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The Death of the Desktop PC? London Drugs Says “Not Quite”

By crooky | June 19, 2008

I’ve recently been on the market for a new desktop PC. I have a laptop that I bought around two years ago and it’s been showing signs of decay. It probably just needs more RAM and a clean install of Windows but I’m finding that my computing needs are increasing and my little Dual Core Toshiba U200 isn’t cutting it anymore. What’s shocked me in my quest for a desktop PC (something I haven’t bought in almost a decade) is how slim the selection is at my favourite vendors. It had me wondering if we were seeing the beginning of the end for the desktop PC.

I love London Drugs and refuse to buy any major computer equipment from anywhere else because their customer service is phenomenal. The last computer I bought there was a nice Sony laptop for my wife about eight months ago. Even then, desktop PCs outnumbered the amount of laptops on the showroom floor by probably 20%. I went in to look today and there were close to 25 laptops to choose from by only a handful of desktop PCs.

I was flabbergasted. During a recent trip to Office Depot, I noticed that they were clearing out most of their desktop PCs but I assumed they were getting out of the market because they couldn’t compete with speciality electronics stores. My experience at the London Drugs computer department actually prompted me to call them when I got home and ask why their selection of desktop PCs had dwindled so rapidly. This is what they replied back (verbatim):

Thanks for the inquiry. The customer is correct in that the Computer Industry as a whole has seen a shift in the market from predominantly desktop computers, to laptop computers. Portability, more powerful specifications at very affordable prices have really helped to drive the laptop business. As well, some manufacturers (Sony) at one point stopped production of desktop computers all together.

This is not to say that the desktop is dead. In fact, the customer will be happy to know that London Drugs will continue to promote both laptops and desktops. London Drugs will have a good selection of Certified Data desktops, All in One desktops from both Sony and Apple, and possibly other manufacturers desktop products as well. London Drugs will also be expanding our monitor line to coincide with our desktop offerings.

The Globe and Mail seems to think that people are going to forgoe purchasing a new personal computer at all in favour of new gadgets such as next-generation game consoles like the Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 or personal electronics that do many things a PC does like a new smartphone or iPod Touch.

Here’s my theory (and I think the Globe and Mail article touches on this):

For the vast majority of consumers, a computer with 1-2 gigs of RAM, a dual-core processor and a few hundred gigs of hard drive space does more than they need. It lets your organize photos, send e-mails, surf the web and write letters to Charles Manson, pretending to be a 12 year-old looking for advice on life.

If you go into London Drugs, the computer you can buy today isn’t a huge improvement over the computer you bought two or three years ago. The only difference between my laptop and my wife’s laptop is a marginally faster CPU on my wife’s computer and a slightly bigger hard drive for about $200 less than what I paid for mine. That’s not much innovation in two years.

With my photo-manipulation needs, my need for dual monitors and running up to six applications at the same time, I’m verging on power user. That means that a laptop is out of its element on my desk. I’m not sure how many people are out there like me but there must be enough of us to warrant keeping a healthy supply of quad-core, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, dual head systems in stock.

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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Business of Consulting, Technology |

2 Responses to “The Death of the Desktop PC? London Drugs Says “Not Quite””

  1. Dobes Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 12:11 am

    FWIW I upgraded my Desktop PC and went to one of those “indie” shops called “NewType Computer Workshop” in Yaletown. I’ve found the people who run the shop are friendly, knowledgable, and responsive to my questions. The returns policy might not be as hot as London Drugs (I haven’t tried so far) though.

    He built me a custom system with a Quad-core AMD CPU and 8 GB of RAM for just over $1000, which I felt good about.

  2. Crooky Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 8:09 am

    I used to deal with “indie” shops exclusively but I found the customer service to be really “hit and miss”. One shop I dealt with in Vancouver serviced my computer under warranty up to a point, then they decided they’d done too much work on it and refused to fix it anymore. It was, essentially a lemon. With a bigger store, they generally swap out the computer if it’s a lemon.

    That’s the only reason I don’t work with the little indie shops anymore. It’s not an isolated incident either. I’m unofficial tech support for my entire extended family and they’ve all had problems like that.

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