Laptop as desktop replacement

There's an interesting dialogue on the Enterprise Ireland eBusiness discussion list at the moment about the feasibility of using a laptop as a desktop replacement. To be honest I just don't get the point of view that laptops are somehow underpowered or yield less bang per buck than desktops. I mean that's obviously true in absolute terms, but in relative terms how much power does the average user need? My Dell Inspiron 510m has all the power I need in a portable package which suits my multiple location 'virtual office'. I even cycle between two of those locations with the laptop in my backpack.


Even though I don't do high end graphics work or video editing I nevertheless consider myself to be reasonably near the top of the 'power user' scale. I usually run several applications at once with anything up to 15 firefox tabs at a time. I use graphical applications like Google SketchUp and Google Earth quite often and yet my Dell has rarely if ever left me twiddling my thumbs.

As regards the ergonomics issues I agree with many of the views expressed but have to point out that it can be much cheaper to correct the problems than buying docking stations and so on. I have suffered from RSI in the past so I never even contemplated using my laptop 'au-natural' for long periods of time. But I didn't bother getting an expensive docking station either. Instead I use the Fellowes Copy Holder, which I already owned, as a stand to bring the LCD screen to the perfect eye level and thus avoid neck strain. And I bought a USB to PS/2 adaptor on eBay for €14 (P&P included) so I can attach my large ergonomic keyboard and mouse for use most of the time. Easy, cheap and ergonomic.

Comments

[Justin]

Definitely the way to go! I switched from a desktop to a Thinkpad T40 a couple of years ago, and I've never looked back.

I also use a similar setup -- laptop on a pedestal, over an ergonomic MS "Natural" keyboard and external mouse attached via USB. By lifting the laptop up above the ergonomic keyboard, all 3 of the screen, the keyboard and the mouse are at an ergonomic distance. Only difference is, my laptop-stand is an old cardboard box -- recycling ;)

I have recurring tendonitis caused by typing, so the ergonomic efficiency of my work setup is extremely important. This setup works -- and in fact, works *better* than the old setup I had with a desktop and a CRT display, I find. The key thing is to ensure the laptop has a decent size screen, so that it compares well with a desktop LCD display -- my one is 14" and 1400x1150 resolution.

Interestingly, I benchmarked the desktop hardware against the laptop when I got it, and the laptop won handily -- despite being a frequency-scaling Pentium M 1600Mhz processor in a laptop, vs a high-powered, 150-watt-consuming Athlon XP 2100+. I can only assume that this was IBM mainboard and chipset engineering, beating cheapo home-assembled desktop hardware from no-name taiwanese companies. ;)

I kept the desktop around for a year or two as a back-room server, and occasionally logged into it over the network to run backend tasks. But really, it was too noisy and too much of a PITA to maintain, and a total power guzzler (150W power supplies are that big for a reason!) -- so I haven't bothered getting a new one now that I'm back in Ireland.

All in all -- I don't think there's a good reason to buy desktop hardware any more, unless it's to use as a low-end server in an office LAN.

There is one unspoken reason for many people, though -- you get better graphics cards, and therefore can play WoW, with desktop hardware. ;)

[Bernie Goldbach]

You get more hours of use from a laptop when compared to a desktop. You free up desk space when the laptop users hit the road for conferences and events. If you specify the correct laptop, you never encounter processing power limitations.

[John Handelaar]

Plus, of course, there's the reduced electricity consumption, which evens out the price difference in the end.

[MJ]

Well, for the Bedouin of us, it's indispensible.

We are, however, moving to the idea of thin'n'lights (MacBook) for portable usage and having a powerful desktop as well at home, mostly for backup purposes as I don't really want a 120 GB+ drive inside my thin'n'light laptop.

I currently use a 15" Powerbook and Aidan a 15" MacBook Pro. They're fine and powerful enough for most things. Certainly powerful enough for video editing, code development, games....

[Robin Blandford]

There is allot of people talking rubbish on that email list. The recent conversation about AJAX astounded me.

[Andrew]

For Business the MacBook (or for more power MacBook Pro) is the way to go, even for traditional PC users. They've been benchedmarked running WinXP and various apps and games, faster than PC laptops of the same spec. Its all done to Apple's tuning of the Windows drivers.

Like Matt says, thin and light with a long battery life is must. The MacBook Pros have a dedicated graphics card (not just a builtin chip) so they can handle the likes of Quake 4 reasonably.

Not forgetting the amazng OSX system running on a laptop with instant on and off when you open and close the lid, ease of use (less than 10 seconds to setup a mobile phone as a GPRS bluetooth modem) stability, reliability and no real concerns over virus attack or security. Its perfect!

[Walter]

I don't play computer games so I don't have any need for a desktop. I use 2 laptops, a big 1400x1050 ThinkPad (great keyboard and the built-in light is great for working into the wee small hours) and a petite little iBook (also a great laptop). The iBook is great but I do all my work on the ThinkPad.
Can anyone explain why smaller intel-based laptops are more expensive than larger intel-based laptops yet smaller Mac laptops are *cheaper* than larger ones ?

[Joe Drumgoole]

I use a Dell Precision M70 laptop. It weighs a ton, but it has a nice big screen and a nice big processor. Wouldn't consider anything else for work (well, am Intel MacBook would be nice, but our customers use windows).

[bob]

Joe - your windows customers will not even know if you are windows or mac - everything works seamlessly - we switched to macs recently and we work just fine in a mixed environment both on our own LAN and externally. we used MS Office for mac but just switched to OpenOffice for mac as it is cheaper and not as bloated as MS Office

[r4 card]

It's an excellent machine some of the features have been compromised such as the screen gloss and display to make it affordable, still a good deal...