Is it still worth buying a new PC?

Every cheap tablet pcs so often I get asked the question: Is it worth buying a new PC? Or, alternately, do you think that tablets are taking over personal computers? My answers, most assuredly, are yes to the first, and no to the second.

Gartner, a leading market research firm, is predicting a slowdown in traditional PC sales and an increase in tablet and ultramobile sales. No kidding. The growth rate on a cheap smartphones unlocked mature product that has been around and evolving since the 1970s is slowing, and the growth rate for a product that became popular in 2010 is through the roof? Colour fsdf21Es me (not) shocked.

You see cheap tablet pc now, with people buying two or more tablets instead of new laptops for use around the house. You know what? I would too, because the tablets are cheaper than the laptops. You mean to tell me you'll get almost twice the utility from two ¡ê300 tablets than you would from buying a single ¡ê600 laptop? Shocking.

I'm a believer in the tablet form factor. I carry at least one with me every day, but I can't say that it entirely replaces my laptop or desktop PCs. However, I will agree that I will buy more tablets than PCs over the next few years, not just because of the extra portability and added utility, but because tablets slow down sooner because the rate of improvement in cheap tablet pc performance just outstrips that of PCs.

Developers will develop beyond the capability of today's computers until the ecosystem reaches equilibrium, that's the way it's always been. The A5 processor and 512MB of memory in an iPad 2 now feels slow when surfing some sites and running some of the newest programs in the iTunes store. However, I'm totally fine using a 2011-era PC with a Core i7 processor and 4GB of memory for all my rechargeable cigarette day-to-day tasks, including surfing, email, Word, Excel, and Photoshop. I'm totally going to be able to use this laptop while I watch the three to six generations of tablets that come and go before this PC is obsolete.