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PC Sales Strong In Stores 53

Posted by Zonk from the you-can-buy-them-in-stores dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Notebooks and Desktops are both staying strong in brick-and-mortar sales, according to C|Net. While laptops have mostly fueled the market these last few years, Desktops actually had a little bit of a comeback." From the article: "The first quarter is always a bit slower than the fourth, when holiday shoppers often drive PC and chip companies to their strongest results of the year. This year, the drop from fourth quarter to first was a little more pronounced, echoing Intel's warning in March that earnings would fall short of expectations. But when compared with the first quarter of last year, PC shipments were up 28 percent, versus growth of 19.4 percent recorded during last year's first quarter."
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PC Sales Strong In Stores More

PC Sales Strong In Stores

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  • ...and a slow comment day? Odd.

  • vista (Score:2, Funny)

    by Joe The Dragon ( 967727 )
    How meny of them are able to run vista?

  • so few comments... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ryan Monster ( 767204 ) on Saturday April 15, 2006 @10:18PM (#15136212)
    *** A tumbleweed blows by ***

  • Vista, Vista, Vista (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rmdir -r * ( 716956 ) on Saturday April 15, 2006 @10:39PM (#15136373)
    From TFA:
    The market looks pretty good for PC vendors through the third quarter, after which the effects of Microsoft's decision to delay the launch of Vista will be determined, Baker said. Some analysts feel the overall impact of the delay will be muted, but others are worried.
    Honestly, I don't think it'll have any impact at all. Why? Because hardly anyone cares about Vista.

    Those who run corporate IT departments have no interest at all in a new OS, not while their various lockdown tools won't work on it. Consumers, by and large, don't give a damn because a) most don't understand what an operating system is and b) most haven't heard of Vista.

    Microsoft has yet to start a real advertising blitz for Vista- though if they did, you'd probably see a decline in PC sales.

    This whole article is really just a big nothing- people are still buying computers! The specs on these computers are better! The status quo has not changed very much!

    • Those who run corporate IT departments have no interest at all in a new OS, not while their various lockdown tools won't work on it. Consumers, by and large, don't give a damn because a) most don't understand what an operating system is and b) most haven't heard of Vista.

      Several of my clients have asked about Vista. Well, not by name, usually - but many of my customers are fully aware that Microsoft puts out new versions of its OSes and are vaguely awre that the next is in development.
    • I certainly have no desire to "upgrade" my OS (xp sp2)-- while I know that -eventually- support for XP will not be offered, I think it'll be years away. I am already in the process of learning other systems... Firefox, Linux,etc, for precisely that reason. I will NOT continue to line Bill Gate$ pockets forever. My PC itself will be upgradable for a longtime to come-- so total replacement will not be needed for a long time-- by the time I NEED an upgrade, today's tech will be antique, at best. I just don't n
  • "More notebooks have been sold than desktops at retail over the last few quarters, but desktop sales regained some ground to finish nearly even with notebooks..."

    Why? Yes, desktops are more upgradeable, cheaper, and more powerful, but have they actually increased their lead in any of these areas? I'd think that with USB and Firewire, laptops would actually be catching up in upgradability. The way companies seem to have been focusing on power consumption lately, they should be catching up in power. And the

    • Re:But why would people want desktops? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Simple answer:

      The graphics cards in notebooks suck compared to those in desktops. And to top it off, graphic cards aren't exactly easy to upgrade in most notebooks.

      Sticking a new $125 graphics card into a desktop after a couple years can make a pretty big difference in 3D gaming.

    • You've said the answer yourself.

      Yes, desktops are more upgradeable, cheaper, and more powerful...

      I'd think that with USB and Firewire, laptops would actually be catching up in upgradability.

      No one wants to carry around an external drive. However, "upgradability" doesn't mean an external drive typically. It means the ability to add a better video card (which is possible in some laptops) or upgrade the memory (standard in most laptops) or upgrade the processor (typically not possible).

      Typical pe

    • I know quite a few people who bought a laptop because they thought they needed the portability - only to have the laptop sit in the same place on their desk ever since. My guess is that many of those people are now upgrading and buying cheaper/faster desktops as replacements.
  • People still need to breathe to live. News at 11.
  • With CPU speed not taking off drastically, there probably isnt as much desire to upgrade. Sure you can get a 64bit or dual or quad core CPU but that isnt the same. (note the # of comments is low because, well (1) its a holiday and (2) slashdot's database was getting tweaked or something, at least thats the message i got)
  • I've never bought a PC from a bricks-and-morter store. The selection and configurability availble online is incredibly more superior than what's available at a store. Additionally, you don't have to deal with salesmen who don't know quite what they're talking about trying to get you add on low-quality parts that have a high profit margin.
    • I've never bought a PC from a bricks-and-morter[SIC] store.

      It's obvious that you weren't buying computers 20 years ago. I got my first computer for my 8th birthday. There was no place other than a bricks and mortar store. I still prefer to go and get the things that I buy in person. If for no other reason than if I'm unlucky enough to get a lemon, I can get it replaced that day.

      LK
  • Sales are weaker than expected, but this is considered "strong"?

    Sorta like the MPAA's "weak" sales in reverse... or the very opposite of the plight of the poor, downtrodden Major League Baseball owner.

    So were Intel/the PC makers (Zork is a little fuzzy on the specifics here - protip: Intel doesn't account for 100% of chipsets - but hey, this is slashdot after all) just super-duper hyper-rosy-optimistic in their predictions for Q1, or...

    ...well, I was going to imply that perhaps this is some sort of bu

  • How many sales driven by malware? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Saturday April 15, 2006 @11:20PM (#15136534)
    Since most people do not need the full power of the latest and greatest machines, one wonders why so many are buying upgrades. I suspect that many customers have the impression their current computers are "too slow" because of all the spyware and viruses they are choked with. I wonder how long it will be until their new machines suffer the same fate.

    It is ironic that the architectural faults in MS Windows may be good for the bottom line of computer manufacturers and of MS itself.

    ---
    Frustration is not being able to complain about unannounced database maintenance.

    • Since most people do not need the full power of the latest and greatest machines, one wonders why so many are buying upgrades.

      Well, I know when I talk to joe users... their common complaint is as follows

      "My system says memory is full what do I do"
      Ends up they are talking about drive space
      "Well, you can either delete some stuff, or buy a bigger drive"
      "Oh, you mean if I throw money at it it'll be fixed"
      "Well, it's not broken, but basicly yes"
      "Ok, I'll throw some money at it, money will make it go".

      I suspect
    • I suspect that many customers have the impression their current computers are "too slow" because of all the spyware and viruses they are choked with. I wonder how long it will be until their new machines suffer the same fate.

      I set up the networking for a couple of brand new Dell machines. The new machines were slower than dogshit and the networking was erratic. The problem was all of the software that came with the Dells. Once I deleted a whole crapload of startup entries from the system registry (in t
  • And from toy boxes come music Jukeboxes, movie Jukeboxes, home backup systems, home webservers, automated homes, a touch screen LCD on every wall (once those prices come down)...
  • I, for one, welcome our new brick-and-mortar overlords.
  • "While laptops have mostly fueled the market these last few years, Desktops actually had a little bit of a comeback"

    OK, "laptops" is not capitalized, but "desktops" is. Why? Is this a brand name I haven't heard of? I am really tired of the random capitalization degeneration I'm noticing more and more of. Anytime you're capitalizing a word, verify that it's either at the beginning of a sentence or the name of something, not just any old noun.
  • My family and I have bought nearly all the computers we've owned for the past 15 years by mail order or online, but when I went shopping for a new desktop a few weeks ago, I ended up buying from Circuit City.

    Maybe it's because I'm older and I place a higher value on time spent and reliability now, but I didn't want to mess around with the beige-box vendors on pricescan. So I compared the more reputable online prices (everything from Dell to TigerDirect) to prices at CompUSA and Circuit City. I was surpris
    • I had grown weary of my main box, and looked around online and in local newspapers. I went with an HP package AMD dual core 4200, an doubled the base RAM to 2Gig. My last box was a self-built from graymarket vendors at a local computer fleamarket. At that time it seemed like the best bang for what I was prepared to spend, but started out with a MoBo that was running at its peak. The HP, with the extra memory, and when all of the rebates come back, will end up costing me a touch over $900. Look around,
      • Interesting you mention AMD powered HPs. Even in the UK me, a builder by preference, has bought a desktop and a laptop in the last 3 months with that combination.

        The price was near identical to building or online, the quality superb and there's a lot to be said for the 2 year "Not my problem bitch" warrenty.

        • Did you go for the64 bit CPU?

          That what got me off of my butt, although I'd like to say it was the occassional memory paging faults that were getting thrown now and then at inopportune moments, the truth is that I'd put up with that, and figured out some of the issues by staring at debug output for a few months, it was the price cut of the AMD dual core 64s that got me moving.

          With th eCPU and the 2 gigs of RAM, I am in multitasking heaven, even the bit of compiling I've done so far hasn't strained it.

          With

          • Both aren't for me but yes they're 64bit cpus and 1gig ram. The laptop will probably be expanded as it's prime use will be as a music station.

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