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The PC market may have stabilized and could see its recent declines reverse:
The PC market is forecast to return to growth next year according to Gartner, as buyers come to the end of their evaluation periods for Windows 10.
Worldwide PC shipments are expected to hit 267 million units in 2018, a 1.9 per cent increase on 2017, when shipments are forecast to reach 262 million. By 2019, shipments are pegged to hit 272 million units.
This year's PC sales are however expected to fall yet again for the sixth consecutive year, with shipments dropping three per cent when compared with 2016.
[...] Elsewhere, smartphone shipments will also continue to grow at a healthy rate, the market watcher claims. Shipments are expected to grow 5 per cent year on year to nearly 1.6 billion units in 2017. Gartner claims that the market is experiencing a shift away from low-cost "utility" phones, towards higher-priced "basic" and "premium" smartphone devices.
PC components are becoming slightly more expensive at the same time.
Also at EE Times.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 07 2017, @11:55AM (2 children)
There's big talk of "Win10 Embedded" but I don't really see it having any appeal, for all the same reasons a Pi isn't an appealing desktop. The things that Windows gives you access to that Linux doesn't just aren't very appealing in a low-powered ARM environment.
Roll back to 1997 and the best equipment available on the market wasn't an appealing desktop today.
I do use Chrome (lately, Chrome support in Raspbian has been off, on, off again and on again) in the Pi desktop, and it does perform better when direct connected instead of via VNC, but for my use cases VNC means no monitor keyboard or mouse required and that's more important, and besides, there's a huge 4K monitor and good keyboard and mouse connected to the big box, so why bother with one on the Pis?
At home, I've toyed with the idea of giving the kids Pi desktops for their bedrooms, but we're in "screen time limit" parenting mode lately (no, 14 hours a day on YouTube is NOT healthy for neuro-social development), so the prototype sits here on my home desk uninstalled, but functional. $100 for a Pi in-case with power and storage is not my first choice for a desktop PC, a $400 NUC is, the size isn't too different - especially when you factor in another $200+ for monitor, keyboard, mouse, but the $100 Pi is a viable option to browse the web for information and education, do word processing, spreadsheets and programming, and learn Linux system operation/maintenance.
What is "dead" to my world of choice is the FULL SIZE AT case PC, the cost in terms of space is just too high anywhere but my work desk, and even there it's only present because somebody else put it there.
Oh, another fun form factor is the Intel i5 Compute Stick (not the Atom, might as well play in ARM land instead of dealing with the frustration of Atom wimpishness). I have one of those running Win10, it has a tiny little fan that works pretty hard during a 4 thread compile job, otherwise it's a pretty cool little thing with decently accelerated graphics. Might be fun in Linux too, just don't need another project at the moment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 07 2017, @05:49PM (1 child)
Mini-ITX can be a really fun build if you need a small (but powerful) PC. Great for lan parties.
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 07 2017, @07:26PM
I've put together parts lists for MiniITX systems many times, but never actually pulled the trigger on one... always ended up with something prepackaged and smaller and more power efficient instead.
🌻🌻 [google.com]