The lost decade? Pathetic condition of IT scenerio in India?

[threeonethree]

Guys in 2008 or 2009, i got a Dell studio 1555 with the following configuration:

Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4 Ghz
4 GB Ram DDR 3
500 GB HDD
ATI 4570M graphics card etc etc..

At that time all this cost me around 60k Rupees. I have been using this laptop ever since and it broke down couple of times and needed a new hard disk / panel etc. The screen broke once due to my mistake and i have attached a Dell 21.5 inch screen last year and using the laptop as a Desktop replacement happily. I am not playing games anymore but using it more as a media center and web browsing.

Couple of days ago , i was looking around the forum for a new laptop or a new desktop configuration and the prices gave me a real shock! People are spending close to 80k to get a mid level gaming system where as in those golden days we could have got a similar system for 40k only. I looked around for the laptop prices and found that even after 5-6 years , i would have to spend at least 40k+ to get a worthy replacement for my laptop.

So my question is that where are the golden days gone? I was expecting to have a killer machine in 80k but found people buying the same dell 21 inch screen that i have with configurations costing 80k ! I doubt that their machines will perform any better than mine and give them a better experience when they are doing simple web browsing, playing movies, or listening to music.

My whole point is that we should have been getting so much for our money.We seemed to have regressed with respect the the level of hardware we get for the money .In the good old days in 2003 when i used to read digit magazine i got a crappy computer with 512 MB RAM and geforce 5200 in class 10th but after 3-4 years i got this laptop with 4 GB RAM and a decent config. It seemed like good progress , but now seems we have stalled .Has the industry slowed down? Has the floods contributed to the problem? Is it because of the recession or the rupee fall? Anyways , i just had to get this rant out of the way.

 

[rijinpk1]

even 3k worth pentium g2020 will thrash that core 2 duo (i know it is a laptop). monitors above 1080p resolution are costlier. but see around 5 years or so we were getting 18.5" LCD displays for 18k or so. But now we have AH-IPS panel for 11k. The monitor size may not have increased, but the visual quality,power consumption has improved a lot. todays hardware are much powerful than older days. why do you even want to compare? The only place i need much more change is in hdd/ssd segment. you wont need 40k for your laptop replacement. those 40k rigs will be much more powerfull.
anyway this is not the thread to discuss these things.

 

[Omi]

Relevant discussion but wrong thread

Its not just India, its the over the world, Every Corporation wants to make bigger and bigger profits

We are STUCK at the SCREEN department Pathetically
Even Mobiles are 1080p now but laptops don't seem to catchup,
1080p laptops are "Premium", Tablets have surpassed laptops in screen resolution

Just somebody posted a 16000$ laptop today, heck still has 1080p screen.
There are processes and technology for 2k+ are ready and mature but the Profits wont letcompanies shift to them.

Graphic Cards, they are breaking new records each year but AT cost point.
We should stop comparing Raw Data, Compare real life implications.
6870 (when it came to 11k could play most games at high/very high w/o msaa at that time)
Now you have 650, We are at same Level. (Raw Performance is improved but where are we from the current perspective?)

Processors, well not much to say here, Sandy Bridge was a huge step forward but then Intel is just focusing on mobile, took a step back using thermal paste instead of soldering no True Gains since sandy Bridge. Intel is just relaxing.

@threeonethree
If you are talking about RAW performance, no, performance has improved a lot
But if you are talking from a Experience point of View, spot on.

 

[Vyom]

I read about this article somewhere recently, which described how the desktop PC technology have stagnated to a point that for basic PC tasks we don't actually need a more powerful PC than what we had just a couple of years ago.

All the "more FPS count" competitions are just a way to keep the PC industry going.

 

[threeonethree]

Guys i am talking about the experience of computing on Desktop/Laptops and not pure number crunching.

Also i would like to speak up on the internet front. In 2004 or so , I remember that i used to have a bsnl broadband connection. I paid Rs 500 for it to get around 2 Mbps with night unlimited. At that time , if someone told me to imagine what would it be like after 10 years , i would have dreamed about at least something equivalent to 4G connectivity to most tier 1 and 2 towns in the country at less than 200 Rs per month. In reality what we got? Today i checked the internet section of this forum and found people are still using the same BSNL 500 Rs plan with night unlimited and waking up at 2 AM to download stuff. Also the speeds have not improved drastically, on top of that we now also have FUP (@#%@ed up policy) and news about how internet may become more expensive in india in the future. Really pathetic.

If this thread is in the wrong section then i request the mods to move this elsewhere.

 

[flyingcow]

Guys i am talking about the experience of computing on Desktop/Laptops and not pure number crunching.

Also i would like to speak up on the internet front. In 2004 or so , I remember that i used to have a bsnl broadband connection. I paid Rs 500 for it to get around 2 Mbps with night unlimited. At that time , if someone told me to imagine what would it be like after 10 years , i would have dreamed about at least something equivalent to 4G connectivity to most tier 1 and 2 towns in the country at less than 200 Rs per month. In reality what we got? Today i checked the internet section of this forum and found people are still using the same BSNL 500 Rs plan with night unlimited and waking up at 2 AM to download stuff. Also the speeds have not improved drastically, on top of that we now also have FUP (@#%@ed up policy) and news about how internet may become more expensive in india in the future. Really pathetic.

If this thread is in the wrong section then i request the mods to move this elsewhere.

I agree with you on the broadband....its really fked up

 

[srkmish]

I read about this article somewhere recently, which described how the desktop PC technology have stagnated to a point that for basic PC tasks we don't actually need a more powerful PC than what we had just a couple of years ago.

All the "more FPS count" competitions are just a way to keep the PC industry going.

+1. My 5 year old rig ( in my sig) is good enough to play old games(2009 and earlier) , play 1080p movies , run Photoshop ( albeit takes more time to process) and browse with 30 tabs open. I dont see the need to upgrade. Also, my atom netbook with 1 ghz proc +1 gb ram is also good enough for video and browsing . The problem with our generation is we are too impatient and want instant speeds in everything.

 

[threeonethree]

On the OS front... Around 1995 i was mostly seeing PCs running DOS or Win 95 in our schools and homes ( few lucky people which even had a computer back then). In next 5 years people had progressed to Windows 98 which was revolutionary as compared to DOS / 95 . In another next 5 years people were mostly on Windows XP and multi-gigahertz processors. (2005). People felt a great need to move from DOS to windows 98 and to windows XP because they brought in great improvements. I think after Windows XP came out things kind of stagnated. Windows vista was almost a failure and then windows 7 was just an improvement over vista and windows 8 was again not such a great success. I think for basic tasks a secure version of Windows XP will be just as good as an install of windows 8. There is no great leap from windows XP to windows 8. I think if windows XP was made secure and it supported the latest software then most people would still be using it.

 

[whitestar_999]

^^i guess you don't know about lots of features based on post-xp renderer & integration with new graphics card capabilities to improve video playback quality & that's just in the area of video playback which i mentioned because it concerns a typical pc user.if i start listing all the hardware/kernal improvements then it would take a essay.as for making XP secure you can't make a maruti run like a ferrari no matter how much you upgrade it.

 

[Inceptionist]

First of all, our economy is going down the toilet.
Secondly, all the hardware is wasted because the software is unable to take advantage of it.
Third reason is that our government is completely ignorant of the current state of affairs while blowing the IT superpower trumpet.
Last and most important thing is there is hardly anything innovative going on. We are increasing number of cores and packing more pixels in small area but it is similar to Gigahertz race.
Until something truly radical comes along, we are stuck. No matter its desktop, tablet or mobile, we are stuck.

 

[Hrishi]

I sometimes wonder that " is it possible that major IT companies are writing poorly optimized softwares so they may always feel the need for a more powerful hardware thus driving the need for buying more and more " ??
I mean our hardware is not that bad as software are. I have read many expert articles where it's clearly described how far the software industry is lagging behind the hardware industry.

I mean eventually if the demand for a more powerful hardware vanishes because the softwares developed for them are too good , then wouldn't it crash the hardware market ??
If consumer grade hardware is made reliable , stable , durable for long decades , etc then who will need to buy a new machine every now and then ?? Why spend money on stuff you don't need .

Not sure how true this maybe , but I just suspect sometimes when I see the quality and stability of devices being made these days.

BTW , we are on the verge of reaching the end of level to which the silicon based fabrication exploitation can not be pushed further. Who knows what will mark the next era of computing.?

 

[rijinpk1]

BTW , we are on the verge of reaching the end of level to which the silicon based fabrication exploitation can not be pushed further. Who knows what will mark the next era of computing.?

Silicon is already on the end. May be GaAS or GaN can make some wonders over silicon.

 

[Hrishi]

Silicon is already on the end. May be GaAS or GaN can make some wonders over silicon.

Intel says it has developed an alternative in it's lab , which might be commercialized by 2k17. But no clear info of what it that as of now.

 

[rijinpk1]

Intel says it has developed an alternative in it's lab , which might be commercialized by 2k17. But no clear info of what it that as of now.

probably graphene? but there is a long way for this to go.