Quote:
Originally Posted by mjh215
Many people love the freedom of a laptop, and I can't fault them on that... I just don't care for them... All the proprietary parts... (Stops thinking about it to avoid raising my blood pressure  )
-MJ |
I Agree The proprietary part sucks, But you have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages for yourself.
While I love desktops for their custom ability and Frexibility, not to mention the price to power ratio, I hate being tied down to one place. As I'm travelling 3-4 months of the year, I need to be mobile. So for me paying extra for a reasonably powerful but portable machine is the price of my lifestyle.
The Times i've had a Desktop available (usually work Related) While i've liked the Power (Custom Editing Machine) The weight and peripherals made it quiet unwieldy, and more often then not I carried my laptop for the day to day work, just using the Desktop for the Heavy duty processing.
The Security is I agree a concern, But I'm usually more worried about people losing their phones or Flash drives with data on it then losing their Laptops.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
crikey ! what a story. 
actually, the whole "proprietary parts" thing is part of the reason i don't have a laptop yet... my current configuration is custom built, as will be my next tower. i can change a hard drive or optical drive myself, and i regularly do. i can add RAM myself. i successfully changed one of the fans recently. i'll have the new one built by someone else (i've never installed a proc or mb yet and i'd rather let someone else do that) but i'm planning to keep some of the elements i already have (dvd burner, one of the two hard drives, disquette drive...), and put them in myself when i get it home. i feel a bit frustrated by the non-customisable aspect of portables.
plus, i'm a webdesigner. i need a *good* portable, if i get one, with a good screen. they're still far pricier than the equivalent in destop size. and as i said, i'm not made of money.
nonetheless, it does have advantages and i'm sure i will *eventually* get one, and it will be useful for me (even just for client meetings alone). it's really more a question of "when" than "whether". but "when" is still very abstract... |
Well laptops while being mainly proprietary, have started to make it easier to upgrade or replace some of the parts like Memory, Hard Drives, etc.
It varies form Company to company, with some like Dell making it easy for you to reach most of the parts. to some like Sony which is quiet the opposite.
As for the cost, well, as I said you pay for the privilege of being portable. Still, if you don't need the latest and greatest you can find quiet powerful machines for quiet reasonable prices.
Also, If you get a reasonable powerful machine, you could always use it as a desktop replacement. Just hook up a couple of extra monitors and your external Keyboard and mouse, and you've got a comfortable system for office use, while still being mobile