Page 2 - Desktop computers and their future

That's not moore's law, moore's law determines raw computing power.

It will always be more expensive to make a teeny tiny computer than to make a roomy one. My mother's mid tower desktop computer weighs 25lbs, heats up the entire room, and draws 150watts of power. My cell phone is twice as powerful, and there's a reason why it costs four times as much. Cramming that much power into a 5oz case while decreasing power consumption to the point where it will run on a 1oz battery for 18 hours isn't cheap.

I agree that cell phones will eventually become our general purpose computing platforms, but desktops will always be cheaper. Grandmothers, offices, and people who don't visit technical forums every day will continue using the desktop computer. The rest of us will move on to portable all-purpose computing platforms, especially if we see a partnership to get a universal docking standard.

Moore's law can also be used to determine cost of processing power



My point is for the average user (content consumer) we have reached the point where the processing power needed is sufficient for their everyday tasks. Moore's law would then apply from a cost perspective.

For the content produces and people who need more horse power, the doubling of speed would be the main focus and not maintain the same speed but having it cost less as they can focus for the content consumer.

Comparing the cost of producing a desktop with the cost have producing a mobile device still has nothing to do with Moore's law. Both desktops and mobile devices use transistors obviously, and therefore the price reduction would apply to both categories of devices. Yes, the cost of mobile devices is going to come down a lot, but so is the cost of desktops, so desktops are still always going to be cheaper to produce than mobile devices.

Additionally, a huge part of the cost of mobile devices has nothing to do with transistors; the battery and the display are two of the most expensive components and the cost of neither component is heavily dependent on transistors.

Point taken on cost but desktops and laptops continue to shrink as well.

In a few days my HP desktop on my desk at work will be replaced with a faster, more capable Thinkpad Ultra Portable. Three pounds and twelve inches. I will be obligated to schlep this thing around with me on my daily commute (round trip involving three miles of walking--including a big hill--and two crowded trains) so I'm definitely looking at size and weight over screen dimensions (I plan to dock it to a monitor most of the time).

My home computer also is now a Mac Mini. That's about a seven inch square and an inch and a half tall. Not much bigger than a Roku or Apple TV.

So even the more traditional computers are shrinking along with their cost differential.

Your HP desktop was probably $400 with the bulk discount. Your office chose to buy you the $750 thinkpad because they can extort some after-hours work out of you to make it worth it. Even the mac mini is ridiculously overpriced for the specs. Things are definitely able to get smaller, but my home computer is a mid-tower case with a window like I'm still in high school.

With the increasing use of Tablets, Laptops and Personal Notebooks, the usage of Desktops is decreasing day by day but I am sure it will not totally vanish so early yet there are many who prefer desktops rather than laptops and even tab users have desktops at their homes. So, it is hard to tell that laptops will vanish immediately or in near future