John, <They said that PC desktop sales were soft with flat ASP's, but I was really surprised when they said that not only were notebook sales showing strong growth, but that they were 1/3 of computer purchases.>
I don't think this should surprise anyone. It used to be that laptops cost an arm and a leg for performance that far lagged behind desktops. But nowadays, laptop performance is fast approaching the "sweet spot" for the majority of consumers out there. Heck, you can even buy a decent 600 MHz Celeron laptop from Dell for $1300 (and I'll bet that laptop is more powerful than the computers most of you all use to read SI):
dell.com
At the same time, the performance of even the cheapest desktop has surpassed the needs of the mainstream. If you've got $1500 to spend on a new system, would you spend that money on the performance of a 1 GHz desktop, or would you spend it on the convenience of a 600 MHz laptop? For many people who don't care about 1 GHz worth of performance, the answer should be obvious.
By the way, I'm personally going to request a laptop when Intel starts shipping free PCs to employees (which should happen soon). It'll cost me somewhat (because it's considered an "upgrade" from the standard free system), but I'll finally experience the joys of taking my new laptop anywhere I want. It should also be one powerful laptop (HP laptop with at least a 750 MHz P3), though as a gamer, the 3D graphics will not be as good as I am hoping for.
Tenchusatsu |
