Desktop or Laptop?

[Outcast]

Which would be more practical to buy? Say you have $800. Would it be better to buy a laptop or desktop? Would an $800 worth laptop be better than an $800 worth desktop? :unsure:

[Alaric]

Which would be more practical to buy? Say you have $800. Would it be better to buy a laptop or desktop? Would an $800 worth laptop be better than an $800 worth desktop? :unsure:

Usually, you have to pay more for a laptop than you would for an equivelent desktop, because it actually cost more money to make sophisticated electronics smaller. So, if by "better" you mean "more powerful, more hard drive space, etc.", the desktop would be better. The advantage of a laptop is the fact that it's easily portable- so, if by "better", you mean "easier to carry around with you", the laptop would be better.

[Outcast]

Hmmm...I guess I was thinking which is the more durable between the two. I'm having doubts on buying a laptop because I'm not sure if it's gonna last for years like our current desktop. I also don't know if the advantages of a laptop are enough, since i can get a more powerful/faster desktop at the same price.

If given the choice, what would you choose? :huh:

[zuludelta]

If you're talking about durability, I'd go with a desktop. Not lugging it around with you means its less likely to get caught in mishaps. It's also a lot cheaper to repair a desktop if you manage to screw it up, whereas getting a laptop repaired is more costly because of more expensive laptop replacement parts (replacing a laptop screen, for example, is very expensive, while getting a replacement monitor for your desktop can be as easy and cheap as going to a used electronics shop). 

[IonikKnight]

Desktop for durability and performance for the buck.  You can even keep your old monitor and afford even better components.  You still need portable?  Price a frag box.

Ionik Knight

[daglob]

I used to work at Southeast College of Technology, which is now Remington College. They wre the ones who do th commercial when they promise to issue you a laptop computer and you get to keep it when you graduate (and no one seems to hear anything after the word "it"). It was my job to inventory, issue, and track those computers. I was keeping tabs on ov er 700 laptops at one time. With that big a sampling, I can tell you that a desktop will probably not be dropped out of a bus, have coffee poured in it, short out from "a mysterious white powder" being sucked in by the fan, put on the roof of a car and the car driven off, fall out of an incorrectly closed backpack, dropped in the bathtub, dropped in a mud puddle, or marked by a dog. It might still get hit by lightning, stolen and/or run over by a bitter ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, or have a squirrel eat the keys off the keyboard, but you can't protect it from everything. 

I liked having a laptop (issued by the school), and it was fun to use, but I have seen how easily they can be damaged, and would stick with a desktop (unless offered another one).

Of course, my daughter's 6-year-old IBM laptop finally died, so a case sould be made for them having SOME durability.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

My advice has always been this:

If you don't actually need a laptop, in other words, if you actually have a choice in the matter, take the desktop.

Desktops get you more bang for the buck, are more easily upgradeable, are easier to repair, and, as stated in the last post, much less likely to be be damaged lost or stolen.

There are some things that you just much have laptops for, for everything else, get a desktop.