Global notebook sales finally beat desktops

Global sales of notebooks in the third quarter exceeded desktops for the first time in history, according to market watcher iSuppli. "History," in this case, is of course a rather short period of time, what with the dawn of the personal computer era generally considered to have begun with the release of the MITS Altair 8800 in …

[Anonymous Coward]

Psion

So were Psion right to pull out of the market after all?

In commercial terms, it's ironic that of all their products, the MCs were perhaps the worst, while the original netBook™ was seen as such a niche product that it took them some convincing to bother offering a consumer version, the Series 7.

If they'd hung on in there over the last seven years and persevered with development of the netBook™, I wonder what the common term for EEE PCs would be today?

[Andy Worth]

Market share...

A lot of the growth in laptop sales is down to the appearance of the low-cost notebook, which makes it more financially viable than a desktop when you take everything into consideration. How that can play into Apple's hands I don't know, as they do not offer a "low cost notebook", so this Silicon Valley "insider" may just be talking out of their arse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unclear

Noteboooks that rival desktops have been available for quite some time. This article would tend to give the impression that this is a new thing. This report seems to combine "netbooks" with "notebooks" for some measurements and then criticizes Apple for not selling a "netbook" while grudgingly admitting that Apple sells a lot of "notebooks". Why is Apple's total "desktop" sales brought out in an article that seems mainly concerned with "netbooks" anyway. What exactly is the point of this article ??????????????????????

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell

Finally!! my shares might go back up on the back of this.

[Daniel Harris]

"Apple... is increasingly a notebook company" ??

I agree apple should release a Netbook but it can't be priced any higher, or spec'd any lower than the Dell Mini netbook, and should run some form of OS X. I personally wouldn't buy it but i'm sure a lot of people would be tempted to.

I wouldn't agree with the Silicon Alley Insider that "Apple... is increasingly a notebook company..." Without knowing details of their business I would think it's fair to predict their iPod / iPhone sales are making a rather larger chunk than their notebooks, and of course the iPod has a much larger than 3.2 market share in the MP3 Player Market, It must have atleast around 70%?

To stay more on topic to this article it is obvious to see why notebooks have taken over from Desktops in recent years, part of that being down to the fact it is "cooler" to have a laptop than a desktop computer. Especially for students these days. A lot of them will either buy a new computer / get a new computer bought for them and i'd say 9/10 they will get a laptop.

It has practical reasons too of course, rather than just being "cooler".

[Goat Jam]

I hate fricking notebooks

I mean, yeah, they have their place, when you just have to be able to use it on the run they are just fine and all, but so many people buy them for all the wrong reasons.

Too many times I've seen people buy notebooks because they are cuter/smaller/techier or whatever without having a real reason and without exception they are bottom of the range pieces of crap with minimal memory that is shared with the crappy intel graphics chip. Add to that the Celeron processor and 5200RPM hdd and you don't exactly have the latest gaming monster rig.

The trouble is though, that teenage son then expects to go and buy/download Crysis only to find it won't run properly on their "brand new" craptastic notebook.

In the worst cases, the boofhead teenager spills coke across the thing before they even get to that stage, totally destroying it without any hope of having it repaired under warranty.

If you don't need to move it around much, FOR CHRISAKES DON"T FRICKING BUY A LAPTOP!!

Paris, because she's the perfect laptop

[Daniel Harris]

@Goat Jam

They are also pretty useful if you have a limited amount of space to use the computer, like if you mainly just use it for general web browsing in your front room on the coffee table, you can put it away when you are done and store it somewhere safe.

I see your point about buying them for gaming...It just isn't what they are good for. But I wouldn't agree they are all bottom of the range pieces of crap. You can get decent spec'd ones plenty good enough for most tasks other than gaming.

Of course for the same money you can get a desktop system which is much more up to date for the same money.

It's all down to personal preference. But as I said in my first comment there are a lot of people who buy them just because it is the cool thing to do these days.

Personally I take my computer around with me a lot, but don't use it on trains or anything like that as I drive everywhere. But it is very useful for me to have it to hand. The thing I don't understand is the huge 17"+ laptops.

I see how they are convenient to move around the house if you just want one computer to use in different rooms but you wouldn't want to regularly take one of those around with you ;-)

One of the main advantages of a laptop is the space you save and they generally run cooler which helps if you are using it in a small room that heats up fast!

Where I used to keep my desktop computer it would overheat in the summer months if it was a really hot day because the room would get way too toasty lol. Always found it funny but annoying.

[E_Nigma]

A lot of non technical people buying computers, that's what this is about

Goat Jam, easy there, you'll give yourself a heart attack, man! ;-)

But yes, it is the non-technically savy people that are pulling the notebook sales up so much. Every girl I know, except for one, that is currently or has recently been looking for a new computer would rather get a laptop for her money. Reasons? "It's cute.", and: "I can type while lying on the bed." Well, I can certainly appreciate the latter reason, still, I guess that they haven't heared of wireless keyboards and remotes or seen the 22" monitor prices (not that that would do for serious work, though).

Students are a slightly different matter, they keep travelling between home and college and mey have really solid reasons to consider a laptop more practical.

[Eddie Johnson]

Or it could just be...

one more effect of the Vista debacle which caused corporates to stop replacing workstations. Or possibly the effects of the economic melt down which also caused corporates to stop replacing workstations. Or maybe the fact that a computer bought today is barely faster than one bought 2 years ago and is actually slower once you install the newest bloatware on it.

Personally, in my company we bought no new computers thru 2008. We did buy a lot of motherboards and cheap RAM to rebuild old machines running Win2K and XP.

Yes, there are tons of other possible causes here, all of which were ignored by the article. But hey, there's a bandwagon going by - lets jump on and celebrate a "whole new era."

[Anonymous Coward]

Rise of the Hackintosh?

If Apple are mainly a notebook company rather than a desktop one (ignoring other sectors) then they have less business to lose from allowing OS X to run on generic PC hardware. It wouldn't hurt the small desktop market much but would introduce more people to OS X who would then go on to buy MacBooks.