I guess I'm just pushing back on empty doom-and-gloom statements. I'm all for people making predictions, up or down. I just like to see them made with some kind of measurable scope. Otherwise they're not really substantive, especially when they tend towards the hyperbolic.
I'm always looking for ways to improve my own predictions as well, finding ways to measure the accuracy of what I'm thinking of. After all, you can only improve what you can measure, as they say. And you can only measure if you have something to measure against.
I saw the same thing happen with Dell's high end Precision laptops a few years back. Once upon a time you got a full 17" 1920x1200 display and an outstanding specification that would almost match the power of their desktop Precision range. But then the displays changed to cheaper 1080p panels, the processor, memory and GPU offerings were less than stellar and that was that. They settled on new revisions that were good enough, but not the impressive flagship models they once manufactured. I think this is maybe happening to Apple and the MB Pro range.
Makes sense. By "level of hardware" are you thinking of specs (ports, screen, processors)? Form factor (dimensions, battery life)? Software?
"the same thing happen with Dell's high end Precision laptops"
Do I understand correctly that the specs of the Dell Precision line reached a peak and then decreased? Plateaued? Just didn't keep up with the cutting edge hardware available? I can see the third happening -- sadly, it could be argued that it's been happening for a while. I have a harder time imagining the first two scenarios happening.
Thanks for digging into this more. This is the kind of discussion I think is useful. Cheers!
Yes, this.
As for the Dell's they plateaued then weren't as cutting edge any more.
I used to lust after Dell's top of the range Precision laptop, but not any more.
Edit: That said, I just took a look at the specs of their latest offering, the Precision 7000. They seem to have stepped their game up a bit since I last looked. You can get a 4K display now.