I haven't digested all that because JESUS FUCK WHY AN INFOGRAPHIC, but I want to point out that anybody who tells you your computer can't be future-proofed is old fashioned. My computer is over 5 years old and still plays most things at max or near-max settings. I did upgrade to a newer mid-range GPU a couple years ago, but still.
Same here, but I think all that really says is that the importance of Latest-and-Greatest has moved so that it's explicitly a video card issue. Older processor or RAM speed isn't generally what's going to get you.
Moore's Law has kind of fucked off the PC sphere and moved to mobile devices, so the only obsoletion event you really have to fear is the wholesale obsoletion of PCs altogether.
Weeeell, I think before we see that we'll see another round of changing standards. I think SATA's going to stick around for awhile, but USB3's starting to creep up, and fuck knows how long HDMI's going to remain standard, what with a handful of companies pushing DisplayPort and the
total compromise of HDCP. As far as PCIE, I don't really know; hasn't it already changed spec once?
And for all that I think Windows 8 looks terrible and nobody's going to want it, hardware manufacturers ARE going to have to ship it, and the good news is that that means MS is finally dragging them kicking and screaming into EFI support. (Small fucking comfort to those of us with 32-bit EFI.)
A better analogue is the car market. As the market for computing matures, more and more sizes will creep in to accommodate people's individual specific needs. We're already seeing tablet/phone size hybrids and interestingly, people are buying them (even though they make for fairly awkward phones). PCs are more like the vans and trucks of the personal computing world [Ted Stevens joke goes here]; whereas smart phones are more like compact cars - good for short hops here and there.
I think you're right on, here, but backing up:
And a PC-size case will always be able to hold more tech at a significantly lower price than a smartphone case considering there's like an order of magnitude's difference in volume constraints.
But that's irrelevant to nearly all users.
Most users need Web access and...that's pretty much it at this point. I'd say end users don't even really need Office anymore. (Business users do, but I'll get to them in a minute.) Phone hardware is more than powerful enough to support the programs a typical end user needs.
The drawbacks of phones -- again, for most users -- aren't in horsepower, they're in interface. You can't write a report with your thumbs. (Well, you can, but why would you?) If you want to sit down and actually use your device for anything more than casual Web browsing, then you want peripherals -- a keyboard, maybe a mouse and a printer, and as you say, a monitor (though if you've got a 10" tablet that might be enough screen space for you). But none of that's got anything to do with how much CPU/GPU power or RAM you've got on the thing.
Mobile data rates will probably always carry some cost premium over landline data, even if it is only marginal.
I think in ten years' time it'll be nominal. I don't think by-the-byte/by-the-minute pricing will last in the wireless space, any more than it did in the land line space.
I'd say the biggest challenge portable devices face at this point is efficiency. Flash is on its way out precisely because it sucks battery life like a Colombian hooker. And honestly I'd say this is a software problem as much as a hardware one at this stage -- the chip makers are doing a great fucking job of coming out with more efficient processors, but software developers have spent the last decade in a world where cycles and RAM were cheap and never learned to bother with optimization.
All that said: phones aren't going to replace PC's for a majority of users for quite some time. Business users will be a major holdout, as will graphic designers and gamers. (Never forget that PC gamers are a niche -- but they're a niche that spends a lot of money.)
I AM curious as to whether tablets will eventually cause a reversal in the trend of laptops outselling desktops. I don't expect that it will, since the price difference between a good-enough-for-most-people laptop and a good-enough-for-most-people desktop is so small at this point and that being able to take your computer with you if you NEED to is an appealing option even for people who rarely use it. But I think, for the minority of users who own a desktop AND a laptop, they might consider trading that laptop for a tablet, and I suspect that'll create a shift that, while not major, will be noticeable.
