PC shipments are expected to remain weak in 2012 despite a temporary increase in sales compared to last year’s numbers. Shipments are expected to hit 368 million units this year, a 4.4 percent increase over 2011. Shipments are expected to exceed 400 million in 2013.

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But don’t let these temporary increases in shipments fool you. The PC market has a lot of catching up to do in terms of innovation, and it has to raise the bar in creating devices that impress consumers. The success of tablets produced by traditional computer companies like Apple as well as other retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble , coupled with an uncertain economic outlook, have wreaked havoc on PC sales.

Will Microsoft’s new Windows 8 and ultrabooks stir enough excitement to popularize PCs again? While the new laptops have stirred some interest, they will have to compete with newer, sleeker, smaller tablet devices — new media tablets based on operating systems from Android and Microsoft, as well as the new iPad.

No matter how you spin it, the fact is tablets are decidedly less expensive than personal computers, but perhaps more importantly, they’re the future — their newness, that novelty that comes with a simple touch screen in a handheld device, that’s what makes tablets such formidable opponents in the war they’ve waged against PCs. And for now, tablets seem to be winning.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Diallah Haidar at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com