Who prefers a laptop over your desktop? (2 Viewers)

[Joseph S]

Why not both?

I picked up a 12" Powerbook and it serves it's purpose as a complement for my Dual G4. It was less than $2000 with DVD-R, 802.11G, Modem, 100BT ethernet, USB, Firewire, and Bluetooth. I can connect to the net at 115k/s with my cell phone too and it is very small and very portable.

 

[Max Leung]

Another pro for laptops:

Quiet. My laptop is virtually silent, especially if I use lower power settings. At full power, the built-in fan is rather loud though if I do anything that taxes the CPU (like compiling, or running other CPU-intensive tasks).

 

[Ryan Wright]

Fear of dropping and breaking

That was my big fear with my first laptop, too. Back in '96 I spent over $4k on a Pentium 133 laptop. At the time, that laptop cost more than my car. I was always afraid someone was going to do something careless around me and damage it.

Max: New desktops are nearly silent. I have a dual 2.4Ghz Xeon from Dell and can barely hear a thing.

 

[MarkHastings]

Another pro for laptops:

Quiet.

Have you heard the new Dells? My office is EXREMELY quiet and my co-worker had set up one of these new Dell computers. I could not believe the fact that she was working on it and I couldn't hear it at all!

 

[Bill Harada]

I use both at home, but since the laptop requires less power (130W vs 500W for the desktop+monitor) I tend to leave it on 24x7 and do any quick stuff (like surfing the web) on it. But any serious work gets done on the desktop since it has a 21" monitor and way more disk space.

Also, with a wireless network, the portability of the laptop can't be beat. Checking e-mail out on the patio, or doing a VPN/terminal-service connection to my work PC from in the garage...technology is great! It's can also be a wicked slave master if you let it .

 

[TerryS]

And don't forget, a 15" LCD is roughly equivalent to a 17" CRT due to the way the 2 are measured.

 

[Don Black]

I traded in my desktop for a Thinkpad for two years and then switched back. My two main reasons were: a) slow hard drive speed; and b) lack of dual monitor support. Most desktop hard drives spin at 7200rpms these days while 99% of all laptop hard drives are rated below 5000rpms (4200/4800). This was a major performance bottleneck for me that I couldn't overcome with a faster CPU or more RAM. Also, I like to run a dual-monitor configuration on my main machine for better efficiency. Laptops can't offer this feature (easily) yet and so that was enough of a reason for me to switch.

 

[Don Black]

Also, I think Hitachi just announced a 7200rpm laptop HD last week which is a major breakthrough. Price will be killer though...

 

[Leila Dougan]

Laptops are more self contained, more resistant to spills, more adaptive (through cards) but are pretty much impossible to upgrade processor wise.

More self contained? Yes. More resistant to spills? No way in hell. Try spilling a soda on the keyboard of a laptop. It goes right through the laptop onto the processer, hard drive, and motherboard. Don't believe me? Take a look at the laptop sitting (in pieces) on my dining room table. 4oz of Dr Pepper spilled on the keyboard and now it needs a new $700 motherboard. Spill a soda on the keyboard of a desktop and all you need to do is buy a new $30 keyboard.

I don't think laptops are any; more adaptive than desktops. You can't have a zip drive, a CDRW, a DVD burner, and 5 USB devices all connected at once. Besides, how portable is a laptop going to be with 10 external devices hanging from it?

And believe it or not, laptop CPUs aren't terribly difficult to upgrade. Just pop the case open (careful though, it voids the warranty) and put in the new CPU. The laptop I spoke of above has a Duron 900 which can be upgraded to any other Duron that supports the same bus speed.

 

[DonRoeber]

I'm a very happy laptop-only convert, with two caveats. First, it's -very- important to find a good laptop. There are so many out there that are just tossed together miniturized PCs. Find a company that really devotes time and R&D into their laptop line, like IBM or Apple. The little features really make a huge difference, especially since you're going to be living with all of the little ins and outs of the laptop for the next few years. I've got a Dell laptop (new Latitude D600) as well as my Apple Powerbook (2nd revision Titanium), and the Apple is just designed for being used as a portable. Something as simple as a front loading DVD drive makes a lot of sense on an airplane tray table - it means your DVD drive isn't going to knock over your neighbor's soda. Secondly, I cheat; My Powerbook allows me to run it with the display closed, provided it detects an external monitor and keyboard. So when I'm at work, I use my 21" CRT and Apple Pro Keyboard and just run the laptop closed. I really can't tell the diference between it and a desktop at that point. However, when i'm not at work, I find the 15" display to be of a very high quality, and comfortable to use for a long time.

I do have a PowerMac G4 tower at home, but it's only really used a network fileserver. All of my laptops (and my wife's powerbook) have built in wireless, which rocks like nobody's business. Working from home, sitting out on the porch with my laptop and a beer, fully connected to the Home Theater For....er...work.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Most desktop hard drives spin at 7200rpms these days while 99% of all laptop hard drives are rated below 5000rpms

Don, what are you doing where this becomes a bottleneck for you? I can't see any reason to buy a high rpm drive unless you're trying to extract all the performance possible in a data center environment. I can stream real time, uncompressed audio & video right to my 5400rpm IDE drive with no dropouts. Furthermore, Windows loads & works no faster on my 15k SCSI drive than it did on my 5400rpm IDE.

So what were you trying to do with that laptop where hard drive speed became an issue?

 

[Matt Stryker]

More resistant to spills? No way in hell.

leila- I was referring to a closed laptop, especially the ones with a rubberized outer shell (IBM, some Dells I think). But if you hit the keyboard with liquid when the thing is open and running, yeah, its going to be bad (i've done it with orange juice). This may also be a problem if you have cats, because cat hair absolutely TEARS up keyboards. When I would repair my managers Thinkpads, I would go through almost a can of compressed air to get all the cat hair out.

As for processor upgrades, it really depends on the model. Some are simply socketed and can be popped out, while others can be soldered onto the motherboard or daughterboards.

JasenP brought up a very important point. Most people have an extreme love/hate relationship with the pointer controls(mouse) on a laptop. Touchpads, pointing-stick thing, trackballs...you should try each before deciding on which laptop to buy. If you do a lot of mousing, a portable mouse is a must for carpal tunnel reasons.

 

[Leila Dougan]

Matt, gotcha! I got the impression you were talking about standard laptops, not the ruggedized ones. I agree with you, now

 

[Mary M S]

Well you guys are just so much help! as opinions appear running neck and neck for/against!!!! And here I was asking for someone to make the decision FOR me…( I have too many decision at this time and am decisioned out!).
(by the way I’d buy the big mac…on sheer LOOKS alone…ummmm Soooo elegant….but I can’t deal with the worry about old PC based MO stuff on floppies everywhere migrating).
I use Excel and Word mainly, endlessly inputting bids and spitting out invoices. I have the weirdest setup (for business). 800 sq. ft (yup you read that right!) of home (combined office) you have EVER envisioned in your life.

I would rather live in my quaint shoebox in a 70 yr. old neighborhood with 250 yr. old tress, - than purchase 2000+ ft of livable Stepford wives cookiecutter neighborhood. I’m a OUTLAW type personality what can I say! As my [tastes] are regretably unnaturally expensive what I would go for (in the surrounding I could stand) would put me back a ½ mill in this area.
Our business is cutthroat enough to NEVER be a sure thing, I’d rather pay cash for what I want (someday – or never) than over extend and the next day be looking for a new business. I won’t upgrade from the esoteric and quaint for the practical and bland, - additionally too TIRED and stressed to deal with even the CONCEPT of moving.

HOWEVER things are out of control!!!. I office on my bed, on my couch, on my kitchen table, on my kitchen counter, and am chained to sitting in a corner at an oddball angle (at my desktop) only running away to HTF or OUTLAW, (I did go down in a submarine 1000ft on the cayman wall last week…but that IS a RARE escape)… literally the corner PC is physically exhausting during frequent weeks of crunch time and 16 hr days. Our new contract requires us to massively revamp our entire business over the next months, which will add non-stop (beyond the normal 16) time in front of the display, even with hired help.

One worry my (single) business desktop which is infuriatingly glitching currently due to bloat will crash during this critical time. I need a backup system

Two, - I want to be able to just change my position (and location) for hours at a time to break up the SHEER MONONTOUS HELL HOLE (that was my best imitation of Philip!  ) of my order/data entry/invoicing life.

I sleepily plugged in a (build your Dell) i8500 last night (clicking merrily away on all options –including the ‘if I look at it wrong - they replace it’ warranty and ran the final bill up to something like 36 3800?

Do I need all that? Not really, but wish headroom (so to speak) since I don’t upgrade like I use too. My Sony 17Trinitron, -W98 and (Last time we gutted) 1gig athalon Thunderbird CPU I chose since early Pentium 1/II had some issues. Left it alone since then yet knowing that the future always brings higher capability demands, would prob. try to order the biggest notebook possible (so I might hold on to it longer)
Want the largest market LCD available (major eye stain issues with my hours) and biggest hard drive so I can merrily work along and bloat the crud out of the system as I’m too busy to tidy it.

But all this can be had for A LOT less on the desktops. In fact I could prob. set up 2 new redundant DT’s for the price of one everything LT. I have NEVER purchased a computer. Just morphed our original freebie ( a 256 ) - into what I run now. But its also amazing how AV has changed me…I know I’ll go for the biggest baddest screens now (I’m ruined) whether I choose DT or LT

The whole attraction for me is doing some work in different locations, (like a vacation from my, sitting in the cinders, corner). But all that hinges on it being productive sitting in weird places (bed? or in front of the Sony 60" ) and comfortable. Sounds like some find LT’s extremely comfortable and some don’t. With all the wireless (I’m not familiar with) thought I could dock the bugger in a second location, somehow split my DSL from the DT and have the option of sitting all over the place with it …if I don’t like (sitting all over the place with it) it will be needless expenditure.

Life HAS to become more organized, with little stress relief windows I can find. If I do this anyone want to buy it slightly used if the new box and I - shake hands and part friends?!!

Whoooo I feel better now…av people’s (and buying av!) is better than a therapist! Back to work!. Thanks for all the thoughts (and links) will look in later!

 

[Bob Graz]

Mary,

If cost is an issue, you can get a fully loaded highend desktop with a 17in LCD display for $1500-$1800. That would include a 128meg graphics card, 120 gig hard drive, 2 gig + processor. You'd be very happy with it and would love the LCD display. If you don't need all that power, you can still get a more than functional unit for about $900 - $1200. That would be a 64 meg graphics card, 80 gig hard drive, 1.8 gig or so processor and you'd be hard pressed to need more than that, unless you run very graphic intensive applications.

If you are interested in a laptop they come in several flavors. It sounds like you would want a desktop replacement laptop. They come with 15in plus displays, larger hard drives, integrated CD-R/w/DVD, etc. The price you pay is weight, they can be 8+ lbs, where a road warrior type unit (thin and light) would be 5lbs or so. But if your just moving it around your house and you want the function of a desktop and don't mind a few extra pounds, the desktop replacement is what you want. Yes, you can buy a docking station and you can hook up an external mouse, and external LCD display and external keyboard and you'd think you were using a desktop. But, if you intend on doing that, just go for a good quality desktop. It still will give you the most function and power for the least amount of money. Just treat yourself to an LCD display.

I use a laptop at work (Thinkpad) and I love it. I use the laptops display, keyboard and trackpoint and it's great. At home though I have a desktop (Aptiva). You still can't beat a desktop for what you get for the money and they are pretty rugged.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Bob

 

[MarkHastings]

Mary, Are you a writter? If not, you should be

Nice vent

Remember, don't let anyone decide for you. Go with your gut instinct. What's good for us is not always good for you.

 

[NickSo]

?

No offense, but Mark...

You should not

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Mary I hear you on moving around the house. I spend a lot of time on my computer and now with the wireless notebook (dell 5100) I can now work in any room in the house which with a 2.5 month old daughter is a godsend. As I said before if I do need more screen room I just connect my 17" monitor and extend my monitor across both which gives me tons or work room. I can also plug in my optical mouse and a host of ofther USB devices when I need them. This is the first computer I've ever bought that I didn't build from parts (I've build myself 6 or 7) and I don't miss the desktop at all.

 

[Mary M S]

Andrew (congrats on your daughter!!!) may I ask a nincompoop ??

..I could go and look all this up...but as stated time is of the essence. If I purchase I'll hire someone to get it all 'talking' then deal with learning to tweak later.

Can I send to a printer via wireless now? or is this still a necessarily docked function?

This thread has truly been helpful even with the evenly split responses, a nightmare if I was on (who wants to be a millionaire) and was using up my 'ask the audience' Am grateful to all who have given me a grasp of some of the true pro's and cons of everyday usage with a glimmer of hope, that accounting for personal idiosyncrasies and task orientation, - notebooks might be far enough down the path for me to realize the option I was secretly desiring, - a change of scenery and a physical pacing of myself being able to access the benefits of having some tiny latitude on where and how I sit during long long hours of number crunch. For someone who has also preferred all things physically oriented, the longer I’m tied in my corner, ….. I'm losing it!

Got out tonight and saw a 8500, keyboard and pad were awkwardly unfamiliar, but (20 hours straight might? fix that.

Since I REALLY have to purchase a secondary system, I'm leaning to give the laptop a demo, -. and near as I can tell on a quick hunt (screen resolution) and with the MAC out of the loop for me. The 8500 at quick glance has the biggest and best. Weight should not be an issue since I'd infrequently travel out the door with it. (I think? My lap will find out).

But how about actually trying to balance a stack of 81/2 by 11’s with the laptop and inputting. Does this work? I noticed Pamela had a link to a lapdesk for a laptop, (got an error message trying to access).

Do any juggle hardcopy sources and the laptop while sitting on a couch? Or is that one of those ideas which only works in theory with most users while not on a hard topped surface --- just attempting to crunch what’s already in the hardrive?

And Nickso! I bet Mark was fully tongue in cheek over the fact (I) tend toward uncontrolled word counts in desperate need of an editing/an editor when I get in a hurry! or just when tired...or just when passionate, oh MS lets face it ...just tend towards undiciplined word counts....

 

[Mark Hamilton]

Hmmm. . . interesting thread.

In 1998 I bought a Compaq Presario 1810. It sported a 300Mhz PII processor, a 6.4gb hdd, 64mb of RAM, a 13.3" TFT, and, get this, a 2.4x DVD-ROM drive. This was the first commercial notebook computer to ship with a DVD-ROM drive and, thus, I had to have it. Almost $4,000CDN later I had a laptop that excelled at doing nothing but eating battery power. DVD playback was adequate at best, battery life was always under an hour, and I had to take advantage of the warranty several times in the first year.

But guess what, almost 5 years later and I still use the notebook more than I do my high end desktop machines!!! The notebook has probably made more than 300 trips to university with me, been docked in dozens of different library bays, and written almost 25-30 10,000 word essays. The screen remains the gem. It's big and astonishingly clear, still. For serious essay writing and word processing, nothing beats a TFT display. Quite interestingly, I just upgraded the RAM in this fast puppy to 96mb this week. Now I know I'll get another year of university out of this notebook.