Desktop PC's coming back as 'Androids'.

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Ricomagic is one of hundreds of companies in China that make small runs of computers (10,000 per week). Most of these manufacturers have noted the desktop PC has disappeared from the retail sector, and realise the time is right for a small inexpensive computer to fill the place. The model shown is priced at US $143 (NZ $170) and is a 1.6G quad core with 2G of ram and a 5MP built in camera for Skype. This unit runs Android and is capable of everything that a normal PC does. Its primary input is keyboard and mouse, with HDMI (modern monitors) or AV (old TV's) output. I have  personally been using an Android system for everyday use for the last month and I have found there is an application for everything I have needed from word processing to electronic circuit design. Best of all there is no updating and virus checking required. Unfortunately these systems will have to be bought online as they compete with the more expensive 'Windows' computers and retailers prefer upselling products, especially ones that slow down with time or catch a virus making the subsequent sale sooner.

Desktop Monitors

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As  the Desktop PC has virtually disappeared from the retail stores several manufacturers are putting an Android Computer inside a conventional monitor. If a computer is not connected to the monitor an internal Android system will immediately start up and can be used as a Desktop computer when a keyboard and mouse are connected, either by wireless or USB. Android has a large number of online and offline applications to choose from including browsers, e-mail clients, office suites, media players, games etc. Printing and scanning is achieved through wireless printers or cloud printing. Files can be stored on an external hard or flash drive. Virus checking and updates are not required. The monitor in the picture is a Viewsonic 24" with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 and should be around NZ $500. Sound is built in to the monitor.

Lenovo's Android Laptop

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Lenovo, the second largest PC manufacturer, is starting production of an Android laptop simply called the A10. These will run on the same hardware as the Windows 8 RT computers that failed to sell due mainly to incompatibility with Windows 7 and prior programs. As Android is now a household name and holds over 70% of the Mobile market (Phones & Tablets), Lenovo hopes these could sell even though they manufacture Chromebooks that would suit this computer better. Android does work well on a Laptop for Internet, e-mail, media playing and has many office suites to choose from. Also Lenovo is starting to put an Android computer into their latest Monitors meaning a PC can be connected or just use the built in Android computer as a stand alone system.

Intel branches out

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Intel and Microsoft have partnershiped each other for more than 3 decades but now with the declining PC market Intel is looking at other avenues. The Mobile phone and Tablet market have generally used 'ARM' chips as Intel had little to compete with them, until the arrival of the low power 'Haswell' chipset. As Windows 8 has not been well received Intel are now looking at the Chromebook market to recover in the PC market. Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba are all releasing new model Chromebooks of which some are using the Intel chips. These are selling for under US $300 and are capable of word processing, media playing and picture editing without an Internet connection, contrary to the misconception that they only work with the Internet. More offline applications are appearing each month. These units are maintenance free and will not slow down with time. They are automatically updated from Google so always have the latest software on them. New Zealand is always slow at bringing new ideas in but hoping they will be in the shops for Christmas.

Is your next computer a tablet

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As the desktop computers disappear from the retail stores the tablets are taking over. Most people in the older age group will worry about being able to manipulate and see these newer touch screen devices. It has to be remembered that the important specification is the "Dots per inch" (dpi) value. This is a characteristic of the screen resolution and the diagonal dimensions of the screen. The higher the dpi value the clearer the picture. A typical high resolution desktop screen has only 100 dpi compared to a 7" tablet having over 300 dpi. That is 3 times clearer and brighter. The other factor going for tablets is the "Pinch to zoom" feature making it easy to read small print with one movement. Security is at a much higher level for tablets except for the Windows 8 pro tablet which uses the standard windows 8 OS and needs the normal virus checkers and updates.

Chrome Browser App Launcher for Windows.

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Google have released an Application Launcher for Windows users that allows offline apps to run inside their Chrome browser. It is started by clicking on the small hatch icon at the bottom of the screen and the popup box shows the first page of applications. Although not many apps at the moment it is expected to be a large part of Googles strategy to eliminate the need for the standard Windows desktop and eventually make the underlying operating system redundant, as most general purpose computing requirements can be met in this way. Mac and Linux versions are nearly ready for release. Firefox is doing something very similar but has not been released to the public yet.

Ubuntu usage

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As a Ubuntu derived user I am often asked why the user numbers of Ubuntu are so low. It may surprise you but its possible that world wide the numbers of Ubuntu users could be higher than Microsoft users. Note I said Users not Computers. Brazil has 35 Million school children all using Ubuntu but has only half a million computers, therefore each computer has 70 users. Expanding these figures across South America, Asia, Eastern Europe and China the user to computer ratio is probably similar. Western nations are possibly the reverse having several computers to the user. The Internet usage figures for Ubuntu are very low but this is because Western nations use their computers for large data rates to play games and stream movies but poorer nations use them for computing which has a low data rate as their internet networks are too slow for video streaming. As the picture shows Ubuntu is a multiuser system which by clicking on one of the squares will put it full screen and this becomes the active user. This function is useful for poorer countries who have many users per computer.