Is Laptop a Cassette Tape of Computer Industry?

Last Christmas, more tablets were bought as gifts than laptops. Do these sales figures show that laptop industry is in serious trouble? Could the change on the market even cost jobs? Computer experts and statistics suggest that laptop manufacturers should be worried.

Tablets are now cheaper and they offer powerful packages, so more and more parents choose to buy their kids tablets over laptops. Does it mean that a laptop will soon become the cassette tape of the modern computer industry?

Tablet PCs might overtake notebooks, according to marketing and computer experts, first of all because of the sluggish nature of the PC supply change. We spoke to members of staff at computer chain stores and we have heard the same things. The staff members say that tablets are flying of the shelves because they are a much cheaper alternative to a notebook. Parents don’t want to buy or they are unable to afford more expensive alternative, since they can buy a tablet which can do most things laptops can do. Especially, when you buy it for Christmas – you look for the most affordable items you can get.

But, not only tablets, but smartphones are also reasons why laptop may be dying. These mobile devices commonly have similar features as laptops, plus apps. Even though laptop is designed to be carried around, smartphones and tablets are really lightweight devices, easy to carry and with lots of “app for this and that”. You can get weather reports or you can edit photos and textual documents, play popular games and do almost everything as with PC, but you get the device in lighter and smaller packages. However, why aren’t desktop computers threatened? Desktop devices are designed for continuous work and hard gaming. This is something laptops are not built for. So, if you cannot do all the work continuously, plus it’s too heavy to take it on camping, why would you buy a laptop? This is how many people think. However, laptops allow you do more complicated tasks than tablets and smartphones, so clearly people will still buy them, but not as often as only a few years ago.