Laptops Outsell Desktops

wintermute1974 writes "According to a new report by Current Analysis, laptops have overtaken sales of desktops for the first time in computing, ever. Figures are for the U.S. market, but presumably this is part of a world-wide trend." From the article: "Notebook prices fell 17 percent during the past year while desktop prices dipped only 4 percent. Some of the features common in most notebooks are longer-lasting batteries, CD burners and wireless capability."

Comments

Well ..

[macaulay805]

Well, IMHO, this was bound to happen. With those good "desktop replacement" laptops, who wouldn't want to?

Re:Well ..

[AstroDrabb]

who wouldn't want to?

Me ; )

Laptops are still too slow compared to desktops, especially the hard drives. Laptop drives are not only slower, but you cannot get the same large sizes and the prices are far higher. Then there is the issue of graphics cards. Laptops generall have poorer graphics cards with lower memory. You can put together a far cheaper desktop with good components than you can get in a laptop. Most of the lower end laptops have crappy video with shared memory; they get too hot and have at most 3 hours of battery time. Oh and then there is the problem with the tiny screens. As a programmer, I cannot look at any screen smaller than 17" for a long time. Also, most of those lower end laptops only go to 1024x768 (I need at least 1152x864). These limitations may be OK for Joe User, but I don't think more tech savvy people or especially geeks could put up with them.

I personally have had the "same" computer for about 4 years. I call it the "same" computer because I have changed different parts at different time to keep it current. You cannot do that with a laptop. My laptop is 2 years old and is not "bad" (1.7GHz P4, 512MB, 40GB), however I litterally have not used it for the past year. It just sits in my laptop bag on the floor of my office. After one year the battery died and cannot hold a charge so I can only use it pluged in. I don't feel like spending 100+ on a battery when I can spend that money on something else.

Re:Well ..

[croddy]

call me once there's a laptop that's upgradable, doesn't fall apart in 3 years, and has a CRT-quality display. until then i think i'm going to keep building my systems, and carry my data on a $30 thumb drive.

Re:Well ..

[FLEB]

As a web designer and general Internetish type, though, I've found that even a modest laptop will suffice for most purposes, provided that the network connection is beefy enough. In my opinion, the network (Internet) in all its forms has really become the primary useful aspect of a modern computer, and processor speed and the like have hit the point where, objectively, they're commodity. Granted, I'm one particular type of computer user, but I can see how a lot of the computer-using populus might work the same way. ...

Okay. So my desktop's just a POS, too. Aside from the dual-head, it's not got much going for it.

Re:Well ..

[FRiC]

Probably depends on where you are, but even the lower end laptops I see nowadays have 15.4" widescreens with 1280x800 resolution.

But I agree that the hard drive is the bottleneck. I have 1 GB of RAM but once it needs to load anything off the drive it gets really slow...

Re:Well ..

[pintomp3]

but for what most ppl do, recent laptops are more than enough. laptops will always be behind desktops, but in the past few years the gap has shrunk and computers have gotten fast enough that a even "slow" machine will do 90% of what most ppl need. it's like saying "the mac mini (basically a laptop) is too slow for me". while this is true, it's not too slow for most ppl. the biggest benefit for a lot of ppl is that the laptop is small enough that they can just use it on a table or couch and not have a dedicated computer area (i know, foreign concept on /.) not everyone needs a home office. of course there is also the portability. marketshare can never be summed up with "not me". all it means is you (and geeks) are in the minority, which is exactly what the finding state.

Re:Well ..

[yog]

Laptops are pretty good these days, but they're still a lot more expensive than an equivalent desktop, and less expandable. USB hubs have helped equalize the expansion capabilities, though.

But for $500 plus about $150 for a 19" CRT you still get a lot more bang for your buck with a desktop in terms of hard disk capacity, screen size, cost of a DVD/CD combo drive, etc. Not to mention better keyboards, though once again a good keyboard for a laptop is just a USB port away.

Also, laptops are not as reliable as desktops, in part because they are made of smaller and more delicate components and in part because if something fails, you pretty much have to send the whole thing in for repair. With a desktop, you can much more easily replace the hard disk, display, modem, or other components.

I suspect that laptops are actually an endangered niche. Desktops are so convenient and expandable that they're not going away soon, though they are certainly shrinking and becoming more appliance-like (e.g. late model Apples). Handhelds are encroaching on laptop territory, and pretty soon I think smart phones with web and email access and semi-VGA screens are going to pretty much replace laptops for many away-from-the-office purposes.

Just anecdotally, I'd love to replace my dead Compaq Presario with an updated laptop, but I probably won't; my Palm T3 plus my bluetooth phone gives me instant email and web access on the road, and my palm keyboard lets me write stuff almost as easily as on a laptop. My need for a functioning laptop has virtually disappeared, and I'm thinking of getting a cheap modern Dell desktop instead.

Re:Well ..

[permaculture]

My mate Dave says laptops are only good because "they go further when you heave them out the window."

I remember a laptop that became a desktop after a mere 18 months, because the battery failed and *they had stopped making them*. It had to be plugged into the wall forever after that.

My reason for avoiding laptops is the heat dissapation. If you set a laptop and a desktop next to each other and run the hard drives intensively, the desktop can run 24/7 forever, essentially. The laptop stops itself after a few minutes because the hard drive is getting too hot. You sometimes get the same effect on some of the 'all-in-one' PCs that have the LCD screen built on.

My Mum bought a laptop. I told her she'd find the built in mouse pad less easy to use than a real mouse, and also it'd need to be plugged into the mains and network all the time. But she went ahead and got one anyway. A year later, and the laptop is tied down just as I had predicted. It has a USB hub too, with a scanner, printer, etc. It never gets taken 'off the grid' and used for mobile computing. No suprises there.

Re:Well ..

[luchaugh]

My company has started replacing laptops with desktops, as we've found (a) the laptops get destroyed far too frequently, and (b) the laptops were going home with users, but not for work purposes. Therefore, chain a desktop to their desk, and far fewer hardware repairs needed, plus no teenagers at home playing Doom or one-handed surfing on company hardware. I doubt this stat is accurate based on my experience, and the reasons stated by other posters.

Re:Well ..

[Leroy_Brown242]

Yes, only a matter of time before miniaturization made mainstream enough that laptops were viable desktop replacements in a reasonable size.

Re:Well ..

[marafa]

since u r not using it.. could you ship it to me? i will pay for delivery and use it to run linux which does not require a high end pc thanks in advance

Re:Well ..

[Agrippa]

I just bought my girlfriend a laptop with 1 gig ram, 1.6 P-M chip, 128 meg x300 video card, 15.4 inch screen, 9 cell battery, 60 gig hard drive, and - get this - 1920x1200 resolution. Total cost? 1350 shipped from Dell. Her laptop goes 5 hours a charge during normal use, and runs totally cool the whole time.

Honestly you need to reevaluate your stance on laptops, and I need to reevaluate the fact that my girlfriend has a better computer than me. .agrippa.

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

My Mum bought a laptop. I told her she'd find the built in mouse pad less easy to use than a real mouse, and also it'd need to be plugged into the mains and network all the time. But she went ahead and got one anyway. A year later, and the laptop is tied down just as I had predicted. It has a USB hub too, with a scanner, printer, etc. It never gets taken 'off the grid' and used for mobile computing. No suprises there.

I made the same arguement with my mother. I told her for what she was willing to pay for the laptop I could build her a far better computer, have money left over for a decent laser printer/scanner/fax/copier, and get her a 21" screen. I told her she would end up having to give up her dining room table, or some other desk space no matter what she did, because she would want to hook up to the net, would want to be able to print/copy/scan/fax, and with her eyes she would tire of the small laptop screen and the mini-keyboards they have.

Her arguement was that she could pick it up and take it to another room when she wanted that space back. Once I pointed out she would have to move all of the other stuff too, she started seeing it wasn't as great of a freedom as she thought it was. That and the $700 difference in price by the time she found a laptop with a screen that was acceptable to her.

I'm sure she misses having a computer when she takes vacations, probably even internet withdrawal, but she is far too technically illiterate to set up the networking herself, so it really doesn't matter, she wouldn't have it anyway.

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[VolcomPimp]

I bought a DTR this year. I got rid of my PC last year and bought a used Dell, sold it and bought an Asus Z80K this year.I got a fat hookup from a guy w/ a wholesale license. For me, I'd much rather have a computer that I can use anywhere in the house, rather than have to sit in front of a huge desk with a loud cpu fan that could be heard all over the house, all so I could play 3d games once every few months. My 9700 mobility is good enough for any games I play. I don't travel much with it but when I need to I can. I was buying bulky pc's once every year and a half but the price just wasn't justified.

Re:Well ..

[poofyhairguy82]

60 gig hard drive

There is the point if you missed it.

Re:Well ..

[Awptimus Prime]

Wow, there are "senior" level developers out there who really think all these things?

Most of the other replies have covered discrediting most things this guy said, but there is also the issue of upgrades. A typical laptop can take a range of processors and some come with miniPCI. If you buy a lower-end CPU for one, make sure the board in it can support higher speed chips and you are set.

There are also 7200 rpm drives for laptops.

Price? Yes, but if you are really a senior developer, you probably have some math skills. If you are able to set up shop anywhere when you get an idea or whatever, that is money made.

I have not seen any laptop in any store for several years that could only support 1024x768, except for the tiny systems, but almost all of those have had 16:9 displays for a while.

Re:Well ..

[myxmyx]

At my office, almost everyone is deployed a laptop. We moved from desktops to laptops about two years ago when we moved to non-permanent workspaces. We're expected to work from home at least one day a week. We also have portable office phones and movable drawer trolleys that we park at our workspace for the day. Also, most employees have meetings where they are expected to bring laptops. Now, only people who can't work from home, like the admin assistants, have desktops.

Re:Well ..

[Rii]

That hard drive is a bottleneck. 60GB??? I went to Fry's on saturday (major computer retailer in CA and a few other states) and got a Western Digital 80BG for $70 with $50 in rebates. It was the smalles WD HDD they had. So your 1337 laptop has less storage than the bargain desktop drive.

Sure, laptops are getting pretty great. But that's far, far less than you'd get in a $1350 laptop.

Re:Well ..

[MerlinTheWizard]

Well, your girlfriend must have been feeling pretty special after you bought her that. ;-)

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

My laptop has ran almost 24/7 for the past five years.

It's also just getting to the point that I find it too slow. And that's mainly because it still only has 128MB of RAM.

Re:Well ..

[hhghghghh]

1900x1200.. Great way to go blind (peering at a Dell Latitude D800 screen as I type this)

Re:Well ..

[Cyberax]

Well, my notebook has 7200RPM hard drive (Hitachi Travelstar), 2GB of RAM, Pentium M 1.8Ghz, 1400x1050 screen resolution (with 15.1" screen), DVD-RW, WiFi, 2.7kg weight and about 5 hours of battery life. This configuration is ideal for development, IMHO.

Its price is $1500, I assembled it myself from barebone A-Open platform.

Re:Well ..

[jacksonj04]

On a 15.4" it definately is. I don't go any higher than 1600x1200 on a 19".

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you lie to you mom like that? poor bitch, i bet you even tried to get her into linux.

Re:Well ..

[zevans]

On a 15.4" it definately is. I don't go any higher than 1600x1200 on a 19"

Yeah. This is a problem with laptops now - the dot pitch is just TOO SMALL, and if you want to run a lower resolution (because you've misplaced your jeweller's eyeglass) that doesn't work too well on an LCD.

On my laptops I always have to get large fonts on, and it's amazing how many programs there are out there that STILL break listboxes and stuff when LFs enabled.

Not a problem for the 9 out of 10 laptops which never leave a desk of course, as other posters have pointed out...

Re:Well ..

[Technician]

I personally have had the "same" computer for about 4 years.

That's about normal. Take a typical power user. They have a good desk machine and the kids have to cast off. They also have a laptop. The desk top gets used at least 4 years and gets pawned off on the kids to extend it. A cola gets spilled on the keyboard and the keyboard gets replaced.

Laptops... Either the battery dies after 12-18 months and it's considered obsolete. The laptop gets replaced instead getting a new battery. The coke gets spilled into the keyboard. The laptop gets replaced. The briefcase is left on the roof of the car while the presentation is loaded then forgotton. Know how many laptops are left in taxi cabs each year? These things don't happen to a desktop.

When laptop and desktop sales are equal, I'm guessing desktops are still used 4:1 more than laptops. Laptops just get replaced more often due to them getting the hard knocks of mobile life.

Re:Well ..

[rikkards]

the lower end laptops I see nowadays have 15.4" widescreens with 1280x800 resolution.
Have you looked at any of the Centrino laptops? They are all limited to 1024x768 resolution. I have never heard of a reason for this but I assume it is for power saving.

Myself, I picked up a refurbed Compaq R3000 which is a big widescreen with 1280x800. I would have rather got something a smidge smaller as it is the biggest (modern) laptop I have seen in person as of now (barring the huge Dell one they announced earlier this year).

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I totally agree. Man, 60Gigs cant even hold my Simpsons archives, which I watch over and over again every day!

Seriously, 60gigs is plenty for anything but hardcore warezing.

Re:Well ..

[xSauronx]

im getting ready to move from desktop to laptop, but its because the only reason i had a desktop was for gaming. otherwise i browse the web, email, gaim, play some mp3s or small videos, nothing intensive enough to need a fast hard drive (or a monstrous one) or a dedicatred video card. i prefer a desktop, but since my ex is taking it, a laptop will be a nice change, let me move around the house a bit or go outside and relax.

but when you really need power, theres no doubt that a desktop is the way to go...but alot of people dont *need* all that power. im going to miss it though

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiosity, which Dell model was it? I'm looking for recommendations on laptops myself at the moment.

Re:Well ..

[mikael]

Even worse, a Linux laptop won't shutdown if it becomes too hot - I lost a hard-drive this way. Normally, the laptop was used with the screen up, so there weren't any heat problems, but one time the screen was folded down for 36+ hours. Some time during this time, there was a grinding noise and the hard drive packed in.

According to a typical hard drive specification

Service life of the drive is approximately 5 years or 20,000 power on hours, which comes first, under the following
assumptions:
Less than 333 power on hours per month.
Seeking/Writing/Reading operation is less than 20% of power on hours.

Re:Well ..

[trewornan]

Laptops where I work are so locked down you can't install ANY software on them at all, can't change the configuration, etc. In fact the only access I've got is a hard disk directory for storing files. I thought long and hard about hacking it but decided it wasn't worth putting my job at risk over. Quite hard to hack as well - bios password, no built in disk drives (so no booting from cd or floppy), but I think a shatter attack might still work. Or if I can get at the sam file (possibly by taking out the hard drive) l0pthcrack should work.

Re:Well ..

[Dogtanian]

You could have bought your Mum a computer with a built in printer; like this one.

Re:Well ..

[Garak]

You kinda got that backwards, Desktops are becoming the niche. The average user wants something simple, one power cable and thats it. Thats exactly what laptops offer. When they do break its easy for them to just close the screen and carry to the nearest service depot.

I, on the other hand, just buy used laptops off ebay. No need for a 1Ghz+ machine for just running firefox and ssh. When something breaks I got a junker that I can grab part from. My current machine has been through hell and back and still runs great, I think I'm on my 3rd battery, I keep lucking in and getting pretty desent batteries with the used machines. Hell I can even run some old games on this machine. My current laptop is a dell latitude PII 400 /w 256megs of ram, only got a 6.5gig HD, but thats where the lan comes in.

I still have a powerful desktop machine that I use for gaming and lately mostly just a media player. The laptop is more pratical for day to day use. I'm use to the keyboard, more so than my desktop's keyboard.

I can see desktops in their current modular/user upgradeable form becoming more expensive than laptops in a few years. Custom built desktops will become a niche for power users and gamers. While adverage users go for iMac like all in one systems and laptops, and business goes towards thin clients. Don't get me wrong, this isn't going to happen over night.

Re:Well ..

[CausticPuppy]

I have not seen any laptop in any store for several years that could only support 1024x768

Try going into an Apple Store. :-)

Re:Well ..

[vasqzr]

Have you looked at any of the Centrino laptops? They are all limited to 1024x768 resolution. I have never heard of a reason for this but I assume it is for power saving.

Are you trolling? I've had my Dell 700M for almost a year, and it is a Centrino/1200x800

Re:Well ..

[Albio]

As a student going back and forth between the dorm and home (Christmas, summer, occaisionally on weekends), I find having a portable computer a great convenience. I'm willing to put up with this laptop (P3 700mhz, 256mb SDRAM) precisely because it's easier than hauling around an ATX case and LCD monitor. But I admit that I hardly use my computer away from my desk.

Re:Well ..

[yog]

If laptops get so cheap that they supplant desktops, well, I'm all for it. Laptops are very convenient. I just don't see the miniaturization cost going away soon. Desktops just seem to always stay one step ahead on the cost/performance curve.

I agree that Ebay's a great place to buy laptops.

The only niche use I'd want a state of the art laptop for is music recording, where portability combined with capacious hard disks and CD burner comes in handy.

Re:Well ..

[ebvwfbw]

Laptops are still too slow compared to desktops, especially the hard drives.

Not really. I have a Sager AMD - 64 laptop with a 17" screen. I'm usually the envy of the plane whenever I take it out. I edit videos (even has firewire built in), it has a 60 Gig high speed ide disk so I can easily edit a 20 gig - 1 hour avi file. It cooks right along and will even run on my shoulder, in the car, etc.. Has a DVD burner built in. It beats my desktop even with an accelerator card for the graphics and 320 Meg/sec SCSI disk with adaptec raid. And I can take it anyplace, even lock it in an industrial/commercial (standard Mosler or Diebold) grade safe if security is an issue. I do wish I could get much larger drives though. I need around a TB on that machine so I can hold more video data longer. I'm sure that is coming soon. I'm thinking in another 10 years desktops will be a thing of the past. Sort of like mainframes are today.

Re:Well ..

[clontzman]

I have a Dell 8600 which has very similar specs (Radeon 9600 Pro gfx card instead of the x300). It's a great, fast machine. Little on the heavy side, but it's extremely powerful, especially for a laptop. Optional 60GB 7200rpm drive probably has a lot to do with that.

Re:Well ..

[AstroDrabb]

How much did this system cost you? I do agree with you though about desktops being obsolete in about 10 years. I just personally don't have a great need for a laptop (don't travel much). I personally would rather spend half to one quarter the price on a desktop.

Re:Well ..

[AstroDrabb]

Wow, there are "senior" level developers out there who really think all these things?

Huh? What does that mean?

but there is also the issue of upgrades. A typical laptop can take a range of processors and some come with miniPCI. If you buy a lower-end CPU for one, make sure the board in it can support higher speed chips and you are set.

Some yes, but not your average laptop. To get one with those features and decent battery life you are going to be paying at least twice what a desktop would cost. What are the benefits? To me there are none. I am not a "road warrior". I program in my office at work on a 19" LCD or my office at home on a 21" CRT. If I need to work between the two systems, I connect in over VPN. I never have to worry about dragging around a laptop bag with all my gear. Also, read the warranty on many of those laptops, they are voided if you try to replace system parts such as a processor.

There are also 7200 rpm drives for laptops

Not standard on your average laptop so you would have to pay for an upgrade.

My laptop is only 2 years old and it is already out dated. It has only two USB 2.0 ports, and a DVD/CDRW. I need to burn DVD's so I would have to buy and external DVD burner which again, costs more. I need a a lot USB ports to connect my printer, camera and other devices. I wanted a tv tuner card, etc. All these things I can do with my home desktop without any problems and for the best cost. I don't want to have to lug around a laptop bag with two batteries, USB hub, mouse, external keyboard (I want to program with a full keyboard), external DVD burner and other USB devices and play musical wires. I have everything I need plugged into my desktop and they stay plugged in.

I have not seen any laptop in any store for several years that could only support 1024x768

Strange, because two Christmas's ago I bought a new laptop for $1,100 and it only does 1024x768. If you push the resolution higher, the desktop doesn't fit on the screen and your left scrolling around to get to what you need. No thanks.

Most of the other replies have covered discrediting most things this guy said

How can you "discredit" my _opinion_? That is just stupid. If you are a laptop fan, then by all means, go out and pay the extra money for them and enjoy. For me they do not meet my needs and thus not worth the extra money.

Re:Well ..

[Agrippa]

Remember, its for my chick, who isn't going to be watching movies, listening to a vast mp3 collection, playing games, etc. She is doing a pretty neat project that involves a lot of internet research and Photoshop and needed something to work on. I doubt in 4 years she'll fill up 60 gigs. The laptop I use every day of my life for both work and home has only 20 gigs and I manage to do fine. If she really needs the extra space, we have a 300 gig external hard drive she can plug into. If the laptop was for myself I would of upgraded to the 100 gig, but for her I opted to go with the best video card upgrade I could get in order to help future-proof it. I can always get a larger hard drive later if she really needs it.

Yes, the 1920x1200 resolution is really really really hard to read. I mainly got it because I was trying to upgrade the laptop to $1999 so I could use a coupon for $750 off $1999, and I decided that she could use that screen resolution in her mobile Photoshop work. For normal use she puts it another resolution.

.agrippa.

Re:Well ..

[ebvwfbw]

How much did this system cost you?

I Don't remember. It was for the wife to replace a very overused workhorse Compaq laptop. That compaq is still in use today by my Son. Seems to me that it was around $2,000 at the time. They start on page here

I think I would start with the NP4750-V and go from there. I think my wife's machine has a 2400+ in it. It even runs XP fast. I had trouble with FC-1 64 bit (not as much stuff for it, some errors) so I loaded the 32 bit version and it worked fine. I haven't tried a later version yet. My wife uses it to the point I can't get it away from her for very long. The way I would get it, it is $2265 (64 3700+ woo hoo!). My desktop machines are lasting about 5 years now before I want to replace them.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the heat. Both in laptops and desktops. Make sure that if you do use a laptop on your lap, you are protected. It can start to cook what it rests on, and that may be a very sensitive part of you. I won't put mine on my lap directly. I have read that burns of this type really hurt. Like a good case of sunburn.

I'm thinking of getting a new system to replace my desktop and I'm seriously considering a laptop.

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

My Dell laptop (which I use for development while on-site) does 1600x1200, 7200 RPM drive, and sports an nVidia Quadro video card. Also 2 years old, your laptop sucks. Meh.

Battery life not too good at around 2 hours, but it's got a lot of RAM and stuff plus this is old technology we're talking about.

Most laptops these days (Centrino, Apple) average 4 to 6 hours on a charge. My iBook lasts most of the day without needing a recharge. You're thinking old laptops.

Re:Well ..

[toddestan]

As a student doing the same thing, I just had multiple computers. Nice one at school, an older one at home. An external harddrive to haul data around. Worked great.

Re:Well ..

[colman77]

"Laptops... Either the battery dies after 12-18 months [or] it's considered obsolete" "Screw you, biatch!" That's all my P2 200mhz laptop manufactured in 1997 has to say.

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Toshiba Tecras

If you hunt carefully, you can find the ones with the 1400x1050, 15" LCD displays.

Very nice for reading lots of text

I've used these screens for almost 4 years now and would never go back to even a 1280x1024. The fun part is where web page designers (a.k.a. those stupid-ijits) assume you have a standard 96dpi display so everything looks super tiny on your nice 125dpi display.

The wide-screen 1280x768 displays leave me cold. Less resolution than I have now. Other tip is to skimp on CPU speed and max out the RAM.

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

/shrug

If you buy the right system, a good laptop will last 3 years (or 4) now.

I'm still using an old Tecra 9100 from spring of 2002. Over the past 3 years I've bumped the memory up to 1GB and upgraded the HD (once to a 60GB, now to a 90GB).

I probably use this system about 12+ hours per day, 7 days a week. It's my primary work machine. Biggest issue is that the backlight strength is starting to fade a bit and the rubber on the built-in mouse buttons are horribly dented.

I *may* replace it next spring, but I haven't decided yet. That would be 4 years of use.

Re:Well ..

[rikkards]

Are you trolling? I've had my Dell 700M for almost a year, and it is a Centrino/1200x800
Not intentionally. But look for any standard resolution centrino based laptop. I wasn't really interested in Widescreen but was looking for 1280x1024 resolution like an old IBM A31 I had prior but with a Pentium M and wifi. Everything I saw was 1024x768.

I guess I should have said "Unless you go widescreen" at the beginning of that sentence.

Re:Well ..

[Anonymous Coward]

1900x1200.. Great way to go blind (peering at a Dell Latitude D800 screen as I type this)

I know a better way!

Re:Well ..

[mokomull]

Well, no, technically you were right... I have an Intel 855GM graphics card (standard for the Centrino architecture), with which I installed Linux. I have to run a special utility to get the card to "understand" 1280x800... otherwise, it only understands 4:3 (i.e. 800x600, 1024x768, etc) aspect ratios, with which, 1024x768 would be the highest possible on this hardware :-D

However, I also know that with Windows this thing would have done 1280x1024 effortlessly :-)

Re:Well ..

[Moofie]

Well, if your mate Dave says it, it must be true! I can't imagine what I was thinking when I made MY purchasing decision.

I use a wireless network and a cordless mouse. I take my laptop (which has never, ever stopped itself after a few minutes, unless I shut the lid and it goes happily to sleep) with me most of the time when I leave the house.

Get what works for you, and don't piss about what you think should work for other people. Just because your mom made an unwise decision doesn't mean anybody who makes the same decision is unwise.

Re:Well ..

[ssimontis]

Yes, you can get a good desktop for cheaper. Refurb machines tend to make laptops come a bit closer to fair pricing. Last night, I bougt an HP OmniBook with a 1GHz Pentium 3-M processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a 20GB HD for $500. While it is still a little pricey, I managed to avoid lower end components. Is it better than my desktop? No. Is it good enough to perform my tasks? Yes. If you wanted to do video editing or whatever you do that takes so much processing power, would you look at buying a cheap machine? The best advantage to a laptop is portability. Even with the heaviest laptops, I would still much rather lug one of those to my friends house versus my desktop machine. Have you ever tried to do that before? I'm just glad I don't have a CRT monitor anymore. And if your laptop ways less, then you can take it to Starbucks or work outside, which I think is a great thing. Laptops have their advantages, but they come at a price. You may think that its too much to pay for portability, but it looks like most people think its a fair price.

This is in units sold

[Anonymous Coward]

They overtook desktops in revenue in 2003.

Re:This is in units sold

[ZephyrXero]

So they aren't counting the thousands of self built systems out there? Probably didn't count local sellers either... Once again statistics proven worthless.

Re:This is in units sold

[Skippy_kangaroo]

I think you answer your own point - "the thousands of self built systems out there". It would have to be hundreds of thousands to make a dent in the statistics.

The plural of anecdote is not data - no matter how many friends you have.

Re:This is in units sold

[heli0]

Here is an article from back then:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chroni cle/archive/2003/07/07/BU118578.DTL&type=business

Monday, July 7, 2003

Laptops accounted for 54.2 percent of the $500 million in revenue generated by U.S. retail computer sales in May, the first time portables have surpassed their desktop counterparts in that category, according to research by the NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y.

The average price in May 2003 was $1,300 for a laptop compared with $757 for a desktop.

And 60 percent of all computers sold in May were desktops. However, the percentage of laptop units sold has risen from 30.5 percent in May 2002 to 40 percent in May 2003.

Re:This is in units sold

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're investing in Dell or Alienware or HP or Apple, you're probably not interested in stats about self built systems. The statistics aren't worthless. You just aren't interested in utilizing the information presented.

Re:This is in units sold

[Paperweight]

I'm not a statician, but I'd say it's close enough.

Re:This is in units sold

[donscarletti]

I guess the grandparent just forgot that slashdot was targeted towards investors.

Re:This is in units sold

[kc32]

Do you know how many white-box systems there are out there? Neither do I, there's craploads of them.

Re:This is in units sold

[child_of_mercy]

Most attempts to quantify it have whiteboxes at least a third of the market, maybe more.

Re:This is in units sold

[kc32]

Exactly, and since almost all whiteboxes are desktops, I think the numbers are skewed.

Re:This is in units sold

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Yeah, Slashdot was stupid enough to link to a Business Week article. Said article also said that the numbers tracked were for the US only, not global sales.

Re:This is in units sold

[dtfinch]

If it was only thousands, it wouldn't make a big difference.

I've also seen message boards where people talk about buying certain Dell servers to use as desktops. Depending on where you draw the line between high end desktop and low end server, the totals can vary a bit.

Re:This is in units sold

[vought]

So this means the average cost per system sold is going up, not down?

Re:This is in units sold

[NitsujTPU]

I've never seen a computer build itself...

Re:This is in units sold

[fafalone]

Well, when you come up with a better way of scientifically detecting patterns in large volumes of information, and using that to make predications which come true at a signficant level (and how do you determine whats significant without statistics without resorting to "seems like", "looks like", or other non-scientific nonsense?), you be sure to let everyone know. If you really think statistics in general are worthless, you are beyond ignorant as to their underlying workings. Oh, and where's your "proof" that these particular statistics are worthless? Do you have access to information that self-built systems significantly contribute to overall desktop use? How did you determine its significance, using "worthless" statistics? Or is your proof just some random thoughts of a non-expert who has absolutely no clue what they're talking about?
I'd absolutely LOVE to see you PROVE that these statistics are worthless, and without statistics like significance tests, averages, etc... since those are so worthless. The only thing that pisses me off than bad statistical analyses is people like this troll who discount the entire field because of their ignorance.

Re:This is in units sold

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if, by "quantify it" you mean "take a wild-assed guess with no basis in fact."

A third of all computer sales are homebrew jobs made by Linux geeks buying parts from pricewatch orders? Please. Get serious.

Think for a moment of how many truckloads of Dells the typical corporation buys in a year. Then consider how many people working for said big corporations buy their PC's through office discount programs.

Then consider that less that 5% of all computer users even fully grasp that the "computer" is actually that big box under their desk, not the TV-like box on top of it. Give me a fucking break. A third of these chimps own whiteboxes!? You're insane.

Re:This is in units sold

[Killer Napkin]

It's not like it would be impossible to to quantify it. Consider that Intel produces a certain number of processors each year that are then passed on to companies like Dell and to little computer and electronic stores. It wouldn't be too hard to get how many the larger companies buy. We could just ask Intel (assuming that they're willing to divulge that information.)

The remainder of the processors manufactured and sold would be the upper bound on white-boxes. That number would still likely be too high. To make that number a bit more reasonable, you'd have to conduct a very careful survey of computer shops, accounting for the fact that those little shops fold up all the time and function differently, depending on the local market. If you poll the right 1000 shops worldwide, you'd probably get a very accurate picture of how many whiteboxes are built.

The plural of anecdote may not be data, but if done properly, it can be a damned good survey. It's complicated and few people would have the patience nor the training to do it properly, but it's certainly possible. Of course, most people who care whether laptops outsold desktops probably don't care how many whiteboxes are sold.

Re:This is in units sold

[SacredNaCl]

I have some 2004 numbers for the 4rd quarter.

For instance ECS (awful boards) sold 1.26 million motherboards, 25,000 laptop boards. ASROCK/AsusTek 3.3 million boards, 200,000 notebooks. MSI 1.1 million boards. Gigabyte - 950,000 motherboards.

The problem with just running with those is that companies like MSI also make boards for Emachines-Gateway/HP/many others. ECS used to do extensive work for IBM in the 90's (which explains some of those awful machines from then) -- Some major player must be using them, I can't imagine home sales of ECS boards are that high (though they are favored by bargain basement whitebox builders). Even Asus boards are showing up in HP's these days. So it's hard to seperate out the markets.

If we could break these down by form factor it would be more enlightening. Most of the boards sold to OEMs are MATX. Most home builders aren't buying the MATX boards. I'm sure the motherboard companies have accurate numbers published somewhere, maybe in their financial statements of investment prospectus but I'm far too sleep deprived to go fishing.

Re:This is in units sold

[antic]

Whether the figures are accurate or useful or not, it's still a trend I've supported. I have countless desktop machines sitting around. At our house, we have 3-4 laptops all sharing a wireless ADSL connection. I think it's worth the increased price and lessened upgrade ability to be able to easily work, research, read or muck around on the net from the dining room, lounge room, bedroom, backyard, wherever.

If you're self-employed, it's a huge advantage being able to have the same consistent working environment at home, at the office, or on the road. I can't see myself buying another desktop, to be honest. I have an external 250GB drive to handle loads of music and movies, and I have a 21" CRT at the office and 19" at home when I'm concentrating on work.

Other professionals I work with use laptops rather than desktops. My brother (non-tech) has two laptops and no desktops. My parents have a desktop, but are looking to replace it with a laptop. Definitely a good option for more and more people considering the affordability and capability of Dell or Apple laptops in 2005.

Re:This is in units sold

[prelelat]

I built my first computer about 4 years ago for my parents using an ECS board, at the time people on the review site said it was a decent board for a great price, I bought its and the thing is still working wonderfully, 3 years ago I bought one for myself, this time the reviews showed that the ECS boards were crap and that if you got a working one you should kiss the ground and clap your hands. Mines worked wonderfully for me, I'm about the replace the whole system(I've upgraded the cpu and ram since then but its getting old) and I don't think I would touch ECS again, I bought 3 boards for friends of mine. 2 of the three had to be taken back the next day because a slot wouldn't work or an on board componant like built in lan wouldn't work. And out of the three boards I think all had to be scraped after the warrenty. They were horrible. It was a nice board to have when it came out , had a 1.1 ghz duron in it, then upgraded to my current 2200+ XP processor.

Anyways now that I've trailed off topic long enough to get modded down, I do have to say something, I can see that laptops are picking up alot of steam. You can take them anywhere you can run almost anything on them even some with doom 3 if you want to spend the cash at a place like alien ware. They have wireless capabilities and with Hotels, Coffee shops and Air Ports sporting wireless services more and more as a standard feature to get people to come in it seems logical that people would want to take advantage of it. I mean I used to have an old 386 laptop(it was fun to play old BBS style game on and have people laugh at how bulky it was and the fact it had no battery) that couldn't be taken anywhere, no chance for upgrades and it ran even slower than a 286 at points. The advancement of laptops seems to have been a little slower, and now its gaining momentum. People want a computer with them when the are out of town, they don't want to use someone elses system that might be compromised or just not setup how they like.

I think that in the future people will end up having laptops and desktops will be confined to the small areas of server rooms and hard core gamers(if the console market doesn't stop that soon)

Re:This is in units sold

[nicke999]

No, this proves that Slashdots blurbs making conclusions that does not exist. This statstic shows that there were more laptops sold than pre-built systems. I would not call that a "worthless" statistic.

Re:This is in units sold

[noidentity]

The only thing that pisses me off than bad statistical analyses is people like this troll who discount the entire field because of their ignorance.

Not as bad as your pissy rant.

Re:This is in units sold

[tim_mcc]

I think the point he was making is that statistics can often be skewed to say what you want them to say.

For example, taking a sample that exists solely in my house, I could come up with the following figures:

5 Desktops: 71%
2 Laptops: 29%

Therefore the vast majority of machines are desktops, with a small subtext to state how I took the sample that nobody will notice.

Happens frequently in the media, the evidence is all around us. Statistics should not be ignored and can be extremely useful, but they should be examined properly. Something a lot of people fail to do.

Re:This is in units sold

[klubar]

The number of laptops sold may be related to their replacement frequency. Laptops have a much shorter lifespan than desktops--too expensive to repair, run hotter, get handled more roughly and tend to be at the lower end of performance.

The number of desktops in use is much higher than the number of laptops. There was a similar article yesterday in ./ about the number of Macintoshes in use. Because of the longer lifespan of Macintoshes the number of deployed Macs is greater than their percent of yearly sales. (As an aside, the article quoted was devoid of facts and lacked any statistical significance, as does this one).

Re:This is in units sold

[Moraelin]

"I can't imagine home sales of ECS boards are that high (though they are favored by bargain basement whitebox builders)."

Actually I can. My A64 box, which is to say my main computer, is on an ECS motherboard and a SIS chipset at that. Rock stable, good drivers, the traditional SIS good IDE performance.

I actually had a MSI motherboard before, and it died on me. Now many people do complain about MSI, but in my case I think I'm the one to blame for ruining it. Long story, involves a bloody huge copper heatsink. Anyway, I did have a MSI for half a year.

Then I got the ECS/SIS for less than half the price. Guess what? It's just as fast (if nothing else, the memory controller is on the CPU anyway), just as stable, has all the features _I_ need (no, I didn't really need _two_ gigabyte Ethernet chips on-board, nor two different IDE-RAID chips) and generally Just Works (TM).

From my experience with lots of mobos (I _am_ a compulsive upgrader), most of the difference between buying the most expensive board from a big name like Asus or an el-cheapo brand like ECS or Asroc is:

1. Overclocking features. Cheap mobos don't give you much control over timings and voltages. (Yay for the privilege of paying an extra 100$ to overclock a CPU by 5%. No, seriously;)

2. Unneeded bells, whistles and gongs to call it a "premium" or "deluxe" version and charge twice the price. (And for me it's invariably stuff I didn't need anyway.)

Re:This is in units sold

[dnoyeb]

I run Asus because I have over the last 10-15 years found it to be the most stable and overall reliable board. I do not buy them because they overclock or have some bells and whistles I never use.

I simply got tired of putting up with broken stuff. None of my asus boards ever died. I had a dead Abit, and a dead other brand that got replaced. But never Asus.

They cost more, but when your buying for your wife or your mother, you really dont want to be hearing complaints week after week...

Re:This is in units sold

[teslatug]

How do you suppose they could count self-built units? Do you check a box every time you buy a hard drive:
1) for new self-built system
2) for addition to existing system

Re:This is in units sold

[ZephyrXero]

This is pretty much what I was saying... Most of the time people hold statistics up to be infalible even though the numbers are coming from a small test group. Even in the article I doubt they went to every single home and business in America for their study. Statistics are fine and dandy when used properly, but most people (non-statisticians) take them to be perfect when they're not. Skewed statistics have been a vital part of what's wrong in corporations and our gov't. People who know nothing about statistics taking a look at a small group without consideration of other factors and then make a decision based solely off of it.

You know the old saying: "95% of statistics are just made up on the spot" (then make sure to change that 95 to a different random number each time you use the quote) :P

Re:This is in units sold

[ZephyrXero]

It would only be worth something if every single manufacturer were polled; even little mom and pop shops, and I seriously doubt they went through all that trouble. Statistics are fine for getting an idea of the way things are, but they should never be held up as undeniable fact.

Re:This is in units sold

[SacredNaCl]

I understand your point of view. No one wants to pay more than they have to, or buy features they don't need.

My impression of ECS/PCChips boards (same company) comes from having worked on so many of them. In electronics you tend to see a bathtub curve for failure if you were to plot it out. Generally speaking, you have a fair amount of DOA and dead very quickly products. These tend to die within the first 90 days (some products this plays out over 5-6 months). Products that survive this initial period, tend to work for a long time (years) until they die because of wear out. Wear out usually happens in about 7-10 years for PC components if they are handled properly.

ECS & PCChips both seem to have usually high DOA and fail early rates, but they also seem to have an extremely high failure rate at 1-3 years out. Instead of a smooth bathtub curve that is high at the beginning and end but low during the middle, you get one that looks more like a porcupine.

They are by no means alone in this. Most of the MATX boards from DFI follow the bathtub curve, as do their high end ATX boards, but the ATX ones in the middle (probably due to using a thinner PCB, 4 layers instead of 6), tend to show the procupine pattern. The Compaq Presarios I've worked on also had this porcupine curve of failure, though a slightly lower DOA.

Early failure, while annoying, can usually be delt with under warranty. Its a hassle, but you aren't out the full cost of the motherboard to get a replacement. Those 1-3 year failures are a lot more problematic as the warranty has expired.

The other joy with PCChips/ECS boards is playing the "Guess my model # by serial & FCC ID" game. I've worked on several of them that didn't have a mark on them other than that.

It is possible that not all of this is the fault of ECS, as the people who tend to buy ECS also tend to buy the $30 case/power supply combo, or get the ECS/PCChips board from the local white box builder who competes exclusively on price and skimp wherever they can get away with it. Cheap power supplies tend to have a lot of ripple, they aren't very stable, and this does greatly shorten component life and lead to a lot of instability issues.

Re:This is in units sold

[toddestan]

I built my first computer about 4 years ago for my parents using an ECS board, at the time people on the review site said it was a decent board for a great price, I bought its and the thing is still working wonderfully, 3 years ago I bought one for myself, this time the reviews showed that the ECS boards were crap and that if you got a working one you should kiss the ground and clap your hands. Mines worked wonderfully for me, I'm about the replace the whole system(I've upgraded the cpu and ram since then but its getting old) and I don't think I would touch ECS again, I bought 3 boards for friends of mine. 2 of the three had to be taken back the next day because a slot wouldn't work or an on board componant like built in lan wouldn't work. And out of the three boards I think all had to be scraped after the warrenty. They were horrible. It was a nice board to have when it came out , had a 1.1 ghz duron in it, then upgraded to my current 2200+ XP processor.

My one experience with ECS was a computer I bought when the Cyrix 6x86 PR200 (no MMX) was the chip you'd find in the bottom of the line bargain basement whitebox. To this day, the computer is still completely stable. Cheap stuff like ECS is really hit and miss though, now I rather spend a little more money and get something that's less of a gamble.

Re:This is in units sold

[Daniel Dvorkin]

>> The only thing that pisses me off than bad statistical analyses is people like this troll who discount the entire field because of their ignorance.

> Not as bad as your pissy rant.

Oh, fuck off. GP poster wasn't being "prissy" -- he was making an important point, and doing so in the most restrained possible way. (In your world, apparently, restraint and well-thought-out language constitute prissiness, so I'm taking the gloves off.) It's a constant source of frustration that the fact that statistics can be misused leads so many people to assume that they always are misused. An enormous amount of what we know about our world comes from the proper use of statistics, even if people like you don't understand that. (This usually goes hand-in-hand with a misunderstanding of statistics as a field of study in an of itself.) So here's an idea: why don't you go your merry way in ignorance, enjoying the fruits of the labor of people who actually know how to think, and keep your mouth shut in the presence of your betters.

Re:This is in units sold

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Once again statistics proven worthless.

Citing one bad statistic (and I don't think this is a bad statistic, actually) to say "all statistics are worthless" is like citing one buggy computer to say "all computers are worthless."

Re:This is in units sold

[ZephyrXero]

Hense the term "Once again", meaning more than just this one case ;) ...when I said worthless, I should have made it more clear... It is fine when used properly, but the average person has been trained by the PR guys to take it as exact truth when it's only as good as its test group.

Re:This is in units sold

[child_of_mercy]

The typical corporatw market is a big one, but with every surburban computer store selling their own white boxes that's also a big truckload of machines

ditto at weekend computer markets which do a thriving business in these parts at least.

Dell make incompatible crap and most people know it. They also like being able to go back to the person who sold the machine and getting it fixed, not arseing about with shipping.

How can they tell?

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy system parts from vendors and put them together themselves. Are they counting that?

How old is this?

[jjeff]

First time my arse..

How many businesses ONLY purchase laptops and servers now?

Everybody I know buying computers has been going for laptops for the last couple of years.

Re:How old is this?

[spectre_240sx]

And most of the people I deal with (I work at a computer store) have been going for desktop systems. That's not really an objective way to measure market share.

since 2003

[SuperQ]

Of course, as reported on engadget.. first time ever.. since 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/03/technology/03TBR F1.html?ex=1118030400&en=cb60405e864fa27a&ei=5070

Re:since 2003

[PyroMosh]

That was by total revenue, not units sold. The average cost per unit is lower with desktops than notebooks by several hundred dollars. So it's natural that they would outpace desktops in revenue before they did so in units sold.

This is simply the first time they're doing it with units sold too.

As expected

[moyix]

Pretty much as expected. I work for a uni helpdesk, and the desktop/laptop ratio dropped below 1 long ago. Which is nice, since I don't have to help deliver desktops on opening day any more :D

Re:As expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here... Everyone wants a laptop. The interesting thing is that a very high number (20-30%) never I mean NEVER leave the office.

So?

[kc32]

My tower has a handle on it. And it weighs in at an incredibly portable 42 pounds.

Re:So?

[Reorax]

And it has a battery life of one-half of ten minutes?

Re:So?

[kc32]

lol, more like one-half of 10 ms on the PSU capacitors. But my Compy 886 (A64 to you) does indeed have a handle.

Re:So?

[Skippy_kangaroo]

Luxury! Sheer luxury!

When I were a lad, we had portables that could barely play Adventure let alone this new fangled Zork thing.

Kids these days don't know how good they have it.

Re:So?

[Alternate Interior]

Really? My Compaq Portable III also has a handle, and weighs only 27 LBS. It's a portable, but you could set it on its side if you really want a tower.

Re:So?

[kc32]

I just took the 42 pounds from a Strong Bad e-mail. My comp's probably lighter than that. Haven't weighed it yet.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

"My tower has a handle on it"

Is that what kids are calling it these days?

"And it weighs in at an incredibly portable 42 pounds."

well, don't be modest. But, if it's attached to your groin, I guess it's got to be portable! wouldn't want to leave that thing at home for any length of time.

Re:So?

[kc32]

Nice. Hey, my first 5-point post, cool. But it's a computer tower I'm talking about here.

Re:So?

[Captain Nitpick]

My tower has a handle on it. And it weighs in at an incredibly portable 42 pounds.

From the phrasing, one might get the idea that you think that's heavy.

Re:So?

[psetzer]

He has sort of a point there, if you ask me. If you are the type who only uses their laptop plugged into something, a new iMac is almost a reasonable substitute. All the power of a modern desktop with a bit more portability than a modern desktop. Just allow someone to pop off the base for easier transportation, make a bag that's a little bigger with space for your keyboard and mouse, and you've got something you can drag to your hotel room whenever you're on a business trip.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

The term for that is luggable.

5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[schestowitz]

Hardware become smaller and cheaper. The CPU speed changes slowly; RAM and all of that malarkey matters very little at this point where the O/S just doesn't need it.

So, smaller is equally good.

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[TheKidWho]

no, pdas are too small to be of any use, ive had plenty of them to know.

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[ZephyrXero]

The pepper pad looks pretty neat, but I guess it's not quite small enough to be considered a PDA....

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[IcarusMoth]

I like my PDAs. I find that using my desktop as the central repository for my files, and then remoting into it at need from my wireless enabled PDA to be a better solution than carting around my data in an easily stolen and cumbersome form. In the event that my PDA is stolen I am looking at a lower replacement cost and minimal data loss. PDAs do what most people need them to do when they are away from thier main system, Check email, read slashdot, write documents, play emulated NES games. Integrate wireless, and the capabilty to easily transfer information by secure USB ala pen drives {read: no clunky drivers and management apps to install} that would be killer, but right now no one seems to get it.

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[maraist]

no, pdas are too small to be of any use

I wouldn't say size is the problem.. You could always hook an external monitor through a proprietary interface, and keyboard/mouse through bluetooth. Moreover, solid-state data-storeing is about to hit it's prime (with 16Gig IDE drives this fall). The problem is CPU horse-power.. The ARM CPU is simply too wimpy to handle instensive load.. At least, not without killing the battery in short order. The ARM is a bueatiful architecture for power desipation, and not much else.

I've seen some crazy ideas to compromise between horse-power and power dessipation.. For example, lowering the voltage until you get a 1% error rate in your computation, then provide extra hardware/software to detect/correct these errors in a manner transparent to the application. Or take advantage of multi-processing techniques to identify applications which can be periodically put to sleep to reduce average power consumption. Or cache banks which go into sleep modes when not in use, but require longer access time when first hit.

Transmetta had some great ideas too; but notice this involved trying to migrate a prolific architecture into an optimized architecture... These days, if you've got a hand-held, you can afford recompiling all your apps to the optimized platform. Of course, proliferating Java on these hand-helds isn't exactly helping in the performance market.

I still think in 10 years the CPU will be a wrist-watch, and IO will be some external media.. The consolidation in the cell phone market took longer than I expected.. Now we have GPS, MP3, MS office, cell, SD-memory, external-keyboard-capability all in one device. But as said, horsepower is lacking... I'm ignoring, of course the PSP, but consider that too close to a laptop to really count as a hand-held. (That's a dual-hand-held. :)

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[IANAAC]

Right now, perhaps. But in the future? It's all in the marketing. I use a Zaurus C3000 and am very happy with it as a laptop replacement when I'm traveling. I can watch movies, listen to music, connect peripherals, browse the web, connect to my office via vpnc (which means administer servers, check eamil, etc). Granted, none of that was out of the box, save the music and web, but it's currently possible at 640x480 resolution.

If Nokia properly markets their new 770, or Archos with their AV series, it'll be all that's needed. Laptops were originally marketed as something you used when you were away from your desktop.

Now we've got a whole new generation of PMP/PDAs that are capable of what laptops were just a couple of years ago, with all the above mentioned stuff AND office apps. Just attach a USB keyboard and you're good to go.

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[Leroy_Brown242]

What about a pocket PC?
Or a very small laptop, like the old libretto?

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[Rii]

Size doesn't matter; it's all in how you use it.

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

The Zaurus has done this for quite awhile now. SL-6000 has USB master and slave and VGA resolution IRDA Wi-Fi Serial (with cable) audio and microphone plus the option of using a pocketop IR keyboard. I have an older SL-5500 with socket wifi card and 1G MMC and AA travel charger, my laptop stays at home most of the time.

Re:5 More Years Until PDA's Outsell Laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

The ARM CPU is simply too wimpy to handle instensive load..

Because running a word processor to write a letter, or sending some email is so processor intensive...

Funny

[log2.0]

"Some of the features common in most notebooks are longer-lasting batteries, CD burners and wireless capability"

No one who visits slashdot would know that! :) haha

Sorry, I just found it funny.

Re:Funny

[null etc.]

Sorry, I just found it funny.

At least it didn't end with a stupid question, like "Is this the end of desktops as we know it?"

Re:Funny

[Vengie]

No 3G network connectivity. No GSM. Less Space than a LaCie BigDisk 1tb firewire drive. L4M3.

Re:Funny

[adpowers]

Not to sound like a fan boy, but those have been nearly standard on Apple laptops for nearly forever. I remember when I first used 802.11b. It was five years ago and a teacher brought in a new laptop to show the tech folk at school. It was on old toilet seat iBook with wireless. I thought it was friggin' awesome that we were walking around the halls downloading movie trailers off Apple's site.

2.5 years ago my family got its first Mac in the form of a PowerBook. It had wireless (of course) and a DVD burner. Unfortunately, we've only burned one DVD ever, but at least we had it when we needed it. My current 12" doesn't have a DVD burner, but it does have Bluetooth, which should be a standard feature. I wonder how many years until DVD burners and Bluetooth is considered ubiquitous.

What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this mean higher prices for desktop users? I hope not. I for one HATE with a passion laptops. There great for surfing the web and chatting on aim but for real work I need a desktop. I'm personally much more productive on a larger screen, full sized keyboard, and a comfortable external mouse.

And to the smart asses who say you can hook all these up to a notebook, yeah but why?

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[peculiarmethod]

you are forgetting, sir, that only with a laptop can you ensure your entire porn surfing collection and device are with you at all times. especially handy if you have a snoopy female type around.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[shawb]

This is for "electronics retailers" which I assume means Best Buy and Circuit City. I wouldn't worry* about being ripped off if you get your PC from them rather than rolling your own. But what I really think this means is that A)laptops are hard (impossible?) to assemble yourself from off the shelf/internet ordered components while it is easy (almost trivial to anyone familiar with computer hardware) to make a desktop.

(* The reason not to worry about it is because you can allready assume that you are getting ripped off.)

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[tmortn]

So that your computer goes with you but when you need the space and larger screen etc you have it. With wireless you don't even have to mess around with hooking up a crap load of cables. Wireless mice and Keyboards already exist and it wouldn't take that much to create a wireless display system.

I really wonder if wireless interface systems could get ubiquitous enough that you could more or less forgoe the full key board and mouse on the laptop entirely and just make a mobile processing memory unit say the size of a cell phone. Wirelesss interface stations would be all over the place and you could browse the systems in range and log onto yours.

One idea I like about that is being able to test drive systems at a store before you buy it. Wonder if that new monitor has fast enough refresh ? Enough resolution ? Just attach it to the system on your hip and run a favorit movie/game etc... How about the sound quality of those speakers ? How about wondering if that new system will do what you want ? Access files on your current system while demoing a new unit with similar periphials you have at home. Have an automatic interface with your cars computer... no more dealer visits for codes or wondering what tripped the 'check engine' light.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like your mom?

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your collection can fit on a laptop HD??? OMG! You should get high speed internet!

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Tassach]

You should never date a woman who objects to your porn collection. Hell, my wife's collection is almost as big as my own. Many an evening of incredible sex has started out with her sitting on my lap surfing porn together.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

congratulations, you've just described bluetooth.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[tmortn]

Mild correction... I described what Blue Tooth is capable. Bit of a ways from making it actually happen though.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like someone doesnt have the goods to turn his wife on himself.

Nothin to brag about dude!

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[bladesjester]

Sounds like my girlfriend.

I also have to say that it's fun sitting in a coffee shop with her and commenting on the girls who go past.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[rubycodez]

sadly for most of us, your wife is not normal (in the sense of usual). Romance novels, "chick flicks" and soap operas are the equivalent of porn for most women, not the visually oriented erotic stuff. But try to get most of them to have such an open mind toward "our" stuff, doesn't work.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Jessta]

That's why laptops have a video port, a mouse port and external keyboard port. Just get a laptop and use it as a desktop.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[DarkZero]

I'm personally much more productive on a larger screen, full sized keyboard, and a comfortable external mouse.

And to the smart asses who say you can hook all these up to a notebook, yeah but why?

There are plenty of widescreen 17" notebooks out there with a full size keyboard, 3GHz+ Pentium 4 or equivalent Athlon 64, and 1GB of RAM. All you're really missing is the external mouse, which is as simple as popping a wireless mouse adapter that's the size of a USB flash drive into the USB port on the side.

This isn't like the old days when the biggest laptop you could find was a 15" and getting yourself set up at a coffee shop meant plugging in a telephone wire, a power cable, and a wired mouse. Lots of laptops have decent battery life, built-in wifi, and a USB port on the side for a wireless mouse.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[t0ny747]

which is as simple as popping a wireless mouse adapter that's the size of a USB flash drive into the USB port

You can always get a laptop with bluetooth and a bluetooth mouse and you don't need to plug in a thing :)

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now THAT's a lap-top I'd pay for ;)

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Pyroja]

Why do we need laptops and Bluetooth just to figure out what the heck is wrong with a car these days? On my '85 Camaro, I could do it with a paperclip and a Chiltons manual...

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[mnmn]

Not all female types are wives. Slashdotters have mothers you know

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[klmth]

It's a political decision. The diagnostic tools are installed in part to make it easier to get by with less knowledgeable mechanics, and partly to drive out the mom-and-pop mechanic with prohibitive costs of entry to the market. You need a specific diagnostic device for each brand of car.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[zalbag]

Not all female types are wives. Slashdotters have mothers you know

Yeah and when I'm wearing my headphones I can never hear her coming down the basement steps! Awwwkkwwaaardd

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[madaxe42]

Mom?!

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Tassach]

Sounds like someone doesnt have the goods to turn his wife on himself.

Did it ever occur to you that some women get turned on by looking at other women? Bisexual women rule.

Nothin to brag about dude!

I'll be sure to tell my wife and our girlfriend that tonight.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many an evening of incredible sex has started out with her sitting on my lap surfing porn together."

Lucky bastard.

Re:What does this mean to desktop users?

[tmortn]

try doing that with a more recent Camaro, say one after 95 or whenever OBD II was mandated. Engines and ECU's have become so intertwined and manufacturers so slow to release diagnostic tools outside of daelerships it is insane. Also the unique tools for most brands means highly expensive niche tools instead of a wide general standard that allows for after market competition.

Additionally, besides diagnostic ability you could also have performance enhancing options as well with control over your EFI system. Higher fuel flow curves for more performance and lower leaner mixtures for better highway cruising etc...

An easy user interface to car computers really does need to happen. Manufacturers are getting away with highway robbery. Diagnosing what is wrong with cars today should be easier, not some black magic they only do in back where you often can't go because of insurance liabilities. Case in point... I can buy a calaculator with a multiline alpha numeric display for less than 50 bucks. A cars ECU is already programmed to relay information. Why then do I not have such a display in my car? Why do I have an idiot check engine light that is a catch all for EVERY error detected by the ECU rather than a simple 4 line LCD readout giving me the error codes and what it means? Its not the cost of such a system, or development of it. Most diagnostic equipment is extrodinarily rudimentary in terms of computing technology and is already developed for use in the dealer repair operations. Tieing that info to an LCD read out would generally involve less sophistication than a low level texas instruments calaculator.

Year of the laptop?

[mister_tim]

I remember Steve Jobs Macworld keynote in January 2003 where he claimed that 03 would be "the year of the laptop".
http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-12302003.ar s/2

Maybe he was just a couple of years early?

Re:Year of the laptop?

[dan2550]

apple is always ahead of its time...maybey its a temperal distortion?

Re:Year of the laptop?

[Razzak]

in 2003, laptops outsold desktops in terms of revenue. these new figures are in terms of units.

Re:Year of the laptop?

[-kertrats-]

Or this article is just a couple of years late?

Re:Year of the laptop?

[publicworker]

apple is always ahead of its time...maybey its a temperal distortion?

I thought Jobs had a reality distortion field --- maybe this is related?

Re:Year of the laptop?

[znu]

If you look at the numbers, the shift from desktops to laptops started a bit earlier on the Mac. Probably because Apple got the battery life situation under control sooner (Intel wasn't doing so well there a couple years ago), and support for wireless networking was really solid. Plus, Mac users tend to pick up on these sorts of trends a bit sooner; they're mostly a self-selected group, which means they're more likely to actually care about computing than the Wintel masses, and as such they're typically a bit ahead of the curve, on average.

Re:Year of the laptop?

[sedyn]

Agreed, not to mention that the desktop advantage of partial upgrading doesn't exist with macs, therefore a major drawback of laptops is eliminated.

Re:Year of the laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Mac snobb gibberish. Any person who wanted a laptop (and had the cash) could buy one in 2003. It was two years ago.

Re:Year of the laptop?

[toddestan]

If you look at the numbers, the shift from desktops to laptops started a bit earlier on the Mac. Probably because Apple got the battery life situation under control sooner (Intel wasn't doing so well there a couple years ago), and support for wireless networking was really solid. Plus, Mac users tend to pick up on these sorts of trends a bit sooner; they're mostly a self-selected group, which means they're more likely to actually care about computing than the Wintel masses, and as such they're typically a bit ahead of the curve, on average.

That's probably because the Mac laptops are pretty reasonably priced compared to their x86 counterparts, while the Mac desktops are way overpriced. It's no surprise to me that Apple has been selling more laptops than desktops for a while now.

i am shocked

[hsmith]

well, not really

a lot of people are on the move now a days. i like being able to take my laptop anywhere at any time and do whatever i need to do. transfering files between it and a desktop would be a pain, so this is my only machine

add the wireless revolution and you can see why even more. plus, computing power now adays really isn't distinguishable, 2.0ghz compared to a 3.0ghz really doesn't matter for most people, you can get hte 2.0 for nothing. why get a desktop you can't move when you can have a laptop you can use anywhere around the casa?

it was bound to happen

Re:i am shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

transfering files between it and a desktop would be a pain

what plannet do you live on? transfering files is easy, fast, and basically painless. the biggest difficulty is deciding what method to use ;) should we drag and drop the files, or copy and paste them ;)

you might want to use a faster wired ethernet connection for transfering say, the full 22 GB of naruto fansubs ;) but 802.11g is pretty decent for most things...

I've owned several laptops, but if you 'use' them everywhere you wind up wearing them down and breaking them eventually. as far as who needs the speed? well, if you're transcoding dvds you've rented and burning them to dvd-r then it's gonna take you less time with a faster system... time is precious man ;)

This may lend credence to the

[Clockwurk]

rumor that Apple will be switching to Intel. I imagine Steve Jobs has seen the writing on the wall and sees that Apple's mobile efforts don't have much future if they stick with IBM. Apple continues to sell notebooks like hotcakes despite having all their tech be a generation or two behind PCs.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[damsa]

Yes, because desktop Windows PCs being sold today are running 64bit processors with 64bit Operating systems. Damn that Apple and their backwards tech.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[Clockwurk]

All Apple notebooks are 32-bit G4s so plz stfu.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[Anonymous Coward]

64bit isn't some magical spec that solves all your computing needs. Sun Microsystem's Ultra SPARC CPUs have been 64 bit since the 90's. Ditto for Alpha.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[topper24hours]

OK... maybe he was wrong about the 64 bit thing. But to be fair, the parent was WAY wrong by calling Apple notebooks "2 steps behind" in terms of tech. Get real... Aplle notebooks are nice... I wish I owned one.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[nukem996]

Apple is behind in more then just laptops. I remember a year ago I my mom had to get an Apple for work, she also needed a DVD burner. When I asked the guy if she could get a Dual Layer DVD burner he said that they wont come out for another few months on Mac or PC, while I had one in my Linux box at home.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[maraist]

64bit isn't some magical spec that solves all your computing needs. Sun Microsystem's Ultra SPARC CPUs have been 64 bit since the 90's. Ditto for Alpha.

And they are vastly superior CPUs except for price/performance. Not because of the 64bitness mind-you. But when your architecture is designed around native large-words, your compiler can take advantage of all sorts of things. Most of which center around higher bandwidth and lower latency.. Take, for instance the Alpha's complete lack of byte-addressing. In order to look at a character in a string, you have to manually align/unalign the data (grab 3'rd byte from word in reg X, place in reg Y). It the compiler is optimized around this process, then dereferencing c-structures can be faster as you are effectively pre-fetched several items and now have an optimized way of breaking it up. In x86 land, you have byte-addressable instructions, but it's highly probable that these will be micro-opt'd into lesser efficient accesses. So 1, 8 or 16 bit operations should actually be faster on an Alpha than on an x86 or worse yet and AMD-64 (with even more indirectness due to 64bit extensions).

And this is to say nothing of the highly optimized 64bit integer arithmetic. You don't have layer upon layer of internal multiplexors to handle dozens of different word lenghts.

Of course the Alpha is mostly a memory; didn't have the volume to sustain itself.. And the Sparc is on it's way out. Being server oriented, they had too much "meat" to ever make their way to the $60 pricetag (even if ever built in bulk).

PowerPC's have/had a chance, but they've stalled for too long and looks like Apple's changing ships. IBM probably couldn't promise them a significant enough road-map for the next year.

While it's great that x86 is hitting 64bit, the bad is that there is simply too many watts of power being dessipated on legacy emulation.. Not to mention a compiler can't know for sure how to optimize instructions, since an optimize compilation won't work best for older CPUs and probably not for newer CPUs. A PPC, SPARC or Alpha design hasn't had tremendous change, so such compilers stood a much better chance of being optimal. Poor gcc.

Lets see, 100Watt for P4 v.s. what 50W for PPC? (someone correct me here).. Lets says 50 Million 100Watt units... We'll say 150Million 80Watt and 300Million 60Watt x86 machines.. We'll average that to 500 Million 80Watt x86 machines.. Compare that to say 40Watt average RISC machines.. If machines are on an average of 2 hours a day, then that's 40 Gigwatt-hours / day wasted because of historical proliferation of a legacy architecture.

At 7 cents / Kilowatt-hour, that's $2.8M / day wasted because of PCs (v.s. a decent RISC alternative).

It looks like the entire industry is converging on AMD / Intel.. Intel will benifit most, but it's Ironic that Intel is doing so off AMD's back (course they still have to write off a couple more billion on that whole Itanium side-track).

Re:This may lend credence to the

[damsa]

The poster said that All their tech was 2 steps behind. Which is not true. The poster should've stated, All their notebook tech was 2 steps behind. Either way, Not all Apple notebooks are 2 steps behind, iBooks on the other hand, although I love my ibook, would it have killed them to have one PC card slot.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[Rosonowski]

I recently had to replace the hard drive in my powerbook 12"
Given the rather intense density of parts, I imagine any space for a PC card slot would have been in sacrafice of heatsink size.

Obviously, one could design around this, and there are PC laptops even smaller with the card slots, but I can see where difficultly might arise.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[eexlebots]

mod parent up please. I am an Apple fan, and this is no troll. Seriously, portable G4 versus a new Centrino? Intel wins hands down.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[damsa]

I had a Sony Vaio Srx, it both had a PC card slot, and an easily accessible Hard Drive that was removable with 4 screws. Perhaps Apple should go back to letting Sony design their Notebooks.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the poster orginally meant that their notebook tech was slightly behind, but on closer examination, it appears to be the same for all their products.

On the desktop side, all Apples, with the exception of the mini ship with the radeon 9600. The 9X00 family is the last generation of ATI, and has been replaced with the xFOO family (x300, x600, x700 and x800). Powermacs ship with either PCI or PCI-X slots, not the new generation, PCI-Express. Apple has also not adopted DDR2 memory.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[maxwell demon]

In x86 land, you have byte-addressable instructions, but it's highly probable that these will be micro-opt'd into lesser efficient accesses.

Why? Given that the exact action is hidden, I don't see why a byte read couldn't be microcoded as a word read followed by a byte extraction, if that is really faster. No one actually sees if the cache is accessed byte-wise (and the main memory should only be accessed cache-line-wise anyway), nor if a hidden extra register is used internally.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[Hadlock]

A data point from a year ago about technology is pretty much a moot point.

You can get dual layer DVD burners in the current crop of power macs directly from apple now. It's a little harder to put the technology in a much smaller package than your "Linux Box". The total volume of a powerbook is a little less than that of one 5.25" drive bay, where your "Box" probably has room for three or more, not to mention power supply, motherboard, hard drives, etc. I wouldn't be suprised to see a dual layer DVD burner in the laptops by mid-2006 at the latest.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[Hadlock]

err, a little less than two 5.25" drive bays. damn you, preview button!

Re:This may lend credence to the

[maraist]

Why? Given that the exact action is hidden, I don't see why a byte read couldn't be microcoded as a word read followed by a byte extraction, if that is really faster.

Well, two things here.. First lets compare the same instruction on RISC and x86. At best, the x86 instruction becomes 1, 2 or 3 micro-opt instructions to perform a byte-load, hitting the lowest level cache and not requiring a virtual address decode stage (which on x86-32 requires an ADD instruction). The Alpha performs virtual address translation on every cache load (because it only requires a logical and), so it takes the same amount of work whether it comes from L1, 2 or main mem.. Only difference is latency. Now older Alphas did NOT have OOE (purposefully since the Alpha design team didn't like the extra load on processing), so you could argue that they won't handle latency as well.

But now, lets consider non word-aligned operations (say 16bit, or even 32bit memory which falls across a natural word bountry, say address 0x0003). You can get this with compacted C-datastructures that are dynamically allocated (if the compiler doesn't pad empty-space to keep alignment happy). In the alpha this is a highly discouraged practice, and most compilers will sacrifice memory-space for word alignment. But in the event that a word MUST fall out of alignment, then the align-instruction must be manually called by the compiler. In the x86, there is no such explicit alignment, so the CPU must at least CHECK for such an alignment issue on every instruction. That test is very likely to be an extra micro-opt.

Now lets consider normal operation of the x86. It is not to load a byte into memory, but to perform a CISC "op [addr x2 + offset] [addr x2 + offset] [addr x2 + offset]". So, what you have are 3 address-shifted memory accesses for say the same byte-sized operation. So now to what-ever extent the x86 is slower at non word-aligned operations, it is amplified by the fact that it has to perform the operation a greater number of times PER instruction (on average). Yes there are behind the scenes tricks to reduce this effect, but that's extra otherwise wasted horse-power, since it represents an abstraction layer between the "virtual" instructions and the real capabilities of the CPU.

Re:This may lend credence to the

[maxwell demon]

In the x86, there is no such explicit alignment, so the CPU must at least CHECK for such an alignment issue on every instruction. That test is very likely to be an extra micro-opt.

Couldn't this distinction be done directly in hardware? Checking if the last 2 bits are zero is just a gate, and the output of that gate e.g. might just physically change the "micro-opt pointer" (I assume there's such a thing in the hardware?) so the unaligned access microcode would be skipped.

Maybe there's a fundamental flaw in my thinking, but to me it looks like being possible.

Now lets consider normal operation of the x86. It is not to load a byte into memory, but to perform a CISC "op [addr x2 + offset] [addr x2 + offset] [addr x2 + offset]".

Which byte-sized x86 operation takes three addresses?

Ok, it's a while since I last looked at the x86 instruction set, so I may miss some newer developments, but the only ones which come into my mind that take even two of them (implicitly) are the "string instructions" (movsb etc.). Most other instructions (like mov, add, sub) have only one memory access (you can do add eax, [ebx], but you cannot do e.g. add [ecx], [ebx]. BTW, all those operations are two-operand anyway. Did Intel add three-operand instructions later?

big surprise?

[Kaisum]

This was bound to happen, people are given technology, the technology becomes mobile and more people want to take it with them. Look at the cell phone.

Re:big surprise?

[ronz0o]

im still waiting for a cell phone that can generate food. they have everything else...

Re:big surprise?

[pintomp3]

a Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle? or a replicator?

They left out the killer feature

[El Cubano]

Some of the features common in most notebooks are longer-lasting batteries, CD burners and wireless capability.

Yeah. They left out the inability to easily upgrade components. In the last 10 years i have owned +/- 6 computers. One was a laptop that I purchased new. The others were all custom rigs that got upgraded expansion cards, peripherals, memory, etc. when needed. Thus they didn't show up as desktop sales. I am willing to bet that as building machines from components has gotten easier, lots more people have been doing it to get more bang for the buck.

Thing is, with a laptop, upgrading the monitor is impossible and upgrading pretty much anything else is a royal pain and/or too expensive. Thus, laptop users can't take advantage of individual components on the same scale as desktop owners.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Elshar]

That's not true depending on the model. Some of them the only things that aren't upgradable is the cpu and usually the video card.

Upgrading monitors is easy. There's a video output on the back. Plug monitor in as per normal. In fact, you can even plug normal keyboards, mice, etc into them if you're primarily using them as desktops (Which some people do).

I can see why laptops are replacing pcs now. They're about the same price, but they are also portable. Your computer can travel with you now, so its much more convenient. Not everyone is a hardcore gamer that needs the new wiz-bang video card.. :)

Re:They left out the killer feature

[newdamage]

Yeah. They left out the ability to easily take your computer with you. All my custom desktop rigs weighted 50 lbs, and the hernia I was getting from carrying them to and from class was getting a bit much. Man, this laptop, with it's small form factor and integrated screen is a godsend

It's called the right tool for the right job. Desktops allow you to customized and upgrade, laptops sacrifice that for portability. Get over yourself and go back to looking at porn on your super l33t custom rig with clear side panel and neon lighting.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[llamaluvr]

With all the external peripherals you can plug in with USB (2.0), this seems irrelevant in most cases. I used to stay away from computers with less then 3 free PCI slots, because I was always afraid I would fill them up and not have room for anything else, but now that I have a laptop, I haven't missed a beat in regards to adding the peripherals that I want.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[El Cubano]

It's called the right tool for the right job. Desktops allow you to customized and upgrade, laptops sacrifice that for portability. Get over yourself and go back to looking at porn on your super l33t custom rig with clear side panel and neon lighting.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant to get across was this:

• Case 1: Owner of desktop (custom or not) - wants new Athlon64 CPU. Orders CPU + mobo for $250 from NewEgg.
• Case 2: Owner of laptop - wants new Athlon64 CPU. Drops ~$2500 on a new HP laptop.

I am just trying to point out that the numbers are skewed since the first guy essentially got a "new" computer. I know that it is a bit different, but the old laptop will either get tossed or donated or relegated to something else. So in reality, it's like it is no longer there (in most cases).

Re:They left out the killer feature

[sedyn]

Good point.

I think that any computer that can have it's parts replaced will last much longer. Because with an all-in-one solution (where everything is integrated into the motherboard) all it takes is one failure to make the entire machine useless.

Laptops fall into this "easily a paperweight" category. Therefore, the stats are a little skewed and biased towards laptops.

I hope that the world stays with it's current desktop model for x86s though. Because I don't want to buy hardware that I can't upgrade a component at a time.

This leads to me having an x86 as a desktop and a mac as a laptop. Since I couldn't upgrade a mac laptop any more than an x86 laptop (and I'm not a gamer), I decided to buy one. And truth be told, if it ever got to the state where I couldn't manually and easily upgrade a piece of my desktop at a time, I would probably switch to being a full time mac user.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[gatzke]

Back in the good old days people would upgrade CPU or video cards... CPUs upgrades are somewhat rare, seems like the slots keep changing. Desktops do get the occasional gamer GPU card, but most people are not that hard core.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[wyldeone]

Definitely. I've only had one computer over the past five years. But this computer has had its CPU, mainboard, vid card, memory, case, etc. replaced over those five years.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[QuantumG]

My computer is supplied by my employer, so that particular ability is of no use to my anyway (as I'd be dumb to go inserting new hardware into their computer myself). Yes, my desktop machine is a laptop.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[westlake]

I am willing to bet that as building machines from components has gotten easier, lots more people have been doing it to get more bang for the buck.

Dell recently committed to buying 300,000 wide-screen 14" laptops a month from a single Chinese supplier. That is one model for one segment of its laptop product line. The hobbyist market doesn't count for much against numbers like these.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[OurCompliments]

Case 2: Owner of laptop - wants new Athlon64 CPU. Drops ~$2500 on a new HP laptop.

2500 for an Athlon64 on a laptop? Talk about a ripoff, how about this one for 1187$, mind you that price is in Canadian dollars, but I assume you can do the conversion.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me when you can upgrade the processor and video card.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

How many CPUs per socket type do you manage to buy? It seems every time I go to upgrade I discover my motherboard is now obsolete....

Re:They left out the killer feature

[FEEBLE*BMX]

This is a pretty good point in two ways.

For dragging around to cafes and surfing on wireless networks an obsolete notebook is perfect. Just max out the ram. So there's one machine that doesn't count on their stats.

For work I can't afford any downtime fooling around with warrantees or installing software so when my machine dies I just buy a new bare bones system as parts, transfer my disks into the new box and boot up. There's another machine that doesn't count. If they count dollars the cost of one laptop equals about 5 bare bones machines.

It's still an interesting stat though. The laptop cool factor is there for sure. Is there a cheap laptop that can plug into USB on my main machine and show up as another drive?

Re:They left out the killer feature

[mwvdlee]

So you're telling him to upgrade the motherboard in his laptop if he wants a new CPU?

Re:They left out the killer feature

[mikael]

The laptop cool factor is there for sure. Is there a cheap laptop that can plug into USB on my main machine and show up as another drive?

Look for a laptop which has the hard drive removable in the same way as the battery and CD-ROM drive. Then you can use an USB 2.5" pocket hard disk drive enclosure to connect the hard-drive directly to your desktop.

If you use a spare hard disk drive in the enclosure by itself, you can carry 60 - 100 Gigabytes of portable data storage around with you (15+ DVD movies), without the risk of losing a laptop.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Junior J. Junior III]

PCMCIA slots, usb, and ieee 1394 ports on modern laptops make this point somewhat suspect. Upgrading a laptop's processor or replacing a keyboard is a pain that most people aren't going to be willing to subject themselves to, but even a RAM or hard drive upgrade or battery replacement is pretty light work. The parts are more expensive, sure, but they're not all that much more difficult to swap out.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

The next time you link to an e-machines computer you will be shot.

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

An iBook or Powerbook can plug into the firewire port on your main machine and show up as a drive if you want...

Re:They left out the killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

yes

longer battery life?

[dan2550]

my current laptop is a toshiba satelite a75 series. circa end of 2004 batery life: 2 hours on "long life" mode. my very first laptop was a toshiba t-1000 circa 1980-something(late 80's) battery life: hours and hours... how is that a longer life?

Re:longer battery life?

[Anonymous Coward]

i love the T1000... I still have my T1200XE although the hard drive doesn't seem to want to read anymore, still spins up though. I'll get it to read again eventually. I still have a battery for it that holds a charge, although i havent actually run it long enough to see for how long. I think theres a big difference in power consumption of chips and all, that 12mhz 286 is goign to use alot less power than my 1.3ghz pentium M no matter how 'advanced' they make speedstep.. also a smaller, lower res display, and the battery is thicker than my acer TM800... so while I'd say that it does seem like older tech might have done somethings better it isnt always a fair comparison.

Re:longer battery life?

[Ogive17]

Because the batteries back then weighed around 15lbs? Probably also has to do with the monochrome display.

Re:longer battery life?

[Hamsterdan]

I used to own one. Blue LCD display (had to change it to reverse in the BIOS, otherwise Larry would look like a smurf :) It was a lowly V20 (Nec's XT clone). That thing used standard AA Nicads in the powerpack, They even got replaced once.

Re:longer battery life?

[timeOday]

Did you factor battery life into your purchasing decision? There are many, many laptops these days around 4 hours. The really small Sonys are closer to 8, and unlike your 1980's model they have more than 64KB of RAM.

Re:longer battery life?

[NilObject]

Old PowerBooks used to get 1-2 hours on a charge. My 12" PowerBook gets 3-4 hours.

It all depends on the computer you use. Thankfully the G4 is decently power-efficient, so you get a decent balance of speed and power/heat.

Re:longer battery life?

[MojoStan]

my current laptop is a toshiba satelite a75 series. circa end of 2004 batery life: 2 hours on "long life" mode. my very first laptop was a toshiba t-1000 circa 1980-something(late 80's) battery life: hours and hours... how is that a longer life?

You value battery life, but you bought a "mobile" Pentium 4 laptop instead of a Pentium M or Celeron M laptop at the end of 2004? It's not like the power-saving features of Centrino haven't been publicized and hyped since March 2003.

Initially, Pentium M/Celeron M notebooks carried a notable price difference over Pentium 4/Celeron notebooks. But by the end of 2004, Pentium M technology had made its way all the way down to sub-$1000 notebooks (Celeron M). By that time, only "desktop replacements" (and older discontinued models) were using Pentium 4 CPUs. For the same price as that Toshiba Pentium 4-based notebook, I think you would have been much better off (with much longer battery life) with a Pentium M-based, or even Celeron M-based, notebook.

Re:longer battery life?

[halleluja]

my current laptop is a toshiba satelite a75 series. circa end of 2004 batery life: 2 hours on "long life" mode. my very first laptop was a toshiba t-1000 circa 1980-something(late 80's) battery life: hours and hours... how is that a longer life

Back in the 90s on a T1000 486sx you'd run wp51, dos and win3.1 or minix.

Today you need number crunching (powerconsumption) just to display word.

So, laptop has changed, programs have changed, but your job has not :-)

Re:longer battery life?

[rikkards]

Thing most people don't realize about the Centrino is that although the features are Pentium M processor, Wifi builtin and power savings, the way they go about saving power is by usually limiting the size and resolution of the screen and removing peripherals i.e you need to swap the cdrom with the floppy. However if you are finding that you are using the floppy drive less and less and can live with lower resolution on a smaller screen then the Centrino is a good idea.

Re:longer battery life?

[hackstraw]

how is that a longer life?

How are iPods free?

Marketers have a different vocabulary than most of the real world.

Re:longer battery life?

[SomeOtherGuy]

I have pretty much seen that on any laptop, battery life gets VERY short when using WLAN. I have seen people clain they can get 4.5 - 5 hours on their laptops, but I don't think that was while streeming mp3's from shoutcast or downloading a new linux distro, or any other task that would require constant LAN activity.

Show me a laptop that can have constant WLAN activity for 3.5 hours on a regular (non exteneded ) battery -- and that is the one that I will have my eye on.

So far 1.0 - 2.0 hours "online" is pretty much where it's at (more if you buy the big thick extened battery packs).

Another thing is that the lifecycle of a battery "being able to hold a full charge" quickly is reduced over a shorter period of time than I would like for something that costs in the range of $150 - $200 dollars. Usually after a few months of steady use of a new battery I start to see a dropoff in battery life from when it was new. (After about 12 months it does little more than last long enough to withstand running off battery long enough to switch rooms between AC plugs).

Re:longer battery life?

[FunkSoulBrother]

My laptop lasts 3.5-4 hours on a battery charge, even while constantly running bittorrent or somesuch requiring near constant Wifi. It's an ASUS M3000N that I got from ibuypower.com. 14" screen, and a Pentium M 1.4 proc.

I could tell you about some problems with it (don't even get me started on linux installs!) but battery life is not one of them.

Re:longer battery life?

[SomeOtherGuy]

That is good to hear. I have been stuck with mostly IBM and TOshiba laptops. Never had much of a problem with Linux, but I would almost be willing to dual boot if I could have 4 hours unplugged and online.

heat output

[DeusExMalex]

now if only they could make it so the damn things don't scorch whatever you sit them on. my lappy is so hot i can't leave it on my lap and i can feel the heat through the bottom of my desk. and the fans are loud enough that i can hear them from another room. give me a tower that i can play w/ any day.

Re:heat output

[Skippy_kangaroo]

Dude! Get a Mac!

Re:heat output

[wbren]

Look for a notebook with a magnesium case. I've found they dissipate heat quite well, compared to notebooks with plastic cases.

Re:heat output

[Yakman]

Dude! My Powerbook G4 heats up my lap quite nicely, thank you!

Re:heat output

[lukelele]

That is, in fact, a very good method of birth control

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=90026 31

Re:heat output

[darkwhite]

You're over two years behind the state of the art. Pentium M pretty much eliminates the heat problem. Apple's laptops are pretty cool too. AMD has just come out with low-power 90nm Athlon 64s but those are not yet on the mass market.

Re:heat output

[hackstraw]

my lappy is so hot i can't leave it on my lap and i can feel the heat through the bottom of my desk. and the fans are loud enough that i can hear them from another room. give me a tower that i can play w/ any day.

My guess is that you have one of those cheap bulky PC laptops. They do that.

Oh, I forgot the new political correct term for a laptop, they are "notebooks" now because they are too hot for laptop use.

Re:heat output

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dude! Get a Mac!"

Damn!!! You beat me to it!

The PowerBook G4 gives off a little bit of heat, though still much less than your average notebook, but the machine is also the most beautiful thing in the world.

The most beautiful machine. The most beautiful OS. And it's UNIX!

Typing from mine right now.

The way I figure, you can eat your cake and have it, too! Have the ladies drool over your tool, and have your other tool laid and not roasted because of heat from first tool!

(Only down side is guys drool too!)

popularity vs. durability

[Schlemphfer]

Back in the day, laptops cost more than $1000 more than comparable desktops. Now, you can get a pretty decent laptop for $700. So it's not surprising that as the price difference between desktops and laptops has eroded, so too has the market share of desktops.

The question that interests me is: are laptops becoming any more durable? One of my main reasons that I bought an eMac instead of an iBook is that the eMac is probably Apple's most durable computer. And I know that laptops tend to be much more prone to failure.

It wasn't so long ago that if you bought a laptop, you could pretty much count on some kind of major failure within three years. I'm wondering if any good research has been done to show whether laptops are closing the gap with desktops in terms of reliability. If they are, I'm pretty sure my next computer will be a laptop.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[CoolMoDee]

I haven't had any durability problems with my 12" 900MHz iBook G3. I constatly throw the thing around (in my backpack into my car etc.) and have abused the hell out of it, and the only thing wrong with it is one of the little rubber feet fell off. I've had this laptop for about 2 years or so. My Sony laptop on the other hand...it was too big/fragile to treat to treat it like I do my iBook.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[eddeye]

it's not surprising that as the price difference between desktops and laptops has eroded, so too has the market share of desktops.

It doesn't even have to be people buying laptops in lieu of desktops. The desktop market is already saturated. There's just more room for growth in laptops, especially among people who already have desktops and want some extra mobility.

The question that interests me is: are laptops becoming any more durable?

I'd guess they're getting better, but as long as any disparity exists, laptops will be replaced at a faster pace than desktops. It's the same reason Mac sales relative to PCs don't accurately reflect the installed base of that platform.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[mrchaotica]

FYI, Apple will replace those feet under warranty (if you still have it). One fell off my 12" iBook G4 and they mailed me a packet of 4 (in a fancy padded box, no less).

Re:popularity vs. durability

[Shigernafy]

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 8100 in October of 2001, and its still working for me. Its been nearly 4 years now, and I just had to replace the hard drive because it had started to fail intermittently on me. However, it was reasonably easy to upgrade; probably took me all of 5 minutes - slide the drive bay out, remove four screws and one adapter, add one adapter and five screws, and slide back in.

That's the only bit of hardware that's given me any problems. I don't know if this is unusual or if Desktops are really that much more reliable (well... except I also usually go 4-5 years between desktop upgrades without any issues, so..), but at least in my case things have gone very well.

On the other hand, I have gone through two batteries now, which is more a problem (as I see it) with battery technology (and a somewhat common problem thereof, it seems) more than laptops per se.
Also, my brother got a Dell laptop about a year ago, and first had a power supply issue and now has had part of his keyboard break somehow, such that he can't use about a dozen keys on the left side. Plus, his computer physically seems flimsier than mine. I think Dell has cheapened up in terms of casing; mine feels sturdy to me; his is a bit weak. Thus, I'd suggest, if you do look at a laptop, that you go somewhere where you can play with the computer and feel it. Some are built better than others, certainly.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[dakna]

Yes, I can confirm this, my Inspiron 8100 is rock solid too. I was about to buy my first notebook in summer 2001, but waited until the Tualatin PIII was available, so I too bought the Inspiron 8100 in October 2001.

I had to change the hard drive within the first year, still under warranty. It was the infamous 48 GB IBM drive, I think every single one of them died rapidly... got a 60 GB replacement for free, still working fine.

This thing is for the last years the only computer I use, and it is powered on almost 24/7 on my desk. I'm using the speedstep feature to run the CPU on 700 MHz, so there is never a fan running... I need silence while working and sleeping in the same room. Only problem is the earphone plug, it is still working but only after fine adjustment when plugged in.

So, I really like this hardware and can recommend it, but I have to admit I'm really looking to buy a good desktop again. When the Athlon X2 4400+ is cheaper and I saved some money, the time has come.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[xenotrout]

You got one of the lucky iBooks, then. I have a 12" 700MHz iBook G3. I had to get the logic board replaced (at least a year ago) because of video artifacting and freezing. It was free regardless of warranty because it was a known issue. Just a few days ago it started doing the same thing. Apple had extended the logic board replacement program to March of this year or three years after purchase. Luckily I bought it less than three years ago.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[Anonymous Coward]

I own a 900 MHz G3 with combo drive. I'm pretty careful with it since it is my only computer but I have had it fail on me within 18 months. Both the combo drive failed and some other hardware failure made my machine crash when you touched it (probably the too flexible casing of G3 iBooks). There is also a pretty common failure with the wires in the screen hinges (didn't happen to me though). And of course batteries will always fail after a few years. Having said that I love my computer and will probably buy a new iBook now that the design of it has be adjusted to fix some of the aforementioned (design) problems.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[Spoing]

The question that interests me is: are laptops becoming any more durable?

Depends on the brand. I've had good sucess with Averatec, specifically this series. Solid feeling, no creeks or parts that bend in when you grab them.

Re:popularity vs. durability

[CoolMoDee]

Actually - this 900MHz iBook was a free replacement for my 600MHz iBook. The rule is with apple, if you send in your product 3 times and it needs to go in a 4th time call up customer relations and request a replacement. That's what I did, ended up getting a 900MHz Combo Drive 40GB iBook when I sent them my 600MHz DVD-Rom 15GB iBook. Of course the 600MHz iBook that I sent in was originally a display model from CompUSA....so it had been massively abused before I even got it.

College requirements

[poity]

I would guess that a significant amount of this is due to the increasing number of colleges (and even some highschools) that require students to have laptops.

Re:College requirements

[Omega Xi]

Yeah, there could be quite a bit of truth in that. I'm doing a computing degree and had to apply for a grant to get a computer with (my PII 266Mhz thinkpad just wasn't gonna cut it) and for some reason instead of being nice about it and letting me make my own choices they have stipulated that I have to get a laptop... Of course the main isssue I had with my old thinkpad is the fact it only had 32Mb of RAM the type of which isn't manufactured anymore and the video chip/card cannot be upgraded. Of course I've aquired a different machine through other means already, but still... To be honest, I would be surpriesed if the PPC platform didn't become more popular especially with students, it's the most convergant device I've ever owned and the most portable. It's my phone, 'net access (the halls of residence I'm in has none), mp3 player, camera (albeit not great), notepad, organizer all in one, and that's before I install any other apps on it... The fact that all this can fit in my pocket rather than my backpack leads me to this conclusion. Now if only I could code in DirectX 9 on the damn thing and do my uni project...

Key features:

[saskboy]

The key features that were holding people back was the hard time burning CDs, watching DVDs, or playing games was on machines that were typically behind the affordable desktop technology by a year or two. Now that those key features are pretty much standard in a sub $1000 laptop, more people are buying them, and considering the built in wireless, flat screen monitor, and portability with the battery, a bonus worth the extra money over a deskopt system with comparable features.

After all, you can use a laptop as a desktop for not much extra money for an external keyboard and mouse, but it's not possible to use a desktop on the road or in the plane.

Re:Key features:

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not possible to use a desktop on the road or in the plane.

Nah... not impossible. Just depends on how dedicated you are. True, probably not worth the hassle, unless you're just doing it to prove that you can.

On a side note, some of my friends had a teacher in high school that would allow any student to bring in a PC (no laptops) for use on exams. He would even provide an outlet. Nobody ever took him up on it (granted, this was before the mini-atx form factor.)

You could also bring in any notes you wanted on a 3X5 card. If your notes were bigger than 3X5 he reserved the right to trim them down to size, usually giving the student the most worthless 3X5" of the paper that he could; cutting straight through equations and whatnot.

Yup

[pherthyl]

I just replaced my desktop with a laptop. Why bother with a bulky desktop when I can get a fast, luggable laptop for cheap? With the proliferation of wireless access points, I can go just about anywhere and get the internet. There's not much point in having a desktop at home when I'm not there more than half of the time.

By the way, the Compaq R4000 series is a wicked deal if you're looking for a desktop replacement.

Re:Yup

[sd_diamond]

I just replaced my desktop with a laptop. Why bother with a bulky desktop when I can get a fast, luggable laptop for cheap?

Throw in a docking station with monitor, keyboard & mouse, and you have the best of both worlds. It looks and feels like a full desktop machine when you're at your desk, but if you want or need to work elsewhere, it's still the same machine, with the same software, data, and configuration. I've been working this way for years.

Corporate Sales Impact

[Greyfox]

I've seen a couple of major corporations move to laptops in the past couple of years, which is probably having an impact on overall sales. The employees can telecommute more easily with laptops and those that have to travel frequently don't have to do without their systems. A few companies were experimenting with guest workstations for travelling employees but that usually turned out to be more hassle than it was worth.

The standard loadout the last place I worked was a Dell 2.4 GhZ laptop with a gig of RAM and a CD burner. The only problem with the system was if you ran it at full speed with it in your lap, you'd end up cooking your weenie, even with the fans on full.

It seems like not many companies are deploying wireless, though, so you still end up with travelling employees roaming the halls like undead zombies, looking for ethernet and power ports to plug in to.

Re:Corporate Sales Impact

[Chirs]

My workplace is the reverse. You need to have a demonstrable need for mobile computing in order to get a laptop.

Laptops are still more expensive, and with tens of thousands of people they can save a lot of money using desktops instead.

What the laptop buyers forgot...

[yossarian dent]

Some of the features common in most notebooks are longer-lasting batteries, CD burners and wireless capability.

Some of the features common in most desktops are the lack of need for a battery, cd burners that don't heat up to roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun, and the ability to add wireless capability later if you want it.

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[atomic-penguin]

Yeah, but they are kind of heavy to take to the coffeeshop. Don't you think?

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[yossarian dent]

true, but the performance and reliability benefits i get from my desktop are worth the tradeoff (especially during processor-intensive renders)...and i can always get a coffeemaker.

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[Skippy_kangaroo]

Why? I would say that being able to keep you coffee warm while you work would make them the ideal coffee shop machines. Just add a steam spout to the liquid cooled ones and you have your own coffee shop machine right there!

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[NanoGator]

"Some of the features common in most desktops are the lack of need for a battery..."

Can't say I agree with you, here. One of the reasons I'd MUCH rather use a laptop over a desktop is that if the power does go out, you've got roughly a couple of hours of use before it goes. Maybe I'm the only one here, but I haven't had pleasant experiences with UPSs.

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[mrchaotica]

I've had good experiences with my UPS: I hooked my DSL modem and wireless router up to it so that my laptop still has Internet access when the power goes out. ; )

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[klui]

It's really no use these days as most people use the Internet for a lot of stuff. When power goes out, your connection goes with it unless you have a UPS.

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[NanoGator]

"It's really no use these days as most people use the Internet for a lot of stuff. When power goes out, your connection goes with it unless you have a UPS."

I'd rather not be in the middle of saving a file when the power dies.

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[klui]

A UPS will take care of this situation, no?

Re:What the laptop buyers forgot...

[Kjella]

I'd rather not be in the middle of saving a file when the power dies.

Which file? Downloads from the internet? No problem. Moving files? No problem. Database writes? ACID and transactions, baby. The only problem is if you're talking about a live document you are working on, that will save over the last good version (e.g. saving a new savegame doesn't count, the quicksave might). A lot of software have auto-recover abilities, Microsoft Office for example. All in all, I don't remember when I lost anything of importance to a power failure. A lot of half-intelligent software do this:

// Check that last save was good
Verify "filename"
if ( ok )
Delete "filename.bak"
Rename "filename" "filename.bak"
Save "filename"
--
Load "filename"
If ( fucked )
Load "filename.bak"

That way, you should never be left without a valid file. Worst case, you lost a tiny bit of work, but that's acceptable

How true

[Rac3r5]

I purchased a Dell SmartStep 200N about 4 yrs ago when Dell just released them. They were the first to put a desktop chip inside a laptop. Back then a 2.0 Ghz laptop was pretty much comparable to Desktop computers. My professors used to get pretty impressed when my laptop used to be able to compile code faster then their 1 or 2 yr old desktop computers.

They also provide the easiest setup at LAN gaming parties.

Ever since I purchased my laptop, i've pretty much been using it as my primary computer. My only complain is that I have a problem with it overheating easily; so now I put a fan next to it when I work.

My next laptop purchase will probarbly be in another 4 or 5 yrs, since my current one can do everything I need it to do (except play Doom III).

Anyone have any details on intels version of the macMini?

Re:How true

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have any details on intels version of the macMini?

Yeah, I think Apple's announcing something about that on Monday...;)

Re:How true

[Anonymous Coward]

"faster then their" - than
"used to get" - got
"used to be" - was
"laptop, i've pretty" - I've
"details on intels version" - Intel's

"since my current one can do everything I need it to do" Except, apparantly, run a spelling/grammar checker.

Re:How true

[Solder Fumes]

So says the Cowards who can't spell "apparently" to save his life.

Re:How true

[Rac3r5]

dude.. I had a long busy Sunday.. gimme a break...

Re:Sound Familiar?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that was about laptops outselling desktops in retail stores. This story is about laptops outselling them everywhere else, too.

An interesting point

[0xC0FFEE]

As TFA mentions, Wifi as really changed things for consumers. It is now possible to keep working on the same machine all day long without loss in connectivity.

I've been an exclusive laptop user for the last 8 years and I don't see myself going back to a fixed desk.

LCD's

[Razzak]

I would bet this is due to the significant number of LCD's being produced for both desktops and laptops (making prices similar and overall laptop prices cheaper).

Isn't that what used to keep laptop prices sky-high?

Re:LCD's

[adpowers]

Sounds reasonable. Also, don't forget that miniaturization is also probably a lot cheaper now. Laptop hard drives and even smaller are readily available in laptops and HD digital music players. Desktops are being made smaller, from the Shuttle XPC systems to the Mac mini. Everything is being miniaturized, so the size difference between desktop and laptop components is likely shrinking. Sure, you have the huge, powerful graphics cards in Desktops, but you can still get older and slower graphics cards for laptop that still work well at low power.

I'm amazed at prices recently. Huge LCDs are very reasonable and the Crucial PowerBook RAM is down to $200 for 1 gig SO-DIMM. Everything is getting cheaper, so I'm sure it is a number of factors contributing to cheap laptops.

Andrew

no surprise here

[roman_mir]

I just bought my second laptop and at this very moment I only have two computers at home: a VAIO laptop and a new DELL laptop, even though I used to own a few desktops and built a few myself. Now I live in an appartment and don't have that much space and I have to bring my own computer to work (that's why I went for a nice new DELL with 15.4" wide screen 1900x1200 with 2GB RAM, 2.13GHz Centrino, 100GB HD, DVD RW/CD RW in a bay that is hotpluggable and a spare battery that can be put into the same bay while the laptop is running giving me another 2-3 hours. Wireless internet as well as Cat5 and a modem (just in case.)

I use it for work and for my own programming projects, I don't play games so it's perfect.

Re:no surprise here

[slash.dt]

"......I have to bring my own computer to work..."

What company makes you bring your own computer to work? They must have some pretty good other benefits to keep you working there!

Re:no surprise here

[roman_mir]

On a contract sometimes you have to supply your own equipment. The pay is worth it, no other benefits - it's a contract.

Re:no surprise here

[Solder Fumes]

"Dell" and "nice" in the same sentence? (Ignore the irony of that for a few moments.)

I travel a LOT and am part of a company with many loosely connected divisions. Therefore I get to see all kinds of laptops. The Dells are always in the shop, the users expect and accept frequent lockups and crashes, and they generally use a "bar-of-soap" design strategy. Meaning, a lot of the plastic has very thin paint on it, and it a different color underneath...designed to show scratches and look old faster.

IBM Thinkpads and Toshiba laptops stand up MUCH better, have great battery life, and are designed to be lugged all over the country instead of sitting unused on Grandma's sewing table. I've also used Apple's Powerbook series, which obviously have more styling but manage to keep the laptop solid and usable.

Re:no surprise here

[pintomp3]

are you refering to inspirons? cuz i find their latitude line to be pretty solid.

Re:no surprise here

[mrchaotica]

I've also used Apple's Powerbook series, which obviously have more styling but manage to keep the laptop solid and usable.

iBooks are really durable too. Well, they're not as cosmetically durable (they get scratched easily), but they stand up to being dropped as well or better than Powerbooks, which is the important thing.

Re:no surprise here

[roman_mir]

I got a Latitude 810, so far it is doing what it is supposed to do so I like it.

Re:no surprise here

[LurkerXXX]

How can you hammer the Dell for getting scratched up looking without mentioning the same thing about the Apples? As the owner of both a Dell Inspiron and a 12" aluminum Mac, I can tell you the Mac definitly looks more cratched up with about equal abuse.

3 Desktops

[PsychicX]

I don't care. My custom built desktop has more capabilities than a laptop anywhere close to the same price. If you want a less capable, but light and portable laptop, that's all well and good, but screw the rip off "desktop replacement" laptops.

Of course, I did happen to notice this site, Coboc. Basically, DIY laptops. Pretty damn tempting...

Re:3 Desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

My desktop replacement laptop has the following specs:

-G wireless
-1000mb NIC
-56.k modem
-2 USB 2.1
-1 USB 1.0
-512 megs of RAM upgradable to 2 gigs
-1280x800 max resolution widescreen
-AMD 64 3200 2.0ghz with powernow optimization
-Nvidia Geforce4 Go with 64 megs of seperate RAM
-80 gig 7200rpm hard drive
-2.1 soundcard with surround sound emulation.

That sounds almost exactally like a desktop, and it doesn't run very hot at all (especially since I use notebook coolers that are even thinner than the laptop itself). And mind you, that's the cheap version of my laptop. I could have started with 2 Gigs of RAM, 100 gig 7200 rpm harddrive, Nvidia geforce 6800 Go 128 megs of seperate RAM, and an AMD 64 3800 3.2ghz.

So why again do you feel that desktop replacement laptops are ripoffs, if they have the identical specs to what my desktop would have? If it's just because you can't swap hardware compoents in and out, then that's not a rip-off, that's just a single part you don't like.

Oh, and that $800 for the laptop, and $200 for a 2 year no questions asked full warrenty. Almost identical for what I could home build.

useable laptops? - thank Apple

[gsfprez]

here are a list of "options" that were standard features on laptops that Apple made before any other company made them standard.. some still don't have some of them as optional...

- palm rests
- built-in mouse control device - trackball
- monitor spanning
- trackpads
- ethernet
- software controlled hard drive spin-downs and backlight
- sleep on close/awake when open
- wireless ethernet
- bluetooth

and that's only after thinking about it for 10 seconds.

i recall non-apple laptops from yesteryear...

spacebars at the edge of the laptop and a 1/4 acre above it...
Microsoft hook-on trackball with PS/2 cable...
having to do that OfficeSpace-like dance waiting for Windows to shutdown to get to the DOS prompt...

seriously - that laptops are even useable in this day and age - almost every single feature from the Compaq Luggable to today's kick-ass AMD Athlon 64 rockets that makes them useable as desktop replacements (other than the processor) is all thanks to apple.

i believe my friends at Apple would say... "you're welcome"

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[GigsVT]

i believe my friends at Apple would say... "you're welcome"

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of condescending asshole thing they would say.

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as "wireless ethernet"

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[dedazo]

Hahahah, lo and behold the apple fanboy bullshit of the day.

Apple has always been an innovator, but it has never lead the pack because it simply hasn't had those many laptop/notebook models. The advances in laptop technology have been pushed by the demand in PC laptops from Compaq, Dell, HP and more importantly, IBM. IBM has been probably the more innovating integrator of the lot. Apple is a distant catch-up, regardless of their good industrial design capabilities. The ability to have a hard drive the size of a pack of matches, wireless networking or power-saving processors does not come to us courtesy of your "friends at Apple", it comes from the Toshibas, VIAs and Intels of the world being pushed by PC makers with insane consumer-level demand. You honestly don't think Apple makes their own Firewire controllers, eh?

Thanks for the laugh though.

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[FLEB]

Hmm... two Ethernet cards and a big wad o' solder?

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[Vengie]

ALOHA.
pwnt.
OMG Computar Science Is Teh Imba! nerf nerf nerf!
Pure aloha?
Slotted aloha?
Omfg, get a clue about networking before chiming in with your two cents? We should lock this AC up in bob's basement. (metcalfe, to specify bobs)

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Go look up the 802.11 spec and show me where it says Ethernet. 802.11 is NOT ETHERNET.

You learn that in basic networking class. Try taking that class right after taking English

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[eexlebots]

Now this is flamebait.

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Toshiba had most of the things you list before Apple. Toshiba do in my view the best notebooks of all. You cannot compare Toshiba with Dell/HP/IBM.

Re:useable laptops? - thank Apple

[skingers6894]

Check out these

http://www.notesys.com/Copies/CNET%207Sep00%20IBM% 20Dell%20Wireless.htm

Dell and IBM were duking it out for for honors of first Windows laptop with wireless a year after Apple had already offered it.

I'm not sure whether Apple make their own firewire controllers but they DID invent the technology:

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-271986.html?legacy=c net

Finally it is clear to people who have been around for a while that Apple created the template from which almost all laptops are cut today. Check out this article that names the Powerbook 100 as the top gadget of all time.

http://www.mobilemagazine.com/archives/2005/03/the _top_100_gad_1.html

Admittedly blind fanboyism is not very informative but neither is denying credit where it is due.

No syncing

[MDMurphy]

My primary machine became a laptop 7-8 years ago. I used to use one while traveling and a desktop while at home/work, but syncing things up between the two was a pain in the butt. Too many times I didn't have what I'd worked on with the other machine available on the machine I was on.
While laptops still lag in speed, they hit "good enough" for most applications a while ago. The biggest lag now is really in disk size, you have to go external for serious space. But "most" people can live with a measly 100GB in the laptop and hook up an external or network drive for the other times.
Even if you never flip up the screen at home and use external keyboard/monitor/mouse, you bring your entire work environment with you when on the road.

And if you only use them on your work desk or home desk, the battery is handy as a built-in UPS.

Apple's been selling laptops for years . . .

[samnice]

they just called them iMacs.
but seriously, it shouldn't surprise Mac lovers that this is now the case. Apple made a brand on a market that never wanted to upgrade a componet or otherwise "deal with" their computers. I know there are serious Mac users out there, so please don't get me wrong. But when you crack open my old Blueberry iMac, Lo and Behold! Its a Laptop inside. The same technology that makes the Mini viable, is what has been pushing laptops into the forefront.
At my office, the first question we ask new employees is "laptop or desktop?". Only one person took the desktop and thats because we already had it set up, she really didn't care, and we needed to get rid of it. The rest of us can work at the coffeeshop or park, receiving calls via cel phone and email updates from the office. I really don't understand why you would want a desktop at this point.

Re:Apple's been selling laptops for years . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want a desktop? Because, I don't want to bring work home.

Sorry boss, I can't stay late, but I am giving birth.

Boss: thats the 5th time this week and hey, wait a minute, your a man.

got to run

Re:Apple's been selling laptops for years . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

One terribly simple reason (and the same reason I don't have a cell phone):

when I'm out of the office, I Am Out.

If I'm not at my desk, I don't *want* to be reached. I've got voice mail and an email address, if I'm not there, *leave a message* and I'll get back to you.

Keith

longer lasting batteries?

[JeiFuRi]

right...

Price or Wireless Revolution?

[Mulletproof]

But this is not just a "desktop replacement" trend. Sure, you can emulate nearly every function on a laptop that you could get in a desktop, but that was true back when too. Sure, the price has gone down, but what's really changed?

I don't think the wireless explosion is getting nearly enough credit here. Now your truly portable PC can take advantage of the most influential and pervasive phenomenon of the 21st century anywhere and everywhere. Coffee shops. Parks. The back yard. The laptops utility has been magnified 100 fold just by the wireless networking trend alone. It's so much more than a portable document holder now. You now have access to real time information anywhere, an unparalleled knowledge base at your fingertips on the go, keep in contact with people friends, family and partners instantly, etc etc etc. Wireless LAN? Standard equipment on nearly every machine now.

I have no doubt the price drop has helped, but the utility and popularity of the laptop has absolutely exploded because of the wireless revolution that is still evolving at this very moment.

Re:Price or Wireless Revolution?

[bladesjester]

Unfortunately, the wireless revolution seems to have passed by the town I am currently in.

It's a shame too, because I love working in the park provided it isn't blazingly hot or raining. As it stands, I can take most of the info that I need with me, but being able to check my mail or find an answer to a problem I don't have docs on would be nice.

None of the coffee shops here have wireless here either.

I do, however, find it amusing that I get the weirdest looks from people when I'm sitting in the park with my laptop. You'd think I had grown a couple of extra heads...

Here's something to think about...

[AtOMiCNebula]

The survey doesn't look like it takes DIY-computers into consideration. You can't build laptops like you can a desktop.

Just a thought I had.

The original Compaq was 34 lbs.

[Dasein]

And now I have to write some text here because some stupid 'tard decided to crapflood slashdot in the dim dark past.

It makes sense..

[greening]

For years, I wouldn't even consider buying a laptop. Due to the price, the fact that they couldn't compare to desktops (performance and screen size/resolution), etc. But, lately, there have been a number of advancements in the laptop market that give you a comparable computer from a laptop (granted, the laptop will weigh a lot more if you're trying to get a full desktop comparable laptop) but, the price is still a factor. In the past, my job has never had anything to do with computers (insurance, chemical labs, etc.) but now I have a programming job that I work from home as well as the office. The most annoying thing is having everything set up just the way you want it at work, then switching to a completely different set up at home. This is the reason why I'm looking into buying a laptop. I spend a lot of time at my bosses house and while I'm there, I can't really get anything done, so I pretty much waste 2-3 hours when I could be getting more work done (that's why the company is also considering chipping in on the cost of the laptop). That leads to the largest benefit that a laptop can provide, portability. It's convenient to be able to take your computer with you when you need to travel, etc.

I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. The biggest reason I would continue buying desktops is to play games (since I work all the time, I rarely do). Then again, it's also nice to be able to upgrade your system piece by piece but, you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

students

[AndreySeven]

One thing that is adding to the number for laptops is students. As a student in Seattle, I notice that many students own laptops(perhaps 50/50) if not more compared to desktops. And since there is a wireless access point everywhere on campus and in many places around campus, it is conductive to laptop use.

Laptops now good enough?

[Paperweight]

So now I can leave the basement?

Tax advantages

[Skippy_kangaroo]

I just recently purchased my first laptop. The primary reason was that the Australian Tax Office considers that laptops are work-related while desktops aren't. Thus, I can purchase a laptop and have it fully deductable from my taxable income - even if I never do a day of work on it. It's like the government paying for half my laptop. At those sort of prices its a no-brainer.

While these sort of tax distortions continue laptops market shares are going to keep growing and growing.

Re:Tax advantages

[rbgemini]

Is it simply a matter of writing the appropriate amount under "work related expenses" when you do your taxes, or is there more to it than that? Just seems a little too convenient that the Tax Office would just happily accept that you bought a laptop and you use it for work, just like that.

Re:Tax advantages

[carlfish]

You have your employer buy you the laptop as a salary sacrifice, which means the cost of the laptop is removed from your taxable income for the year. Normally doing something like this would attract Fringe Benefits Tax to balance out the income tax you're avoiding, but you're allowed one laptop a year FBT-free as a work-related expense.

While common practice, it probably isn't a good idea to immediately sell the laptop on eBay and pocket the bonus cash, because if you're audited the ATO can quite justifiably ask you why you weren't using it for work like you said you were.

Charles

For two reasons

[melted]

1. Low-end desktops suck so bad, I wouldn't buy one if someone points a gun to my head. Just go to Circuit City or Best Buy and look at them. Do you want to buy this crap?

2. I'm writing this lying on the couch. There's no going back to desktop once you go completely wireless. The only desktop I have is iMac G5, but that's only because I need a good display for digital photography, and iMac display is top-notch. If Apple puts decent panels into the next crop of their laptops, this iMac may go to ebay.

Re:For two reasons

[eexlebots]

From what I understand the iMac flat panel is the same as the Powerbook's. My Powerbook's display is very nice at full illumniation. iBook displays, OTOH, are not so great.

Re:For two reasons

[mrchaotica]

If Apple puts decent panels into the next crop of their laptops, this iMac may go to ebay.

Why not a Powerbook and a Cinema Display? It'd be cheaper than an iMac in the long run...

Re:For two reasons

[Sentry21]

Even ignoring wireless, laptops are obsecenely handy for a lot of technical work. I'm writing this on a 12" Powerbook, light and easy to carry around, UNIX so I can do what I need to do on it.... but most importantly, I'm sitting in the colo right now. I can do all of my diagnostics from inside the firewall, check routes, and have multiple terminals doing multiple things without needing a monitor/keyboard/etc. in our rack. Pretty handy. No wireless in the rack, but that would be a dumb idea anyway.

Desktops are no longer obsolete in 3 years...

[Fly Swatter]

Why replace what I am happy with?

On the other hand a laptop is more prone to needing replacement due to moving it around all the time (may break) and the batteries are expensive to replace (might as well replace the whole thing while I'm at it..).

Plus laptops are still experiencing significant performance increases and bigger screens while desktops have more or less leveled off in performance - and desktop monitors are a separate unit to replace.

A portable device will always have a lower time of service than a desktop that sits under your desk and is not subject to abuse - one has guaranteed continued sales while the other has market saturation...

Has anyone considered

[Approaching.sanity]

Developing naitons? Seriously there is no way they will buy notebook computers right away. The desktop enviroment will rise again as people in these places start word processing.

Re:Has anyone considered

[mrchaotica]

Actually, because of the lack of infrastructure, developing nations will probably start out with laptops. Like this one, for instance.

Laptops: Complete, convenient, computing - Ahh! :)

[iamcf13]

Will this mean higher prices for desktop users? I hope not. I for one HATE with a passion laptops. There great for surfing the web and chatting on aim but for real work I need a desktop. I'm personally much more productive on a larger screen, full sized keyboard, and a comfortable external mouse.

I used to lug around A DESKTOP TOWER in order to do my work several years ago. Horrifically inconvenient but a necessary evil. :(
Getting (and using) a laptop took some getting used to but now I wouldn't use a desktop unless I absolutely have to. My laptop allow me to work anywhere there is an electrical outlet, a chair and a desk. I heard that the laptop I have was one of the first ones to 'cram' desktop computing power in a laptop-sized package--kudos the the laptop manufactuer! (They are Japanese and they put out music and anime 'on the side'. I won't identify them lest I be branded a 'corporate shill' but I will say their laptops are built to last! My boss dropped his laptop several times with the last time borking the LCD display for good. Guess what? The HD was fine throughout all the unintentional abuse and is now working inside a laptop made by a large U.S. computer/business machine firm that shall remain nameless to avoid me being branded a 'corporate shill'. :)

And to the smart asses who say you can hook all these up to a notebook, yeah but why?

I did that at first then quit. I only hook up assorted data storage devices to my laptop via USB nowadays as these are external peripherals that matter the most to me.

I like my laptop and am glad I was able to get one to use it.

Laptops truly make computing complete and convenient - Ahhhh! :)

Features

[slapout]

Some of the features common in most notebooks are longer-lasting batteries, CD burners and wireless capability

And some of them are even portable!

In Australia

[StArSkY]

In Australia you can tax deduct 100% of the cost of a laptop in the first year. you can onlydeduct 33% of a desktop in the first year.

As such there is a huge incentive to buy laptops rather than desktops.

Re:In Australia

[swordfishBob]

I didn't know that one, but do know laptops don't attract Fringe Benefit Tax.

(FBT is applied where an employee gets something other than cash as part of his salary, such as private use of company car, or computer. With a desktop, you have to apportion the private vs work use and pay tax on private part of the value). Laptops are exempt.

How about a NOTEBOOK instead?

[acoustix]

I haven't used a laptop computer in 5-10 years. However, I do own a 1 year old Gateway notebook computer.

Lets keep up with the times people. Laptops are those huge this that people used to lug around. Notebooks are those nice, thin new computers.

-Nick

Re:How about a NOTEBOOK instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for wasting my time with that post, acoustix.

Re:How about a NOTEBOOK instead?

[syrinx]

So, how is life on Marketing World?

(Remember, it's not tiny, it's Fun Size!)

Corporate Buying

[Anonymous Coward]

Also there is Corporate sales.
My company (Fortune 100) stopped buying workstations a few years ago and now buys everyone a laptop.

The company doesn't care that laptops are much more likely to DOA. They just have plenty of parts and replacments available.

Not too big of a deal

[mothlos]

This is just because laptops have always been a bit behind on the upgrade cycle. People aren't replacing their desktops as fast as they used to as they can pretty much handle everything most people want to do. Also many people simply upgrade componants in their computers instead of replacing it.

This just isn't true for laptops. As long as laptops suck because they are underpowered, have a short battery life, have bad screens, and those things can't be easily upgraded, people will keep buying new laptops more often than they replace their desktops. Add to this wi-fi tech in places like college campuses, the portability of laptops is actually useful where it just wasn't before (how many people do you know that used to leave their laptops on the desk over 99% of the time).

I think we are going to see laptops continue to ramp up for a bit as they become useful for a larger number of people, but once the bugs get ironed out people will slow down their upgrade cycle much like what is going on with desktops now.

Both

[pintomp3]

I actually use both. I have a desktop for doing heavy lifting and storage. It has a huge monitor, gobs of HD, and pretty much everything else. I use the laptop is an accessory, not a replacement. So I only use sub 3lbs units. Great for browsing internet and email in bed or on the go. I'm on it more than my desktop. I'm probably in the minority in this style of use, basically using laptop as a big pda. I can see more ppl computing this way in the future though.

Re:Both

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, I use my laptop like that too (except mine is a 5lb 12" iBook). I just wish using it that way was easier -- compared to a real PDA it's kind of clunky because the syncing software isn't good yet. I wish it was an integral part of the laptop and the operating system.

There's one laptop that I've seen that got this right: the Sharp Actius MM-10. It had a docking cradle and syncing software. The only downside was that it ran Windows...

Not surprised

[NeoSkandranon]

Even if this is in fact the case, and not a result of bad stats, I'm not surprised. Why?

College students. College goers everywhere are convinced they need a laptop for school for various reasons (I'll take notes with it..my desk is small..etc etc) when really what they need is a mini tower with an LCD monitor to accomplish the same or better end. Plenty of colleges require laptops (Which IMHO is so much more a status thing than anything productivity oriented) these days which is no doubt driving up the sales rates as well.

Re:Not surprised

[Your Pal Dave]

Plenty of colleges require laptops (Which IMHO is so much more a status thing than anything productivity oriented)

My understanding is that schools that require laptops do so because it allows them to phase out public access computers in libraries and labs. If the students are packing their own laptops the schools only have to provide wifi or ethernet jacks, which would be a lot cheaper than buying and supporting rooms full of PCs.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a desktop when I started at the university and quickly discovered how much useful a laptop would be. E.g. writing papers in the university library with a laptop is quite convenient: access to references and sources and no need to scribble stuff on paper. There's never enough workstations free for everyone to use. How is this a status thing?

Besides, basic laptops suited for writing and university work are not expensive. If you want the latest and greatest, laptops are expensive.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

"College students. College goers everywhere are convinced they need a laptop for school for various reasons (I'll take notes with it..my desk is small..etc etc) when really what they need is a mini tower with an LCD monitor to accomplish the same or better end."

Really? Are you going to drag a minitower with LCD monitor to class for me, you twit? Know what you're talking about when you tell a person what they "need".

Re:Not surprised

[chrisbro]

Are you serious? I'm a current college student (MIS degree, so maybe I'm biased), but laptops are prevalent for a reason. Of course I take them to class for notes; I type much faster than I write, so I can get down nearly verbatim what the professor says. In classes where every little detail could be on the test, this is important. It's also nice to drag it out for breaks between classes when you can't go back home, but can't do much else, either...I have reports, papers, and programming projects that I get significant work done on while at campus. Which would you rather do, knock out something in the day when you'd be dicking around otherwise, or wait until you get home to your "mini tower" to do it? And with my entire campus blanketed in wireless, I don't have to deal with some shitty library Gateway to view RSS feeds, pass the time on AIM, or send out emails with my own client.

"Status thing"? Please. Life got much easier when I got a laptop for school.

Re:Not surprised

[NeoSkandranon]

I'm a current college student (MIS degree, so maybe I'm biased), but laptops are prevalent for a reason...

Prevalent perhaps, but where? It seems to me like they're only prevalent in dorms and apartments, not on campus.Do you really (and i'm genuinly asking) see that many people taking a laptop to class? In four years of college (2 for an AA, 2 and counting in Engineering) the only people I've ever seen bring a laptop to class were using it to goof off during lecture. Of course, perhaps I'm biased as well, because my university (well, department at least) has enough high powered labs that people don't feel the need to bring their laptop along to do work in the meantime.

Regarding your notes, I type faster than I write too, but I'm curious how you deal with non-text basd information (equations, diagrams,etc) or if that issue doesn't come up in your coursework

Re:Not surprised

[chrisbro]

You're right; not everybody shows up on campus with a laptop. But it's enough to where I think it's not just a status thing. I don't own a laptop just because I think laptops are cool, and neither does anyone else that I know; they buy them because it's just so handy. In class, it's less so; most people are uncomfortable with taking notes, and the classes I attend either don't have diagrams to accompany the notes, or the diagrams are on a powerpoint slide or a word doc that I can download from the class site. Where you're more apt to see them is in the study sections, where people are researching and typing a paper. I've been through several group projects where we're all trying to research various parts of a single paper at the same time, everyone on their laptop.

And, like I said, it's not just for school-based productivity. It's gotten much more obvious over just the past year, with the advent of wireless on my campus, how many people rely on the internet for day-to-day things. Thefacebook, email, AIM, all of them are valid modes of communication, for school or not, that they use constantly. A laptop enables them to do all of this from anywhere they want.

Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[lanner]

Am I the only one who dreadfully hates touchpads and prefers touchpoints (eraser points, or whatever else you want to call them)?

IBM still uses the touchpoints, but they are really expensive. I really liked Dell laptops, until they went el-cheapo a year or two ago and removed the old legacy ports and the touchpoints at the same time. A few laptops, especially those angled at the business market, still have touchpoints, but they are few, more expensive, and lack the features that I desire.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[DoorFrame]

Yeah, you're pretty much the only one.

Seriously, though, I much MUCH prefer the touchpad to the weird touchpoint things. I always found them basically unusable. I'm sure if I owned one I could configure it to be more functional, but they always seemed awkward and difficult to direct. In addition they were generally, and for reasons impossible to figure, located in the middle of the keyboard. Do I really need a mouse getting in the way when I'm trying to type? At least put the damned things out of the way.

Anyway, yeah, I hate those things. I'm glad they're fading away.

On the other other hand, I really like non-widescreen displays on laptops, and those seem to be fading away as well. Again, you can still find them, but only on a few models and not the ones you want. It's sad when you like a feature that's being phased out.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Anonymous Coward]

touchpoints (eraser points, or whatever else you want to call them)?

Nipples.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Anonymous Coward]

touchpoints (eraser points, or whatever else you want to call them)?

Nipples.

Clitmice.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Dolly_Llama]

Generally, but if you browse you can find a Thinkpad at a decent price. I am neutral on the trackpad vs nipple, but I am a slut for high resolution screens.

I got a 15" screen that goes 1400x1050 on my thinkpad for around $1500.

I had been shopping around Dell's website and the various discount/coupon sites, and couldn't find a better deal for what I was looking for than straight from IBM's website. I probably could have even done better had I gone through a college or gotten some sort of discount.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not alone; if you look at the business lines of most major manufacturers (eg. Dell Latitude) you'll find they include trackpoints. Once you go trackpoint, it's tough to go back (it's just much more convenient to never need to move your fingers from the home keys).

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Victa]

Um... we have many (~100) IBM laptops here where I work... Oldest ~7yrs old, and newest less than 3 months old...
ALL of them have TrackPoints as standard equipment, only the newest ones have touchpads, and even they still have the TrackPoint...

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[vyzo]

nipple is what it's called.

My primary machine machine has been an IBM Thinkpad the last 3 years, and before that I had a nasty dell one. The nipple, and it's tight integration with the keyboard, is one of the best features in the Thinkpad.

Yes, it drifts occasionally, but it is not a big deal. Once you get hooked on the nipple there is no turning back. How people can even work with trackpads is beyond me - it is unusable compared to the nipple.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[klui]

Yes, you're the only one.

Touchpads are much better because with the correct driver you can do everything with a touchpad that you can with a mouse/trackball including click, drag, and click/drag lock without using even the buttons. A truly solid state device with no moving parts. Apple does one better by allowing you to scroll using 2 fingers on the pad without the use of dedicated regions.

I have never liked the trackpoints, especially with my tendonitis. Doing click drags just feels unnatural.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Anonymous Coward]

(it's just much more convenient to never need to move your fingers from the home keys)

Which is why business desktops all have trackpoints.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[mnmn]

Maybe youre the only one. I hate the eraser touchpoints. Touchpads are bearable once you get used to it, they both have steep learning curves.

Of course I'd prefer a wireless bluetooth trackball over both

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[bheer]

I hate dreadfully touchpads too-- maybe I have sensitive fingers but I hate the feel of my skin on the pad they use. And while I can control trackpoints (which is what IBM calls them IIRC) quite precisely I have a pretty bad time getting a touchpad-based cursor to move exactly where I want.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a clit, you pussy, not a nipple!

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Vo0k]

+1 insightful.
A small mouse doesn't take up that much room in the suitcase, a hard-cover notepad for a mouse pad in case you don't have room to use mouse, and even if that isn't an option, fallback to touchpad/trackpoint as last resort.
Note the trackpoint is just a kind of analog joystick. Somehow I don't see too many joysticks used for pointer control.
I use a standard, full-size keyboard too, whenever I can. I don't carry one around with me though - usually just borrow a spare when possible. The most braindead design in Laptop I've seen is 17" screen, and a tiny laptop keyboard cramped in the middle of huge empty area of the bottom part of the laptop.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[shic]

HEAR HEAR! I wholeheartedly agree with you about widescreen... I've got one of the last Dells before widescreen became common - 1600x1200 in a regular 15" display... and it is fantastic. This beast could be replaced now (it is over 2 years old) but I can't find anything I'd prefer to use. In order to get 1200 dots vertical resolution without loosing readability (which sadly seems to plague the modern widescreen Dells I've used) I need to get a 17" widescreen - which is pretty pricey. I'd make use of an in-built DVD writer and I'd benefit from a faster processor and memory bus. My hard-disk was (fortunately) easily upgradeable - as was memory. Bring by the regular ratio screen - please! As it stands I'm waiting and hoping at last one manufacturer starts supplying a suitable replacement before this one breaks.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Gubbe]

There seems to be a great variety in opinions regarding the Trackpoint.

I used to use an IBM Thinkpad 365XD which had Trackpoint only. It was great and responsive in every way. The same characteristics applied to another IBM, a TP560.

Later I bought a Dell Latitude CPt S that had both, the Trackpoint and a touchpad. I initially used the Trackpoint, but it was nowhere near as responsive as the ones I had used on the IBMs. It was slower in that there was a noticeable lag between physical input and cursor response. Now I use the touchpad almost exclusively. Had the Trackpoint been as good on the dell as it was on the IBMs, I have no doubt I would still be using it.

So you people who love Trackpoints, be wary that your next Trackpoint could be horrible compared to the current IBM goodness, whereas those of you who hate Trackpoints, please go out and try a good one before damning them all to hell.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[crimson30]

Touchpads are bearable once you get used to it, they both have steep learning curves.

I disagree. None of the laptops in my workplace had trackpoints (mostly toughbooks) and despite frequent use, I never really felt comfortable with the touchpad. When I finally used a laptop with a trackpoint, it was quite a relief, as there was NO learning curve (for me).

Having since purchased a laptop without a touchpad, my only problem is that after using it all day, sometimes I need to switch from my index finger from my middle finger, since it gets a little sore despite the callous I've developed over the last few years. And no, I don't have the mouse speed all the way up to lighten the pressure, because I frequently plug in a usb mouse for gaming and don't like adjusting my mouse speed all the time.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Felonious Ham]

The beauty of the Nubbin (as it is officially known) is that you can easily manipulate the mouse without taking your figures from the home row. It definitely can put a dent in your fingertip if you have to mouse a lot of stuff, but for simple cursor placement, it's far superior to the touchpad.

And I don't think I've ever hit it accidentally (instead of G,H, or B on a Thinkpad).

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[kisrael]

Ugh, I always disable all those extra clicks/drag functions on the touchpad. Drags are too hard to do, extraneous clicks too easy.

Different strokes (so to speak) I wish I could still get a marble trackball on my laptop, I find them the easiest to use...I even learned how to doodle with one.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[aziraphale]

Dell Latitude D600, ~ 6 months old. 'eraser' point thing and trackpad included.

Great screen resolution, nice formfactor, and apart from the intermittent bluetooth driver issue, very nice laptop indeed. Wouldn't leave home without it.

anyway, point is, I'm sure it isn't the only laptop in the Dell line with a touchpoint whotsit in the middle of the keyboard. And, what's more, unlike the IBM laptops I've used, I don't find I accidentally end up hitting it while typing.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[toddestan]

Touchpads are much better because with the correct driver you can do everything with a touchpad that you can with a mouse/trackball including click, drag, and click/drag lock without using even the buttons. A truly solid state device with no moving parts. Apple does one better by allowing you to scroll using 2 fingers on the pad without the use of dedicated regions.

How do you put up with it? Everytime I have to use a trackpad, I'm always doing shit that I didn't want to do (and a lot of it can't be undone easily, like dragging icons off the dock). I'd much rather have the trackpoint.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[klui]

I guess I "put up" with it 'cuz extra shit has never happened to me while I'm on a laptop with a trackpad. Maybe your fingers are too big, or you're used to having your thumbs rest below the spacebar as you type. I just looked at my hands while on a laptop and my thumbs don't touch the pad--they just hover above the spacebar.

It took me about 2 minutes to learn the finesse of doing 1-1/2 taps that are required for click lock for dragging--tap once then doing 1/2 a tap by pressing your finger on the pad and while not releasing move your finger.

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[Anonymous Coward]

Toshiba Tecras

(the newer ones seem to have both a touchpoint and a trackpad)

Re:Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)

[WuphonsReach]

The beauty of the Nubbin (as it is officially known) is that you can easily manipulate the mouse without taking your figures from the home row.

Bingo!

Hint for new users: set your mouse pointer speed to the maximum (it then requires less force to move the pointer over larger distances and requires you to use a lighter touch).

Since I code for a living, a trackpoint/nubbin suits me very well. It's "just right" for the small amount of the time that I have to move a cursor to click on a screen widget.

If you touch-type, odds are that you would be well served by getting used to a nubby-style cursor. And it's not even an all-or-nothing deal, as you can easily hook up an external USB mouse. Most systems then let you control the mouse cursor using *either* pointer device at the same time.

So, when you're coding... use the trackpoint.

Doing a bit of graphical layout? Grab the external USB mouse.

(The trackpoint is also a darned sight more handy when taking mass-transit. When the train is rattling around underneath you, a trackpad just doesn't cut it.)

Laptops suck compared to...

[Anonymous Coward]

...a decent desktop and a 30" screen like this one.

http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/PhotoAlbum2.html

What the laptop issue is people are taking it with them, schools, work, airplanes etc. They are the lonely ones stuck off by a power supply in the airport, they are too poor to hide their dislike for human companionship and too cheap to have a beast of a computer at home.

Laptop owners in the "wild" look so horribly lonely it's pathetic. Ever since I got rid of mine I realized how really pathetic I looked in public with my laptop.

I didn't mean to sound like a troll, just a serious observation.

Re:Laptops suck compared to...

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the lonely ones stuck off by a power supply in the airport, they are too poor to hide their dislike for human companionship and too cheap to have a beast of a computer at home.

Right, because the people at the airport without laptops are regular chatter-bugs with the total strangers who surround them, and not pretending to re-read the same month-old issue of Newsweek for the third time in a row while nursing a Long Island Iced Tea which cost them eight bucks at the airport bar.

Sorry, but you are full of shit.

The biggest problem with using a laptop in public is not loneliness. It's all the dumbass people who think your use of it is an invitation to talk about computer technology when you would much rather just be doing whatever it was you were using the laptop for in the first place.

(Which is why phase-cancelling headphones are every bit as essential as a laptop when traveling. First of all, it reduces ambient noise slightly, but more importantly, nothing says "fuck off and leave me alone" quite like a good pair of headphones and an LCD screen to bury yourself in.)

Another way to put it

[SuperKendall]

Yeah. They left out the inability to easily upgrade components. In the last 10 years i have owned +/- 6 computers. One was a laptop that I purchased new. The others were all custom rigs that got upgraded expansion cards, peripherals, memory, etc. when needed.

In other words, no way for users to screw up a laptop (Ok, memory).

No wonder the sales are outpacing desktops... it either works or it doesn't. No sqabbling between card and MB vendors, it's one point of contact for failures!

Re:Another way to put it

[rikkards]

White box are great for building at home but I found when I was working for the Cdn govt that 2nd tier manuf (i.e Northern Micro, etc) they were the most annoying machines. The components were good as a typical home built PC but the componentry were not consistent. I would see one model number but up to 5 different motherboards inside, different soundcards, nics etc. You would apply a ghost image and when you brought the machine up at best you would get a prompt for drivers or at worst a BSOD. You get real familiar with OEMPNPDriverPath and Sysprep in these situations.

With Compaq, HP, IBM and Dell there was a lot less of this seen as the hardware would usually be consistent.

But they all seemed to stay with the same naming standard so you may see two Evo desktops with one being a couple years older and having a 600MHz compared to the machine in the next cube that is latest and greatest.

I'd love to get a laptop...

[Senjutsu]

if only laptop keyboards weren't ergonomically optimized for twelve-year old Japanese midgets.

Seriously, we can jam a 17" monster screen on to these things, how come we can't get a larger, less mushy keyboard under it??

mobile.. sure.

[Goeland86]

I've been forced to get a laptop because I'm in college, too far away from home to drive my desktop along with me. That was the greatest loss I've had when going to college. Sure, wireless is nice, but I still need to lug around the power adapter! Oh, and that stupid small 15" screen SUCKS, dust gets all over it, and blowing it only adds it up in the corners where it won't get removed. Then there's the whole ergonomics issue: even with an external keyboard I'm not comfortable: the laptop takes up TOO MUCH SPACE on the desk. Give me a flat panel screen and I'll have plenty! A foot's worth of depth! And the hard drive performance drives me up the wall, it's so slow even a pentium pro starts up faster. And it's an athlon 2400+ for crying out loud! And then graphics chipset. Took me 6 months of hardcore tweaking, testing and whatnot to get even basic DRI to work. Performance is still less than that of an original radeon, and it sucks memory off my RAM. Seriously, laptops are great for some uses, but not for mine. And I'm not a gamer, I just like to have a machine where I can compile and use blender. Laptops are the worst kind of hardware for that, they overheat like hell. Had to get a cooling pad for mine. The heat comes not from the CPU, but from the HDD and the RAM! So the fan is running loud like a drumroll, and it's still heating! Then there's the whole storage issue. 30GB for someone who runs gentoo and stores lots of graphics files is USELESS! All of my big files are on my firewire HDD, because the thing only has usb 1.1! I spent $1200 on an athlon xp 1600 in 2001, and that hardware runs still today! Not only that, but it's faster and better to use, because I've been able to switch a few things around to make it quieter and cooler. Now go and try to make a laptop quiet. It's IMPOSSIBLE, hard drives make noise, and the cd-drive is as loud as a fortissimo part in an opera! Give me parts for a desktop anytime, I'm sick of this machine, as great as it is to take notes in class on it, or browsing the web to find references to what my professor's talking about.

Predictable...

[VaticDart]

...because when Strongbad switched to Lappy 486, it was obvious which way the world was turning.

And of course I got chili on my Powerbook's keyboard typing that.

laptops... bah

[steelframe]

When my son turned 12 I bought him a box of parts and we put together his first pc. 3 years later we've upgraded virtually every part and I don't mind at all because he now has a machine that is customized to the interests he has developed.(3D drawing and gaming, natch)So far ,we just plan on spending X$ each year to keep him current.
When my daughter turned 12, she wanted a laptop. We did not opt for the extended warantee and it has been in for repairs twice, once at Compaq's expence, once at ours. The cost has been about the same but she is stuck with the same RAM, the same monitor,(the boy is up to a 22",she is still and forever will be 15"),the same chip,same video card. It will never get better for her until I find the way to upgrade for less than $1500.If I can't fix it i don't want it.My own laptop is essential but it's my sweet box next to my right foot that gets USED!

Re:laptops... bah

[JenovaSynthesis]

That's why you get a Dell with CompleteCare. You could practically take a piss on that thing and they'll fix it then.

Re:laptops... bah

[rokzy]

um... do you even understand what a laptop is for? it is NOT just a way to buy a computer all in one go instead of piece by piece.

How much of this is because

[Lord Kano]

It's possible to upgrade a desktop so all of the new motherboard/CPU combos that people bought didn't get counted?

For example, I upgraded my machine with a new MB and an Athlon XP 2800+, while my GF did buy a new laptop. In one house, that's two new machine, but only one new sale.

LK

isn't this the point?

[dwntwnboi]

as personal computing technology gets smaller and more powerful at the same time, wouldn't it be the eventual goal of any personal comuting venture to be able to produce a product that could accomplish all that a desktop computer while being as smalll and portable as possible?

if this trend continues, more will be computerized and it will be done more cheaply. awesome!

Laptops are transitional products

[Wolfier]

I'm still waiting for a PDA that when plugged into a docking station, will become a full-fledged PC.

Someone MUST have done it right. Come on, it's 2005.

Re:Laptops are transitional products

[jamesbulman]

I think the closest thing is probably an OQO.

Re:Laptops are transitional products

[saintlupus]

I miss my Powerbook Duo.

That's exactly what you described.

--saint

Re:Laptops are transitional products

[Wolfier]

The Powerbook duo was HUGE.

By "PDA", I mean...PDA-sized portable device, which should be at most as big as a Blackberry...

WTF?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Laptops mean you can put them on your lap and not have second-degree burns on your dick. Notebooks mean you can fold them like a notebook. One of those terms describes something for portable use and the other something man-portable and you seem to have gotten them mixed up.

I don't see myself buying another non-notebook

[aCapitalist]

....at least for a while. these guys sell p4s that go up to 3.8 mhz now, and you can get intel x86-64 up to 3.6 mhz now. Not only that, but the sagers now offer upgradeable video card slots.

I don't need ultramobile. I need something that I can put on a table in the living room, or dining room, or take it somewhere else with a table and an outlet. I'm not one of the guys in the commercials sitting in the park with my pup surfing the web

Re:I don't see myself buying another non-notebook

[rokzy]

the millihertz myth is alive and well...

the best design

[asv108]

I purchase ibm X series models specifically because they are touchpoint only. I simply hate wasting valuable real estate on a useless touchpad.

Touchpoints make so much more sense because they are embedded in the keyboard. You don't have to move your fingers a great distance to use the mouse. The other big advantage is the continuous motion of a touchpoint compared to moving your thumb multiple times on a trackpad to navigate through a long distance. A semi-experienced touchpoint user can out mouse an experienced touchpad user without expending much effort.

While touchpoints are the most efficient design, it comes with a price. It takes a bit of time to get comfortable using a touchpoint. Novice computer users can be thrown off by it and it doesn't have the "gee wiz" appearance and marketability of a touchpad.

Re:the best design

[Vo0k]

After 2-3h of use and tweaking in prefs to switch off "tap=click" I got pretty proficient in using a touchpad in FPP RPG, a simple arcade, and even had some success in FPS. I can't imagine playing an FPS with the clitoris.

Re:the best design

[TeknoHog]

I can't imagine playing an FPS with the clitoris.

If there's a clitoris nearby, surely you can find something better to do than a first person "shooter" ;)

Re:the best design

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, "first person shooter" actually sounds just about right.

No Profit

[qda]

A friend of mine who works at Future Shop told me that one of the only things she doesnt get discounts on as an employee are laptops. Why? Because Futureshop sells them at the same price they get them for. They don't make a profit on them. They're really pushing everyone to go mobile..

Re:No Profit

[tomstdenis]

Yeah, they just make the money on the 400$ useless product service plans which they hardly properly honour.

I mean future shop is great when your inside the 30 days. Outside of that they just don't care it seems.

Tom

Re:No Profit

[rikkards]

Actually, I had a really good experience with Future Shop. I bought one of their $179 Xboxes which was essentially a floor model with the normal manufacturer warranty. About 35 days in, I found out about the class action suit against MS for flaky dvd readers in their Xboxes and I was having similar symptoms on mine. I went into Future Shop with mine and they replaced it with a new one and let me get the extended warranty but set the date back to start to the day I had bought the XBox. The warranty didn't really surprise me as it meant more money for them but the fact that they took the XBox back without a hesitation made me a little happier.

Future Shop seems to have changed a bit as I used to work for Business Depot in my youth and they had a horrible name.

Although I have to say I probably wouldn't get the extended waranty unless I know there is an underlying issue (i.e my ipod with the potential 18 month limit on the battery)

Change the spec

[Linker3000]

That 'CD burner' had better be a DVD rewriter or I'm not interested!

Batteries

[Talie]

Normaly, how long do your batteries last on your desktops ;) ? I sometimes feel like comparing laptops and desktops is like comparing apples and oranges (or Apples and PCs) ! I can't live without my PowerBook, but when I'm at home... the desktop is a nice change (especially for a bigger screen).

Where can I buy a 20" powerbook?

[melted]

Where can I buy a 20" powerbook? :0)

Seriously, though. It's not the same, and the difference is pretty dramatic. Panels in Apple desktops are MUCH better.

PDA as PC

[bw5353]

There are probably several options. This is one of them.

http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/VGN-U50/

Of course it is not a fully fledged PC of 2005 but it beats a lot of the things you could buy, let's say, five years ago.

desktops... demographics (?)

[l3v1]

I have to tell, none of my friends, relatives, close or distant acquaintances have ever bought a "desktop" computer that I know of. I also always build my own PCs, from parts I want. Those who can't or won't build, ask others who can and will to make it for them. I know that this is absolutely not the general case since awful lot of people and - most of all - companies buy their machines as a whole, and that's what the article's numbers come from. I own PCs for about 10 years now, and not one of them was bought prebuilt. I also have stinking bad stories with prebuilt PCs which are purchased @ work, quite a few, which also made me promise to myself not to ever buy them.

Longer than a desktop, n'est-ce pas?

[interactive_civilian]

Even at 2 hours, it lasts longer than the battery of a desktop, and even many desktops with UPS.

I use a PowerBook 12" 1.33GHz, and it is powerful enough for my uses that I don't need a desktop. I still get anywhere from 3.5hrs to 5hrs of battery life, depending on what I'm doing (3.5hrs w/ processor set on "Highest", screen dimmed, using GarageBand and 5+hrs when just typing w/ processor on "Reduced"). When I am at home, I just kind of think of it as a really long lasting UPS.

of course, I've never been in a power outage, so YMMV with the usefulness of such a "feature".

This post is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but for those using a laptop as a desktop replacement, it can be a valuable feature.

Re:Longer than a desktop, n'est-ce pas?

[adpowers]

I have the same computer. Soon after I got it, I took a flight from Seattle to Vegas. I was typing a document in the airport with the screen on lowest brightness. I continued typing for most of the way on the airplane and by the end I was only down to 69%. These PowerBooks last forever, and I think it is even better with Tiger (more efficient, less processing). Right now I'm on wireless internet and listening to iTunes. I've been at this for like 22 minutes and have only lost 10% battery life. Quite good if you ask me :)

laptop versus desktop..

[axlr8or]

They both definately have their uses, but laptops suck for home/office duties. To much maintenance. Damaged/stolen to easily. To slow for the price. The big word, 'PROPRIETARY' = blah. Worst of all they are 'mainstream'. They are mainstream because they are in 'fashion'. Being in fashion means your 87% (is that right by IQ figures?) likely to have an IQ less than 110. Most people with laptops just like to show off anyways. Time 4 bed, l8r

Re:laptop versus desktop..

[oneiron]

Funny that you mention that... Two people who work in my department are very flamboyant about having laptops (bring them to work, talk about them a lot), and both of them are backwards hicks. One of them is a huge NASCAR fan. The other one holds weekly texas hold-em games. Everyone else I can think of has a desktop.

Re:laptop versus desktop..

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you have yet to experience the joy that is surfing the net in bed. Or coding in bed, or IMing in bed. Or doing everything you do on the computer... in bed, or on the living room couch, or in the backyard by the pool, etc. It changes how you use your computer. Its wonderful and even makes reading e-books palatable.

In college, I found one extremely useful as I could do work on campus without having to use one of the uncomfortable and crowded labs.

I agree with you on them being proprietary, which is annoying, but due to the fact that anything over 1GHZ is "good enough" for most users, they do not need to be upgraded.

I disagree with you on them being too slow for the price. You can get a "good enough" machine for about $500.

I think that most people you see in public with laptops just like to show them off. But what about the hordes of people who never whip them out in a coffee shop?

Re:laptop versus desktop..

[axlr8or]

Hehehe. Yep. I bet its comforting for them to know that they are WAY ahead of the rest of the world in technology :D. We could only be so lucky:D What does make me angry though, is the fact that I really could use a laptop, but these people have the prices driven up to ridiculous levels. Even for a used one! Oh well, they can keep them.

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap desktop components for me! Gotta love a buyer's market.

Let's take that rant ..

[Kjella]

Laptops are still too slow compared to desktops, especially the hard drives. Laptop drives are not only slower, but you cannot get the same large sizes and the prices are far higher. Then there is the issue of graphics cards. Laptops generall have poorer graphics cards with lower memory. You can put together a far cheaper desktop with good components than you can get in a laptop. Most of the lower end laptops have crappy video with shared memory; they get too hot and have at most 3 hours of battery time. Oh and then there is the problem with the tiny screens. As a programmer, I cannot look at any screen smaller than 17" for a long time. Also, most of those lower end laptops only go to 1024x768 (I need at least 1152x864). These limitations may be OK for Joe User, but I don't think more tech savvy people or especially geeks could put up with them.

Too slow? My AMD 3000+ is not too slow, neither have any of my 1GHz+ machines been.

Laptop disks are smaller yes, I got 80GB 5400rpm in this one. While it is nothing compared to the 500GB I have in my desktop, it is completely sufficient for 99% of the people out there. The average person does not even have something like 10GB apps, 20GB games, 20GB music, 20MB movies and 10GB to spare. With 512MB RAM most people won't need to swap and never really notice the difference. What most people do (chat, surf, music, movies, simple games) aren't IO bound. If you are a pack rat such as you and me, perhaps. The rest, no.

Laptops have graphics cards that are just fine for everything but FPS games. Many people are non-gamers, even more are non-FPS gamers. Chat, surf, play mp3 and avis is enough for many people. Today, almost everyone needs to be on the net. Even in my own family I'm outnumbered two to one by my parents who certainly would do fine.

Laptops are slightly more pricy, but including the cost of an LCD, not impressingly so. I did try to put together a cheap new desktop recently, making it a laptop would add maybe 50% to the cost, no more. For the flexibility of a laptop, that isn't much. It used to be several hundred percent.

If your laptop gets too hot, it is malfunctioning or is a desktop in drag. Typical laptops don't get that hot, because there's more than enough power anyway. It has three hours of battery life versus none, what's your point?

As for size and resolution, that is mainly decided by the laptop size as the screen can not get bigger than the machine. I've used a 12.1" 1024x768 and 15.4" 1280x800 screen, and it is whatever works for you. Seriously, people used to get work done in resolutions far less than that in the early days, it is mostly psychological. By the way, the 15.4" screen is only a inch narrower than my 19" CRT, and is excellent for watching 16:9 movies, better than a 17" CRT. Again, if you are a non-gamer.

Nobody pretends a laptop is everything a desktop could be. But for the average user, I have no problem recommending a good laptop. If you a) need lots of HDD space, b) need lots of screen real estate, c) need fps gaming, laptops aren't for you (or at least not excellent for you). If you're in the huge "other" segment, go for it.

Kjella

This is because they Just Work

[zevans]

You buy a laptop, you plug it in, it works. No muss, no fuss. The same just never seems to be true for desktops, somehow.

A lot of corporate buyers buy laptops because they're like Macs, only compatible.

Re:This is because they Just Work

[fuzzybunny]

Hah! Ha hah! I'll wait for you to confirm that opinion once you've tried to install a useful OS on certain laptops. Weird ACPI implemtations, non-standards-compliant PCI slots, bizarre miniPCI wifi cards, the list goes on and on and on...

Re:This is because they Just Work

[BenjyD]

Some more advantages:

- Need to move office? Pick it up and off you go. I doubt many desktop machine users can go and work in the garden if they want to.
- Laptops generally use less power and are quieter than equivalent dektops

There's not that much processor power difference these days: my Acer Travelmate 8104 (2Ghz P-M, 1Gb RAM, X700) is plenty fast enough.

Price of LCDs

[filipvh]

I think it's got a lot to do with the price of LCD panels coming down. The LCD was typically the most expensive part of the laptop; now that desktops are commonly sold with LCDs, the single most price sensitive component has become a non-issue.
For most (non-gamer) users, the notebook offers everything the desktop does and more, and today you can opt for the notebook for a trivial price increment.

Why noone buys a desktop

[milosoftware]

Basically, nobody buys a desktop PC. The one you bought in 2003 is still running just fine. And you cannot think of an upgrade for it, since you don't play a lot of games.

So all that money has to go somewhere. And then you notice that you can get a laptop for about the price of a desktop, you figure, what the heck, why not buy a laptop.

Because face it, there's not much interesting new stuff. The faster videocards and newer CPUs are great for the hardcore gamerz out there. But for development, digital photography, webbrowsing and so on, the old one is still just fine.

Annualized failure rates

[steve_l]

I used to work with laptop developers, so know their problems.

Laptops are not any less endurable than desktops, it is just they get thrown around a lot more. A workstation SCSI disk is very fragile, but you dont throw it the backs of cars, kick it under the seat of the airplane in front etc, etc. Furthermore, vendors dont like unrelaible laptops; the annualized failure rate (AFR) makes the difference between profit and loss on warrantied systems.

What has happened is that the trend towards consumer-centric laptops has eliminated much of the exchangable-IDE drive design of the past. These all-in-ones are robust as they are mechanically simpler. The other big trend is that with two main ODMs in taiwan doing much of the work, a greater level of expertise has built up into doing quality designs.

Now, for an annedote of amusement:

When the first thin-and-flat laptops came out, the AFR went up. This was tracked down to people dropping their laptops while trying to lift them out of bags/briefcases one handed, and losing their grip. The older laptops were so fat and heavy they could be lifted two handed, but the new ones were thin and light enough to be one handed -only nobody had thought of this when it was designed

If you look at today's laptops, they normally have grippy texture on the top and bottom, or some features on the batteries to provide a better handgrip. This is to eliminate the problem.

That's an amusing story but it shows the problem: a robust laptop is not an intel chipset in a box. It is a system designed with ergonomics in mind too.

mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this guy down please. Thanks.

What gave you that idea?

[empaler]

I'm surfing from my 1.6 ghz ASUS M6 that I bought last January, and it's running 1280x800 without problems and always have.
Have you been looking to Dell as a source of cutting-edge tech?

Exactly, and DVD-ROM/burners, too,.

[Vandil X]

Back in the day, when you had to do any remote work on a notebook, you had to suffer with a dial-up connection. Fine for Web browsing. Poor for large file transfers.

Wireless networking and the availability of free Wi-Fi everywhere definitely raised the bar for notebook use.

Also, don't forget that now notebooks come with DVD-ROMs and burners. This makes a notebook the ultimate portable DVD watching station (beats watching DVDs on the tiny screens of portable DVD players) and backing up your data is far sim-pler than the era of parallel port Zip drives.

Groening runied it...

[Das Auge]

Best. Outsell. Ever.

Just Bought A Dell Inspiron 9300

[_Neurotic]

I have been a PC builder/tweaker for 10 years. My latest system was a water-cooled P4 2.26 GHz overclocked to 2.85 GHz with a water-cooled, overclocked Radeon 9800 Pro. I even had heatsinks on the Radeon's memory and a waterblock on my northbridge. I've been running RAID-0 setups for years now and my mantra for cases was "Bigger = More Airflow = Better"

I say this all as a backdrop to current situation. You see, I talk about this PC in the past tense because I am selling it. I have bought a Dell Inspiron 9300. The 2MB cache on my 1.86 GHz Pentium M makes this processor perform in the same league as a 3 GHz Pentium 4. It is actually faster than my overclocked system in many tasks. The GeForce Go 6800 outperforms my Radeon 9800 Pro (not surprising given the generation difference) and the 1 GB of dual channel DDR RAM allows for plenty of gaming overhead. The 1440x900 widescreen display has native resolution support in many newer games (like Half Life 2 and Riddick.) The 7200 RPM drive, while not comparable to a RAID-0 setup, is still quite zippy and the dual layer DVD burner works like a charm.

So what's my point (other than tooting my horn?) My point is that desktop replacements have truly come of age. There isn't a game on the market now or in the next two years that I won't be able to play comfortably. Given that this little beast runs cooler and quieter than my desktop, there's nothing that I miss. Nothing.

Pedants for precision unite!

[khallow]

The laptops utility has been magnified 100 fold just by the wireless networking trend alone.

So what does a "100 fold" magnification of utility mean? Does that mean that people are willing to pay 100 times more for a laptop? Or that they're 100 times more likely to use a laptop than they used to be?

How are parts counted?

[kria]

Does it count every motherboard sold? Does it just count out of the box computers? The article doesn't really tell us what they were counting. I know a lot of us put together our own computers - it's cheaper and you get exactly what you want.

Assembling a laptop, however, is a horribly complicated job by comparison. I've never tried it, I admit, but it sounds like it's even pretty difficult to upgrade a laptop.

Perhaps this survey just demonstrates that a higher number of people are building their own computers.

Problem is

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't upgrade it or assemble it by yourself.
There is not any standard like ATX for motherboard/hardware dimensions and connectivity.
And indeed it is much harder to define one.

For desktop PC, I can buy most valuable components myself and have a cutting edge tech for much less money than a laptop of the same power.

Just a thought.

[cybcow]

I'd like to see a company design a laptop that used an "easy snap together case" that you could interchange parts with. Make it so things like video cards and such could be changed out for a few years, thus increasing laptop life.

Have you ever moved?

[$criptah]

I hate moving. I really do. My girlfriend and I don't have a lot of stuff, yet packaging and organizing everything we have is a pain. That is why I can't wait to sell my desktop and get a laptop instead. Less stuff to move.

Seriously, I am kinda tired of having to work in a separate room. Sometimes I'd like to sit out on the porch or listen to the news on TV while doing my day-to-day tasks on the computer: reading e-mail, web browsing, online banking and chatting. If I want a lot of computing power, I can always use servers at work. However, at home all I want is a small computer that I can take anywhere. I really don't care if my screen is small -- although 15" is pretty good size for a laptop monitor -- or that hard drives are slower. As long as I can sit in a comfy chair and do my work anywhere I want, it is worth every single penny. Plus, wires get too freaking messy :)

Does anyone actually upgrade?

[gosand]

Case 1: Owner of desktop (custom or not) - wants new Athlon64 CPU. Orders CPU + mobo for $250 from NewEgg.

Does anyone do this anymore? I always believed in the upgradeability of the PC, but have never seen it work. I guess I upgrade on too long of a cycle. Because I always have to buy new memory, power supply, CPU cooler (let's not forget that, those CPUs don't cool themselves, and you don't want a cheap cooler). Not to mention that you would then have to dispose of the parts you replace. If it is worth the hassle of eBay for you, great. For me, it has always been less of a hassle and easier to just build a new PC. Maybe if I upgraded sooner than every 5 years this wouldn't be a problem.

nothing to see here, move along

[loonicks]

This is no surprise. Everyone already has at least one desktop. With the falling prices of laptops, people are getting into mobile- and couch-computing. I just got a laptop (PowerBook G4) and now I barely use my PC. It's just more convenient most of the time.

I won't buy another desktop after ....

[Jerry]

getting my first laptop three months ago.

It's a Gateway M675 PRR with a 17" LCD and, except for a single wart, it's works beautifully, especially with SimplyMEPIS-3.3

In fact, the MEPIS side works BETTER than the XP Pro side. I don't have to buy a better firewall or pay for anti-virus software subscriptions. On MEPIS the printer connected via the WPS54G always connects and works flawlessly. On XP the printer connection is not so reliable.

The only downside to Gateway is the Windows centric support protocols, which require installing ActiveX components over the web. And, you HAVE to use IE 5.5+ to use their support IF you want to do an online chat with a techie or allow them to scan your system. FireFox won't work, so you are exposing your systemn to attack while you are seeking help. (Wart? Neither Nero 6.0 or K3B would burn a CD on the DVD/CD multi drive that was installed, which wasn't the one that was ordered, but the cd burner embedded in Windows Explorer would. So, it's a software problem.)

A great laptop with a great wireless network has produced the most useful and easiest to use computer environment I've ever experienced since I purchased an Apple II+ in 1978.

due to computing power catching up with software

[majid_aldo]

people (most people) who just browse, use office, email..etc. dont need more than the computing power available around year 2000. so a typical 2005 laptop is going to have a typical 2003 desktop computing power for about ~$1000. we're still waiting for the next big computing resource hog: real speech recognition.

batteries

[brentcastle]

longer-lasting batteries

yeah right.

I don't understand this debate

[DSLAMngu]

I'm not sure why this turned into a laptop/desktop fanboy war. Both form factors exist because certain people want different things. People who have the skills necessary to upgrade their computers or who want to save money go with desktop computers. People who don't have the skills, time, or inclination to upgrade, and who care about portability/space, get laptops.

Since when was any one form factor necessarily better? Toss them out there and let the economy sort 'em out. If one is better, it will gain market share. Obviously, laptops are becoming more popular. I am simply deferring to the numbers here.

I built a custom box a few years ago, but I recently bought a laptop for college and couldn't be happier. It's not like I have time to play the latest and greatest games on a PC anyway; might as well save myself the time and money and wait to buy a next-gen console.

Battery life

[joggle]

Any laptop's battery will fail if it just sits unused without every recharging/discharging. If you rarely use a laptop then you need to be sure to power it from the battery for a couple of hours and then recharge it at least once per month to extend the life of the battery.

Re:Battery life

[xSauronx]

i donnt remember a damn thing about what i learned in HS chemistry when it comes to battries, why is is that they have to have such regular maintenance to last longer?

Re:Battery life

[joggle]

Actually, I was thinking of the wrong battery type (some need to be deep cycled every so often). For lithium-ion batteries the best strategy for long term storage is to store it at 40% charge (in a fridge if possible--not the freezer though). See here for details.

Not ready to replace desktops yet for me

[angle_slam]

I used to have a pretty crappy laptop at work. 600 MHz Intel processor, about 30 minutes battery life. It really sucked. My company replaced it with a new one. 1.7 GHz Centrino. 4+ hour battery life. It's really nice. But it's still not ready to replace the desktop. The biggest drawback is still I/O performance. When I rip a CD with my laptop, it slows down the entire computer. It's annoying as hell. The computer itself actually compresses into MP3 faster than my 3.2 GHz desktop. But while it's extracting, the encoding is SLLLLLOOOOOOWWW and everything on the computer is slow. And it's not just the internal stuff that's slow. I have an external hard drive (Maxtor 7200 RPM). It seems a lot slower on the laptop than on my desktop (when importing music into iTunes, for example).