It’s unfortunate, to me, that we’re migrating away from desktops. I understand the want for mobile devices, but it will be at least 10 years before we see mobile devices at speeds and performance benchmarks anywhere close to what a custom-built, liquid-cooled tower can accomplish today. Then you also have the HTPC (Home Theater PC) market that’s been growing slowly and has recently had a mini-boom thanks to custom case manufacturers and product compatibilities settling on HDMI.
I like the idea of mobile devices, but I’m still very much a desktop enthusiast at heart. I’d rather play my games on a 32” TV than have the option to move around with a 9” tablet.
I'm not a gamer, so I read your post as if you were saying, "It's unfortunate, to me, that we're migrating away from superjumbo jets."
People have needs and the market is meeting those needs. Servers will always be in boxes and may have liquid cooling. Cloud systems will require SANs and hot-swappable processors. But most of us need the ability to read useful information, write documents, create presentations, and manipulate spreadsheets.
A transformable tablet just seems to be the way to go. And my wife will like anything that keeps her from constantly being prompted by various applications to perform an update. Since she doesn't need the portability, I'll probably go with at Chromebook for her.
The OS companies are preparing for the day when you’re cellphone is your only computer. You would just dock it in whatever station, desktop, laptop, or tablet is appropriate for your required situation.
Right now, it is my understanding that the higher end cell phones have about the same computing power as desktops in 2004, or so. It’s just that its form factor is inadequate to do the same things that a desktop could do in 2004.