On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 14:13:03 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:33:01 -0500, "Atila Iskander"
wrote:



Laptops have a place, but for home use, I still prefer a big honkin'
desktop with a 21 inch or larger monitor, keyboard that can be moved
around, etc.

When I want portability, my netbook has traveled to much of the US and
Europe with me. Or it can sit on my belly when in front of the TV.

You are not thinking outside of the box, and are suffering from tunnel
vision
.
A properly set-up laptop as the equal to your "big honking box"
but with a smaller footprint
AND a backup battery
I also have no problem hooking up 2 monitors, a keyboard and a backup HD to
my laptop

I've yet to find a laptop keyboard that is a comfortable to use as my
full sized MS keyboard. Even on my wife's 17" laptop. Sure you can
hook up all that stuff to it but then you have to take it off if you
want portability; always a compromise. Oh, I also have good speakers
and a sub woofer too.

I have docking stations and port replicators for that. Monitor, keyboard,
mouse, and assorted disk drives stay with the docking station. When I go
mobile, all that stuff stays behind. I also bring my software, at the same
level, with email and NG bookmarks with me. It's much better than having a
desktop.


Just because it's "portable" does NOT mean that it cannot perform in a
non-portable role as well
I have 2 older laptops acting as server and firewall.

Sure it "performs", but just not as comfortable to use at my desk.

I don't see how there is a difference. I have my laptop and dock on a small
shelf next to my main monitor so both are at the same level. It works fine.

Not only are they on a smaller footprint but they also use less power.

CPU is a couple of feet away and not taking valuable space. Not a
consideration. I do have battery backup for about 30 minutes with a
UPS, but longer does not make any difference once the router goes
down. I never had the desire to sit in the dark and work on a
spreadsheet.

My computer guy also charges less to work on desktops than laptops and
can usually get parts faster an cheaper. If it works for you, fine,
but advantages are minimal at best.

How often does your hardware fail? Other than catastrophic failures (monitor)
and disk drives, I don't recall the last time I had a hardware failure. Laptop
"monitors" aren't reasonably replaceable but disk drives are trivial.