Laptops outship desktops for the first time worldwide
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 24th 2008 9:57AM
posted Dec 24th 2008 9:57AM
Laptops have been out-shipping desktops in the US for years upon years (upon years), but it wasn't until now that such a scenario was true worldwide. According to iSuppli, global notebook computer shipments exceeded those of desktops for the first time ever in Q3 of this year, a "watershed event" according to it. More specifically, notebook PC shipments surged around 40% to 38.6 million units, while desktop shipments slipped 1.3% to 38.5 million. We'd say this is a marvelous day and a sign of what's to come, but haven't we all known that desktops were being reserved for hardcore gaming, computational science and games of chess for years now?
Eh, no surprise. Laptops are badass.
Owe it all to netbooks...
laptops are badass?
isn't that like saying music is badass or oxygen is the bomb?
As in, that's a given? Of course. :]
Probably not gonna be mentioned.....
Apple dropped to seventh place worldwide and lost 14 percent market share year-over-year, dropping from 3.7 percent of the market in 2007 to 3.2 percent. They had 4% global marketshare in sight.....Ouch.
No surprise, two people in the same house are gonna share a desktop, but you better GETCHA OWN DAMN LAPPY!!
bad ass? bleh...i'd rather have a badass smartphone and a decent destop for the same price as a "good" laptop. something about lugging around a laptop still isn't stoking my interest too much for some reason. albeit somewhat slower, i can still experience 100% of a desktop experience using some of the neat browsing apps that are available.
I'm happy my new MacBook Pro could be part of that statistic.
i loled, when i seen that he was low ranked :P
A small part, as in, ranked in at 7th behind 6 other PC manufacturers small part.
*yawn*
Let's also not forget that a lot of ppl build their own desktops nowadays.
Right on I have been building for years.
Yeah, I needed a small desktop for the kitchen and thought getting one of those dell studios would be nice. Then I saw I could build a microatx pc for much less with better specs. I could even get a core 2 duo in there for much less.
The days of people like us engadget users buying desktops are ending.
Building ftw. Just built my bro a $600 PC that would have costs somewhere around a zillion if bought at Best Buy.
+1, baby!
God point. Most poeple can get the power that they need from a laptop , so they choose it for the portability. Those who need the aditional power provided by a desktop often know enought about computers to buil their own, and save like 40%. It's a LOT harder to build a latop from scratch.
And that is part of the reason why laptops are outselling desktops (that are fully built by OEMs)?
Well, that's what creating an entirely new sub-section of laptop does to the market. Hello, netbook, I hope you're here to stay. Thanks, Vista, you helped a bit.
What?? WTF? you think Vista caused more laptops to be sold? I'm stumped here. Someone help me out.
It's easier to license your computers for XP as an machine builder if they're low specifications, otherwise you can only preload Vista. Some consumers want XP. Which is a small part of a number of reasons why the netbook market is so big, which adds to laptops sold.
So perhaps less just Vista, more Microsoft's reaction to poor takeup of Vista that could have caused more laptop sales.
Aha, hmm, I guess. No, still don't think it's a factor, but hey, Merry Christmas.
People always wanted laptops more than desktops. In general, you're right - only hardcore gaming and very demanding computer requirements require a desktop. Laptops are so much easier to deploy and re-deploy without so much cable laying or security device installation - especially now that wiFi is standard on all laptops.
The only thing holding laptops back were prices. Now that netbooks and laptops are available under $600 the global market can finally consume them at high rates.
YAY !
In the business world, laptops are not as easier to deploy, in fact I would say they are harder. To have them function in the office, you need as many cables as a desktop. On top of that, you have more to worry about from a security stand point. We run additional security measures on our laptops since they can be lost in the wild and we need to protect the data.
That being said, for the home I would probably agree, both my wife and I have a laptop. While not as affordable as a desktop, they are about at the right price point where you can justify the extra cost for the portability. However, I still have a desktop and there is no way a laptop is going to take over that role for some time.
Id still rather use a desktop.
For everyday at home usage, I'd have too agree.
"Bigger is better" "That's what she said!"
I have grown so used to my laptop that the large screen and tall keys of a desktop just seem somewhat foreign to me. But that is not why i commented.
WHY did you put like 10 lines after your post? WHY?
I imagine that desktops will always have their place in homes, but eventually just blend in to the living room with the TV
Well, I haven't bought a new desktop system since 2001, but I have been buying new internals every year. Desktop PC's expandability is bound to mask their sales figures.
Perhaps I am part of a younger generation but I have never owned a desktop.
Not for graphic work and especially not for audio recording and editing. I was about to say anything you need two monitors for but I remembered I run dual monitors off my ThinkPad and docking station.
Did you need a desktop and two monitors to make that totally awesome avatar?
It's better than your avatar. ;)
I used a desktop to grab my avatar off the internet and I only needed one screen to do it. Hey, I'm even commenting here on a desktop. In the next few minutes I'll use my l33t 9600GT video card to pump out 120 fps, 90 of which I won't even notice, in a game that's 6 years old.
.. and netbooks made up more than 50% of the total laptop sales.
Guide
Cheap + XP = Worthwhile
Cheap + Vista = Crap
Expensive + XP = Crap
Expensive + Vista = Anyone actually buying this anymore :/ ... that knows Widows 7 is coming?
Guide:
Cheap=crap
Expensive=worthwhile
lol
@ max_lux your an idiot.
You mean "you're," where the conjunction means "you are"
I'm about ready to start trying to turn that into a meme. New internet lingo - let's use the improper forms of words. Your mom would be proud of how good you can spell, to.
max_lux is my an idiot? AWESOME!
Wheee-ooo Wheee-ooo Wheee-ooo Wheee-ooo
What is that I hear? Oh wait. It's the grammar police. And your ass just got busted!
Levi: 'to' does not equal 'too'
This statistic has one major oversight that was already mentioned by broli, and that's the fact that a lot of people build their desktops these days, so the number quoted isn't accurate.
Desktops are still more popular, but notebooks are catching up.
People building their own desktops is a trend only common in mature computer markets like the United States and Europe, where notebooks have outsold desktops for years. Even in these mature markets, only about 2-3% of people may build their own desktops. In this particular statistic, you are right. In developing markets, the small price difference between desktops and laptops is still significant.
I don't have any hard numbers, but when considering the battery (and their propensity to die over time and need to be replaced) I wonder what the environmental impact of more laptops (over desktops) is?
No matter how you look at is, the environmental impact of notebooks will be less that that for desktops (excluding all-in one's and Mac mini's). Notebooks are smaller and lighter, meaning less packaging and less fuel to ship them. Batteries, when disposed of properly, will not harm the environment as much as the higher power consumption of a desktop computer. These facts, along with the need for fewer cables, smaller power supplies, etc, make notebooks far more environmentally friendly.
At work i prefer Desktop PC, more power+big LCD and i am setting in the same place for 8 hours, At home however i prefer laptop as i can change my place and move it room to room.
When I'm at home, my MBP is docked to a real keyboard/mouse and a 30" LCD. When I leave (or heck, want to lie in bed and browse the web), it's portable.
Laptops today are so powerful that you really do have the best of both worlds.
I'll never understand this. I hate laptops, the weird keys, the trackpads, blah.
I need something that I can easily take apart and replace every component as needed. I don't want an all-in-one device that if 1 component breaks it takes the whole system down. This is the same reason after switching to Mac last year with a mac mini I still want a mac pro. I like my mini but its not easily upgradable or fixable.
If desktops die completely I'll hate all you laptop lovers!
> "I hate laptops, the weird keys, the trackpads, blah. I don't want an all-in-one device that if 1 component breaks it takes the whole system down."
Any yet... the article says more people are buying laptops. Weird huh?
The only thing that is keeping the laptop from simply killing off the desktop is the inability to upgrade the CPU and video card on the laptop. I still don't see why I need to fork over $1000+ for a laptop with a half-decent video card when I can build my own desktop for $500 and buy a laptop on sale or a netbook for mobility.
Woohoo!!
Ok, I agree that expensive is worthwhile. I have a MB Pro as my main laptop.
What I meant is: Expensive laptops come with either OS X or Vista. Since Vista suxr, either OS X or XP are preferred. I have both. That is my point of view.
@Zioncat please explain yourself. Just saying I am an idiot... I may as well rebuke "I know you are, but what am I"?
As noted above, desktops are upgradeable so you can keep the same chassis for longer.
Also, they tend to be more powerful and are certainly less likely to break, so even if half of the computers in use every day are desktops, laptop sales will be quite a bit higher. I know plenty of people who have bought replacement laptops because theirs was 3 years old and once the screen broke it wasn't really worth fixing; you wouldn't see that with a desktop.
I kept my last laptop for 5 years, which is pretty long for a low-end consumer laptop. My current desktop is 2.5 years old, and I can't think of why I'd want a new one, even if it was virtually free. The technology just hasn't changed that much. It was way more power than I needed then, and it's still way more power than I need. The only thing I can see in the future that would require me to buy a new desktop would be a whole new computing architecture.
The good thing is... even an inexpensive laptop with a Core2Duo processor will satisfy 90% of what people want. Web browsing, e-mail, Microsoft Office, etc. All of my friends and family use laptops... the only desktops they have are their old ones that they never took down. I only know one lady who recently bought a desktop for her home, and a guy that bought a desktop for his office. But other than that, it's a laptop world.
Short of gaming and high end video editing, a laptop can be used for daily computer tasks. If you buy a laptop today with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive, that will last a while for "most" people.
This isn't surprising. The only thing that is holding back a notebook takeover is the thermal requirements of more powerful processors. Intel has been pushing power consumption down while improving performance the past few years, and now notebooks are simply powerful enough for most people. Notebook dominance is only going to accelerate too. ARM is going to start pushing their highly efficient processor cores into the netbook and slim notebook segments and Intel and AMD are going to have to push back before Microsoft decides to port Windows to something other than x86. Traditional desktops don't serve many needs anymore. Hardcore users are the only people who care about having the best performance and the ability to upgrade components. In fact, I've been noticing more all in ones lately.
Huh, I haven't bought a laptop in years. Been building my last couple of desktops too.
Laptops have taken the role of desktops and netbooks have taken the role of laptops, and smartphones are slowly taking the role of netbooks.
But I still resist, I have 2 desktops and an iPhone.
Now that laptops are as fast,cheep and reliable as most desktops and the fact that we are in the move and go decade lap tops make sense for a larger and growing segment of our world. we use our HP lap top way more then my desktop, even though it is faster and has a 19in widescreen. Now I just got my wife the Acer 8.5 for Christmas. It fast enough (1.6Hz) for her web browsing, friendster page,chatting and even YouTube, it also fits in her purse! I have been using it when ever she puts it down shit I want one now LOL.