've seen of the ARM64 I can imagine Apple going ARM with the MacBook this year or next: it provides most of the software that will run on it and has a long-established toolchain for cross-compiling for x86 and ARM. What the ARM cores don't provide in straight CPU oomph can be added in custom hardware (encryption) and the GPUs can be made to do more. If they can do this and knock a bit off what they would otherwise pay Intel I can see this happening. I can also see them releasing hardware that will not run x86 code. The target market for the shiny gold MacBook probably doesn't have oodles of legacy software it wants to run.
Will be picking up pace, school districts are under the cosh financially in the US, especially in rural areas, even more so with Republicans in power locally. The Apple deals are less and less affordable and the hardware more and more irritating to work with. Our district will not be replacing our current 1 to 1 MacBook Airs (circa 1000 machines) when they exhaust the contract in 2 years, it is looking highly likely we will be moving to Chromebooks. Google's year on year costs and the benefits offered compared to Apple are very favourable.
"With no Windows 10 desktop support for ARM processor architecture, only a handful of Chromebooks are using ARM-based processors in their designs," Orr said.
Did I miss something? Or does Orr not know what a 'Chromebook' is?
Reminds me of what someone said of buying a Chromebook in PC World - that they had to sit through a half hour of the assistant repeatedly asking 'are you sure you don't want a Windows notebook?' due to so many people buying them and then returning them as they did not know the machines were not windows and would not run windows programs.
> 'are you sure you don't want a Windows notebook?' due to so many people buying them and then returning them as they did not know the machines were not windows and would not run windows programs.
I remember the netbook craze first time around, everyone bought these then wanted Windows put on them, thinking I was a walking endless repository of free / pirate Windows licences. Once they learnt the cost of a Windows licence, they realised that IT isn't a free industry.
The remaining PC market is becoming more professional. While previously people bought PCs to play games or listen to music, or, in the office, use it as a glorified typewriter, things are changing now.
PC people now want their hardware separate from their software. They don't want "complete packages" they want tools.
But of course, the PC is going to live on forever. Except it will no longer be a heavy tower requiring a desk to make use of it, it will be a sleek, inch-thick screen you can hold on your lap wherever you are. In the future it might be an ocular implant, with the CPU being powered by oxygen in your blood. Still a PC though.
So we are all still driving horse carriages then, except that there are no more actual horses and the carriage has a top and a steering wheel and, instead of smelling of horse dung, it smells of gas.
But still totally a horse carriage.
Except that real PCs are still vastly superior to mobile devices in every way except mobility.
Back in the 80s, computers were often used with a 14 inch display (not counting the 19 inch TV used as a monitor). That's still bigger than a typical tablet, but a display of that size today would only be accepted on a laptop. These days, 24 inch displays (16:9, usually) and larger are the norm. We didn't spend all that time ramping up display sizes just to decide that the correct size is really five inches (or ten or eleven).
Bigger displays are better. It's why people like big TVs. Tablets will never get as big as dedicated monitors; it would be too cumbersome to haul around or to use a tablet that large, and the benefit of the large screen would be greatly outweighed by the poor portability, which is the only area where mobile devices outshine traditional PCs..
A mouse is also vastly superior to a touchscreen. It can be used for longer periods of time without fatigue, and it's much faster to move a hand between keyboard and mouse than keyboard and touchscreen. It's more precise, being able to hit a target only a few pixels in size quickly and reliably, which touch devices can't do with big, fat fingers and relatively small screens. Even doing simple things like cutting and pasting text is annoyingly cumbersome with touch devices; it's far easier to do with a mouse.
PCs are far more powerful than mobile devices, and while that may not benefit someone checking Facebook, there are a lot of things in which that matters.
The horse carriage went away as a serious transportation device because the car did it better. The PC, though, has not been eclipsed by mobiles for all purposes. There are still a lot of things a real desktop is better at than any mobile device... well, actually, that would be all things with the single exception of the high degree of portability. You compromise speed, storage, ergonomics, and display size to get that portability, and that is not universally a worthy trade-off.
"Tablets will never get as big as dedicated monitors"
How about an 18" screen you can roll up and stuff in your pocket? And maybe the ability to "dock" it at home or in the office, wireless most likely.
Never say never :-)
I quite enjoyed the portability of my iPad 2, combined with a Logitech keyboard case to make a tiny laptop replacement (with multi-touch) for a few years, until a sequence Apple's iOS "upgrades" made it almost unusable slow and buggy.
I know that Apple's strategy with the degraded iOS performance is to encourage me to buy their latest shiny, but why would I do so when they will certainly pull the same stunt again in a couple of years?
So, instead I've mostly moved on to a Asus Chromebook Flip for my portable computing needs. (It's the one in the thumbnail of this story, I think). It's as nicely constructed and as compact as the iPad, but with way better functionality in the built-in apps. (Less 3rd-party apps though.) Oh, and it's about a quarter of the price of the Apple & Logitech kit.
Meanwhile, the old laptops have become the new desktops. They just sit at home, making our homes slightly less cluttered. They might occasionally be carried into another room, but they are rarely taken out of the house.
"Meanwhile, the old laptops have become the new desktops. They just sit at home, making our homes slightly less cluttered. They might occasionally be carried into another room, but they are rarely taken out of the house."
I have a very nice Laptop I am using at the moment, the 1st time it has been out of the house in a year is because I spent last week driving around Northern Spain house hunting and I wanted something faster and more powerful than a tablet.It's a chunky thing to lug around in a bag but okay in a car and a hell of a lot more powerful than my last tower desktop.
I like towers for the ease of being able to tinker around inside for upgrades but even good laptops are easier to get into now if they are not fruity.
>I like towers for the ease of being able to tinker around inside for upgrades but even good laptops are easier to get into now if they are not fruity.
Agreed, though I haven't had the need to upgrade the internals of my laptop (or even think about buying a new one). I'm not really a PC gamer, nor a heavy video editor, so my laptop that was upper-middle spec five years ago is still fit for the 3D CAD and Photoshop I throw at it occasionally today.
If I want to treat myself to some more RAM and an SSD one day, then yeah, it's nice that I can open the laptop up and fit some. In reality though, the need for upgrades is less pressing than once it was, back in the days when it seemed hardware struggled to run the software.
I tend to agree. My desktop is now there to be a video player, my laptop spends its time on my desk and the Chromebook goes around with me. I'm occasionally tempted by ultra-light notebooks but (a) they cost 4-5 times as much as a Chromebook and (b) this means if I drop, lose or have my Chromebook stolen I can just say "Oh bother, that's a bit inconvenient" and order one for next day delivery, without thinking about it other than to change my password.(Yes, I do have 2FA enabled. Yes, I am logged out while travelling.)
My Asus Chromebook Flip is now my trusty companion. Win10 is, like its predecessors, a confounding, mocking adversary. Chromebooks have a lot to offer to those who are open to the notion of using Web apps and remote terminal apps. Unfortunately, most people are trapped in an endless expensive and time-consuming cycle of buying, downloading, fixing, and upgrading native software.
It can be. There are a few form factors, to suit a few use cases.
The one that appeals to me is Lenovo's Yoga ('Tent') laptop where the keyboard can be folded back - it would suit me when I want to watch video. If I needed a new laptop, the MS Surface Book also appeals, because of it's screen's aspect ratio, stylus digitiser and discrete GPU more than it's convertible nature. Hopefully other manufacturers will make competing machine before my currently fit-for-purpose laptop dies.
'Tablet' used to mean a seldom-seen Intel/WinXP paving slab. Later it was usually taken to mean a lighter weight ARM/*NIXish machine. Now it can be a few things.
There's also the problem that the rush to lighter thinner laptops has made them worse computers.
Take this HP ProBook 430 work has given me - it may be lighter and thinner, but as a computer it gets it's ass handed to it by my 4 year old T410. Gutless ultra-low voltage i5, dim, low res screen and a keyboard that seems to actively get in the way of you typing.
Is a good example of the "new laptop". My son calls it a "Laplet".
The keyboard is at least equal to that on a small laptop, it runs Win8.1 reasonably nicely, and you can uncouple the keyboard and use it as a tablet (finally Modern UI make sense!).
Extra plus bonus points for 8 hour battery life.
More points for being £150 on offer at eBuyer!
I still say the PC is going nowhere. The sales will decline, yes, but there are two sectors in which the PC's dominance will never go away. Businesses are not going to trade most of their PC based workstations for Chromebooks or tablets. Hardcore gamers, as always, will be split between the console market and the high-end PC market. Neither of those facts is going to change in the near future.
I think the PC form factor will be around for a long time. It will morph into a two in one. It seems like Windows is coming back nicely too with Surface and the like. A few years ago it seemed like Chromebooks would take over, but now that is seems to be falling off. People still need desktop apps, they don't need many of them, but they still need them... and MS decided to give away Win 10. I'm sure the haters don't like Win 10, but I think it is pretty solid. The app store is annoying, but, in general, it is a good OS.... Apple seems to really be falling off. Everyone was buying iPads for business a few years ago. Surface and Apple's lack of innovation in recent years (just making existing products bigger or smaller) gave MS an opportunity to take it back, which they did.
Because they looked cool and the execs wanted them. And they seemed to be cheaper than a laptop of that era. And then it turned out that the notebook form factor is much, much better for actually writing stuff.
A former senior colleague used the words "humanities graduates" as a swear word to be addressed to any money-wasting fashion-based foulup. It may be a calumny on a generally fine body of people, but when it comes to IT procurement there may be the faintest grain of truth in it.
> And then it turned out that the notebook form factor is much, much better for actually writing stuff.
Do you think that keyboard/covers are not available for iPads (or Androids)? It is simple to get one that gives a 'notebook form factor'. In fact, because they use bluetooth rather than a plug, they can often give portrait orientation, too, which is better for "actually writing stuff". They have better weight distribution and smaller footprint than a Surface and can be used on an actual lap or airline table.
http://www.apple.com/nz/shop/product/HA500X/A/logitech-ultrathin-keyboard-cover-for-ipad-white
Yes, Richard Plinston, I have tried a number of them and they are crap due to poor weight distribution, poor key travel and lack of rigidity, and the need to charge them.
"They have better weight distribution and smaller footprint than a Surface"
But I'm not comparing to a Surface, I'm comparing to an MBA, a Thinkpad, or even a Chromebook. A Surface is not a laptop.
Also, laptops run operating systems that are actually good for data input.
> But I'm not comparing to a Surface, I'm comparing to an MBA, a Thinkpad, or even a Chromebook.
Notebooks are crap for using where table surfaces or seats are unavailable or inappropriate. Device choice should match the usage requirements. You need to enter lots of data and centre your choices around that, others have different needs and don't need you to dictate what they should choose.
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