Would you consider replacing your desktop with a laptop?

Some day, when notebooks have equal power / reasonable cost. Until then I will stick with my desktop. I am getting serious in acquiring a netbook just for the convenience factor. Naturally would limit it's use to surfing.

 

I use old (circa 1999 Desktop, Hard discs upgraded, Athlon 1000) for work and non work, but no video editing or such processor intensive work. Does what I want slowly in Windows, fast with Gnu/Linux on dual boot. Use laptop as reserve (circa 2005) so I have a working standby machine, and portable if needed outside house. Ancient desktop circa 1994 in attic as ultimate reserve (and experimental machine) working on Win98/and small fast gnu/linux as dual boot.

 

I build my own desktops. A laptop with the performance of the latest desktop would be about $3000, which is a little beyond my budget. A laptop is pretty well limited in upgradability except for maybe adding ram. A desktop can have extra hard drives added, better video card, or even a newer more powerful motherboard. I use Photoshop and laptops I have used are not very suitable for graphic editing. It is hard to calibrate the laptop screen to match output of printer. My latest home built desktop has two 64 bit processors and 8 gig of ram, and Windows XP Professional x64. I have spent about $500 on it using my previous 19" monitor. How much would a similar speed laptop cost me?

 

Ooo, the infection runs deep in this one! j/k James!

Lots of good points here about the desktop's superior value, upgradability, modularity, performance, maintainability, etc., etc.

Laptops have better mobility. People also like laptops for the coolness factor. The coolness wears off a bit when something as simple as a twitchy power connector means a $600 mainboard replacement bill.

Ironically, I just had to use a laptop at home for work over the holidays. The irony was that I had to plug a "real" keyboard and mouse into it...so I didn't heave the thing out the window. Laptop keyboards are god-awful.

My wife and I take a laptop to a convention in Vegas twice a year and we can't stand it - its like dragging a boat anchor around. My "wired" friend told me to get a crackberry and I'd no longer need to carry the laptop around. We've deferred simply due to cost. Sometimes we just use the hotel's business center and leave the laptop at home.

Guess which way I voted in the poll. More irony - laptops now sell better than desktops. I'm wondering when smartphones aren't going to put the laptops "out of business ".

 

I've been using my trusty Dell C640 continually now for about 18 months in place of a self-built desktop, primarily for space saving reasons after moving into a smaller place.

It just about does everything I want, but it struggles with Adobe CS3 and burning MP3s a little, despite turning off the speedstep on the 1.8Ghz P4M and upgrading it to 1Gb RAM. I have a tendency to run it hard though, with Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Thunderbird, Excel, and multiple Firefox tabs open all at the same time, so it does well all things considered!

The desktop is a much better machine, but the new breed of laptops are very good and I do travel a lot, so my next purchase will be a pretty high spec laptop which will do me for several years again. I don't do any video editing, so the newer laptops now have more than enough processing power/memory/HDD resources now for my needs, and once plugged into a big screen TV or monitor, are also fine for DVD/Blu-ray/HD playback.

I've also just set another Dell C640 up on a 108mbps wirless-N "Rangemax" connection in a cupboard as a file server, hooked up to 2 Netgear NAS devices, each with 2x 500Gb HDD's! 2Tb/1.8Ghz/1Gb/P4M/server 2003, in a space less than 2 shoeboxes - with a fold up screen and integrated keyboard/mouse for local administration! Ideal!

Many people don't realise how good an older laptop can actually be for their personal needs in my experience. Most of the people I know have laptops way above the spec/price they need to be. It's their money though! Same people that are mortgaged to the hilt, with big plasma TVs, and expensive cars that are moaning they can't affort it all now!

 

just bot a dell vostro 1700 xp laptop

 

I just love my desktop, my girls have a Laptop I can use from time to time but I can't see me using a laptop all the time! Its funny but I see the "rugrats" more use to their Laptops.
I guess its what we have been raised on plus I have huge "mitts" and typing is hard enough.

 

With the price they are now, I go for a cheap PC and a cheap laptop. You can get the two for the price of a standard PC. Especially if you look at the netbook options.

So the question for me is if I could only have one which would I have. I'd consider a laptop, but I think I'd end up with just a cheap PC. As long as it will run NetBeans, I'm happy.

 

Happy New year Reggie,, Your so right on prices of computers..I saw a pretty nice Dell Desktop Core 2 Duo for under $400 with plenty of bells and whistles but no monitor. Too bad we all didn't have some $$ because its a buyers market everywhere!

~Paul

 

No way, laptops are nice and i have a couple,but since you have to have them plugged in all the time anyway, just use a desktop..

 

I agree with both of these gentlemen. (Wildfire, I believe Centurion was referring to the use of a laptop to replace a desktop.)

When I use my IBM/Lenovo T43 at my desk, it sits on a "Port Replicator" (mini-dock), which is permanently powered and has an external keyboard and mouse attached to it.

Even when I use it away from the desk, I usually have it plugged into a wall outlet and, again, I use a small external keyboard and a wireless mouse. All this despite the fact that many reviewers consider the IBM/Lenovo T-series keyboards to be superior to those on other laptops.

For me, the inclusion of an eraser-head pointing stick on the keyboard was a deciding factor in my decision to stick with the T-series (I'm on my fourth one). I have yet to find a touch-pad which allows the control I get with the eraser-head when I need to go truly portable.

All that said, my desktop is still my primary computer. When it finally gives up the ghost, I'll replace it with another.

 

True and not true...One of the nice features of the Dell Latitude line of Laptops (use them at work and I own 2) is that the Optical Drive is removable which allows you to insert a 2nd Battery (shaped to fit Optical Drive bay) into the drive bay. Having 2 batteries will allow you to run the Laptop for hours...on my D620 (using a 9 Cell Primary and 6 Cell Secondary) I can get over 6 hours of use with Wireless on and longer with Wireless off. I rarely use the charger when I'm using my D610 or D620 Latitude's. When I'm not using the Laptop I will plug it into the charger to charge the batteries.

I'm the exact opposite...that is the main reason why I'm not a big IBM fan. My Dell Laptops also come with the "Eraser" pointer and a TouchPad but I never use the pointer, I always use the TouchPad. Each to their own...

 

Thanks Jim.

You could counteract that by saying a laptop has a built in UPS

 

Not too keen on the amount of time per charge and have seen first hand how hot they can get.

 

I have a laptop, but I really prefer the desktop... Using the roller and the two buttons instead of a mouse is the pits... I do have a USB mouse and and a cordless mouse but its still a pain...
Thank you for asking, Andy1.............

 

Just committed / pre-ordered a ASUS EPC1000HE netbook. I've watched my college son and his numerous college friends be manhandled by 15" / 17" notebooks (but their needs / life style is best served by notebooks). Myself and wife needs are very different ... high portability and not electrically tethered to a wall. Web surfing, communicating is our primary use. My use will be on the road, my wife all the way from the bedroom. Anything the netbook is not engineered for can be handled by one of our 3 desktops.

 

i have always said id rather buy 2 desktops than 1 laptop (since the only thing a laptop can do a desktop cant is follow you were ever you go), i feel get more freedom to tinker with my desktop (cheaper parts, and upgrades I can replace most by myself) but with the netbooks becoming more and more powerful and are almost as cheap as desktops, my opinion is changing:
I still think 2 desktop are better than 1 laptop, but instead of using a flash drive or getting a new External drive I now think a netbook might be interesting.

edit: @ Dennis L the ASUS EPC1000H (not sure what the HE is) is the one i liked the most.