PC mountain accumulates in Blighty PC vendors' shipments into the UK channel slid by more than a fifth in Q2 as distributors wrestled with high inventory levels, particularly on Acer. Sales into wholesalers fell 22 per cent year-on-year to 2.23 million units, according to IDC data with declines seen across all market segments. "The channel thinks it will take …
reducing prices to the same they are abroad, and don’t force MS on people - that should knock another £50-£70 off. Then people might consider upgrading.
I'd like to upgrade my 7 year old laptop but despite all the bullshit since I don’t play games the only advantages in spending over 400 notes would be a power lead that doesn’t come loose, and wifi that doesnt stick out the side. That's a lot of money to spend to run a copy of vista or w7 I dont want.
We used to replace or Acer latops every 2 years regular as clockwork. The current crop is 3.5 years old because they don't make suitable replacements any more.
*Every* laptop Acer make has a movie screen aspect ratio. This means you have to put up with shit vertical resolution or a laptop that is only slightly smaller than France. Oh and wanting one that isn't shiny enough to use as a shaving mirror doesn't half slim the options.
Acer are not alone with this blinkered approach, the only 4:3 ratio laptop of decent spec I can find is an Apple and none of the proprietary software we use runs on that. I'm close to looking at getting iMacs, changing the drives (just in case) and attempting a self install of Win7. Driver fun me thinks.
Had 3 of them in the last year (one was a education funded one) and all 3 broke down, were non-upgradeable and slower than my much older Dell laptop. And that's when they were actually running and not crashing.
Also know a couple of other people who've got Acer's and they say the same thing with constant problems from day dot. Maybe the world is finally realising that Acer = total garbage.
You look at some of the kit these manufacturers put out and you wonder how they even dress.
Dreadful colour choices. Shiny greasy plastics, lumpy looking sides due to port mouldings, glossy 16:9 screens that make the 1200x800s we all moaned about 5 years ago look amazing, fussy looking on/off/media buttons, chrome look plastic anywhere. The list goes on.
Less is more folks.
With business virtualizing all of those desktops, you're surprised that PC sales are down? You'll sell lots of monitors and thin clients in the short run and lots of nothing (for hardware) in the long run. You'll still sell machines for developers, servers and tablets. I can VPN in, and jump on my virtual desktop from my iPad/Galaxy/Touchpad. Even better, I can do that from the cafe or a bench in the park.
It's what I've done. Take your existing computer case, buy a motherboard, RAM and a CPU and that's pretty much it. Most users have a hard drive spare, and if not they're as cheap as chips. Same goes for a DVD writer. Fifteen quid last time I checked. Anyone who purports to be capable of driving a motor vehicle ought to be able to build a PC. It's not rocket science! Everything fits together like Lego.
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