No desk top computer?

[Hakan Koseoglu]

Hi neil,
On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 7:16 PM, Neil Winchurst <barnaby at drofle.com> wrote:
> So I am wondering about replacing the desktop with a (good sized) laptop
> computer. This leads me on to wonder if any list members do not use a
> desk top at all, and rely on a laptop only. Anyone? Anything to consider
> if I go down that route?
Unless you're into gaming, ditch your desktop. As long as you do a bit
of research up front, you won't regret it.
The only desktops I have here are in use as servers, the rest of them
are laptops (Two Dells, one Acer, one Asus EEE).

If you don't do your research, you might not get a couple of hardware
not working but lately I haven't had a major problem. In my experience
the biggest headaches appear to be screen resolutions, dual-screen
setups and webcams and more fancy stuff like extra buttons for media
control, although most of that is fixable pretty easily and some
happen on the desktops as well (fancy MS keyboards are great for your
wrist but half of the fancy buttons don't work by default) and don't
get me started on most of the $5 USB webcams!

About reliability, they're about the same but don't forget that you
don't tend to bang your desktop as often as your laptop. On the other
hand, properly looked after, a laptop will function perfectly well
within its usual 3 year warranty period and a lot longer. Just don't
spill coffee on the keyboard. On a desktop all you replace is the
keyboard, a laptop on the other hand.... :)

The last thing: Laptops are not easy to customize once ordered and a
pig to upgrade. This Dell Inspiron 9400 I have here is over 3 years
old and still going strong since I got quite powerful CPUs. All I had
done since then is upgrade the RAM to 4GB and the disk to 320GB for
penauts. RAM and disk are the easiest (and almost only) components you
can upgrade.
-- 
Hakan (m1fcj) - http://www.hititgunesi.org