PC sales in decline.

Ask Overclockers.co.uk, Aria.co.uk, Scan.com, Ebuyer.com, etc. etc. if their component sales have fallen! ;)

I agree with Nero on the comment regarding Currys and PC World sales. Not a lot of people stroll in and guy a gaming PC off of the shelves there - Mainly because they're complete guff.

A lot of console gamers are defecting to the PC side - The PC Gaming forum reflects that fairly well - A lot of them ask where they can buy a pre-built rig, and OcUK is usually the go-to site; but we encourage them to do it themselves!

I was going to ask about component sales as I bet there has been a rise in self builds. I built my gaming desktop a year ago and it was much cheaper than a comparable 'off the shelf' rig.

As for tablets, I have one and it's ok for a bit of light web browsing but I still find my trusty old laptop to be a more comfortable experience.
 
More and more people are just using tablets & laptops now as they are convenient and do everything joe blogs wants them to do.

As said, tech hasn't moved on too much and a 5 year old PC can easily still be used for office and web browsing, which is what most people do.

Of course real techies will need something with more juice if they game or video edit but even video editing these days on a cheap laptop will be fine. I rarely recommend desktops to people any more as a £300 laptop will do everything they want and its more versatile and can be used on your lap.

I have a relatively decent gaming rig at home and it is hardly ever turned on. I game on my PS3 or my tablet (acer iconia w700 with win8 hp).

Another thing to remember... there is a bloody recession going on. People just don't have the cash as much as they did.

4 years ago i always had the best tech in my house. These days i just cannot afford it any more. And with a son now i just don't get enough time to actually use it anyway.

A few weeks ago we got out old Dell PC out of the loft as a cousin wanted it. The monitors were HUGE. Not screen size but how far back it went. It was like having a house on the back of the screen. However did we cope?
Haha. Yeah, CRTs are huge. I had 2 19” on my desk for gaming and music production and they weighed a tonne and took up so much room.

Just bought two new desk top boxes to work with existing keyboards and rodents and put XP on them, so I have no desire to leap forward yet. Although I have Win8 on my desktop :rolleyes:

I don't see the PC dying any time soon.

(And we have tablets, but they fulfill a completely different function IMHO)

IG. A full win8 tablet can do anything a laptop can. You can even get gaming tablets now from the likes of razer with a decent GPU inside. I have a wireless kb and mouse i can use for mine and it has a bt keyboard built into the case. The mrs prefers to work on that than the desktop in the office (although the office doesn't have any rads in it so it does get cold in winter). Hell, i can even run photoshop on my tablet. I regularly play command and conquer on my tablet too.
 
There was a time when I was a champion of Apple products, however in recent days, the ability to upgrade anything on them is just an outright ballache. The only thing that seems to be upgradeable these days is the RAM on a MBP.

I've seen a few instances where I've thought that a PC would do the job I require and am using an old Dell Optiplex in my living room as a media server. It may be nearly 5 years old but it can be upgraded significantly.
 
Aside work, the PC has become little used since I got my first Android phone back in 2010. In 2009 we bought a high spec PC for games, this is mainly used by the wife and kids to play the Sims and its hundreds of expansions :rolleyes: That said, we also use it as a bedroom TV given the internets access to pretty much everything TV nowadays. My old PC, which still has enough juice to run most things except games, has been consigned to the garage.

I still prefer the PC for internet banking, which may change, but as long as I have a decent phone, this is my main source of daily net access. I recall not liking the idea of charging a phone everyday, but then I realised this was using so much less power than a PC being on for a few hours that battery life was pretty much irrelevant.

The PS3 has also steered away from PC usage, PS+ is our main source of gaming outside of the Sims and with Netflix, Lovefilm, blu ray etc we're also covered for extended TV access.

I think there is still life in the PC, but as mentioned above, if you buy a decent spec, its going to last you a lot longer than it did a few years ago, I suspect this is why Win8 has the metro UI to try and push a new type of PC with touchscreen.

We bought our daughter a Laptop for school last year, which she does use a lot for homework, but she doesn't use it much for leisure, in fact, she's already after a tablet this year.

I think the PS4 and NextBox (good phrase :smashin:) have to pull something new to the table other than just better graphics, otherwise they are going to struggle against free to play or the 69 pence games on smartphones. Personally, if Sony continue with PS+ and market it correctly, they are on to a winner, its currently superb value with great content.

One thing I've noticed is that Nintendo is not flavour of the month at all. We have Wiis, DS's and the like, but the DS has been battered by the phone and tablet market and its almost pointless for us to look at buying our kids Nintendo games. The Wii U looks like its not going to help them either, especially if Sony and Microsoft get there act together.
 
IG. A full win8 tablet can do anything a laptop can. You can even get gaming tablets now from the likes of razer with a decent GPU inside. I have a wireless kb and mouse i can use for mine and it has a bt keyboard built into the case. The mrs prefers to work on that than the desktop in the office (although the office doesn’t have any rads in it so it does get cold in winter). Hell, i can even run photoshop on my tablet. I regularly play command and conquer on my tablet too.

Does it use Metro like Windows 8?

Metro will only run a sandboxed version of Flash (still an improvement on iPad) and really odd does not run Silverlight at all.

Windows 8 ships with two versions of Ineternet Explorer!

I have set Win8 up for my father in law so that virtually everything he needs is on the start menu. But try and run Sky Website and it fails with a message that he is running the wrong version of IE. try explaining to an OAP that for most stuff you can use this IE but for somethings you have to switch to the other IE. both have the same name and tha same icon. Bizarre.

At least windows 8 does have both but I wonder whether the windows tablets just have the hamstrung Metro version - though not as hamtrung as the iPad equivalents.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
J/K I know a can of air is really all that's needed, but the last thing I want is a resonating fan keeping me up at night, as I keep my PC on for half-years at a time, if not more.

PCs can be made inaudible and use dust filters to mean they don't end up clogged with dust.

Why is the PC left on overnight as, presumably, it's not being used? S3 sleep would make life quiet, quick and easy.

Slightly off thread, but I read somewhere that rampant hacking of titles like modern warfare was commonplace in pc gaming world?

This is not true.

I was going to ask about component sales as I bet there has been a rise in self builds. I built my gaming desktop a year ago and it was much cheaper than a comparable 'off the shelf' rig.

As for tablets, I have one and it's ok for a bit of light web browsing but I still find my trusty old laptop to be a more comfortable experience.

No doubt there are more independents and retailers doing their own systems (as Jambo mentioned, OcUK, Scan, CCL, Aria, Novatech etc.all do these) as well as people do custom builds which aren't likely to have been taken into account in this survey.
 
Does it use Metro like Windows 8?

Metro will only run a sandboxed version of Flash (still an improvement on iPad) and really odd does not run Silverlight at all.

Windows 8 ships with two versions of Ineternet Explorer!

I have set Win8 up for my father in law so that virtually everything he needs is on the start menu. But try and run Sky Website and it fails with a message that he is running the wrong version of IE. try explaining to an OAP that for most stuff you can use this IE but for somethings you have to switch to the other IE. both have the same name and tha same icon. Bizarre.

At least windows 8 does have both but I wonder whether the windows tablets just have the hamstrung Metro version - though not as hamtrung as the iPad equivalents.

Cheers,

Nigel

IE is odd on mine. as you say there are 2 versions and they seem very different. the metro one lacks certain functionality (cannot remember last session's websites :facepalm:) so i tend to use the desktop IE. unfortunately chrome runs like poo in touch so i never use it at home. IE is by far the best for touch, not sure why the others are taking their time.

i have full blown win8 home premium on my tablet. i assume RT is limited to the metro IE.
 
This is not true

PCs have always been easier to target than consoles (esp the PS3). almost every game of BF3 i played you would see people booted for hacking. sure, hacking tools have got better to spot hacks but new hacks still take a while to get listed.

I think the PS4 and NextBox (good phrase :smashin:) have to pull something new to the table other than just better graphics, otherwise they are going to struggle against free to play or the 69 pence games on smartphones. Personally, if Sony continue with PS+ and market it correctly, they are on to a winner, its currently superb value with great content.

i think consoles will still be popular with proper gamers. sure, they aren't aimed at the casual market but there are still millions of hardcore gamers out there. these cheap games are ok for a couple of hours but tend to get boring and repetitive most of the time. i cant wait for next gen. pity i cant really afford a new console. :facepalm:
 
i think consoles will still be popular with proper gamers. sure, they aren't aimed at the casual market but there are still millions of hardcore gamers out there. these cheap games are ok for a couple of hours but tend to get boring and repetitive most of the time. i cant wait for next gen. pity i cant really afford a new console. :facepalm:

Neither can I, I'll probably get slated for this, but since the original xbox release I've preferred console gaming to PC gaming. But then I think consoles will have to appeal to the casual market too otherwise they become a niche again, which won't make any money. The arrival of real racing 3 on tablets and phones is also a real indicator that developers are starting to take mobile games a seriously.
 
I just wish they brought out a universal controller for the iPad games.
 
Neither can I, I'll probably get slated for this, but since the original xbox release I've preferred console gaming to PC gaming. But then I think consoles will have to appeal to the casual market too otherwise they become a niche again, which won't make any money. The arrival of real racing 3 on tablets and phones is also a real indicator that developers are starting to take mobile games a seriously.

i only play the odd FPS on PC such as BF3, Brink and Colonial Marines but i havent played any of those in ages.

as i say i play C&C on my tablet but thats mainly when im having a smoke in the conservatory. its an older game as my tablet is only an i3 dual core with 4gb ram and held back by integrated gfx. shame modern games like BF3 and colonial marines dont work well enough :(

me and the mrs are loving tombraider on the ps3. looks amazing on old tech too.
 
I just wish they brought out a universal controller for the iPad games.

bonus of a windows machine with full sized USB port :) i can use any USB controller or even the ps3 one with BT.

is there a PS3 BT app for ipad? i hate touch gaming for platformers etc. its ok for strategy or anything where you dont have to use an on-screen pad.
 
The problem is that there is less and less impetus to upgrade.
Most computers of recent years are still good enough to do what most people need.
They have no compelling need to replace them.

Time was when every major release of an OS came along you really needed to think about buying a new more powerful computer.
But that no longer seems true.
Nor is there any compelling reason to adopt the new OS in the first place.
 
i think the lower power CPUs like atom etc have really helped too. we all of a sudden didnt need massive laptops and battery lasted much longer too.

hell, my 2 year old netbook (1ghz single core, 2ggigs of ram) is still used pretty regularly too. MS realised that they needed to really stop the rot that set in with vista and optimise for lower powered devices. win7 and win8 run much faster on the same OS. my father in law has almost the same PC as me bar GPU, mine is win7, his is vista. mine seems 3x quicker at everything.
 
I came interested in computers and gaming fairly late in life, well in my late 20's. I originally had a console - Sony PlayStation One and PS2 and in 2006 brought a new PS3.

I remember my brother once having an Intel 386 processor computer :D (or was it a 486? :rolleyes:)

It was about 2006 that I brought my first desktop, AMD X2 4800+ and 4GB DDR2 RAM with a GeForce 7800GT and really got into gaming. Since then I upgraded to a 8800GTS 512GB and then to a Radeon HD 5850 . I now have a NVidia 460GTX in my newer desktop PC which is based around a fairly old Quad Core i7 870 2.93GHz with 8GB DDR3. I have bothered upgrading since this as I play games less and less now. As I have gotten older with other interests and priorities / work / kids etc.. I have less time to play games.

My wife has a new iPad mini and I lust over having one too although I think I may have a larger iPad one day. The only thing I really like the desktop for is having a large 24 inch monitor, good graphics for gaming and steam, and typing word documents.
 
I am about to upgrade my pc so that I can game on it. :D

Regarding Windows 8 I am amazed at how easy it is to do things with. I use the Metro apps when I need to quickly scan things and my Start menu tells me more things than it ever has.

Controlling the Xbox via SmartGlass is very clever. ;)
 
PCs increasingly seem to be enthusiast devices rather than the mass market products of old. So many of the companies I deal with turn up with iPads and other tablets now instead of laptops. Some of them even project presentations with various add on devices.

We don't have a strict upgrade policy at work and we certainly have been spending less on new computers as part of a cost saving exercise, preferring component upgrades where possible.

Then there's the price itself. I was in PC World the other day and couldn't believe how little your money got you now. £500 systems might get you a 2nd Gen i5 or 3rd Gen i3 if you're lucky, 4GB RAM and a 1TB HDD with either onboard graphics or an awful discrete card.

i7 systems seem to illicit £800+ price tags.

I haven't bought a new PC for years but spent £200 upgrading components recently. I bet enthusiasts spend a lot more than that!
 
Then there's the price itself. I was in PC World the other day and couldn't believe how little your money got you now. £500 systems might get you a 2nd Gen i5 or 3rd Gen i3 if you're lucky, 4GB RAM and a 1TB HDD with either onboard graphics or an awful discrete card.

i7 systems seem to illicit £800+ price tags.

I haven't bought a new PC for years but spent £200 upgrading components recently. I bet enthusiasts spend a lot more than that!

A little difficult on the High Street but I found this:

Buy Samsung 350V 15.6 Inch 1TB 8GB Intel Core i7 Laptop at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for Laptops and netbooks.
 
1600 for a keyboard?!

And I thought I was wasteful with money :laugh:

What on earth does this keyboard offer over other keyboards?
 
each key is actually a little OLED screen that can be programmed. its a cool device but not sure how useful it is apart from showing off to other geeks with more money than sense.
 
each key is actually a little OLED screen that can be programmed. its a cool device but not sure how useful it is apart from showing off to other geeks with more money than sense.

Ah ok.

So doesn't really offer much for me personally that would warrant ever paying that for a keyboard.

I can think of 3 possible members that would have bought that, Razor, Boltlock or SegaMegaDave.

Who was it?
 

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