Apple continues to lose ground but still remains king of the tablet heap.
Microsoft is still unable to make it to the Top-5 vendors for its Surface tablets.
Overall, the tablet market is not in great shape due to saturation in the U.S. and Europe and slow pickup in developing countries like India because of high prices.
Larger screen smartphones are also likely reducing demand for tablets.
How’s the Tablet Market Doing? added by SearchIndia.com on
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Tablets are failing miserably in India.
I came across through information in Media, which tells that Sales of Tablets is down by 14% in this year compared to previous year.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Apple and Samsung are too expensive for the Indian market.
The no-brand Chinese tablets are not reliable.
Samsung at #2 is not surprising. (I didn’t follow the Tablet market charts so far.)
Reason for tablets not picking up in India can be attributed to the people wondering what relative benefits it has over the laptop.
Potential buyers for tablet and laptop belong to same segment of upper middle-class youth.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Reason for tablets not picking up in India can be attributed to the people wondering what relative benefits it has over the laptop.
Apple has done an outstanding job in convincing/manipulating people to buy costly devices they never needed in the first place.
Tablets are meant for those with more money and more want than sense.
Indians are wise to shun it.
Other than being more portable and more easily usable (for instance on the subway, bus rides, beach etc), there’s really not a great deal that tablets offer.
It’s the superior person who can resist the consumer frenzy and overcome the I want more, I want more affliction.
I found the tablets unattractive because of the small screen size and the lack of key board making it unusable many times.
On the other hand the 14inch hp chromebook has been a pleasant surprise as a lightweight alternative to the regular laptop or desktop, especially for the price I got it, about 250. Nice 760 pixel screen, solid state drive means immediate start up and since the chip is light weight celeron, there is no heat management issue that powerful laptops have, so they are probably fanless. The speakers are not that great, other than that it is a great buy.
The new samsung chromebook seems to be quite nice with 1080 pixel screen and better speakers but its more expensive.
The chromebook is my go to device if all I want to do is use the browser. The 11 inch screen is a little too small for my taste but it may be good enough for others.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Regarding your thoughts on a laptop/Chromebook, what a coincidence.
I’m in the market for a laptop (I screwed up the keyboard and touchpad of my old Windows XP netbook while on a do-it-myself change the CMOS battery project).
I’m considering a Chromebook or a Dell or Asus notebook $250-$275 at Best Buy, wiping out Windows 8 and installing LinuxMint with a lightweight desktop.
Main disadvantages with Chromebooks is the small HD (usually 16GB).
The advantage with a notebook is that it’ll give me at least 500GB harddisk. The disadvantage is that it’s not a solid state drive like in the Chromebook.
I haven’t made up my mind yet.
BTW, I just found that BestBuy has a Asus a laptop on sale for $198. Can’t beat that price for a basic laptop with 4GB RAM, 500GB harddisk and DVD/CD drive.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-intel-celeron-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-black/7288011.p?id=1219262036899&skuId=7288011
SI, what is you opinion on these 2 in 1 laptops, predominantly Win8.
I’d like your opinion on the idea of 2-1 than the OS.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. If you’re referring to the monitor detachable/foldable laptops or the keyboard attachable tablets like Surface Pro 3, I would not consider any of them unless they’re running Mac OS/iOS, or Android.
Yes, I understand you mentioned that I should not focus on OS. But it’s impossible to divorce hardware from software.
Best Buy has 68 of these 2-in-1s. And I suspect except for the branding and minor hardware differences (like RAM, storage), they’re all the same because of the underlying OS (Windows 8).
And as even Abhishek Bachchan knows, Win 8 is still a gigantic mess. Bottom line, I’d never consider a 2-in-1 running Windows 8. If Apple introduces one, I’d seriously consider it (more so because I live in a Mac environment iMac, iPhone, iPad, iPod etc)
2. I’ve played a lot with iPad 2 and occasionally with Android tablets in stores.
iOS (iPad) is far superior, Android comes next and Windows/Surface last. Rarely have I had a reason to regret buying the iPad 2. After 3 or 4 years, mine is still going strong.
I know you occasionally like to take the less traversed road in life but sometimes it’s better to go with the flow and stick to the well-trodden trail! 😉
But if you have legacy apps that run only on Windows, I guess you have no choice if you don’t want to carry too many devices.
3. I’d recommend you wait a few months and see what Apple has up its sleeve. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently boasted of a great pipeline of products coming in the near future. If I were you, I’d wait to see what’s coming down the pike on tablets, iMac, Mac Mini etc. We should know in about 3 or 4 months. Not that long a wait.