The old axiom still holds .......

Intel giveith ..... Gates takeith away.

The biggest shortcoming among non-desktops is graphics. Mobile GPUs are way behind desktop ones unless you want a 6 pounder laptop with 90 mins battery life. Blah blah thunderbolt blah blah in theory blah blah ... but nothing exists there yet and thunderbolt is still REALLY expensive.

Mobile and tablets are also terrible at general purpose multimedia. If I start slinging 720p live capture from my Linux MythTV PVR to a tablet or smartphone it can't handle it. It can handle more modest bitrate H.264. It can modest mpeg. But don't dare throw something at it that it doesn't have a hardware decoder for ... ogg vorbis ... FLAC ... VP8 .... divx ... xvid .... etc ..... unless the bitrate and resolution are quite low.

Laptops replacing casual desktop use is accurate. But I don't see tablets holding out for anything more than the most lightweight of users ... people who ONLY surf and do email and NOTHING more. And if you're going to pay $500 for an iPad to do that .... why the hell wouldn't you just get a Lenovo for the same money?

(04-12-2013 09:25 AM)smn1256 Wrote:  

(04-12-2013 09:16 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  I have gone through 3 PCs at work in the last 2 years due to trojans and viruses.

Why are you getting new computers because of a virus? Is you can't resolve the virus issue then doma clean reinstall of Windows. If all else fails, then FORMAT C:

A virus won't do anything to the physical computer itself.

That might be what they are doing with it, I don't know. They send me a new computer and I send the bad one back to the computer geeks in Alexandria.

Quote:Mobile and tablets are also terrible at general purpose multimedia. If I start slinging 720p live capture from my Linux MythTV PVR to a tablet or smartphone it can't handle it. It can handle more modest bitrate H.264. It can modest mpeg. But don't dare throw something at it that it doesn't have a hardware decoder for ... ogg vorbis ... FLAC ... VP8 .... divx ... xvid .... etc ..... unless the bitrate and resolution are quite low.

This is way above my head and I have no idea what a hardware decoder is, but I have never had any issue playing or streaming anything. I usually stream to the TV via Micro HDMI and the picture is as quality as a Blue Ray.

Quote:Laptops replacing casual desktop use is accurate. But I don't see tablets holding out for anything more than the most lightweight of users ... people who ONLY surf and do email and NOTHING more. And if you're going to pay $500 for an iPad to do that .... why the hell wouldn't you just get a Lenovo for the same money?

iPads are a rip off, I'll give you that... they are just a status symbol. The Lenovo tablet I bought my wife for Christmas for $200, however, runs circles around the iPad other than the picture quality on the tablet itself, but it shows up on the TV via HDMI very nicely. The iPad sucks. You can't even get Flash, which means no ODU games on Firstrowsports or ESPN3!

I upgraded from Vista to Windows 8 and I like it. I have a 4 year old laptop.

For a person that has an X-Box, Win 8 should be fine. (I don't own an X-Box)

iPads are great. They are great for presentations, easy to carry, and work well with AppleTV (throw the iPad screen on the big screen).

So, with all of this, here's my ideal home setup:

Desktop - i7 w/32GB, 4+ 500GB hard drives, 2 display adapters, motherboard-vmware compatible
Bare Machine OS- VMWare ESXi (I think)

What I'd like to do is then have a couple of keyboards tied to the PC along with remote access from Windows/RT and iPads.
I'd like to allow my kids to run Windows and/or Linux on the desktops without screwing everything else up for everyone else in the family.

However, with the investment required, I still can't convince myself that the configuration would work. Specifically, I'm not sure that direct-attached keyboards, displays work with ESX. VMWare workstation wouldn't allow multiple users to run together very well. And, Windows just isn't friendly for multiple users, albeit better than it once was. There are several other variants of VM software that's out there... I'm not sure of one that may work better to allow us to run windows desktops side-by-side.

(04-12-2013 09:16 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

Quote:Yea, because you can't pwn a Windows Phone or an iPhone or an Android amirite? Security on cell phones and tablets IS MUCH WORSE than regular computers. Give me 5 minutes alone with your iPad, in "locked" mode, and I can have the entire contents of it. You aren't safe on Android or Blackberry either.

I have gone through 3 PCs at work in the last 2 years due to trojans and viruses. I have been using Android for personal computing for almost 3 years and have never gotten one. Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to get all my files if I gave you my tablet or phone, but I guess it is how you define "security".

Quote:Plenty of memory? I've got 12 GB in my desktop. Find me a tablet or smartphone at any price with even half that much RAM.

To each according to his needs. I have no need for anymore memory or RAM on my phone or tablet. If you need more, than you probably made the right choice. Considering you are running this website, I doubt a tablet will be any use for you. All I am saying is it is all the average end user needs. There will always be a large market for PCs, but it is not as large as it once was because, outside of work, the average Joe no longer needs one.

You need to lay off watching porn at work.

(04-12-2013 10:12 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(04-12-2013 09:16 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

Quote:Yea, because you can't pwn a Windows Phone or an iPhone or an Android amirite? Security on cell phones and tablets IS MUCH WORSE than regular computers. Give me 5 minutes alone with your iPad, in "locked" mode, and I can have the entire contents of it. You aren't safe on Android or Blackberry either.

I have gone through 3 PCs at work in the last 2 years due to trojans and viruses. I have been using Android for personal computing for almost 3 years and have never gotten one. Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to get all my files if I gave you my tablet or phone, but I guess it is how you define "security".

Quote:Plenty of memory? I've got 12 GB in my desktop. Find me a tablet or smartphone at any price with even half that much RAM.

To each according to his needs. I have no need for anymore memory or RAM on my phone or tablet. If you need more, than you probably made the right choice. Considering you are running this website, I doubt a tablet will be any use for you. All I am saying is it is all the average end user needs. There will always be a large market for PCs, but it is not as large as it once was because, outside of work, the average Joe no longer needs one.

You need to lay off watching porn at work.

That might BE his work.

(04-12-2013 10:41 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  

(04-12-2013 10:12 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(04-12-2013 09:16 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

Quote:Yea, because you can't pwn a Windows Phone or an iPhone or an Android amirite? Security on cell phones and tablets IS MUCH WORSE than regular computers. Give me 5 minutes alone with your iPad, in "locked" mode, and I can have the entire contents of it. You aren't safe on Android or Blackberry either.

I have gone through 3 PCs at work in the last 2 years due to trojans and viruses. I have been using Android for personal computing for almost 3 years and have never gotten one. Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to get all my files if I gave you my tablet or phone, but I guess it is how you define "security".

Quote:Plenty of memory? I've got 12 GB in my desktop. Find me a tablet or smartphone at any price with even half that much RAM.

To each according to his needs. I have no need for anymore memory or RAM on my phone or tablet. If you need more, than you probably made the right choice. Considering you are running this website, I doubt a tablet will be any use for you. All I am saying is it is all the average end user needs. There will always be a large market for PCs, but it is not as large as it once was because, outside of work, the average Joe no longer needs one.

You need to lay off watching porn at work.

That might BE his work.

I suppose so but I had the impression he was a Bible thumper.