My laptops are my work machines; they go wherever I go, and honestly, anything that can run my email client, excel, word, and a crapload of ssh and RDP sessions is all I really need. I prefer the extra screen real estate of having a real monitor on my desk as well as the laptop screen, but I can get my job done without it.
Desktops at work become testbeds or bastion hosts to get around odd VPN setups. Desktops at home are gaming machines, or filesevers.
Both types of personal machines have their places, and we don’t need another holy war in IT.
For web surfing, word processing, spreadsheets, etc laptops are great. They’re small and portable. Really cool when you have a wireless Internet connection, roam around your house, I’ve even taken mine outside when I’m working on my car to check out photos of a part location.
Maybe you think you look like a douchebag using one in public, but what the fuck do you care what people think? If you wanna use your laptop in public, use it. They’re just jealous anyway.
My longest-viable computer ever (i.e., remained my newest and bestest computer the longest) was a laptop: PowerBook G3 Serial '98, aka “WallStreet” model.
• Upgrade: started off as a G3/300 MHz, 128 MB, 8 gig HD model with a CD/DVD drive (no burner); ended up a G4/500, 512 MB, with two 60 gig ultrafast internal HDs and a CDRW burner module (hot-swappable with DVD). OH, and it started off running MacOS 8.1 and ended up booting MacOS X 10.3.8
• Primary computer 1999-2006. That’s seven years, not bad for one computer to reign as primary box. In fact I can still use it when the more modern 'book is in the shop or tied up and it’s still viable & can run most modern sw.
• Desktop mode: It spent most of its life, both at home and at work, with an external screen alongside the built-in TFT (dual monitor setup), a nice external keyboard, and a mouse attached. I agree that laptops are clumsy to use when you have to rely on the built-in keyboard and the trackpad and so on, but I was only limited to that when I was on a train or a plane or something.
• Laptop mode: Dude, it’s a laptop. It runs on batteries if necessary! You can take it anywhere and boot it up. It’s even got a card that lets you go online using a cell phone network so you’re not dependent on an available ethernet cable. Since it’s running MacOS and not Windows, I didn’t get a zillion “device XX could not be found” nor do I get a reciprocal zillion “new device XX has been found” next time I boot up at home. I had a dozen or so network configs I could swap to for different places it “knew about” to link up to existing networks with appropriate identities. Same with Eudora, the email client, I could send email from anywhere. Including using myself as my own SMTP server (thank you, PostFix)
I may never own a desktop computer again, I really like laptops.
Ah, here I sit, all comfy on the living room sofa while waiting for a return phone call. My nicely warm but not hot Compaq Presario rests on my lap, as my feet are up on the coffee table. A cat just jumped up to say hello. I’m using the wireless connection and browsing my work e-mail in one window and sequential message boards in another. I’ve taken care of a lot of work this morning, all in my jammies, none in my home office, where the desktop computer gathers dust. Have I mentioned that I bought the better battery when I got the laptop two years ago? It runs for 5.5-6 hours. Later this week I’ll take it with me when I go to my in-laws so I can get some work done in the evening. In March I’ll take it when I present at an international conference. For now, though, I’m enjoying being paid to sit on my own sofa in a comfortable room while I wait for a phone call. I’m living in the future, man.
I have 3 different kinds of phones. A cell phone, a wired land line and a wireless land line. All have their different uses. My wired land line has the best sound, but I can’t exactly use it when I’m not at home.
I have 3 different kinds of computers. A laptop, a gaming machine, and a media machine. All have their different uses. My gaming machine has the best performance, but I can’t exactly take it on vacation with me, or into the other room.
(And no, 3 computers aren’t really that expensive, when you cannibalize old ones to build new ones.)
Most of the reasons people are giving in this thread for not liking laptops are pretty absurd reasons for preferring a desktop.
[ul][li]Battery life. You do realize that desktops don’t have any battery life, right? This is a net plus for laptops. Even if the battery life were only an hour or so, that’s an hour more usage that you get while on the go.[/li][li]Heat. Desktops get hot, too. Hotter, in fact. You just don’t notice because you can’t use them anywhere like a laptop. If you bought a laptop and put it on a desk, then who cares. This is like complaining about the 10lb weight of a laptop, when you can’t possibly hold a desktop on your lap.[/li][li]Screen size/keyboard/mouse. Any modern laptop will hook up to whatever peripherals you want, just like a desktop.[/ul] In every case, the laptop just gives you more options.[/li]
The only valid complaint is that they cost more for less power, and are harder to upgrade. Obviously, most people are willing to take the tradeoff in cost and power for greatly increased flexibility. For one, most people don’t need an ultra powerful computer. It’s laughable to think that you couldn’t do the vast majority of your work on a laptop. High end graphics/video processing is about it, since most of the other work that requires high powered computation doesn’t actually require you to do it on your computer. I write software, which mostly consists of reading and writing text files. When I need to compile it, I just copy it over, and tell the build servers to go to town.
The obvious solution to the upgrade problem is either to get USB-attachable components (which most are, nowadays), or to sell the old one and buy a new one with the capabilities you want.
I suspect that there is a hidden pitting here. VCO3 isn’t JUST pitting laptops…he’s pitting everyone who uses one because they have a good reason to…like, they do mundane work on their computer rather than play games, and their mundane work sometimes has to be done in places that he doesn’t approve of, like on public transportation or at Starbucks. These folks, who he perceives to be rich yuppies, don’t deserve to live, much less use a tool that helps them remain gainfully employed.
I had some Italian/European guy borrow my laptop in a hospital waiting room last year to sell like $80,000 worth of Apple stock through PriceWaterhouse.com or something like that. He had a huge portfolio from what I could see.
Right on. The laptop computer has its utility and you really can’t tell from just looking at the person using one at the local HotSpot whether s/he is actually taking advantage of that utility or has wasted her/is money.
To people who know, it’s obvious that the laptop’s portability is attained by compromising certain performance aspects. The same dollar amount WILL buy you more speed/storage/video and far more ergonomic flexibility and expandability in a tower/desktop box than in a notebook.
It’s a basic rule of economics, you make tradeoffs. But I’m not the one to censure someone else’s choice.
Oh, and…
…good to see some folks are keeping up with alt.sex.stories these days :p…
But you know what, I think I could very much go for something like an iPhone, only with haps more onboard storage, that could be connected via USB hub to a keyboard and through the hub or WiFi to regular peripherals, for extended use.
IT Professional and Aging Hipster Douchebag* checking in.
My employer issued me a Thinkpad R61 with a docking station. Other than the smallish hard drive and lame XGA screen (both of which are generally the achilles heel of Thinkpads vs. other manufacturers for the same money), it suits my purposes just fine. Plus, I don’t have to dick around with installing company apps on my home machine, which is good, because my house is Linux-only. I get four hours on the extended battery, and the keyboard’s better than some of the desktop keyboards I’ve used. When I’m in my cube, I drop it in the docking station with an external monitor, a mouse, and a real keyboard. When I need to work on something in the lab, I can take my workstation with me.
Right now, I’m sitting in my wife’s massage chair with my $800 Dell notebook. It gets six hours on a charge. It’s got a gorgeous 1440x900 screen that’s only 14.1" diagonally - if I wanted the equivalent number of pixels in a desktop monitor, I’d be looking at something that’s at least 19".
The keyboard is decent, and the trackpad doesn’t aggravate my RSI the way a mouse does. I can play 3D games - generally lame Linux OpenGL stuff, but I’m not really a gamer. It runs Audacity like a champ, and encodes a DVD in a couple or three hours.
I added a stick of RAM to it in five minutes. When I accidentally got some rubbing alcohol behind the screen, I replaced the LCD panel myself with a hundred bucks and a half hour with a precision screwdriver.
The only “desktop” machine in my house is a low-power 500mhz Via box stuffed full of disks that runs 24x7 and acts as an NFS server. I probably couldn’t make it run mplayer if I wanted to.
Isn’t the OP the idiot who posted a rant based on a price comparison to some low end HP gamer box to a fully loaded dual-Xeon Mac? What the fuck do you know about computers, VCO3?
What’s the only thing more lame than an Aging Hipster Douchebag? A Young Hipster Douchebag who a) doesn’t realize he’s a doucebag, and b) doesn’t realize that one day he’ll be aging. Chin up, buddy.
If I’m settling down for awhile to do serious work, I much prefer the desktop.
But the desktop needs to sit in one place, and I often want to be online while I’m somewhere besides where my desktop is. Sitting on the living room sofa, while relaxing on my deck, while by myself in a restaurant or coffeeshop with wifi, in an airport terminal…you get the idea. So I’ve got a laptop too.
I wouldn’t want to use the laptop as my ‘main’ computer. But I’d hate to lug my desktop around from room to room, or take it with me while traveling.
Can’t you? Doesn’t the mere fact that someone is using the local HotSpot mean that they’re taking advantage of the utility of the laptop? After all, the major advantage of a laptop is that it’s portable.
I take advantage of my laptop’s utility every time I don’t have to get my ass off the couch to look something up on imdb or wikipedia while watching TV.
