Laptop Sales Beat Desktops For The First Time

from the the-end-of-the-desktop? dept

This certainly isn't a surprise as the trend has been clear, but for the first time, laptop sales beat desktop sales in the month of May. It's a little unclear from the article if this is in terms of units or dollars. Since laptops are more expensive, they could still be lower in unit sales, but higher in terms of overall dollars. However, as laptops get cheaper and people realize additional benefits from the portability of laptops (much of which is due to the rapid growth in WiFi), it's questionable whether the "desktop" computer really has a strong future. These days, unless I needed it for a very specific purpose (most likely a server I could hide away somewhere), I would only consider a laptop for a personal computer. The value of the portability outweighs the higher prices by a wide margin.
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  1. identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, 2 Jul 2003 @ 12:26pm

    Except for gamers

    Until I find a laptop that I can put the latest and greatest high-end 3D card in every 6 months without having to replace the entire PC, I'll stick with my desktop, thanks.

    I tend to buy a new PC every 18 - 24 months, but regularly upgrade it with new drives, new video card, etc to keep it close to cutting edge, then at the end of the cycle I buy a new, mostly empty PC and transfer the high-end parts over from the previous PC.

    Until someone comes out with a laptop that allows me to do something similar, I'll stick with desktops.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Tom Foolery, 2 Jul 2003 @ 8:44pm

    Except for couches!

    I upgrade my desktop every 2 years. And every time I do it, I end up kicking myself when I'm done, because I still dont use the desktop, I use my laptop.

    On the couch.

    I totally agree, I cant get the *killer* performance high as often or as much, but all my games that I play, play just fine on a thinkpad t40. And they do it on the couch, or on the floor, or out on the deck, or at work, or on vacation, or at a friend's house, or hacking the starbuckz wifi, or whatever.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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