The PC Market Is Imploding Because People Are Buying iPads And Other Tablets Instead

A new report from research firm IDC predicts that 7 inch tablet shipments will exceed regular PC shipments as consumers gravitate toward cheaper devices.The report says tablet shipments will grow 58.7% in 2013, and will exceed portable PC shipments (laptops and netbooks) by the end of the year. IDC predicts the tablet market will overtake the rest of the PC market by 2015.Meanwhile, the PC market continues to implode, as IDC noted a few months ago when it said shipments were down 14% year over year.

Instead of buying regular laptops and desktops, consumers are buying tablets, which can do many of the same tasks for far less money. Right now, the iPad is till on top, but IDC expects Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system to gain more traction once manufacturers start making smaller and cheaper touchscreen devices. Most Windows 8 tablets today have around 10-inch screens, but ~8-inch Windows 8 devices are expected to arrive later this year. IDC also expects tablets to get even cheaper on average, making them far more attractive than regular PCs.

The Wikipad 7 is an Android tablet with a 10 inch tablets, 1280 x 800 pixel display and an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. What makes it special (and sets it apart from similar tablets like the Google Nexus 7 and Hisense Sero 7 Pro) is that the Wikipad is aimed at gaming.It comes with a game controller which connects to the sides of the tablet and gives you physical buttons, D-Pads, and more.GFaf4cgfg

Wikipad plans to begin selling the tablet for $249 this spring, and this week the Wikipad 7 made it way through the FCC, which is a pretty good sign that the tablet is on track to hit the streets soon.The user manual is also available, confirming that the tablet will have dual-band 802.11a/b/gn WiFi, 1GB of RAM 16GB of storage, GPS and GLONASS, a 3-axis accelerometer, and a 4100mAh battery.

While the tablet is designed to fit snugly into the game controller dock, the two devices actually communicate wirelessly over a Bluetooth connection. According to the manual, the connection should start automatically when you slide the 8 inch tablet into the dock, and a blue light will glow on the game controller to let you know that it’s connected to the tablet.

Microsoft changed an ad that claimed its new ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet was bigger than an iPad after a blogger claimed that the math Microsoft used in the ad was wrong.What is particularly deceptive about the graphic, Temple claimed, is that it was not rendered to scale: "Microsoft has drawn a 10.1 inch tablet 36% larger than a 9.7 inch tablet."