They'll still be around as workstations, but very few people will be buying new PC's in the traditional desktop form factor by the end of this decade. The laptop has already replaced the desktop as the most popular form factor. Tablets and smartphones will continue to crowd the desktop (and even the traditional laptop) out of the market.
The PC gaming market is still bigger than Apple's world wide market share, so PCs will continue to have a place significantly longer than Apple or Apple fans would like to have you believe.
And outside of the PC gaming market, theres plenty of people who still prefer a traditional desktop PC over anything else because of price, speed, and expandability. There isn't another device on the planet that can currently match a desktop PC in any of those ways.
Yeah, laptops are "more popular" and sell more than desktops, but only by a few percentage points. You're greatly overlooking the fact that desktop PCs still sell in the tens of millions every year and will continue to do so for years and years to come.
I love newegg, but what's happening there is indicative only of the very tiny geek marketplace - less than 5% of the PC industry as a whole.
Proof? Even so, thats still larger than Apple's world wide market share.
That's nice. But with Thunderbolt you don't need a desktop PC to take advantage of desktop peripherals, like high-end graphics cards or external accelerators. In fact, you could plug a Thunderbolt-equipped tablet - or even a smartphone - into an expansion box and take advantage of desktop-class graphics and storage hardware.
rofl! Desktop GPUs tend to use PCIe 2.0 x16, so you're looking at 8GB/sec (64Gbits) of bandwidth. More than 3x that of Thunderbolt in "dual channel" mode. PCIe 3.0 is good for 16GB/sec. An SLI or Crossfire GPU setup is pushing 16GB/sec.
What about power? Thunderbolt provides 10 watts of power. So any external GPU thats already being slowed down by Thunderbolt will require its own power supply, since a modern desktop GPU can easily eat a couple hundred watts of electricity.
You won't. Which is why the desktop as we've known it is on its way to becoming virtually extinct.
Not if bandwidth is a concern. Again, as I pointed out, when it comes to desktop GPUs, Thunderbolt doesn't even provide 1/3 of the required modern bandwidth. PCIe 3.0 doubles what is currently available.
For external storage, USB 3.0 pairs perfectly with SATA3 internal HDDs.
Funny how i have never seen a computer with USB3, not that they don't exist just aren't very common.
Then you need to look harder. OEMs were selling systems with USB 3.0 last year, and I've been building systems with USB 3.0 ports since last year. I had friends buying notebooks with USB 3.0 last year.
Again read above, your eSATA argument is weak eSATA was only a minor improvement over Firewire
Minor improvement? eSATA started out at almost double the bandwidth of Firewire 800. Thats more than a "minor improvement".
Plain old wrong, i have a SATA 3 drive in my computer right now.
Plain old wrong, you do not. You're confusing SATA naming with speeds. SATA 3 = 6.0Gbps. SATA 2 (which Apple uses) is 3Gbps. Apple uses SATA 2 controllers in some computers. In fact, if you do some searching in this forum, you'll see that Apple actually went so far as to use SATA 1 controllers in some MacBook "Pro" systems after using SATA 2 the previous generation.
Prove it!
Display port is a superior standard to HDMI and why have both display port and HDMI when you can get HDMI from the display port?
HDMI 1.4 offers higher resolutions than the most recent DisplayPort revision, offers more audio bandwidth (HDMI 1.3 still offers more audio bandwidth), and offers up to 10Gbps of data. Granted, DisplayPort offers more data, but HDMI still supports higher resolutions, more audio bandwidth, etc.
Blu ray is gaining market share but not as much as Online download. Blu ray drives are big and require power i would much rather have that go towards a second HD.
Are you serious? Really? Online services outpacing blu-ray? I don't think so. It's difficult to find numbers, but NPD states that blu-ray and DVD still own "the vast majority of the market" and blu-ray owns 23.86% of that market.
And with half of all US internet connections capped, streaming video is going to hit a wall pretty quick. Plus theres the issue of quality. There is not a single streaming service out there that even comes close to resembling the quality of blu-ray disc.
HDMI has absolutely no advantages over Display port (I wonder why professionals use Display port?), the latest HDMI is comparable to Display port however the Display port standard is due for update which will up the ante again. Also Display port can have longer cables, better signal over longer distances and another advantage which is stuck on the tip of my tongue.
Someone needs to do some research. Again, HDMI offers higher resolution, more audio bandwidth, etc.
You really want another port on the Macbook Pro, Apple would never drop Firewire for eSATA (their professional market).
Don't start with that. Apple doesn't support "professional" markets at all. Their systems are consumer grade systems that have nothing in common with true "professional" systems from HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc.
I would never call the Mac a niche product, it is slowly gaining on Microsofts Monopoly which actually on happened because of Apple. Microsoft practically stole the GUI from Apple, Apple took them to court where it was ruled the GUI could not be patented.
And Apple stole that GUI from Xerox!
Still as far as i know Xerox didn't actually have a working GUI?
Then you know wrong.
USB connection is god awful.
Speed's are diabolical.
Only in OS X thanks to Apple's terrible USB support.
Who cares about HP? It's the graphics card makers who will be looking to licence thunderbolt, so they can get another big sales point and take over a bigger slice of the PC build components.
Again, why? Thunderbolt is SIGNIFICANTLY slower than PCIe 2.0 x16 and light years behind PCIe 3.0 x16.
While not the same thing, but back in the day there was the sony betamax vs. vhs. betamax was better in its quality of video.
Except for that pesky fact that Beta could only hold about an hour of video in its first revision, where a VHS tape could hold an entire 2 hour movie. People seem to forget that.
For professional usages
- game production [my industry],
As I've stated many times, how? Thunderbolt offers less than 1/3 the bandwidth of the current standard in use for GPUs. PCIe 3.0 x16 will double that.
- backup of large amounts of data daily
Apple uses SATA 2 HDDs and SSDs, so you'd be fine with USB 3.0.
The Post-PC era has just begun.
I like my iPad, despite the fact that its useless beyond being an expensive and horribly slow web browser. However, this "Post PC" nonsense needs to stop. PCs aren't going anywhere. "Post PC" products have a VERY long way to go before they can replace a PC. Even if they have finally caught up in processing power, until I can replace components myself, a PC will always have a place.
PCs are not going anywhere. A $200 smartphone outselling PCs is NOT the sign of the death of the PC because an iPhone or iPad is a completely different device and severely limited in comparison.
Hewlett Packard Not Convinced on the Value of Industrial Design
Thats funny, because Apple's 2008 "unibody" designs were actually ripoffs of HP's then old designs.
Hewlett Packard Not Convinced on the Value of Product Differentiation
Which is why every single Apple product looks EXACTLY the same? Which is why HP actually offers various color, pattern, and design options for their products?
You could have 100 people buy a 15" MacBook "Pro" and every single one will look the same, minus the option for a matte screen. You could have a 100 different people buy HP's 15" products and theres a good chance that the products wouldn't repeat.
Hewlett Packard Not Convinced on the Value of User Satisfaction
Which is why HP is the largest computer manufacturer in the world?
Hewlett Packard Not Convinced on the Value of Quality Construction
Which is why Apple's plastic machines have a long history of cracking and discoloring? Which is why Apple's metal products are known for their ability to dent, scratch, warp, bend?
