I have a Win7 and a Win10 (I’ve been too lazy to set up to replace he Win7 I’m still using). My wife has a Win10. I had three others in the house that I took to electronic recycling a couple of months back.
This strikes me as a really odd claim. Distance learning systems are set up for computers, but why does it matter whether those computers are desktops or laptops? In fact, laptops are more likely to have the built-in web cams that everyone’s using for Zooming, etc. nowadays. In my limited experience it’s not uncommon for students to have laptop computers.
But yeah, I still have a desktop. I’m on it now. I wouldn’t call it “the family desktop” since I’m the only one who uses it regularly.
I’m on it right now. I couldn’t accurately plan my art work on anything else.
Desktop, pretty much solely. I do have a little 8" pad I got for free with my phone, which I very occasionally use for streaming if I’m away from the house. I’ve considered getting a laptop on occasion, but so far I find myself unable to justify pulling the trigger on a pricier model( I don’t really need it )and am constitutionally incapable of settling for a cheap, but blatantly inferior one( I’d want a larger size and a high quality monitor screen ). I probably will spring for one eventually, just for lazy convenience. But I don’t imagine I’ll move away from a desktop anytime soon.
Frankly I need a fair bit of horsepower( mostly for gaming, though I also do some photo-editing )and I greatly appreciate the ability to easily upgrade. I’ve probably upgraded or had to replace every component in every desktop I’ve ever owned, minus the cpu/motherboard. Especially the video card( often multiple generations ), but also hard drives, power supply, RAM and so on. My current machine is dead silent with SSDs and carefully tuned and quiet fans in a very manageable cube minitower. My last machine held up for more than a decade until the motherboard started to die and wasn’t worth upgrading. I’m hoping for something similar with this one.
Desktop? What is a desktop? 
We got rid of the last desktop many years ago - maybe 10? We have a “family” laptop that any of us can use for whatever. My daughter has a laptop for college, and we just got her a 24" monitor since she has had to set-up shop on our dining room table due to the situation. My son has a desktop, tho, that he customized and uses for gaming and homework (HS Senior).
I have a work station set-up at home with my work laptop and attached to a monitor/keyboard/mouse. I also have a laptop that used to be the “family” laptop, but was replaced by the newer one above, also connected to monitor/keyboard/mouse (it’s screen does not work any more but otherwise operates fine).
I agree with the above comments - a separate monitor does not know if it is connected to a laptop or desktop. I do not see any reason to have a desktop tower any longer, unless you are into tinkering/upgrading/customizing, or if it still works fine and you see no reason to get a laptop.
It’s not exactly a “family” desktop because it’s in the den and mostly only I use it, but I have a gaming computer that sees a lot of use. I also had a server desktop computer which got taken out in a lightning strike. A Dell laptop took over admirably well as a server for the past year or two, but I’m building a new computer to take over.
There was never a family desktop.
I graduated high school in 1977. Even in Los Alamos, families did not have The Family Computer in 1977. (I think we had a Texas Instruments calculator, though).
I had my own personal desktop computers for awhile, the last before switching to a laptop being my Power Mac 7100, which I still own and which obligingly boots into MacOS 7.6 or 8.6 depending on which startup hard drive I specify.
Like many cable cutters, my desktop has since been plugged into my TV.
So it gets used for “TV” watching and poking around on the internet.
No family, but my main computer is a 27" iMac. I just haven’t been comfortable with trying to do photo/image editing on a small screen. On the other wing of the desk is my telecommute setup with a Windows laptop and two 24" displays. For browsing and playing games, I’ve got an iPad.
Everyone in my house has a desktop. The kids have gaming desktops. I have an older desktop but it’s sufficient for my needs. I have to have one to work from home. We all have those large TV monitors but none of us watches TV anymore. So for us what’s lacking is the “family television”.
We have a “Family” desktop which is in the family room (coincidentally enough) and is my retired gaming desktop. Still more than capable for home learning and other family oriented tasks. I also have my personal desktop in a different room.
I had a third one cobbled together from scrap parts but gave it to my mom right before all this stuff hit. I actually feel a little bad because I know she won’t use it a lot and, had this hit a week earlier, I might have donated it to the school instead. Of course, that still leaves the owner on the hook to get it on the internet.
I think a lot of kids don’t have a computer at all. They just have a phone and possibly a tablet. Ten years ago, there was a family desktop. Now, mom has a computer, dad has a computer (both of which may well be laptops) and there is no computer that’s really available for the kid. I can easily see how even a middle class kid with a smart phone and a couple gaming consoles wouldn’t see any need to push for a laptop. Even at college, they might use the computer lab for the rare things their phone or Xbox couldn’t provide.
I think a lot of these responses are about what individuals prefer, but that’s not really the main point: the question is whether or not kids in your house have access to a computer, not a tablet or phone.
We got out son a “real” desktop for Xmas (really, dad upgraded, and we built him one out of the discarded pieces). We did this partially because his handwriting was terrible and we wanted him to learn to type, but also because we are old enough to see “having a computer” as an important part of existing. But I do think that’s a dated mindset.
Well, yes and no. I have a desktop hooked up to the tv and that’s the major media box with a shit ton of storage on it–something like 6TB or so. I also have three working laptops, a Win7 out in the crapshack that’s mostly used for streaming music from the media box and podcasts from the internet; the Win10 I’m on right now and a newer, better laptop that’s running Linux Mint as I’m trying to learn it and get used to it before this Win10 shits the bed for good. I also have a tablet and a smartphone. Well, I have another tablet that doesn’t work well so it’s a paperweight and up until recently I had another smartphone but I passed that down to the youngest grandchild. It was just collecting dust anyway.
What I do not have is a family–all this miscellaneous tech is just for me!
Still have one (iMac 27) that is pretty much my wife’s territory. I have a 17" HP laptop for my use, and there is an old iPad that we use for travel.
When I was in middle school (late 90s) we had some generic IBM PC that my mom was loaned by her work, and that was replaced a year or two later with a used AST Advantage! with no Internet access. In 2001 we got a new Dell Dimension 2100 with dial-up and that was probably the last “family desktop” that we had. In 2005 I moved out and built my own computer, while my parents split up. My mom had a laptop and my dad bought a new iMac. The old Dell went into the garbage. When my parents died their respective computing devices also went into the garbage.
These days I’m using a desktop I built about 8 years ago when at home, and I have a Lenovo Thinkpad that I was using for school until everything went online. Now that’s collecting dust.
Interesting. My main computer is a desktop; but all my kids distance learning stuff has been on one of our laptops, as it’s more convenient (can set up anywhere; and I don’t have webcam on my desktop.)
Ms. P uses the desktop, but has a tablet she uses when we travel or she’s upstairs. I mostly use a chromebook, although I also have a school issued computer that I use for work (I have two computers going at once most of the work day).
My wife and I each have a desktop computer that we use frequently.
I don’t think it’s possible for online learning systems to work on desktops and not on laptops. I think the issue is not that kids don’t have a desktop available but that they don’t have either a desktop or a laptop and instead have only a phone or a tablet. Phones and tablets are suitable for many purposes - but I wouldn’t want to use either for writing more than a one or two paragraph email.
Do I still have a desktop? - yes. Because I can get more for my money in a desktop than in a laptop . We do actually have two very cheap laptops - one my husband uses for a remote connection to his job (because something about the desktop was incompatible with the remote desktop software) and one that I take along when I travel. But when I travel, I’m not preparing my taxes and don’t need space to save a copy of my return. I’m not working on a spreadsheet for party invitations. I’m not doing a whole lot of things that involve saving documents - I do those things at home. I’m not opposed to cloud storage, but it won’t do me much good if my internet service is out , will it?
I have a desktop for my own purposes. I like it because I have a huge monitor left over from days working as an engineer.
My son uses a Microsoft Surface for his schoolwork, Zoom meetings, etc.