Worldwide tablet sales fall nearly 15 percent year-over-year

The global tablet slump continued this quarter, showing a year-over-year decline of 14.7 percent to 43 million units.

Most vendors saw significant declines but Amazon's Prime Day sale led to huge sales of the company's Fire tablet, which sells for under $100.

"Beyond the different end-user experience delivered by low- and high-end tablets, we're witnessing real tectonic movements in the market with slate companion devices sold at the low-end serving a broader platform strategy, like Amazon is doing with Alexa on its Fire Tablets, and more expensive productivity tools closer to true computing and legitimate notebook replacement devices that should manage to keep average prices up," said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director, Tablets at IDC.

Apple and Samsung still control the market, with 21.5 and 15 percent market share, respectively, but each saw declines during the quarter.

Source:
Samsung

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 1 Nov 2016 0:17

mukhis

The usability of most tabs is very low, you cannot get the serious jobs done there (mostly). Therefore, after initial wow period, people have started realizing they are spending on some relatively useless things. Many of the tab users have switched to phablets to get similar works done (and more). And, of course, for many people, laptops cannot be replaced.
I am looking forward to a detachable Windows tab though.

1.11.2016 05:38 #1

Bozobub

Good! Beyond certain tasks � media consumption and production, say, or business inventory � tablet computers aren't all that useful, really, as mukhis ably notes, and they've been sucking all of the air out of the PC market =p .

Edit -> @mukhis: Detachable/convertible Windows tablets already exist (no, not just the Surface - lol). Or am I misunderstanding you?

1.11.2016 15:49 #2

mukhis

Originally posted by Bozobub: @mukhis: Detachable/convertible Windows tablets already exist (no, not just the Surface - lol). Or am I misunderstanding you?
Well, I know they do exist even other than the one from MS, but am still not getting the hardware features/capabilities I want. The Surface Pro 4 is nice, but in India, too expensive, and the support in India is known to be not so good. I could buy though; however, the battery life, according to the reports, is not quite good, and I have no idea why MS is using Mini DisPlay port instead of HDMI 2.0 (better, IMHO). Moreover, despite such a high price, no USB Type-C/Thunderbolt.
I was hoping high on Asus Transformer 3 Pro, which is almost identical to Pro 4, but less in price, but alas! The battery life is even worse here.
Huawei Matebook looked good on paper, but the design has some problems.

1.11.2016 23:17 #3

Bozobub

Um, they're getting 3-9 or so hours of battery out of the latest Surface, if not more, depending on use; that's not enough o.O'? OK, your requirements are yours, but that sounds... A bit unreasonable, unless you want to go with A MacBook Air (and significantly less power).

As for the DisplayPort, yeah, that sucks, but you can get super small adapters, either as an entire cable or as a little in-line dongle (example from Amazon here), so that isn't a huge issue, but I agree completely that USB 3.0 is a little disappointing, especially at that price point.

That said, you can find the surface for a LOT below list, as this page from TechRadar shows, along with a very good, detailed review. It's still not exactly "cheap" but US$680.81 (Amazon) also is NOT much for any high-end laptop, as such goes, so YMMV.

Maybe Amazon is the answer for you, as well?

Would I buy a Surface? Probably not, but not because they're bad machines. I have a huge Toshiba Qosmio X505 "laptop" (9.7 lbs. w/o power supply - lol) for (somewhat laughable) "portability", and I wanna build another solid gaming desktop (to replace one that died a grisly death). So $900 or so would be plenty for that purpose...

Perhaps a "convertible" laptop would be a better idea for you?

1.11.2016 23:42 #4

mukhis

Originally posted by Bozobub: Um, they're getting 3-9 or so hours of battery out of the latest Surface, if not more, depending on use; that's not enough o.O'?

As for the DisplayPort, yeah, that sucks, but you can get super small adapters,

Maybe Amazon is the answer for you, as well?

I have a huge Toshiba Qosmio X505 "laptop" (9.7 lbs. w/o power supply - lol) for (somewhat laughable) "portability",

Perhaps a "convertible" laptop would be a better idea for you?
If I keep MS Outlook, one PowerPoint, one Word, one Excel, one PDF, one browser tab open with WiFi on, and if it lasts 6 h at least, I'm happy, you think Pro 4 can do it? Then I am sold. My E5470 can do it, but 6420 couldn't.
Thanks for the adapter link.
Amazon is the only answer for the Surface in India; so, no deal.
LMFAO...I also have a mobile desktop (see config below in my sig) ASUS G73JW that I have loved for its functionality, not for its battery life, weight, bulk, or even the sole USB 3.0 (sucks as it ejects any external HDD time to time during a large file copy; must be a driver bug that they could never be able to fix).
No, I guess I am feeling better with a detachable keyboard concept than with a convertible idea. I travel quite a lot, many times, in long distance buses, trains, cars, so...

2.11.2016 03:11 #5

megadunderhead

Ok and do you want to know why these numbers are the way they are.

1. lets rig the devices to versions of android that are no longer supported or do not support the best app library

2. lets rig android apps so they don't function on tablets but cell phones only

3.11.2016 05:08 #6

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