back to article Didn't buy a tablet in Q1? You're not alone

It may just be the start of the post-tablet era, with shipments into retailers and tech distributors tumbling by double digits in the first three months of the year. According to stats for the UK from IDC, 1.7 million slabs were bundled into the channel during Q1, down 23.5 per cent on the same period in 2014. Marta …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Not surprising

    Market is mature and saturated - same as PCs and laptops. It is only like for like replacement now and the reasons to replace are no longer pressing.

    I have a stack of 2 semi-retired, 1 in minimal use and 2 in use in the household. The ones in use are one year old models and they still run everything fine. They are a staggering improvement on the 2 year old ones which predated them by only a year. However if you compare that to the current crop the incremental improvement is no longer staggering - it is marginal. The product has matured.

    It will take 2-3 more years for the ones in use today until the batteries, charger plugs or something else gives up the ghost. Then I will consider replacement. Before that? Why should I?

  2. Richard Lloyd

    Tablets are now both cheap and "good enough"

    Like PC desktops, tablets are now pretty cheap (Apple excepted!) and have good enough specs to keep well beyond the typical 12-18 months refresh period we saw in the early tablet days. Everyone who's interested in a tablet has got one or more already - I personally prefer them to phones because of the larger screen size, though you have to stick to under 9" screens if you also want portability.

    Windows tablets gained market share because 8.1 with Bing is free to OEMs, which has allowed for some truly aggressive pricing. Heck, even I bought an HP Stream 7 and I'm by no means a Windows fan (yes, the tiled interface is truly awful in 8.1, even with a touchscreen). For 50 quid, once I'd stuck on Classic Shell and stayed 100% in the desktop, it was cheaper than buying a Win 8.1 license to run in a VM!

  3. jake Silver badge

    Frankly ...

    ... I've never seen the point of "tablets" and "smart phones".

    Except watching people wielding them walk into telephone poles, of course.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cheapies

    Not surprised Microsoft did well. I bought an HP Win8.1 tablet for £50 to use for website testing. Great price for a vaguely ok tablet.

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