Well, my work laptop is one of those dinky Dell D400’s with the external CD/DVD drive (I also have an external floppy disk drive and a few other odds and ends like a USB to 9 pin serial connector and such). It’s cheap, light and very portable and has been a good tool.
When I travel I usually take a second laptop (my Alienware gaming box)…and it seems to do pretty good playing whatever it is I have time to play on it (it actually plays MTW II as well as my desktop computer at home…and might actually play WOW a touch better).
I think the OP simply has no concept of how real people use computers today outside of the home.
I’ve had two HP Compaqs in a row as my work laptops, and they’re both phenomenal–$1500 or less, plays all the games I want to on my off time, and I have docks at home and work to give me the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Four hours of battery out of the new one–six if I’m just typing or reading and not gaming. With the EVDO card, I’m on the internet anywhere there’s a cellphone signal.
Is it as powerful as my $2500 gaming desktop? Well, yes, but only because I’m due for a new one. It does what it does well, and it means I’m no longer constrained by needing a desktop computer and network connection anywhere I go–I’m a systems administrator, and my pager response time needs to be measured in minutes or the customers revolt. Maybe someday they’ll make a smartphone that can run Cisco ASDM and AnyConnect, but I’m not holding my breath.
Laptops–a good tool that has a solid niche in the technology ecosystem.
I think that you could broaden this statement to sum up much about VCO3. He seems to have no concept of how the world works and how people think and act outside his apparently very tiny personal experience. It appears to me that the simplest answer to his question - why would anyone buy a laptop? - is beyond his ability to understand. Laptops are popular primarily because they provide value to the people who buy them. I suppose that there are popular products whose value and utility are obscure, but laptops don’t seem to be one of them. Even if I didn’t use one, the value of portability would be fairly easy to appreciate vicariously, and it is obvious to almost everyone that portability is a very valuable attribute for a computer in the minds of millions of users.
Is it okay if I have a laptop if it’s necessary to do my job? It would be pretty fucking hard to lug a desktop around a factory when I’m doing a quality assessment.
I’d read all the responses you got for this rant but I’m too busy with my new laptop that I use on the bus on the way to the airport’s Starbucks. And this laptop was cheap; it only cost me four days of nursing a Judge Dredd back to health.
I’m going to go against the grain here. As I said in my earlier post, I use my laptop in lieu of a desktop and find it performs well for what I generally do on a computer. Where I diverge from everyone else is - I don’t have a mouse hooked up. I find the trackpad works just as well for me as a mouse does and don’t even bother using a mouse. And it gives me more space on the desk.
I am of two minds about this. On one hand I think you are completely correct. It is a petty stupid rule. On the other hand I think that VCO3 is really working very hard to test the edges of not being a jerk and the powers that be are displaying a fair amount of tolerance toward him that is not displayed to posters with less of a history.
Hippy Hollow, you’re my new favorite person. I have a MBP for work, and I’m going to start working from home two days a week. Plugging and unplugging the all the cables is annoying enough already, now I’ll have the whole set up at home, too. I sent the link to for BookEndz to my boss with a note saying “Buy me!”
Does your job provide you more income than you absolutely need for day-to-day survival? Do you pay into a retirement fund, generating non-earned speculative investment income so that your net worth may exceed $500K when you reach old age? Does the “job” involve anything other than actual personal labor to produce some tangible thing, or direct personal, service that is a necessity to others’ survival? :rolleyes:
'cos in the VCO3 universe, all that would mean that what you really need to do is give up the job
It may be interesting for you to explain more because then you may had beat me, I just got a hold of a Dell Inspiron, it “only” cost me 45 dollars.
A relative brought the broken laptop to me to take a look, and after several attempts with other hard drives it was clear the problem was internal, might as well buy a new laptop so he decided to give me the carcass (minus the hard drive that still worked in a portable enclosure that he took) I tinkered with the laptop for several days and after a cleanup a spare small hard drive worked, and after a memory upgrade ($45) I have a nice wireless laptop.
I had laptops before but there were way under powered; so far this machine is doing a great job and I will use it on the writing protects I have. So I have to disagree with the OP.
I use my desktop 99% of the time. I used my laptop when I was working out of a hotel room (lugging a tower and monitor around would have been more difficult). Since I have to type in a lot of numbers, I had to go out and buy a $15 USB keyboard. (I drooled over the first laptop that I saw with 10 key. It does annoy me that my Toshiba laptop is wide enough to have a 15.4" display (big at the time), but has wasted space on the sides where a number pad probably could have been wedged in.)
Now, if I had the money, I’d get one of these: Dell XPS M2010
