Back to the office – the return of PC systems: ITscope Market barometer Q2 2022
The ITscope market barometer Q2/2022 is here – with the current top sellers from six categories and the best newcomers on ITscope!
ITscope market barometer Q2/2022 as a PDF (English)
The ITscope market barometer is based on ITscope GmbH’s own analysis.
Karlsruhe, 21/07/2022 – The PC systems currently know only one trajectory: upwards. Despite gaining a reputation as slow sellers during the Corona pandemic and the associated permanent home office, they are now amongst the top products on ITscope. PC systems owe their triumph to, alongside other things, the increased return to the office after the scrapping of mandatory home office rules at the end of March (in Germany). And it is not only Tesla boss Elon Musk who likes to use this opportunity to call his employees back to work in the office: in a survey conducted by the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce during the pandemic, around 25% of the companies surveyed said they wanted to return to a culture of in-person working. In just under half of companies, a combination of office and home office was planned. Many of the companies that planned to return to the office, or had already done so, stated that working from a home office was only suitable for their field of activity to a limited extent – although this is of course often a matter of interpretation. It is clear, however, that the use of PC systems makes much more sense in the office than in the home office – so it’s no coincidence that the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q 11DT – Mini is by far the most clicked product of the quarter with over 14,500 clicks.
A desktop system is also represented in the Highflyer Charts this quarter, namely the Mac Studio from Apple. Our Highflyer ranking shows the most promising newcomers in the various ITscope product categories of the current quarter. While in the individual categories certain products have occupied the top places in the charts for several quarters or even years in a row, only new products are listed in the Highflyers.
This time, true to the motto back to the office, many traditional office devices are included: in addition to the top products that were already popular in previous quarters, such as the iPhone SE or the iPad Air, printers, monitors and the categories barebones and storage systems, which very rarely appear in the Highflyer Charts, are also among the latest top products.
In the case of TFTs, the warm summer temperatures seem to be causing inertia: there is not much movement in the monitor category this quarter and the Dell P2422H continues to retain its top spot. Apple dominates the smartphone charts and Samsung can only mingle with one device in the top 10 – the Xcover 5 Enterprise. After a long time at the top, the iPhone SE has now been replaced, but the successor will catch no-one by surprise. In the tablet segment, a real price-performance star can score this time and Intel finally catches up again in the CPU segment, securing the top spot with the Intel Core i7-12700K. The Managed Services category is completely new in the current market barometer, bringing a breath of fresh air to the familiar categories.
Content
Highflyers: Office devices on the rise
TFTs: Difficult start for newcomers
Smartphones: A new front-runner as expected
Tablets: Samsung’s price-performance star paves its way to the top
Notebooks: Surprising newcomer from Fujitsu
PC systems: Back to the office and the triumph of PC systems
Processors: Top spot for Intel again after a long time
Managed Services: New category for the market barometer
Highflyers: Office devices on the rise
The UbiQuiti UniFi U6-PRO, a rather unique product next to the many smartphones, tablets etc. in this ranking, takes first place in the Highflyer Charts this time round. As a wireless base station, it ensures a smooth WLAN connection with a data transfer rate of up to 5.3 Gbit/s via a 5 and a 2.4 GHz channel. Thanks to IP54 certification, the device is also dust and splash-proof. Although the UbiQuiti UniFi U6-PRO is more of an office product, it can also be placed in a protected outdoor area as needed – for example to be used at outdoor events or simply to move the home office into the garden.
In second place this quarter is the 3rd generation iPhone SE: while it only scored 18th place in the previous quarter, this time it’s almost enough for the top spot for Apple’s latest edition of the budget model, which is also making big leaps in the smartphone category charts. The same goes for the new iPad Air in 3rd place, which, in addition to a successful start in the Highflyer Charts, is also well ahead in the tablets category.
A monitor landed in 4th place this time: the P2723D from Dell. 2560 x 1440 pixels distributed on the matt, anti-reflective 27-inch screen offer enough space for optimal work conditions. Like many Dell models, the P2723D offers ComfortView Plus technology to reduce blue light emissions. Combined with a clear, modern design with satin silver plastic in combination with a matt black bezel, the sleek monitor, which is available for a Wholesale Selling Price (WSP) of €280, looks great in the office as well as in the home office.
With the Mac Studio in 6th place, Apple offers an extremely fast and at the same time very quiet desktop computer in compact format. This new model is really taking off this quarter in line with the return of other PC systems – more on this in the category section further down.
Even though new products have a harder time in the printer category, the Brother MFC-J6940DW still managed to land a Highflyer spot: this A3 inkjet multifunction printer in 13th place convinces with a high working speed of up to 28 pages per minute – regardless of whether it’s printed in colour or greyscale. Unfortunately, it only has one paper cassette and therefore cannot hold A4 and A3 paper at the same time. Another downside is the rather bulky dimensions, which make it less practical for home office use, but this should be less of a challenge in the office environment.
17th place goes to Intel with the Next Unit of Computing 11 Essential Kit, which further expands their mini-PC range. Instead of a Tiger-Lake chip, a cheaper Jasper-Lake SoC is installed, but the underlying concept remains the same: a functional mini-PC packed into a compact, 125 x 115 x 36 mm housing. Especially in a business context, such a system is ideal for use at trade fairs, for example, as it can be screwed to a large monitor on site, saving the need to set up a PC or laptop when space is usually limited anyway.
In 18th place is the 2U Rackmount TS-873AeU-RP from QNAP, a storage system that uses powerful and energy-efficient AMD Ryzen Embedded V1500B 4‑core/8‑thread, 2.2 GHz processors from the V1000 series. This rack is particularly suitable for resource-intensive applications and tasks such as virtual machines, intensive multi-user access or hybrid cloud applications and is still comparatively inexpensive at a WSP of under €1,500. Moreover, with its low depth, it is ideally suited for wall mounting and thus for flexible use in the office.
With the summer months, the holiday season is also just around the corner – and with it the time for cameras and drones for the perfect holiday photos. The DJI Mini 3 Pro in 22nd place allows beginners and hobby pilots to be well equipped for exactly this, as the Mini 3 Pro is a lightweight folding drone that can also be flown without a drone licence. And the drone’s camera is impressive to the extent that it can even compete with DJI’s flagship, the Mavic 3 – although the Mini 3 Pro is not cheap either, at a WSP of around €800.
Here are the most active 30 new releases with hot-seller potential – our Highflyer Charts:
TFTs: Difficult start for newcomers
The Dell P2422H retains first place and is certainly not letting up in terms of clicks: with over 8,000 views, it not only made it to second place among the most clicked products overall this quarter, but also achieves more than three times as many clicks as the second-placed HP E24 G4 – so for now, no one seems to be getting too close to the new TFT favourite. Apart from the very well-deserved top spot, however, things don’t look quite so rosy for Dell: competitors from HP, Lenovo and Samsung scored many of the top places.
Another Dell product nevertheless landed in 5th place with the Dell UltraSharp U2722D: the UltraSharp series is known for rich colours, high contrast and smooth edges for both films and photos and is therefore particularly suitable for working with graphics programmes. Compared to the P series, however, the price is also considerably more expensive – namely a WSP of over €380 in the case of the U2722D. For most applications, a model from the P series is absolutely sufficient though, such as our mentioned No. 1 with a WSP of €180.
TFT newcomers often have a harder time reaching the top compared to other categories – in the top 10, even the newest products are still from way back in mid-2021. With the P2723D, which has been listed since February 2022, Dell at least manages to climb to 34th place with a comparatively new TFT. The 27-inch monitor is equipped with DisplayPortx1, HDMIx1, USB3.2 Gen.1 and Type-Ax4 input connections and has an IPS display.
Smartphones: A new front-runner as expected
The smartphone category, on the other hand, tends to be one in which new products can quickly make it to the top. This quarter, however, there is comparatively little movement and barely any new products in the upper ranks.
With nine devices in the top 10, Apple clearly dominates the charts. Samsung, on the other hand, only managed to place one smartphone in the top 10, namely the Xcover 5 Enterprise in fourth place. This smartphone is small, very robust, waterproof and has a replaceable battery. However, buyers have to make concessions in terms of speed and camera quality, but at a WSP of just over €200, this should be justifiable. The Enterprise Edition, which is aimed specifically at businesses, also gets security updates for up to 5 years, can use the Samsung Knox security solution free of charge for one year and can be configured remotely by the employer.
After five quarters at the top, the iPhone SE has now been replaced. As speculated in the last edition of our market barometer, the SE made way for the iPhone 13, which thus managed to jump to first place. The new iPhone model is also represented in the Pro and Pro Max variants. And the 3rd generation iPhone SE, which was already in the Highflyers last quarter, was also very well received and jumped directly into 5th (128 GB) and 6th place (64 GB) with two model versions.
The A53 5G in 19th place is also new from Samsung: a review showed that this is not really a revolution, but rather a kind of facelift for the A series. Samsung relies on a stronger battery to achieve a longer runtime. The A53 5G has a high-contrast OLED display and the camera works great, even in poor lighting conditions. At a price of €330, it is one of the cheaper smartphones, but a power supply unit is not included in the scope of delivery.
Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 11 4G is even cheaper: for less than €187, it surprises with excellent battery life, a top OLED display and good performance. Only the camera and image quality cannot keep up with the overall performance.
Tablets: Samsung's price-performance star paves its way to the top
In the tablet category, the new iPad Air made a strong showing, climbing from 106th to 6th place with almost 1,000 clicks. The 5th generation is characterised by an outstanding working speed and a top display. The iPad is also equipped with 5G in the cellular version. Optically, however, not much has changed – the Air continues to strike a resemblance with the smaller version of the Pro tablet. The 10.9‑inch screen (27.7 centimetres) is still slightly smaller than on the Pro, packed into a housing made of recycled aluminium. What is new, however, are the colour variants: in addition to the standard colours space grey and rosé, the Air is also available in polar star (a creamy white), violet or blue. The classic grey-black colour with 64 GB is available for a WSP of just under €550 on ITscope.
Still in first place is the iPad in the standard 10.2″ edition, which also has a decent lead over the second-placed Microsoft Surface Pro 8 with over 4,000 clicks. The Tab A8 from Samsung is also well received and improves its ranking from 9th to 3rd place. At a WSP of just €160, it is the cheapest tablet in the top 10 and really offers great value for money. It can’t keep up with the iPad in terms of performance, but that is to be expected for this price. If you are looking for an affordable tablet for surfing and streaming series, the Tab A8 is a really good choice.
Notebooks: Surprising newcomer from Fujitsu
The Lenovo ThinkPad E15 Gen 2 20TD had to relinquish its top spot this quarter – it slipped to second place. But first place still remains in the hands of the Chinese manufacturer, with the ThinkPad E15 Gen 3 20YG jumping from 13th place to the very top. In total, four places within the top 10 go to Lenovo.
Another really impressive climber is found in 15th place with the Fujitsu LIFEBOOK A3510: although the notebook, which has been listed on ITscope since 2020, is absolutely not new, it managed the big leap from 321st place to the top. Perhaps because of the great performance in office tasks and the extremely solid battery life of up to six hours? More obvious are the current availabilities: while the A3510 was out of stock for months, it is now in stock in large quantities and the Wholesale Selling Price (WSP) has settled at around €330.
Price/stock/status history and product click history for the Fujitsu LIFEBOOK A3510 (Prod. No. FPC04951BP), October 2020 to July 2022
In addition, the almost identical LIFEBOOK, which was previously in 5th place and has now dropped to 20th, is currently hardly available. And that’s exactly why the former LIFEBOOK is a perfect alternative – and even cheaper, because the LIFEBOOK A3510 with manufacturer’s number FPC04905BP costs around €370, if you can get it at all.
Price/stock/status history and product click history for the Fujitsu LIFEBOOK A3510 (Prod. No. FPC04905BP), October 2020 to July 2022
PC systems: Back to the office and the triumph of PC systems
The Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q 11 DT celebrates its one-year anniversary at the top spot of the PC systems category. With 14,513 clicks, it is the most clicked product of all in this quarter and achieves more than half of all top 10 clicks within this category – the ThinkCentre M70q 11 DT really lives up to the motto of this market barometer: back to the office – the return of PC systems.
Apple is also represented at the top with the Mac Studio in 5th place. At a WSP of just under €1,800, this Mac model is in a completely different price league than the ThinkCentre in first place, but is still a good choice if you are looking for a fast, power-efficient, quiet and small desktop computer. For the processor, the Mac Studio relies on the in-house M1 Max, the successor model to Apple’s first M1 processor. When working, the M1 Max is practically just as fast as the M1 Pro, but you will notice a clear difference when you compare it with the M1 Ultra – which is assembled from two M1 Max and can therefore work up to twice as fast. For demanding video programmes, this plus in performance is worthwhile, but the M1 Max is perfectly sufficient for most users.
Processors: Top spot for Intel again after a long time
After several quarters, Intel finally makes it back to the top once again with the Intel Core i7-12700K. Particularly noteworthy with this CPU is the great price-performance ratio. The twelve cores are perfectly suited for most applications as well as for current games. Compared to the top model of the series, the i9-12900K, which takes 6th place in the ranking, the i7-12700K is not much slower, but about 10 percent less power-hungry and almost 10 percent more efficient. And the price is also right: while the i7-12700K only costs around €380, the i9-12900K costs a lot more at €550.
In 22nd place, there is a newcomer that also has a place in the Highflyer Charts: the AMD Ryzen 5 5500, an inexpensive chip that is also ideally suited for gaming. Intel has already made a good showing with the Core i5-12400F, but AMD’s Ryzen 5 5500 is the most affordable Zen 3 CPU to date, with an absolutely competitive WSP of only around €130.
Managed Services: New category for the market barometer
Managed services are a brand new category for the market barometer. The category, which is still quite fresh on the ITscope platform, cannot quite keep up with the well-known categories in terms of click numbers, but is becoming more and more popular.
Microsoft dominates this category and also provides by far the most products, but TERRA, brainworks and IONOS are also in the game. The latter two are also represented as newcomers and still achieved a respectable result. With the Cloud Cube, IONOS, an Internet service provider belonging to the United Internet Group, secures 18th place. “We are very pleased that the new product category of Managed Services is met with growing interest and that new suppliers, such as brainworks, as well as innovative products such as the Cloud Cubes are ensuring increasing click numbers within this category. In the future, a lot will happen in the Managed Services part of ITscope,” explains Oliver Gorges, Head of Channel Development & Cooperations at ITscope.
With the Cubes, development environments can be created that can be scaled as desired in order to implement specific software requirements. The Windows licence for the Cube is available from ITscope via brainworks for €7.60 for 30 days, making it not only inexpensive, but also very flexible as an easily configurable ready-to-use server and storage system.
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