Ergonomics become very important when you use a computer all day at work and then use it more at home. The flat keyboards caused problems for me. I don’t want to end up with carpel tunnel or a similar RSI. I’m very careful about ergonomics. Laptops are not ergonomic.
Laptops also put the screen too close to you and not at the right height for optimal ergonomics. I can’t work that way all day, day in and day out.
It only takes a few days to get used to a MS Natural style keyboard. I type much better on the split keyboards now than I do on the flat keyboards.
Making a case for laptops, I’m in the process of shopping for a laptop for the parents. They just bought a condo in Georgia and are going to be doing the snowbird thing living 6 months in Georgia and then 6 months in Oregon. A desktop computer isn’t practical to be moving back and forth. So we’re looking for a laptop that will be used mostly as a desktop replacement.
Chalk one up for laptop superiority.
I don’t see the parents taking the laptop to the coffee shop or taking the laptop out on the road. I doubt it will get much portable use. The whole advantage will be in being transportable and self contained.
I mean something more along the lines of:
I use my laptop as much as I use my desktop. My laptop is for music/backup web browsing, while my desktop is my designated gaming machine/CG/internet computer. I use my desktop for experimenting with new linux distros as I use my laptop to research information about the new distro. My laptop is good for simpler things like photoshop and Counter-Strike, whereas my desktop is better for higher-end applications like Maya and hi-res WoW. The laptop is great to bring around (duh) and I like being able to show off unicycling videos when I go places.
The desktop for hardcore stuff like John Child has discussed. But the laptop for light weight applications or for, like right now, sitting on the bed, in the evening, in front of the fireplace and just mellowing out with some forum hopping.
ok, I have to admit that I don’t give my desktop a fair chance when it come to booting up speed, because I don’t use standby/hibernate on my desktop. But the fan on my laptop is much quieter.
And I do hate the laptop touchpad mouse. I think I learned to idle faster than it took to get used to that. That little keyboard joystick that the IBM laptops had, worked much better for me.
You can make a desktop PC very quiet. Quieter than a laptop with the CPU cooling fans running.
Many of the new desktops are quieter than the previous generation. Power supplies have gotten more efficient so they don’t need the power supply fans running as fast. 120mm fans are more common. They spin slower so are quieter. CPU coolers with heat pipes can keep the CPU cool while using quieter fans. Case fans have gotten quieter. PCs are enabling more power control options and fan control options. So the computer can run the fans slower and quieter when it doesn’t need as much cooling.
It has gotten better, but stock desktop PCs aren’t as quiet as they can be. A few after market modifications can make the PC more quiet.
I replaced the power supply in my HP desktop with a quieter one that has a single 120mm fan. I replaced the stock case fan with a quieter one and added rubber mounts to dampen vibrations from the fan and power supply. I replaced the CPU cooler with a quieter one. I added a fully passive graphics card (no fan). Then put it on the floor instead of on the desktop right next to me. Changes like that and you can have a very quiet PC.
I could still do more to make it even quieter. I haven’t isolated the hard drive or optical drives with rubber grommets or similar isolation methods. The drives are causing some case resonance that you can hear if you get right next to the case. Some sound absorbing foam in the case might also help.
All this is with a regular HP Pavilion. If I was really serious about making a quiet PC I would have started with a custom computer with a better (quieter) case.
Your comp will run quieter, smoother, and quicker, depending on how much dust you can remove from the inner components (esp. the fans). Use an old toothbrush or Qtips to get those hard-to-reach places, too.
@gkmac:
My laptop runs a Mobile AMD Sempron 3000+ (‘clocked’ @ 1.79GHz), while my desktop has a Pentium4 ‘clocked’ at 2.66GHz. They can both run the same software with about equal ease, but my desktop’s video card is better, so that’s what I use for the more demanding apps . AMD and Pentium cannot be accurately compared against one another based on clock speed alone.
Speaking of quite my desktop power supply got fired (lighting hit it) so we went to best buy to get a new one…Didn’t have the right one but they had the one for twice the power consumption and it still fit in our computer so we got that. My cooling fan almost never comes on, therefore very quite
Another thing I hate those little keyboards. Where out so freaking fast…Guess that’s what you get for being able to type 70wmp.
I much prefer desktops. You can move the screen and keyboard independently, including putting the screen much higher up than you can on a laptop, and laptop keyboards are awful. Fact.
I really like the portability of the laptop. And, I spent the money to get a fairly powerful one. I’ve got WiFi at home so it’s cool to be able to use it anywhere. I remember when I first started looking at laptops. It was close to $2000 w/ a pitifully small hard drive and MONOCHROME monitor:( . I waited until you could get a 60 gb hard drive, plenty 'o ram and full color LCD for the same price. My only complaint is the crappy touchpad pointer thingy (yes, I’m very technical). Sucks. I plug in an external mouse.
Desktops. To get a laptop that suited me I would need to add a mouse, keyboard, stand, speaker system and printer. Suddenly it becomes far less portable, and infact as my screen is about the size of a laptop having a desktop only adds one item (the computer itself) when shipping it to and from uni.
But to play devil’s advocate, who need power? If I had a laptop why would i care if it were lower powered than my desktop? I don’t play the latest games, I don’t do serious computation on it, the main programms I use are firefox, thunderbird, win media plyer, itunes, word and excel, all of which run seamlessly and open almost instantly, what more could I want?
Considering something breaks, to be able to replace a power supply, monitor, keyboard, motherboard, hard drive, floppy drive, CD/DVD drive, or memory stick for a fraction of the cost.