The Personal Computer sayeth, “The Rumours of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated”

By: Rick McCallion

The great American author Mark Twain famously uttered these words about his own demise. The same can thing said about the popular view that the personal computer is on its deathbed.

The proliferation of notebooks, smart phones and now tablets PCs has led many to hypothesize that the standard plugged in personal (desktop) computer is a dinosaur and will also become extinct.

I’m not of the same opinion. Maybe it’s because I’ve cut my technology teeth on personal computers since its invention. The more that I think about it, the more convinced I am that there will always be a need for personal computers – for the foreseeable future anyways.

There’s no question that for casual home use, a tablet PC is a great tool. I have one myself and many times I will pull that out to surf or do a quick email when my desktop computer is occupied. Having done so though, I can’t imagine doing significant amounts of writing on my Touchpad. I’m forever cursing when my fingers are typing on the virtual keyboard. Typing mistakes are instead transformed into an auto-correct that clearly isn’t. I’ll reiterate – I’m biased – but as a writer, I find that the tactile feedback and the ergonomic position of a keyboard is far superior to typing on a virtual keyboard.
Aha! 

The tablet-ites will argue…you can just as easily buy a wireless keyboard for a tablet! 

Yes, they’d be correct, but if you’re going to do that, you’re going to need to buy a wireless keyboard AND a stand to elevate your tablet screen to the correct angle.  Once you’ve done those two things, you’ve instantly mitigated one of the biggest advantages of the tablet – the portability.

What also needs to be considered is that a tablet PC is a closed architecture; its innards are permanent and cannot easily be fixed or upgraded. With the personal computer, the power supply, the video card, the memory and many other components can be replaced. Not so with a tablet.

For all of the same reasons, when the hardware is originally purchased, the consumer typically has some flexibility with a personal computer as to what hardware components to upgrade depending on their needs.  Tablet purchasing is for the most part, one stop shopping other than purchasing a 32gb or 64gb model. Well, that’s probably not quite accurate, but definitely the options are very limited.

It’s not to suggest that the portability isn’t a good thing – it’s a great advantage and it remains one of the bigger disadvantages of a desktop computer but in the workplace, there’s something to said for its bulkiness – that it lends itself to be not as easily stolen – or at least, it would be much more obvious.

I think that in today’s society that both technologies serve our needs. I can see the point in time where perhaps the fulcrum will tip even more to the portable computer/laptop being more prevalent and the desktop computer relinquished to the basements of the technological age, but I truly believe that for many years more than people imagine, that the personal computer will be a staple of our age.

To be somewhat open-minded, for my next article, I’ll present the arguments for the other side of the fence. 

It will be interesting to me to see if my views will have changed. I am engaged and immersed in this personal computer world, but at least I can make an attempt to be objective.

"Rick is a seasoned software developer with over 25 years of experience in designing and developing systems. In addition to the software development experience, he is also experienced in training users of various skills and assisting organizations in determining their information technology needs."
 
Rick welcomes any comments, suggestions or questions.  This article, along with many others, can be found on his blog a http://techumanity.blogspot.com.