Topic: PC or Laptop?

[rhos1355]

Hiya Folks, I don't know if this thread has been posted before, I did do a search but only came up with threads about laptop problems.
3 days after Christmas the motherboard on my Dell Inspiron 510M shorted and I can no longer get power to the machine.
Phoned Dell who told me that the only way to repair it is by replacing the motherboard.
Cost?
£327.- all in (engineer callout, new motherboard and VAT)
This of course made me question the economical sense of getting it repaired. And one thing led to another and I started thinking about getting myself a new computer.
Which led me to this thread.
So, what's your opinion, folks?
I like laptops, 'cos they take up little space and you can take them anywhere. Downside? They break easily (mine was only 4 years old)
Pcs are more robust, but they take up so much space, and not easily transportable.
I just use the computer to do the usual mundane things like letters, e-mails, simple spreadsheets, i-net surfing, uploading stuff from computer to photobucket, downloading stuff onto my computer, store my music, photos etc.
Occasionally I do some Autocad and Bentley Microstation work. 2D as well as 3D, which requires a fair amount of umpph.

[UnCrash]

My 5 year old Dell inspiron went on me around Thanksgiving. 

It's replacement is a Dell laptop.  I don't do any hardcore PC gaming, or video and audio editing.  I do play Unreal Tournament, and run Adobe's video editing suite on it with no problems. 

I pulled the hard drive from my old computer and put it in a cheap USB drive enclosure and have all my old data at hand plus more room for backing up current data.

It almost never makes sense to replace the motherboard on a computer greater than 2 years old.

Go laptop, set up a wireless network at home, and you'll never look back.

[okie]

I am currently on my 4th laptop.  I would not even consider getting a desktop.  I do have a desktop in the garage, but it was a FREEBIE and beat what was there before (nothing).  I always use an external mouse with the laptop because I find it easier to use than the touch pads that are on most laptops.  At one time, I had a computer store and worked on desktop computers a lot.  I have built up literally thousands of computers.  With the laptop, I simply buy it and use it.  I don't have an intimate knowledge if the hardware, and I want to keep it that way.  It is just a "magic" tool that stores information and allows me to surf the internet.  About every 3 years I get a new replacement that has newer/better technology (and the markings on the keyboard aren't worn off yet ).  For me the laptop does everything I want and allows me to compute from the comfort of my recliner.

[eldar]

While i prefer a desktop, a laptop should be fine. Your most important thing is graphics. The more powerful the card, the faster it will go through the battery if you use the battery a lot. However, without a decent graphics card, the laptop will have a shorter lifespan as far as usefulness.

With a laptop, it is important to get a good warrantee though.

[fuzzybutt]

With a laptop, it is important to get a good warrantee though.

+1 on that! i paid extra to get a 5 year, in home service warranty on my old dell inspiron and it paid for itself many times over.

[rbmgf7]

While i prefer a desktop, a laptop should be fine. Your most important thing is graphics. The more powerful the card, the faster it will go through the battery if you use the battery a lot. However, without a decent graphics card, the laptop will have a shorter lifespan as far as usefulness.

With a laptop, it is important to get a good warrantee though.

with graphics in mind, make sure you get one which has dedicated video memory NOT allocated. dedicated means it has a seperate video graphics card to do the processing whereas allocated means it shares your RAM to assist with video processing. autocad should be fine on a laptop. a buddy of mine had a 4 year old sony laptop running 2007 solidworks. little slow but still worked.

i bought an ASUS F3K laptop a year ago for $700. had everything i needed including a one year warranty covering everything no matter what the excuse was. only thing i can gripe about is Vista is a b*tch with only 1GB of RAM. i don't think i'll ever go back to a desktop. the versatility is great.

check out www.newegg.com. i use it all the time for computer related stuff (but also has other electronics). probably THE greatest values for computers on the net. they also have awesome deals including rebates and free shipping.

[eldar]

Have you formatted your laptop? Vista does much better once you get rid of all the extra crap the pc manufacturers put in. I did that with mu toshiba that has 1g and it works faster now. Never had an issue with stability though.

[333]

With the exception of dropping it, a laptop and a desktop could suffer the same problems.  I still have an old 486 laptop, and while the battery is crap, it still boots up.

[CaféElite]

Budget? Screen size needs? Like everyone else has mentioned just snag a decent laptop. If you have the funds get one w/ a solid state hard drive. If not make sure its atleast 7200rpm w/ 8mb more cache. Cool thing about five year warranties is that most of the time in five years they dont have that system anymore so you will get a slight upgrade. I would also suggest getting a 15" widescreen so the machine stays mobile. If you want a larger LCD for home use just snag a 22" LCD of newegg.

The only desktop I have is my home server and really I dont recall the last time I logged into it locally. Since I have a work laptop I have no reason to buy another but most of my outside of work computing time is done on a ibm s10 netbook running opensuse.

[eldar]

Laptops and desktops do suffer from the same issues but laptops are of course more fragile. Solid state drives are still not the way to go. They still suffer from poor write speeds and fluctuate wildly in their speeds unless you spend a crap load. A standard hd is still the way to go yet but give it another year or 2 and that may change.