Is it still worth buying a new PC?

Every so often I get asked the question: Is it worth buying a new PC? Or, alternately, do you think that tablets are taking over personal computers? My answers, most assuredly, are yes to the first, and no to the second.

Tablets outsell PCs

Gartner, a leading market research firm, is predicting a slowdown in traditional PC sales and an increase in tablet and ultramobile sales. No kidding. The growth rate on a mature product that has been around and evolving since the 1970s is slowing, and the growth rate for a product that became popular in 2010 is through the roof? Colour me (not) shocked.

You see it now, with people buying two or more tablets instead of new laptops for use around the house. You know what? I would too, because the tablets are cheaper than the laptops. You mean to tell me you'll get almost twice the utility from two £300 tablets than you would from buying a single £600 laptop? Shocking.



People still need keyboards



Heavy lifting

You prize portability above all other factors when using a tablet. But the fact of the matter is that running a multi-thousand cell spreadsheet recalculation, photo/video editing, an incredibly detailed 3D game, or rendering graphics for CAD/CAM projects will demand as much computer power as you can throw at the problem. You need a high-powered laptop or desktop PC for these tasks, period. Tablets trade computing power for battery life and portability. They always will. Things may change in the future, when wireless Internet is reliable, fast, cheap, and everywhere, but until that happens, we'll always need more powerful PCs for real work and hard play.
