Are more of you using laptops these days than desktops? I've bought my last desktop.

M4-AK[

both..duh

I use BOTH!



(standard ARFCOM answer)

Toshiba Laptop.

Desk Tops are good if you need it for HEAVY gaming, other than that, I will put my laptop up against any desktop.

Good luck.

Built my own desktop <5 months ago, and just bought a Toshiba laptop last week.

Laptop exclusively.
My Sony Vaio has the same power as most desk units, and portability is a big plus.
If you use both, you have to download everything on to your laptop to avoid missing info when your in the field.
Another plus for the lap top is the battery pack keeps you going during blackouts.

Quoted: Nothing is faster than a desktop - you can't put a fast enough video card in a laptop to please me..

My laptops workstation graphics card does pretty damned well, but it's $$$ too.

Quoted: Both. Nothing is faster than a desktop - you can't put a fast enough video card in a laptop to please me. And you can't haul your desktop and monitors out to the jacuzzi or out to the reloading bench.

well said

There are things a desktop does best, but a laptop can do most of them. I'm using a large laptop at work and at home I use a slim light one. There are advantages to both.

M4-AK

Its also easier to take your laptop to the shitter so you won't miss anything here on Arfcom.

I had planned to pick up a laptop when my desktop needed to be upgraded, too bad the cpu burned out before I had the money to pick up a laptop.  Maybe in a few years since all I do now is office type work.

You can get good graphics in a high-end laptop, it's high-speed hard drives you can't get.
This is why laptops always seem to run so much slower than PC's--their hard-drives are slower-RPM.
And the hard-drive is the slowest part of a computer.
When you get into serious video editing and data crunching you really want a 4-drive setup: OS, swap, programs and data files all have their own separate hard drives. I've got (10K-RPM) Raptors for the first three, and a 7200 for the fourth. W00T!
....
Also you can get multiple monitors for a desktop. Once you get used to doing work on a dual-screen PC you never have enough room anymore on a single screen.
~

You can install a seperate monitor for most laptops(and use them as a shared desktop I think) now as well. There are cheap lcd monitors available in the $200.00 range.

M4-AK

I don't play games, so a laptop suits me fine. I love my ThinkPad.

Quoted: I don't play games, so a laptop suits me fine. I love my ThinkPad.

If you've seen any of the widescreen WUXGA and WSUXGA screens with the wide viewing angle pixels, you'ld think big glass screens are on the way out.

M4-AK

The laptop has it places but I still don't think gaming is one of them.  While the new mobile video chips are getting better, dual video cards running SLI are all the rage now.  Throw in overclocking, liquid cooling, all ready mentioned blazing hard drives,  etc and I'll stick with the desktop as my gaming machine.  Laptop is ok if I want to watch movies, listen to music, store porn,  play low intense games like RA2, etc.

Laptops break too easy. And they are so small, with their tiny keyboards. And upgrades cost a lot because they have to fit those little cases. And many of the parts only work with one brand of computer.

I have a laptop but it will never be my everyday machine.

I don't think I'll ever buy another desktop. I enjoy having the mobility option, and there is practically nothing that I need to do which a laptop can't.

Quoted: Laptops break too easy. And they are so small, with their tiny keyboards. And upgrades cost a lot because they have to fit those little cases. And many of the parts only work with one brand of computer. I have a laptop but it will never be my everyday machine.

Panasonic MIL-STD-810F-tested Rugedized Laptops

As for upgrades, all of the parts that people typically upgrade like hard drives and memory are quite standardized. They are more expensive than their desktop counterparts to be sure, but you're paying for conveinence. If price is an issue, then this discussion is moot. It still doesn't diminish the value of having a laptop over a desktop. If you leave gaming out of it (and even then, it depends on the game and laptop), they really are a great desktop replacement. I've got a docking station for my ThinkPad. When I come home, I just set the laptop down on the docking station and BAM! Full size keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, scanner, etc. I can take my laptop anywhere and (aside from gaming) it stacks up VERY well against any desktop. The only downside I'm aware of is cost, and it's a very justifiable cost in my opinion.

Hell, I have an old laptop in a server role here at the house, for crying out loud.

Quoted: I don't think I'll ever buy another desktop. I enjoy having the mobility option, and there is practically nothing that I need to do which a laptop can't.

Bingo. Same here.

My wife and I both have a Desktop and Laptop each, making 4 machines in our home.  She owns a Compaq Evo N180 and I own a Dell Latitude D600.  When looking and comparing both Desktops and Laptops, you'll see that both have their benefits.  Yet there's overpowering reasons on why my wife and I also have a laptop.

Why We Have Laptops in Addition to our Desktops
1.  I take tons of Digital Pictures and Videos and when at the Rifle Range, I bring my laptop to offload digital video onto my laptop to free up my Memory Card.
2.  During Hurricane Charley, we were out of our home for a week.  I had my laptop and Sprint PCS Card so we were still able to remain connected to the Internet when not within Port Charlotte.
3.  A lot of times, before going to bed, I like to lay down and read.  With my laptop, I just lay down in bed and browse the internet.  When I'm done I shutdown and put it on the floor or nightstand.
4.  My wife uses her laptop in the kitchen.  When she found a recipe she likes earlier in the day on her desktop, she pulls up the same webpage on the laptop and brings it into the kitchen.  That way we're not printing stupid crap up on paper and just throwing it away later.  

Summary
If you look at these 4 reasons, they all yell MOBILITY, MOBILITY, MOBILITY.  So what if you can't get massive processing power as a desktop, or video strength, disk storage, etc., etc.  A laptop screams mobility.  Ok sure, you can get a laptop that has massive power, for example an Alienware, but you better be ready to lay down some serious cash on one.  I keep all my power to my desktop.  I keep all my convenience to my laptop

Opinion
Due to what I do for work on a daily basis, I've come to appreciate Dell and their warranties.  Yea a lot of ppl cry, "Ah Dell!!!  Run Forrest!  Ru-u-u-un!!!" as if they're chasing you in a truck throwing rocks at you.  LOL  You can go out and get a Sony, a Toshiba, a Whatchamacallit, or whatever.  In my opinion though, Dell is the way to go for laptops.  You can't beat their Warranty!

Final Summation
LOL  Like I'm writing a Term Paper or something.    Seriously though, tell me when you're going to sit down on the porch outside with your desktop and flat panel monitor sitting on your lap?  My point exactly.

________________________

If you don’t play games, do graphics/video, large spread sheets, or a lot of data entry and you have good eyes a laptop will do as a single computer.

I use both.

Quoted: If you don’t play games, do graphics/video, large spread sheets, or a lot of data entry and you have good eyes a laptop will do as a single computer. I use both.

Games, I agree with (to a point). Graphics and video? I do video editing on my laptop with no issues, and I'm not a patient man. Large spreadsheets? You lost me on that one. Unless your laptop is ancient, I don't see why the size of a spreadsheet matters. As for data entry, people seem to forget that you can attach a regular keyboard and monitor to a laptop. Mine are plugged into a docking station, so I don't even have to plug these items in. I just set my laptop on the docking station and turn it on. It takes 2 seconds.

Hmmmm, I could lay in bed and watch computer porn instead of sitting at my desk. Interesting, very interesting.

Laptop for work where high speed/graphics don't really matter. Laptops for the home would be useful if moved around alot but I prefer my desktop. Desktop advantage is its less expensive for what you get.

Quoted: Quoted: If you don’t play games, do graphics/video, large spread sheets, or a lot of data entry and you have good eyes a laptop will do as a single computer. I use both. Games, I agree with (to a point). Graphics and video? I do video editing on my laptop with no issues, and I'm not a patient man. Large spreadsheets? You lost me on that one. Unless your laptop is ancient, I don't see why the size of a spreadsheet matters. As for data entry, people seem to forget that you can attach a regular keyboard and monitor to a laptop. Mine are plugged into a docking station, so I don't even have to plug these items in. I just set my laptop on the docking station and turn it on. It takes 2 seconds.

It matters if the spread sheets are big enough.

I am talking about spread sheets with lots of rows and columns, large spread sheets really need a big monitor the bigger the monitor the more you can see at higher resolutions. You can get a large external monitor for a laptop but driving high resolutions is best done on a desktop.

Building up a lap top to do high end graphics and video most EFFECTIVELY is more expensive that buying a second computer. I am not talking hobby type stuff but large files most effectively done on machines with 1GB+ ram, fast hard drives, and LOTS of hard drive storage. They don’t make laptops that can handle my storage needs for graphics and video.

You can do most of it on a laptop but it is not nearly as efficiently as a computer with 3mhz+ desktop processor and a 2GB ram. Right now you can buy 2GB of PC3200 desktop ram for what it will cost you to get 512MB extra on a laptop.

And by the time you get the external monitor, mouse, keyboard and docking station you have spent most of what would be expended on a second machine.

Two computers in these situations make more since IF you can afford them.

The new wide screen notebooks solve the columns problem in spreadsheets. Also movies look great too.

M4-AK

For overall portability in a wireless world - LAPTOPS.

I've had one since 1996 - desktops since 1988. I'm not a gamer so laptops rule for my needs.

Both have their place but with NAS (network attached storage) getting cheaper and easier to install in a home network, the need for the monster desktop is dropping for MOST users. Gamers and high-powered users will still have a need for a full size desktop but for the vast majority of users, a laptop with WiFi will fill the need.

Desktop. Hands down. I think I'll be buying another Falcon NorthWest. As you can imagine, my machine is a gaming machine, and laptops have nothing on desktops for that sort of thing. Also things get a little complicated/expensive when you want to put things like two optical drives in one laptop.

NTM

Laptops do break easily, and have the problem that perhaps 5 years after it stops selling, it can be extremely difficult/prohibitively expensive to repair a laptop. The cases, batteries and keyboards/touchpads tend to be proprietary, and model-specific as well. After the factory stops making new parts, you are left to scrounge junkpiles.

....Last year I had a friend buy a used laptop made in 1998, it worked about eight months then quit. He asked me for help finding someplace to fix it and I couldn't, for any reasonable fee. No local shops would bother with it, they simply said "we can't help, look online". The one place online that said they had a pile of cannibalization machines of the same type (Dell Lattitude CPi) said they charged $85 just for an estimate, and the thing in working order only traded at $250 anyway. For various reasons I knew it was not a hard-drive or battery problem. He abandoned it to me and bought a new model. I never did find any helpful info online, no real business selling tested parts--just people on eBay selling "as is", which means they may be selling already-bad parts anyway. So it's not worth fixing, at 5 years old.

Conversely, desktops that are 5 years old are still pretty easy to find parts for, and any desktop that old still works fine for web surfing/email with Linux.
~~~~~~

Quoted: Desktop. Hands down. I think I'll be buying another Falcon NorthWest. As you can imagine, my machine is a gaming machine, and laptops have nothing on desktops for that sort of thing. Also things get a little complicated/expensive when you want to put things like two optical drives in one laptop. NTM

You got more money that sense.

You can build a machine that will perform with the Falcon NorthWest machine and put a LOT of money in your pocket… or but a laptop to.

Desktop.

I'm a gamer, but I sacrifice some power for a laptop. The Pros outweigh the cons.

I use a laptop all the time. Got rid of my PC some time ago and grateful for it.

I've been kicking around simply building my own, and as an IT tech I'm more than capable of doing it. However, I've been highly pleased by the Falcon I bought five years ago, and do reward companies with repeat business. Might end up with just a Talon instead of the MachV though. I actually don't have more money than sense any more, just bought an S4 Audi.

NTM