Tablet, Chromebook shipments come crashing down

Huawei was the only major tablet maker to grow shipments in Q3 on the back of demand in China and Russia as the rest of the top five manufacturers reported shrinking sales to retailers and distributors. Tablet shipments declined 8.8 percent year-on-year in the three months ended September to 38.6 million units – the fifth …

[Anonymous Coward]

Huawei

"Huawei tapped into the demand for cheaper devices to "perform well in Russia" where sanctions prevented Western tech makers from peddling hardware."

I guess my next mobile won't be another Huawei then. Only way I can express my opinion.

[Pascal Monett]

"We firmly believe"

Well I firmly believe that the guarantee period for something that I buy should start on the day I bought it, and not on the day it left the factory.

We have a fundamental disagreement there, Mr Reith.

[steelpillow]

Netbooks

The netbook is the only form factor where analysts classify by operating system. To the user, a cheap "ultralight laptop" built round the cloud is in the same class as the Chromebook and not as its larger fully-offline-capable brethren. This is just an accident of history, but the other sectors are nibbling back into the market vacuum they had left for Google to exploit, so its perpetration depends on whether Google can fend of the competition and maintain their monopoly on the netbook.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Are tablets still relevant?

I found a tablet to be handy when I was travelling and didn't want to lug a laptop around, but my current phone has a large enough screen (larger than I'd like, to be honest, but all I could find) which means that a tablet as an intermediate device is less useful. My current Samsung tablet is hitting memory limits as apps become more & more bloated, but I probably won't replace it when it finally becomes unusable.

[big_D]

Re: Are tablets still relevant?

It depends on how you use them.

I use my phone when I'm out and about, I use the iPad at home, because the screen is bigger and I can comfortably read long form text or see detail in videos, but I don't want to dig out my PC or laptop.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Are tablets still relevant?

I do see people with a laptop and a tablet. Saw one today, doing a "learning Java" course, so it was more a less used as a book.

[DS999]

Re: Are tablets still relevant?

They fill a niche, but will never be a "nearly everyone has one" item like a smartphone and PC.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromebook Cost

I wandered around my local Currys the other day, to kill some time. As usual, the computers on display were totally uninspiring. There were plenty of chromebooks of different brands, none of them particularly cheap - if the aim is to satisfy the need for a netbook, I would expect to see prices around £200, not £300-£400, which seemed to be the norm.

Top of the range was a £700+ chromebook, with 256GB storage. I can't for the life of me see why anyone would pay that much for a netbook, so guess there must be other uses.

[TeeCee]

Oh dear.

Bubble burst has it?

I'm just amazed it took this long.

[Kev99]

What's the difference between a Chromebook and a Netbook? The OS. What's the difference between an ipad and other fondle slabs. the OS and $1,000.

[DenTheMan]

Obscelescence is the survival model

With phones it much a kaput battery whilst on Windows it is planned OS obscelescence that keeps the money rolling.