The Tablet Is Dead As We Know It - and That's Good

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dextermat

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The other big problem is most tablets only has 1 gb memory. Put in an antivirus and the tablet get slow and buggy. The cpu hasn't evolve and if you want 1.5 gb memory and a slightly better cpu you need to play twice the price just for that. (ex 1 gb ram dual core 1 ghz = 150 $ - 1.5 gb ram and dual core 1.2 ghz 300$)
 

Dyseman

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They were still using them on the Enterprise. I like all my tablets and have their uses. iPad, Transformer (both droid and windows versions). Keep them on my coffee table and one next to my bed.
 

Xivilain

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I remember seeing iPads bolted down to kiosks in Kohl's (clothing store) before. They were doing slide shows of advertisements. (Inside of the store! Not even outside.)

Worst use of a tablet, ever.
 

InvalidError

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Not so much dead as simply transitioning to a mature/replacement economy since yearly models are increasingly small incremental updates to the previous year's models.

At the lower end, specs have been nearly frozen for more than two years, not much to upgrade to without doubling or tripling the price.
 

corwera

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No wonder. Each "new" tablet has never been that earth shattering special, which makes the market fed up eventually. A tablet is basically a dumb phone without the ability to make calls properly.....
Now, let's give nVIDIA and AMD those <28nm nodes so that we can see some actual innovation in consumer electronics?
 

maverickmage

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Called it.

Tablets lacks the power and overall flexibility of a laptop and the portability of a smart phone. With laptops becoming thinner and lighter and smartphones becoming bigger and stronger, why would anyone opt for a tablet that holds a lukewarm position in between?
 

d_kuhn

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I think the iPad has been slipping because Apple made a strategic decision to limit it's capabilities to avoid cannibalizing their laptop business. With one of the earlier versions I had a kb/mouse setup with the iPad that made it a moderately competent little ultracompact web machine - but Apple doesn't like you using mice on iOS devices, and they've never seemed open to giving the iPad the ability to be used as a productivity tool instead of just a media consumption tool. That's why I've got a Surface Pro now... not an iPad. And that's why Microsoft's tablet business doubled last year as Apple's slipped.
 

godnodog

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Or people arnot buying new tablets for the same reason why pc sales have stalled, the ones they have suits their needs, they may not see any real advantage of the new devices over the old ones, or they may have realized that a tablet is not a pc replacement, either way I don't see thiss market dying any time soon
 

hitman40

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"The other big problem is most tablets only has 1 gb memory. Put in an antivirus and the tablet get slow and buggy. The cpu hasn't evolve and if you want 1.5 gb memory and a slightly better cpu you need to play twice the price just for that. (ex 1 gb ram dual core 1 ghz = 150 $ - 1.5 gb ram and dual core 1.2 ghz 300$) "

Sorry dexterman, but I don't anyone buys these tablets and says "OMG I have 2ghz and 4GB of memory for youtube!" I know sometimes the spec race can make people short-sided, but you are right in a way because the lack of portability of a smartphone and the power/workspace of a laptop causes tablets to be glorified touchscreen monitors, nothing more.
 

somebodyspecial

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The category stalled because we are all waiting on 20nm (or better 16/14nm coming just another few quarters later) and 64bit WITH the apps/games to use it too. In apple's case they had the 64bit but nothing special in the new versions vs. their previous model so no surprise people didn't see a WOW I need a new one in Apple. That buying shoe hasn't dropped yet on android/arm for many devices and most are waiting for a die shrink I think as that will bring massive changes in low power devices (what NV did on desktop was already impressive without the shrink and K1 is already very impressive for gpu).

At this point (heck many months ago for me) a 28nm device of any kind is out of the question for me (be it a soc, or a new desktop gpu I want). I think more people are looking at things as fairly capable gaming devices also in this area, so may be waiting either for more K1 tablets (stuff advertised directly as gaming devices that double as a tablet also, and 4K player) or the die shrink here too, more memory as standard, etc. They just seem to be giving us much of the same right now and the race to the bottom of pricing has created a lot of crappy devices with few real gems. 16GB should just be dealt a death blow as storage now on anything but a low end phone in an underdeveloped country ;) Same story for anything under 3GB mem.

So we're waiting for 4GB+ mem, die shrinks, more capable gaming (K1+ power on gpu) and software that actually shows the gpu's new abilities. The next wave of xmas games will sell many tablets. Well, all games this year that aim at T4+ gpu levels should start to get more people to realize these things can now replace your console. Many of those same people realize the coming shrunk chips will make us start to see some REAL 64bit apps that show these tablets can act as a mini desktop/laptop when hooked to keyboard/mouse/monitor. Poor countries could start to use these to develop stuff on as this next shrink amps up power. They are useless for anything but consumption today, but that is about to change.

Thinner, and slightly better cameras don't make us buy now (even apple zealots see nothing special here). At this point I'm thinking THICKER is better (and you can give me back some battery...LOL). 2GB memory for $500 and only 16GB storage at apple? What did they expect? Samsung with some 64bit devices but 64bit turned off etc...Apple's next device will sell much better if they go to 4GB and 32GB storage for $500 along with the new chip.

Right now claiming 64bit is kind of like having a 4K bluray player in your living room. Sure it will work one day, but it's not worth much now with so little stuff to use on them. Best to wait 6 months, see all the 20nm stuff (possibly a few 16/14nm stuff tested too by then) and get some polish on 64bit along with some stuff that shows it's actually in there and means something. App/game devs need to catch up to the new hardware. I think they were kind of caught off guard by how fast mobile moved (console makers surely were too, or they wouldn't have aimed so low hardware wise) but we should have some stuff this year that uses multi-core, more mem, better gpus etc more efficiently and they'll start aiming higher knowing how many sell each year (1.2B phones yearly now and a LOT of those are top end, either samsung or apple stuff). You can now shoot much higher as a dev and know worst case a few hundred mil can use your app/games power at launch and a billion+ within 9 more months as the high end becomes low end again.

They still sell a lot of ps3/xbox360, but now you get that in mobile and even more power shortly after the shrinks of everything. New consoles can't do 4K either, another thing that might make someone go mobile and just hook it to TV for that. MS dropped the price ($50), dropped connect ($100) and still barely hit 11mil (sony has 18.5mil, but is 11mil MS sell-through or not?). So a mobile device shortly that does 4K, far more power than ps3/xbox360 with updated gpu tech etc for unreal 4 etc, ...hmmm, maybe I don't need a ps4/xbox1. I'm guessing many will ask themselves that this year hardcore console person or not. There are many reasons for stagnation, but they go away this year as power/perf amps up and devices get more mem/storage etc for that hopefully POLISHED 64bit OS by then (along with apps and games that show it off a bit better). I really can't explain apples phone sales though...Nothing special but they sold the heck out of them this Q. I was a bit surprised really. Anyway, tablets (hooked to other stuff) are about to become much more useful gaming and app wise which should change their sales numbers.
 

somebodyspecial

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Of course it goes without saying shortly you can say X1+ style gpu everywhere I said K1 ;) We should see X1 20nm in Q2 I'd guess in at least a shield tablet update if not more stuff at least announced. But as noted jeez, 14nm by xmas (and possibly march apparently for Samsung exynos 7) from qcom/nv and likely more inside devices. Holy cow. The inspiration to NOT BUY currently is HUGE. If you have anything that is functioning already, JUST WAIT! Again not surprised a LOT of people are waiting and sales dropped some. This gen was a "explain why I'd want it this time" generation.
 

alidan

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thing is, once you can play youtube, most peoples issues with tablets are gone
they don't need or even want faster tablets

personally, i want one just for a mobile monitor, but 200+$ for one i want... not a chance in hell.
 

memadmax

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I bought my first tablet AND smartphone back in november at nearly the same time.
They are the iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6 plus.... My cellphones before were disposable tracfones from Wally World...

This coming from a STALWART defender of the WinTel platform (and DOS) going all the way back to the 8088/86's... AND a dedicated Apple hater that hated them with a passion, but also had various mac machines from the Classic, Color Classic, LCIII's, Blue iMac's, clones, etc...

I will prolly never buy another phone or tablet again(unless they get broken of course)...

Why?

Because they Just Work.

For decades now, I have grown tired of fighting windows. I have grown tired of religiously re-installing windows every 6 months or so. I have grown tired of proprietary hardware not playing well with each other... hunting for flaky drivers. and so on and so forth.

In other words, apples stuff just works... My next purchases will be their latest and greates laptop and a desktop, completing the circle.... After that, I will begin to retire my windows machines and hand them off to the kids. Completing THAT circle too. It's too bad they won't experience BBS's and the like. Oh well, maybe I could setup a DOS VM machine for that one lolol
 

geraldbrennan

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I have wanted a tablet since the iPad. Good size, and I consider phones too small for the task.
I don't care for the Apple world for the typical reasons others share.
But there is still no, what I consider to be, cost-effective 10" tablet available with the specs I seek. I believe they're generally overpriced.
I thought the Nexus 10 might be the one, but we know how that turned out.
So... I'm still waiting.
 
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Or people arnot buying new tablets for the same reason why pc sales have stalled, the ones they have suits their needs, they may not see any real advantage of the new devices over the old ones, or they may have realized that a tablet is not a pc replacement, either way I don't see thiss market dying any time soon

Yep. I only use my tablet for light web surfing, occasional Youtube watching, and checking my e-mail on the road. If I want to play the latest games with eye candy, encode HD video, and do things a tablet can't, I'll stick with my PC.
 
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