This.

I prefer to use desktop myself, but it really isn't a problem to get a laptop built for serious gaming these days.

I move around way too much, a laptop is a far more practical choice for me, not only so I can take it with me but also so when I go home for the holidays I can just stick it in a bag, slide it down the side of my carseat, and don't have to worry about damage.

It also does a perfectly good job as a gaming laptop, to the point where I simply don't get how people can say they svck for gaming. It's probably just the games I play, but I've never had a laptop related game issue.

Definitely a desktop. Primarily because they're much more durable and if something breaks, they're much easier to repair.

I totally understand. I had to buy a laptop for work purposes and I managed to get one with a decent card for gaming as well. Ultimately it would have been cheaper to go with a desktop, but I needed the laptop for work-related travel.

There are a number of laptops that can deliver decent frame rates for recent games at 1920x1080. However unless you are buying used/refurb, you will probably end up spending at least $1200-1300 or so to get the cheapest among them, in other words with 1080p display and DX11 video cards at least comparable to the NVIDIA 460M or AMD 5830M, or better.

For the same price you can build a pretty powerful gaming desktop and have enough left over to buy a non-gaming laptop.

If you get a laptop with 1366x768 display, you will be able to get decent frame rates with weaker GPU, but IMO gaming on anything below 1600x900 you are missing out on a great deal of the visual experience of the game.

Desktop, although, mine is more accurately a speakertop.

I picked up my laptop for $1600 NZ, which, given what I've seen (no actual homework done on this) seems to be about the same for your standard, equivalent desktop plus screen. Shopping around I probably could have got a cheaper desktop, but this laptop was also already discounted. Also, building a desktop is currently out of the question for me. It would cost about six times my laptop just to build a semi-decent desktop. Given that parts are near impossible to track down in shops and RIDICULOUSLY overpriced, and importing parts requires stupid amounts of shipping costs, it was just so much cheaper and easier to buy my laptop. I'd love to be able to build my own desktop, but it's just so expensive that I'd rather just go with the laptop. Just a really quick look online just now, from within New Zealand, showed an i5 processor to range from $465-$600, maybe that's cheap, I don't know, but it would all add up to way more than what my laptop cost anyway.

Desktop all the way, easier to customize and easier to upgrade. Although I do use a laptop at times but its an older laptop and I use it to play older games when I travel.

Desktop is where I do all my gaming/media editing. I have a HP 4520s Probook (i5 460M) for my laptop which I take everywhere with me. I also use my Droid very often. (Liquid Gingerbread v1.5)

I prefer desktop, but right now I'm forced to use a laptop. Gonna fix my desktop soon...