[Discuss] Future of Personal Computers

[feenberg at nber.org (Daniel Feenberg)]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2012, markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:

>> On Mar 12, 2012, at 10:07 PM, markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
>>>
>>> The laptop is dead too, tablets will become the new laptops. Bluetooth
>>> keyboards and mice, plus a master USB port, will make them more usable
>>> than laptops. Android will make them price competitive.
>>

When people buy desktops, they tend to pay extra for big screens, large 
memory and fast processors. Doesn't this indicate that a tablet is a weak 
substitute for a desktop when mobility is not required? If they didn't 
value the big/fast stuff why pay extra for it in the circumstances when it 
is available? And if they value it, won't they buy it for those 
circumstances?

In a few years tablets will have processors as fast as current desktops, 
and could conceivably have as much memory and disk, but they will never 
have 23" screens. In my office big screens and multiple screens are quite 
popular. Even the laptop only users like to have a desktop screen to plug 
in.

With respect to processor speed and memory, do we really think that 
software will not continue to absorb more and more cycles and memory, such 
that 5 or 10 years from now a desktop with twice the power of a tablet 
won't still be dramatically faster at many tasks (though not at pure media 
consumption, obviously)? But perhaps the Hollywood dream that computing 
could be reduced to media consumption will come true.

Daniel Feenberg