Reply to post: Re: Build 4K UHD displays on AIO Pc's

Dell plans sale of non-core assets to reduce EMC buy debt

Big Wiggle

Re: Build 4K UHD displays on AIO Pc's

I generally agree with much of what you are saying here. Those things 'may' increase Dell's market share in a shrinking pie. However that pie is still shrinking. None of this changes the fact that consumer refresh cycles have grown from 2-3 years to 5-6 years. My own PC is 6 years old. I've upgraded with more RAM and SSDs and it is actually faster now, with Windows 10, than it was when new with Windows 7. I even run multiple virtual machines at times for research and this old core i7 quad core CPU just keeps chuggin' along. I can get another 2 or 3 years out of this system and be content with the performance.

Refresh cycles at the OEMs themselves have gotten longer. HP used to give their employees a new laptop every 3 years. Now it is 4 years and I've heard of people having to go 5 years between refreshes. If the very people that build these laptops are doing that, then you can bet good money that other businesses are doing the exact same thing.

So what do these guys need to do? For one, they are going to have to move forward with planned obsolescence. The AIO's you mention can help on this by having everything soldered onto the MOBO. Making it difficult or impossible to upgrade AIOs and Laptops can help force those refresh cycles down. Microsoft, Apple, and perhaps Google need to develop new services, apps, peripheral devices, etc., that will drive up resource utilization and require new device ports. Legacy hardware support must end much sooner than it has in the past for Windows based devices. Apple has been doing this for years without too much complaining from their customers. MS can continue to give away their OS but they need to cut way back on how long they will support legacy hardware.

A lot of us techies will call bullsh!t on this but the majority of consumers won't. You may seem more techies building their own systems so they can stretch the refresh cycle but that will only have a marginal effect on PC sales.. Bottom line is that PC OEMs must fine a way to get that refresh cycle down or they are going to face continued commoditization of their product and eventual wide spread consolidation of their industry.

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