However, the people I am talking about I KNOW have the space for a desktop AND don't remove the battery when keeping it plugged in 24/7 (they even leave it plugged in sometimes throughout the night). Also: desktops come in all sorts of sizes, if you have room for a laptop, you have room for a desktop most of the time -- I won't say always since there are sometimes extenuating circumstances.

There's been many times my boss has asked me "should we just be getting laptops?" whenever we need to get a new computer :swear:

They are comfy to use while lying down though. I don't think my desktop's straight backed chair is as comfortable as my bed is.

Desktop. I only use my laptop when going to classes or peoples houses due to ease of transport

Wireless keyboard and mouse...

Easily desktop. The price, upgradability, and more hardware election is reason enough for me.

Desktop + netbook.

I have both.
Desktop for games. Easy to fix, upgrade, tweak.
Laptop for everything else, like homework and internet. Doesn't take much of a computer for that.
Like right now, I am just sitting up in bed with the laptop.

This. I'd never buy a full sized laptop.

I knew a guy at MIT that heated his dorm room with his servers. Non-sequitur proving the superiority of desktop.

Desktop for sure.


But right now my main PC is actually Laptop, which is because I travel a lot.

I like both to a certain degree. Desktops are obviously cheaper and parts are less inter-dependent (not to mention easier to get), so if something goes wrong you're less likely to have to buy an entire new computer, but watching movies and playing older games is infinitely more comfortable on a bed than in a chair. Plus they're obviously a tad more portable.

I've gone with desktop. The customisablilty of them is so good. Mine was bought around 5-6 years ago, and now all that is still used is the HDD and the DVD drive. In that time I probably would have ended up buying about two laptops. I do like laptops for their portability, but since I don't go anywhere much, I don't really need the portability. The laptop I had I gave to my mum, because it did become slow (probably from overuse) and I just upgraded my terrible desktop to what it is now.

Laptops pretty much. I mostly listen to music and surt on the net. But my current one also manages most games though, so pretty satisfied.

I think laptops started to go downhill when they erred from the tried and trusted design of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1. Now there was a portable computer that could give you a proper hernia!

I much prefer desktops, but I have a laptop for when I'm out and about and I have to finish some work, or for some light gaming.

My problem with laptops is that they don't offer enough bang for the buck. Typically when you compare a gaming desktop, and a gaming laptop of equal power, the laptop will cost 33%+ more than the desktop. So you pay a fee for portability. Then there's all the heat issues.

BUT! AMD's Llano is coming out in ~3 months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mdPi4GPEI74

The FFXIV benchmark is the first demo shown.

Now, it's probably at "Low" settings with a 1280x720 resolution, so it's not exactly max settings.

But it's smooth.

It's on integrated graphics.

It's with a total system power draw of less than 50 W.

And FFXIV is a rather demanding game, too. The official minimum system requirements are a GeForce 9600 GT or a Radeon HD 2900 XT. The modern equivalents to those are perhaps a Radeon HD 5670 or GeForce GT 430, neither of which are exactly low end cards. Note that Intel's latest and greatest Sandy Bridge with Intel HD Graphics 3000 completely chokes on the same benchmark. So would the discrete cards that give that level of performance, such as a Radeon HD 5450 or 4350, or a GeForce G 210 or 9400 GT.

Coming soon: budget gaming laptops that will run virtually any game well enough to be playable at moderate settings, and without the heat problems that have traditionally been intrinsic to gaming laptops. This will also push low end computers into Wal-Mart that can run modern games, as opposed to things like Solitaire.

Now, the first genuinely nice gaming laptops, as opposed to merely relatively nice for a gaming laptop, still aren't due to launch until about 2013. But Llano is a huge step in that direction. With the arrival of Llano, the usual advice of "don't get a gaming laptop" won't be completely dead, but it will be much weaker than today.

I voted laptops.

An ordinary day looks pretty much like this for me;
One eye on the TV.
One eye on the computer.
Forum shenanigans on my iPhone.

My Sony VAIO can run Oblivion with Quarls texture packs and 4096x4096 characters, so I'm all good.
Edit: in 1920x1080 by the way.

Besides, my girlfriend would probably kill me if I hade a desktop spreading noise all over the place.

If I had to choose 1, it'd be a laptop.


Don't taze hate me bro. I have mine plugged in all the time with the battery in (it has to be, it covers the HDD). It's great though, so much easier to take my life with me when I go somewhere. Take it when I travel, take it to a friends house, take it to another more comfy room, whatever. And the screen being attached and nice and close is great.

It would have been such a pain to have a desktop shipped to Thailand. Or to lug one down to Pattaya for a couple days.

Both.

That's all nice, but why don't you take out the battery when you keep it charged in? It will last much longer that way.

The battery doesn't plug into the back, it plugs in as a cover over the HDD.

That svcks then.

My vote goes for Desktop computers based on experience and overall logic.
Desktop computers offer allot more cappabilites then laptops, epsecialy for gamers and people who use softwares whith monster requirments such as 3d modeling programs and many other which would immediatly crash on laptops.
Second of all i personally think pc is a better investment,u can change components,upgrade them and when something goes wrong its easy to find out what is lagging and fix the problem, laptops on the other hand are nuisance in those casses,most of the graphic cards are integrated with many other hardware components, fixing them is allot more trickier and lasts longer then on pc's and when they die its permanently.
Also the guaranties for pc's last allot longer than on laptops.
I had a limited edition -special performance MSI laptop,although it was a beast in laptop family i think that it would be better if i have invested in pc.Two and a half years after buying it died,due to many problems such as overheating,fan replacements,cracks on the oppening mechanism and inability to charge the battery(and all of the problems started do show one after another ,after one year of use)
My recommendation is, invest in excelent pc with good performance and buy a cheep laptop with exterior hard disk for extra information

Well, see, you are actually mobile with your laptop. The people I'm talking about don't take it out of the house except to have me take a look at it. They really couldn't even if they were to try anymore since their battery life is horrid

Of course netbook + remote desktop (RDP, VNC, Teamviewer, LogMeIn, etc) = best combo IMO. That way your desktop is your powerhorse and does all the hard computing for you and you have access to everything always in an ultra-portable device.

Desktops.

Laptop:

• I can sit in the recliner and watch TV
  
• No need to be isolated from family in another room
  
• No need for a desk (saves space)
  
• Portability
  
• Still powerful enough to play games
  
• easily thrown in the lake if the cops come
  
• great for taking notes in a classroom
  
• When teaching, easier to wheel in a cart of laptops than get the kids to a computer lab