The Desktop -- Time to Start Saying Goodbye?

Lucas123 writes "Robert Scheier at Computerworld writes that while worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow 12.2% this year, portable PC volumes are expected to grow 28% and will make up more than half of all PC shipments in the U.S. this quarter. Notebooks will dominate the worldwide PC marketplace by 2010. 'One researcher predicts it will be five to seven years before only the "die-hard" desktop users are left.'"

Comments

You can have my desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

when you pry it from my fat, cheetos encrusted dead fingers.

Re:You can have my desktop

[fyngyrz]

The prediction overlooks far too many inconveniences that technology hasn't yet resolved.

The need to regularly plug in the laptop. Poor battery lifetime and recharge cycle performance (but see ultracapacitors for the impending doom of the battery industry.) The need to plug in various I/O devices (hard drives, scanners, various others for various needs.) The wearing out of laptop clamshell hinges. The low quality of laptop keyboards as compared to the awesome stand-alone keyboards available. The need for mice and drawing pads. The limited screen size of a laptop (you can of course make an ultra-large screen laptop, but then it doesn't fit in your lap very well.) The room inside a desktop for various hardware add-ons, such as PCI bus hardware, or highly accelerated graphics engines. Room for multiple drives.

A few of these things - such as connectivity, which will probably go entirely wireless - will resolve themselves as technology advances. Most will not. So as an IMHO, but one with a lot of data behind it, I call nonsense on the entire proposition.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Paracelcus]

Rah!
I can barely see the print on most laptop screens (even the biggest ones) and I've looked!
My laptop is 11 years old and has been used rarely if at all.
I have three desktops, all built by me from parts obtained from Fry's, Ebay and pulls.

I don't like laptops (grimace)!
I HATE laptops (cough)
Piss on laptops!
Stomp on laptops!
Chew on laptops?
It's almost time for my afernoon pills.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Captain Splendid]

Not only that, but the advent of the smart phone, coupled with things like paper-thin displays, roll-up (or even holographic) keyboards means that we're going to see the demise of the laptop soon IMO.

Re:You can have my desktop

[timster]

I'm sure you can think of some better reasons, but most of the ones you've given aren't any good. Desktops have to be plugged in all the time anyway, so it's not as if limited laptop battery life can be held as a point for desktops. I/O devices plug in to laptops just as well as they do to desktops, now that we use standard connectors for peripherals (USB/Firewire). I've never seen a clamshell hinge wear out, though I'm sure it's possible. You can plug a desktop keyboard into a laptop when it's at your desk, and lots of people do. Same with monitors or whatever else.

The reason laptops are starting to outsell desktops is simply that the cost premium has all but disappeared. So people tend to prefer the mobility (even if they don't always use it) over the ability to add internal drives or peripherals (which they certainly never use).

Re:You can have my desktop

[cayenne8]

"Hmmm... It doesn't seem that you've named any problems that weren't solved by docking stations a decade ago. Did you simply forget about such things, or do you have some reason to consider them obsolete or no longer economically or technologically feasible?"

But at this point...that's not really an answer I don't think, at least to anyone that does have higher powered requirements. At this point, it is still hard to do much to upgrade a laptop, which you can easily do with a desktop. Also, at this point, you cannot set up a laptop with the kind of hardware you can on a desktop. I've not seen many laptops where you can configure it with dual quad core processors, 16+ Gigs of ram...and what is the largest harddrive you can get on a laptop. Ok, on the last one, you can get around that maybe with external harddrives, but, if you want to process/record music, latency on that might kill you.

Sure, if you do nothing but surf the web, email...light stuff, you can get by with a laptop alone, or expand it some with a docking station (no such thing with macs?), but, for anyone wanting to do something much that requires lots of harddrive space, processor speed and ram, a laptop isn't going to cut it.

And this isn't just for the super highend CAD crew, but, lots of people are enjoying messing with video and audio files...HD stuff can require a lot of drive space, and processor/ram if you want to do things and not wait a week.

Sure laptops always seem to 'catch up' to desktops in what can be squeezed into them, but, for now,they are always behind the curve on what can be done compared to a desktop.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Himring]

I beg to differ. I have one on my desk right now. It makes a great addition to my stack of stuff that keeps people from seeing what I'm really doing....

Re:You can have my desktop

[dgatwood]

ve never seen a clamshell hinge wear out, though I'm sure it's possible.

Are you kidding? Every laptop I've ever owned has had hinges that got weaker over the years. On my backup laptop, had to replace one of the hinges two years ago because it sheared off (while on vacation in Italy). The other hinge has a weak clutch, so at significant angles, the screen falls open or shut on its own. I really should replace it, but I can't easily justify dropping another $50 on a backup laptop built back in 2000. However, hinges suck pretty universally after a few years in my experience, unless of course, you replace your laptop every 2-3 years, in which case I'd imagine you would never have problems with that sort of thing. :-)

Re:You can have my desktop

[OmegaBlac]

Notebooks are no good for 3D gaming, and their video is not upgradeable.

This is only true if we are talking integrated video. Actually there are a few notebooks with upgradeable video cards. Usually the high-end or gaming notebooks allow you to swap out the video card.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Haeleth]

It doesn't seem that you've named any problems that weren't solved by docking stations a decade ago.

Well, sure, a laptop in a docking station is basically a desktop, except that you have to pay far more for the same thing, making the whole exercise seem rather pointless.

And the increased speed and reach of modern networking means that the benefit of being able to undock your computer and take it home with you is decreasing. I mean, why spend umpteen dollars on a laptop plus two docking stations and peripherals, and go through all the constant hassle of docking and undocking, and also face a significantly increased risk of a single theft completely depriving you of a computer and all your data -- when you could spend less, get two desktops and a smartphone, and keep your files synchronised over the internet?

Re:You can have my desktop

[644bd346996]

Well, sure, a laptop in a docking station is basically a desktop, except that you have to pay far more for the same thing, making the whole exercise seem rather pointless. Except for the fact that, at the end of the day, you are left with a system that is still usable when you take it away from the desk. Also, I can see this easily becoming a moot point for people switching from desktops to laptops - they simply replace the tower with a docking station for their newer, faster laptop.

And the increased speed and reach of modern networking means that the benefit of being able to undock your computer and take it home with you is decreasing. I'm pretty sure most people would consider the exact opposite to be true. Modern networking means that you are more able to take the computer away from the home ofice to the couch or anywhere else where you can be more productive (or simply productive longer). This is actually a benefit to most people.

I mean, why spend umpteen dollars on a laptop plus two docking stations and peripherals, and go through all the constant hassle of docking and undocking, and also face a significantly increased risk of a single theft completely depriving you of a computer and all your data -- when you could spend less, get two desktops and a smartphone, and keep your files synchronised over the internet? A laptop doesn't limit you to a finite number of places to work from. For most people, the best solution would be to get a good laptop, NAS if necessary, and a single docking station for when they need to do work that requires a larger monitor or optical mouse. (By the way, a docking station with peripherals is always going to cost less than a desktop PC with the same peripherals. If that weren't the case, it would never have been profitable to sell docking stations. And docking stations have always been designed to minimize the hassle of docking and undocking.)

Re:You can have my desktop

[The Great Pretender]

Our whole company has docking stations - we have nice +20" wide screen monitors (infact I have an 'active' one and then my email sits on my secondary 'passive' one, which also is used for doc management - see last sentence) The amount of patience saved by slapping my dell 820 into the docking station compared to wiring up the laptop is huge. Even with a 17" latop screen, I don't want to spend all day with low real estate on my monitor. As an added benefit we've found that larger screen space, aided by dual large monitors, actually saves us hard paper as people are more likely to review and work with electronic documents instead of printing a piece of paper and putting it on the desk next to them for reference.

Re:You can have my desktop

[packeteer]

I think the laptop will no longer be the most common mobile device but it will still have a place. People that actually travel or commute with their laptops will surely want to replace them with a more mobile smart phone/PC. My brother got an iPhone on day 1 and he says he already doesn't bring his laptop home from work with him anymore, he can just carry his iPhone.

On the other hand my friend is not a computer power user; she only uses her laptop on the desk or in her lap on the couch. I think a lot of laptops being sold are merely desktop replacements. There is no reason for someone who only wants to do email/web/schoolwork to buy a full on desktop computer. I would bet money that most laptops being sold today are going to people who are not transporting them very far.

While my brother uses an iPhone and my friend uses a laptop I don't think I will give up my desktop anytime soon. Although i own a nice laptop i never use it, it sits in my closet. My desktop has a 21" CRT, 3 hard drives, and a real mouse and kayboard with a huge mouse pad (for gaming). I have played several video games competitively (you might have heard of the WoW guild was in) and a laptop just wouldn't have worked. Now that I don't play any video games anymore i still like my desktop. The huge screen is good for browsing and the mouse is much more accurate than a touch pad.

The article mentioned that die hard desktop users will always be on the desktop. That is of course correct but I think there are many benefits to doing normal stuff on a desktop too.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Ngarrang]

I would bet money that most laptops being sold today are going to people who are not transporting them very far. And you would win that bet in my household. We switched to laptops due to space concerns. The old computer room is being turned into a baby room for Baby #2 (shipping date December 3rd). What to do? Buy a laptop, retire the old desktop. Kitchen table now becomes the computer desk. The desktop case will always have a place as long there are applications that use plug-in controller cards. I don't know some industries, but the heavy equipment field for manufacturing is stick in the 9-pin serial world, or worse, a proprietary serial card that uses a "special" DB-25-like cable.

Re:You can have my desktop

[dal20402]

That's where Apple's single, large hinge proves useful. Much, much harder to wear out or break (although my ever-clever gf managed to break one by repeatedly picking a MacBook up by its screen). Through three PowerBooks and a MacBook Pro, used every day for hours, I've never managed to break or weaken a hinge.

The flip side is that with its unique hinge Apple can't put any ports on the back of the laptop, making a sensible docking station a near-impossibility.

Re:You can have my desktop

[jedidiah]

Laptops tend to cook themselves and have limited cooling options. This limits what heavy processing you can do on a laptop since it will throttle itself down to keep from burning itself up. The small spaces don't help. Adding extra ram or storage space to an existing laptop can make the problem worse. A laptop trying to cool itself will probably be a noisy nuissance. Some of the noise reducing options available for a desktop machine won't be available to the laptop.

          I'd thought about using an old vaio as a MythTV frontend in the living room until I realized that it was by far the noisiest thing in the house late at night. That laptop often gets shut off when we're in the living room because it's so noisy.

          The other laptop is often scaled down to nearly nothing in terms of cpu speed.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Robert The Coward]

A laptop doesn't limit you to a finite number of places to work from. For most people, the best solution would be to get a good laptop, NAS if necessary, and a single docking station for when they need to do work that requires a larger monitor or optical mouse. (By the way, a docking station with peripherals is always going to cost less than a desktop PC with the same peripherals. If that weren't the case, it would never have been profitable to sell docking stations. And docking stations have always been designed to minimize the hassle of docking and undocking.)

What he said was the combined cost of the laptop and docking were greater not the cost of just the docking station. However they do get close. My laptop the docking station is $150.00 and I get simple connection to mouse, USB, power. No place to insert PCI cards or anything else. And my laptop isn't the norm many laptop just don't have a docking station avaible.

Re:You can have my desktop

[MBGMorden]

I don't know some industries, but the heavy equipment field for manufacturing is stick in the 9-pin serial world, or worse, a proprietary serial card that uses a "special" DB-25-like cable. I remember installing a psychological-testing device about 2 years ago that not only was 9-pin serial, but was also still an *MS-DOS* application.

These days I work in government, and we install a lot of specialty/niche software (have to go through RFP and bidding process, etc), and it AMAZES me how crappy and outdated this stuff is. Microsoft Office? OpenOffice? Any Adobe product? All are polished beyond belief compared to this stuff, and these programs we pay anywhere from $100k to $1m for. The latest one (a $300k purchase) is literally a 10-15 year old application written in Visual Basic. Nothing about it is intuitive. You search through these mile long menus to find this vaguely named option that you just have to know is there, only to bring up yet another unintuitive screen with a lot of non-descriptive labels. And then these things require INSANE workarounds to install on a system, and often crash just as often as first draft open source project. Of course if I were to find an open source program that did this same thing it wouldn't get a second look, because it's "unsupported", and the pay-product is "enterprise grade software" (which means it's expensive, but doesn't reflect in any way how well it works). It's my complete belief that once you get past the $5-10k price range, the price and quality of a software product are inversely proportional.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Com2Kid]

I've heard this claim, but I think it's part of the "battery mythology" -- that delightful set of whacky, misguided beliefs you'll hear about batteries.

For once, this is not wacky.

Lithion Ion batteries lose capacity at a rate which is proportional to how charged they are. Leave a laptop plugged into the wall and running for 2 years with its battery pack in, and you will end up with a throughly dead battery pack.

There is an awesome chart right here that explained why I went through 2 packs so quickly. I ignornatly thought that keeping my battery "topped off" would be best for it. Wrong!

Some higher end laptops will come with either a software or hardware solution for preventing the battery from being charged too much. One model I saw prompted the user asking if they were going to leave the laptop plugged in for an extended period of time. While we can all guess exactly how well that went, the theory is sound.

Re:You can have my desktop

[tirefire]

There is no reason for someone who only wants to do email/web/schoolwork to buy a full on desktop computer. I would bet money that most laptops being sold today are going to people who are not transporting them very far.

You have just made an excellent case for why these people should not buy laptops. Desktops are way cheaper to purchase and own than laptops. You never have to replace batteries (short of a CMOS), and if you want to upgrade them a few years later, it's easy and cheap. Laptops, with their soldered-in processors and graphics chips, turn into paperweights within a few years. Laptops sacrifice everything for mobility. If all you want is email/web/schoolwork, a $300 beige box is the ticket for you.

Re:You can have my desktop

[KC7GR]

"I'm sure you can think of some better reasons, but most of the ones you've given aren't any good..."

I beg to differ. They are excellent reasons. In fact, I don't believe either one is going to "kill" the other. Both have a permanent place in the computing world.

There are numerous applications, particularly in the 'specialized' arena, where laptops are more of a pain in the tailfeathers than an asset. One big area is the programming of land/mobile 2-way radio equipment. I've had the software for such simply refuse to work, under any conditions, with USB-to-RS232 converters yet work perfectly with a standard port.

To answer the obvious question: Updated software in this area is not always available, or practical. I still use a couple of separate desktop systems for this purpose, one for DOS-based software (yes, there's still plenty of it in some applications) and the other for Windows (2000, of course -- Neither XP nor Vista are permitted anywhere near systems that I maintain and use). You could not convince me to trade either of them out to laptops for any amount.

I also do electronic forensics, and support for 'legacy' electronic test equipment. For this, I often need to plug all kinds of oddball hardware into the systems I use as tools for such work. This includes things like GPIB/HPIB controller boards, time code generators/readers, RS485 serial boards, microprocessor and FPGA development and evaluation boards, in-circuit emulator (ICE) boxes... the list goes on.

The point I'm making is that many of those devices require full-blown host cards designed for ISA, EISA, or PCI buses. How many laptops have you seen with such?

How about a few more reasons? Let's start with display size. When was the last time you saw a laptop with a 20+ inch LCD panel? Or one that has two 20-inchers? Ever tried to draw a schematic, or design a printed circuit board, on anything less than a 20? Or perhaps hex-edit a big EPROM file? Trust me, it's painful at best, next to impossible at worst.

And keyboards? Already mentioned, I know, but let's mention it again. I learned to type on manual typewriters, and I have a very heavy touch as a result. To this day, I refuse to make long-term use of any keyboard other than the famous IBM 'clicker.' It's the only one that's proven to be durable and comfortable enough to make me happy.

Mice? Glide-pads are nice, but there's still nothing like a full-size Kensington trackball.

Laptops are good for 'On the Road.' Always have been, always will be. Desktops are good for versatility and expandability. Always have been, always will be.

Keep the peace(es).

Re:You can have my desktop

[rainman_bc]

There's still some challenges though to overcome - I'm hoping the Solid State drives will solve them, but presently I see most laptops have 5400rpm drives and a few higher end ones have 7200rpm drives, but none I've seen have a 10,000 rpm 2.5" drive ( do they even make them? ). That means for video editing it'll suck no matter what.

Re:You can have my desktop

[MBGMorden]

Actually, no. That only applies to things like physical construction and such, or if the program was being developed from scratch (and then it's the lowest *qualified* bidder). Things like software products or any other "ready-made" item is decided by a selection committee, and not-always (I'd even say not often) is the lowest bidder the winner. That's beside the fact that a lot of this stuff is so off the wall that you'll only get 1, maybe 2 bidders total (nobody else makes such a product), and either they both suck or you just have the 1 and can only hope it's decent.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Paradox]

I worked for Lockheed Martin for 2 years, and I had to fight with all my spare time to keep them from doing that to the app I worked on.

How does it happen?

1. Every "senior" decision maker is a relic, or is emulating a relic to get ahead.
2. Specs can be laid out YEARS in advance, turning a good application prototype into a slurry of good ideas melded to meet forgotten and often uninformed requirements.
3. Any interface difficulty can be addressed through enough training! But the truth is planned training is often the first thing cut from budgets.
4. Aesthetics and interface design are considered "premium" functionality, because most dev hauses have poor testing strategies (which are separate from QA). Just getting the product stable can be a major challenge.

Or so my experience suggests...

Re:You can have my desktop

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Granted, I guess I can't really upgrade the processor. But when I get ready to do that, I think I'll just buy a new system Do you always buy a computer, or do you build a computer? If it's the former, then we're in different categories. I've never bought a computer, I've always built them, and then upgraded them sections at a time as required. Notebooks are the exception for me but only because you cannot build them, you must buy them. Granted, if I ever decided I wanted a Mac I'd have no choice but to buy one -- but if I wanted a Mac it'd be a notebook anyway. Personally I would find it wasteful from a recycling standpoint as well as a financial one to always buy a new computer when I wanted more speed/storage/whatever. Many parts can be reused several times over because they don't go obsolete as quickly as others.

Re:You can have my desktop

[arashi no garou]

Maybe, but then you can also get a $400 laptop that will do the basic web/email/schoolwork thing. And who, apart from us geeks, ever cracks the case on a store-bought desktop PC anyway? Most clueless PC users I've ever known just buy a new box every 2 years or so instead of upgrading, because avoiding the hassle of upgrading is worth the extra $100 or so. With every peripheral out there either USB or wireless (or both!), it makes no sense to even have PCI slots in bargain-basement brand-name PCs. When you add the whole portability/space-saving factor, laptops are beginning to look practical.

Re:You can have my desktop

[ucblockhead]

Sure, 20 feet isn't far, but if you want to check your email while sitting in front of the TV, it's 20 important feet.

When my wife got an iBook her computer usage went up by a factor of four simply because she didn't have to sit in the den to use it. She never takes it out of the house.

Re:You can have my desktop

[flappinbooger]

I would have to agree with you, except .... I don't see it.

I do everything at work on my work laptop. 3D cad, 2D cad, video editing, graphics, etc. Slap enough ram into a decent dual core laptop and it'll do just fine.

What, you say? A laptop can't possibly do what a real desktop would do? External 2nd monitor for that big workstation feel. An ESATA PCMCIA card for tons of real HD storage. Gigabit LAN. USB 2.0. Firewire. Internal 7200 rpm drive.

Seriously, you can have it both ways. Work with a "traditional" desktop setup, then close the screen, pick it up, (unhook all the wires) and take it with you. I've seen laptops with nVidia's workstation class video card built in! Get a "barebook" chassis and build your own laptop!

Re:You can have my desktop

[JanneM]

Many posters seem to miss a factor here: When laptops replace desktops for people, they aren't primarily bought for the ability to work untethered, "on your lap". They are used as desktops - small, light, quiet, stylish desktops that draw little power and that can quickly and easily be folded up out of sight if you have company, or if the kitchen table is the family work area and you need to clear up the table for dinner.

The need to regularly plug in the laptop.

As opposed to the desktop?

Poor battery lifetime and recharge cycle performance

Most laptops are never going to be used untethered for any significant amount of time. They mostly stay where they are.

The need to plug in various I/O devices

How many external devices do people actually have? I mean normal people, not people like us that read slashdot. And even I have a grand total of two external devices: an external mouse and a USB drive (plugged in only when doing backups). And again, the laptop is mostly going to sit on the desk and never move more than the twenty centimeters it takes to push it into the back to clear the desk space when doing the bills.

The wearing out of laptop clamshell hinges.

Not a failure mode I've commonly seen even among laptops that actually do see heavy use. The normal laptop will not see the screen shut often in any case.

The low quality of laptop keyboards as compared to the awesome stand-alone keyboards available.

But it is perfectly fine compared to the junk-level keyboard people get with their desktop purchase and which most people never think of replacing.

The need for mice and drawing pads.

Different from a desktop how? Especially if neither is actually ever moved around much. Besides, just plug your peripherals into a cheap USB hub (lots of cool designs and colors available), and you'll have one single plug to connect.

The limited screen size of a laptop (you can of course make an ultra-large screen laptop, but then it doesn't fit in your lap very well.)

It's not going to be on your lap. And most people get a 15-17 inch "value option" low-resolution screen for their desktop anyhow. That 14-15 inch high-res screen on the laptop is giving them a better display than what they would have gotten with the desktop.

The room inside a desktop for various hardware add-ons, such as PCI bus hardware, or highly accelerated graphics engines. Room for multiple drives.

Nobody but people like us ever open their case or do any other upgrade than possibly increase the memory. And then they do not do it themselves; they go to the store and have it done for them. A laptop is much easier to bring to the store than a desktop.

The basic mistake here is to assume that our needs and wants mirror that of the computer-buying population. We don't. We are the "die-hards" mentioned in the summary, and largely irrelevant. At my company we're only buying laptops for desktop use nowadays, and among my non-geek friends, nobody even considers a desktop when they ask for advice.

Re:You can have my desktop

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I must admit I've worked on a few. One was 1 mill with all of the options. It was originally written in HP basic in the late seventies. It had been written by an engineer who had a basic grasp of writing code. He didn't like to have code that wasn't used a couple of times. So to support that noble goal, there was a liberal usage of goto's. Apparently it did things that no one else knew how to do, so it was worth it to the engineering depts of some large companies.

I removed the goto's one summer and turned it into a simple vb project.

So, yeah when there is no competition, it doesn't make much sense to update code thats difficult to update.

2 words for the desktop

[Romwell]

1. Cost 2. Upgrades

Re:2 words for the desktop

[644bd346996]

1. Cost In TFA, they point out that fewer and fewer consumers mind the $100-$200 premium for a laptop with comparable specs.

2. Upgrades People who upgrade critical components like motherboards, cpus, and graphics cards are already very much in the "die-hard" category. Normal consumers never upgrade those things except by replacing the machine. For almost everything else, USB and Firewire suffice. (The exception being, of course, RAM. But most laptops produced in the past 10 years have had upgradeable RAM).

It seems to me that the only people who will stay firmly in the "desktop" category are people who by definition don't need the mobility. They are the people running computer labs, servers, and office computing systems. I expect even the high-end professional users to migrate to laptops except when laptops don't offer enough raw performance at any cost.

The interesting thing to note is that, from a technological perspective, desktop vs. laptop doesn't matter anyways. So much of the desktop market it migrating to iMac-like all-in-ones and other small enclosures that they will pretty much all be using laptop chips, too.

Re:2 words for the desktop

[ZachPruckowski]

Most people don't do after-market upgrades. For businesses, it's often quicker/cheaper to replace the machines every 3 years, and for home customers, they often use it until it breaks, especially since most of them would have to pay Geek Squad $200 to add the extra RAM or HDD. At that price, the new $600 machine from $OEM looks tempting. I'm not saying upgrading is bad or that no-one does it, I'm saying that the percentage of people who do it is relatively low (less than 1/3 of all PC owners)

Price-wise, there are $500-800 laptops. They fit pretty well into the home-consumer and corporate price brackets. Granted, they suck relative to $800 desktops, but we're reaching the point at which GHz of CPU and GB of HDD don't sell machines as easily. While there are certainly ways to make use of larger HDDs and faster CPUs, most consumers don't make use of them yet. Features like in-home wireless will make laptops more attractive than slightly-faster desktops.

Re:2 words for the desktop

[Prof.Phreak]

The desktops are being replaced by laptops...and laptops are being replaced by phones/pda. So in 10 years, the only computing device anyone will own will be a phone.

(and yes, I'm kidding....maybe).

Ah, I see.

[Anonymous Coward]

So does that mean that this time it's PC gaming that will die out and not console gaming?

Different kind of monster

[chipotlehero]

I don't think its really a black and white comparison. Obviously desktops have advantages and laptops have advantages. You dont want to lug around a 22 inch screen on your laptop but for your desktop, you want that. You're not going to get the latest and greatest hardware on a laptop, but you can on a desktop. Laptops are portable and good enough for most people, but a bit pricier than desktops.

It's a different tool for a different job kind of thing, the summary makes it seem simpler than that.

Re:Different kind of monster

[Kazoo the Clown]

I do think part of it is space. Computers have never really fit into home decor. Laptops allow "normal people" to get out there computer and do work then put it away.

Ever live in an old building that once had an icebox-- I'll bet they said that about refrigerators once. No doubt Radios, TVs and automobiles as well...

okay, goodbye desktop.

[yagu]

I guess we can bury the desktop along with the mainframes which have "disappeared".

Ain't going to happen. Laptops have charged into the fray because they've finally become price and performance competitive. They're not desktops, and they're not the same things.

Ten years ago I owned 2 desktops, and 1 laptop. Today I own 4 laptops and 3 desktops. They're all heavily used, but for home use doing heavy duty, big screen, heads down coding and computer work, it's always going to be the desktop that makes the most sense.

The percentages may change as laptops finally "emerge", but desktops, IMO, will stay.

Re:okay, goodbye desktop.

[Paulrothrock]

I do coding on a laptop, but I hook it up to an external 23" screen. The bonus is that I can use my laptop's screen to show my email and IMs so I'm switching between windows less frequently. And if I have to do coding from some other location, I've got my workstation with me.

The real advantage that desktops have, for me, is that they're upgradeable and have a higher top end. You can throw a couple more drives in them and use sophisticated cooling techniques to get really fast processors, so you're right that they'll always have their place.

But for the vast majority of people a laptop is a great solution. Some friends of mine bought a laptop and a wireless router and are thrilled to be able to actually sit in their living room or bedroom and be on their computer, rather than going upstairs and sitting alone in a room without a TV. As usual, this is the kind of technology decision that's not cut and dried. But the trend of laptops over desktops is there.

Re:okay, goodbye desktop.

[fat_mike]

Damn straight brother, though I will admit that VMWare and virtual machines in general saved the older mainframes.

In regards to the article. Yeah, I remember when this was posted back in '96 and we were all going to have tablets that we could write and they'd transcribe our words! Plus it would weigh only .00004 pounds and wash the dishes.

I love my desktop (first one I bought from an actual company and didn't build myself), and I have a love/hate relationship with my laptop....

See, I don't every actually put it on my lap. I'd like to have kids one day and I don't think that 300 degrees situated right above my balls is going to help with that. Its not comfortable on an airplane because I have to either stick my elbows in my fellow passengers faces of bungee cord them to my waist.

Coffee shop/Bookstore/"WIFI Hotspot" - yeah, they're great except if I want to get any real work done I better have an extension cord and be in good graces with the owners cause my laptop lasts about 45 minutes.

You ever wonder why most of the people you see at these places are just kind of casually moving the mouse stick around...they're conserving battery power that way. They can impress girls for more than 45 minutes that way.

Since I got my Treo I've found myself using my laptop less and less.

IBM T60 by the way.

I want 14.1" (fuck no I don't need a fucking widescreen laptop, a laptop is a tool, not a toy), 2 gig of ram, 60-80gb hd, a little fuller keyboard, no black square Buck Rogers mouse thing - use that space to expand my keyboard and while you're at it get rid of the second set of mouse buttons. Also, why they hell is there a light bulb in the case of my laptop? I mean if the screen is working, why do I need that light? Make it weigh less than 2 pounds and put out a nice 85 degrees F. Take out the DVD/CD drive and give me easier accessible USB ports and a much better IR system. And fuck the speakers, who needs them. Either you've got external speakers hooked up when doing a presentation or headphones for privacy. That right there is easily 1.3 pounds gone.

Take off all of the fucking stickers and that's another .35 pounds gone.

Lenovo...ha!

Games are about it

[PIPBoy3000]

The only thing I can think of needing a desktop for is to play games. Video cards for laptops are usually under powered, mostly because of heat, space, and power issues of "real" cards.

For most everything else, my two year-old $400 Dell laptop works fine. It plays movies, browses the web, and runs productivity applications without a problem.

Re:Games are about it

[MontyApollo]

Does it have a 22" (or even larger) wide screen and a full size keyboard? Can you upgrade/repair it yourself?

Desktops always just feel a lot faster to me. Maybe it has changed lately, but the harddrives used to always be painfully slow in laptops. I had a laptop that I thought was fine, but once I started using a new desktop with 22" widescreen and 10,000rpm hardrives, the laptop is a painful experience.

Guess I'll be one of them "die hard" desktop users

[sgant]

If and when a laptop can get a nice big 24" screen or larger, can have ultra fast, high capacity hard drives with kick-ass 3D graphics and components I can upgrade...then I'll get one. I don't see that happening in the next 5 to 7 years.

Inevitable, but sad

[McFly777]

The big problem I see with this will be if lack of demand means that it will become more difficult to "build your own" to get a box with the specs you really want.

But even in my own experience, I find myself looking more at the ads for the latest laptop, rather than reading the specs on the motherboards.

I do have fond memories of browsing computer shopper (back when it was large format and over 1 inch thick).

Desktops still have their place

[danbert8]

People predicted that offices would go paperless, and that cars would fly too. But the reality is, if you don't need the portability, why spend the extra money to get a laptop? Plus desktops will always have greater power, easier upgrades, standard hardware, and more perhiperals.

So, 2010 would be

[presidentbeef]

the year of Linux on the...laptop?

Computer Labs (and ilk)?

[Gertlex]

What about university (and other similar instituitions) provided computers with a plethora of licensed software on them... Especially for CAD and graphics, the desktop wins hands down in cost, and probably will continue to have such an advantage.

Though it would be neat to see a system of renting out laptops with that sort of software. The logistics of such an approach aren't something I'd want to manage, personally though. :)

Another thought is the extent to which external monitors (and keyboards) will be used. Dell does have that rather new "laptop" model with the 19" screen that can act like a separate monitor. The keyboard detaches and uses bluetooth.

Almost there...

[rAiNsT0rm]

Even though I'm a Linux guy, the closest I've seen to a possible laptop that could replace my desktop and be feasible is the latest Macbook Pro. DX10 graphics card, plenty of RAM, solid speed, LED LCD, good battery life, Superdrive, and big hard drive.

Once I see and read the reviews of the next OS X it may be time to make that jump to all laptop.

Re:Almost there...

[Reverend528]

I tried OS X for a few months before putting linux on my ibook. The unintuitive user interface and difficulty installing software eventually got on my nerves, which is why I went to Linux.

Goodbye Now a Procedure?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to Start Saying Goodbye I didn't realize it was a multi step process. Oh well, here we go:

Preparing to say goodbye ...
Saying goodbye commencing ...
Saying goodbye complete.

Re:Goodbye Now a Procedure?!

[wanderingknight]

You're going to say goodbye. Cancel or allow?

True--but...

[Ahnteis]

What percentage of PC users EVER upgrade their hardware? I prefer a desktop for the ability to upgrade parts, and (currently) for the price. But the majority of people? Never gonna worry about it.

I'd say desktops are likely to be more limited to high-end users in the future. (As laptop prices continue to fall.)

Re:Not until the keyboards improve

[sgant]

We may see the desktop computer disappear into the monitor, though.

Hmmm....we may see that one day.

Re:Not until the keyboards improve

[veganboyjosh]

you mean like an imac?

Die-Hard

[krgallagher]

"One researcher predicts it will be five to seven years before only the "die-hard" desktop users are left."

I'm not sure I agree. I have two desktops at home as well as my laptop. I am a gamer, and when I play I use my workstation. It has better graphics, more memory, better sound, and bigger hard drives. Also, because I build my own systems, I do not have to pay what I do for a laptop. I also do not have to pay it all at once. I am in a constant upgrade cycle using towers that I originally purchased around 2002. Because I do not have to replace everything at once, it is less of a financial burden to keep the machine up to near cutting edge.

OK, maybe I am just one of those "die-hard" desktop users.

Quite doubtful

[Opportunist]

1. Cost. Laptops cost almost twice what comparable desktop systems cost. This gap could close when flat displays become cheaper and production numbers increase considerably.

2. Upgrades. Upgrading a laptop means currently that you have to throw out the old one and buy a new one. This, too, could be seen as a minor problem, with the Joe Average User buying a new computer every few years rather than doing midlife upgrades and laptops that come across as "barebones" with interchangeable parts.

3. Vendor lock-in. Even if upgrading is possible, you often need very specific Dell/IBM/Toshiba-only parts that fit only in this brand of laptop, often also only in this series (anyone who ever wanted to up their ram in the IBM notebooks knows what I'm talking about). This is unlikely to change, since companies DO want you to be locked in. I highly doubt they'll agree to a standard.

4. Heat. The most advanced and fastest CPUs and even more GPUs produce an incredible amount of waste heat that a notebook cannot sensibly get rid of. Usually you do get a "notebook" version of those chips, but they are usually either slower or a generation behind, when more advanced production processes allow the same speed with less heat.

5. Displays. Notebooks are supposed to be small, displays can't be large enough. Unless we find a way to "fold" displays, people who want more than a 17" display will not enjoy the notebook experience. Either that or they'll grumble when they get to haul around a notebook that can house a 20" display...

5. Space. Notebooks only have so much space, unless you increase their size to inane proportions. This is most noticable for HDDs, which are hard if not impossible to upgrade, and even current notebooks hardly come with more than 200GB of storage space, something that is allright for travels, but I doubt it would make them popular with people who have a need for a lot of storage.

6. Defects. When a part of the notebook fails, you have to send it in for repairs. No user serviceable parts inside (with most models at least). When the graphics card in the desktop fails, rip it out and replace it.

The list goes on. While notebook use will certainly increase over the next years (points 1 and 2 can pretty easily be taken care of, and will), I do not see them as the all powerful replacement of desktops. They might have their place in work environments, especially when mobility is an issue, but in the private sector (and especially amongst hardcore gamers, video/audio junkies and graphics artists) the desktop will most likely survive.

Re:Quite doubtful

[Osty]

1. Cost. Laptops cost almost twice what comparable desktop systems cost. This gap could close when flat displays become cheaper and production numbers increase considerably.

Maybe in a direct apples-to-apples comparison. "Equivalent" laptops are barely more expensive than desktops, where "equivalent" is more about mapping the laptop to a demographic rather than comparing raw numbers -- economy laptop/desktop, entertainment laptop/desktop, workstation laptop/desktop, etc. Of course the laptops are going to have slower CPUs, slower and smaller hard drives, slower GPUs, and so on. That's just the way it is.

2. Upgrades. Upgrading a laptop means currently that you have to throw out the old one and buy a new one. This, too, could be seen as a minor problem, with the Joe Average User buying a new computer every few years rather than doing midlife upgrades and laptops that come across as "barebones" with interchangeable parts.

How is that different than what the Joe Average User does today? They might do a mid-life memory upgrade, but that's about it. And that's quite possible on a laptop.

3. Vendor lock-in. Even if upgrading is possible, you often need very specific Dell/IBM/Toshiba-only parts that fit only in this brand of laptop, often also only in this series (anyone who ever wanted to up their ram in the IBM notebooks knows what I'm talking about). This is unlikely to change, since companies DO want you to be locked in. I highly doubt they'll agree to a standard.

Stop buying from companies that lock you in. I have a ~2 year old Dell Inspiron that I've upgraded with off-the-shelf parts from Fry's. I did the RAM (increased to 2GB) and hard drive (7200rpm 100GB replacing a 5400rpm 80GB), but I could've also upgraded the CPU with an off-the-shelf part (Fry's carries laptop CPUs). The GPU is upgradeable as well, though I would have to find a specific form factor that's no longer available direct from Dell and would cost me $400+ on ebay. If I wanted, I could even upgrade my wireless card (standard mini-PCI internal card) if I wanted to get 802.11n support (my card supports b/g/a already so I don't see any need to upgrade).

6. Defects. When a part of the notebook fails, you have to send it in for repairs. No user serviceable parts inside (with most models at least). When the graphics card in the desktop fails, rip it out and replace it.

Again, that really depends on the manufacturer of your notebook. Using my Dell as an example, there are multiple places online that sell various different parts (everything from new screens to the plastic bezel surroundings), and Dell has online instructions on how to completely disassemble and reassemble the laptop. I've personally replaced the keyboard on my laptop, and considered replacing the screen with a higher resolution model. If I needed to, I could build almost an entirely new laptop from those replacement parts and instructions, since just about everything is available (I think only the bottom case portion of the laptop is not easily available).

The list goes on. While notebook use will certainly increase over the next years (points 1 and 2 can pretty easily be taken care of, and will), I do not see them as the all powerful replacement of desktops. They might have their place in work environments, especially when mobility is an issue, but in the private sector (and especially amongst hardcore gamers, video/audio junkies and graphics artists) the desktop will most likely survive.

Duh? There are plenty of things desktops are much better at than laptops. Unfortunately for desktop users, laptops have been getting better at many things, to the point where Average Joe User may as well buy a laptop instead of a desktop since the prices are relatively comparable, the performance is more than enough for browsing, email, video, word processing, and light gamin

Re:Quite doubtful

[Steve525]

1) I haven't priced computers lately so I don't know if you 2x estimate is fair. I guess the real point, though, for most people is do you need a comparable laptop, or is it worth sacrificing performance for convenience?

2) How many people (other than geeks like us) upgrade their computers, beyond memory and maybe harddrives. As the other reply said, most laptops can easily have their memory upgrade, and HDDs can sometimes be upgraded easily, too.

3) See #2. Vendor lock-in isn't important, so most people aren't going to upgrade anything beyond memory.

4) See #1. Yes, you sacrifice performance going to a laptop. Does this matter to many people?

5) This one area where you have an arguement I agree with. You will never get a large display on a laptop like you can with a desktop. Unlike other performance issues, this is one area where your average person really cares. Whether this is enough to make desktops continue to be popular remains to be seen. I think it might be.

5 part duex) HDD space has gotten pretty large compared to most people's needs, unless the person is doing a lot with video. My workhorse at home has 90 GB, and unless I'm storing a lot of videos, space isn't an issue. External harddrives are cheap enough, for those who need extra storage.

6) Defects. To the average person computers are (almost) disposable. A laptop, if taken care of, will usually last until it's obsolete - except for the batteries which can easily be replaced.

In summary, computers have gotten to the point that performance isn't an issue. Back when you were hurting if your computer wasn't state-of-the-art within the last 2 years, you really wanted to future proof your box as much as possible. This meant buying a fast computer, and having the ability to upgrade. Now, the pace has slowed down. Vista may throw things off, but any computer bought in the last 5 years will run most applications under XP (except games) just fine. So, the vast majority of people don't need a whiz-bang computer. For them, the convenience of a laptop is worthwhile investment, instead of buying a faster computer.

You are right, though. There will always be a market for desktops. Video, gamers, people who want a big screen are still going to be around. But, it might be that the market flips from 80% desktop/20% laptop like it was in the 90's to 80% laptop/20% desktop. (I just made those numbers up, but you get the idea). I think the large display is the one thing that may continue to keep desktops popular, but we'll see.

I don't know...

[Overzeetop]

It'd be a bitch to try and install two or three PCI tuner cards in one for a mythtv setup, and pretty few laptops come with digital audio out, much less HDMI ports.

Re:I don't know...

[slughead]

It'd be a bitch to try and install two or three PCI tuner cards in one for a mythtv setup, and pretty few laptops come with digital audio out, much less HDMI ports.

You know HDMI is exactly the same as DVI except HDMI has audio and no VGA.

You can buy a cable online for $10 with DVI at one end and HDMI on the other.

As far as digital audio.. yeah, you're on your own.

I doubt desktops will go away

[Todd Knarr]

These same "researchers" predicted that computers would make paper disappear from the office. Today offices deal with more paper than ever because electronic documents just don't do the job.

Laptops are popular with businesses because they can do double duty: plug into a docking station with a fixed monitor and keyboard for desktop use, but allow employees to take it home to do work after hours or on weekends. At the same time, though, those laptops are no end of hassle when dealing with the corporate network. Desktops, being nailed down to just one network, can just be configured and you're set. The laptops have to be able to deal with being on insecure outside networks, and the extra software to handle that is just a nightmare when they're attached to the corporate network. Not to mention that almost all of them currently are infected with several viruses and they're spreading them to the company net. The desktops aren't nearly as much of a problem in this regard. Business likes the cost savings, but a lot of people where I work are opting to keep their desktop boxes and use their own laptops instead of having the company give them a laptop (and take away their nice reliable desktop machine).

Then of course there's gaming. Very few laptops compare well to a desktop box when it comes to gaming performance. Gaming hardware eats too much power and throws off too much heat, and gamers don't like sacrificing performance.

My sense is that desktop PC shipments are dropping not because of any lack of demand for desktops. It's more that most people are satisfied with the box they've got now and are just upgrading components for a couple hundred dollars rather than buying a whole new system, and that people are going to white-box builders locally rather than buying from the big-name vendors. I know I can find higher-spec systems locally for better prices than I can find at Dell or the like. I mean, I built one for my niece earlier this year with hardware the equal of Dell's best gaming box but a cost around that of their mid-range non-gaming boxes. I've had to decline 4 requests to build systems since then, and pointed all 4 to local shops. I'm not surprised to see the big names seeing a drop-off in shipments.

Re:Not until the keyboards improve

[dal20402]

Agreed on the monitor... but scissor-action, laptop-style keys should have taken over the desktop a long time ago. Both faster and ergonomically more effective, because you don't have to move your fingers nearly as far for each keystroke.

There are a few scissor-action desktop keyboards out there but I'm constantly surprised they're not mainstream. Maybe the next iMac keyboard -- rumored to be based on the current MacBook keyboard -- will finally change the situation.

Re:This article is late

[Nicolay77]

Bought my last desktop in 1986.

My cell phone has much more performance than the desktop on my desk.

Therefore, desktops suck.

business laptops for all?

[mr_mischief]

I call bullshit.

Receptionists, shipping clerks, call center reps, cashiers, nurses, and most day-to-day office workers don't need the portability and form factor of a laptop. Furthermore, it's a lot more likely that a company will let a new hire or someone who has dealing with the public at the system use a desktop that's cumbersome to unhook and carry out the door than a machine designed for that purpose. People might not be any more likely to steal a laptop than a desktop in principle, but making it easier for, say, the guys who visit the Public Aid office to get in and out with them isn't necessarily a good idea.

Desktops are a lot cheaper to design and build for the budget role, and are more easily customizable for all the myriad business machines out there that require computer control. USB and Firewire are great, but they're still not as flexible as PCI and PCI Express. Extra drive bays make it much easier for IT to add storage or unusual hardware (ZIP, HD-DVD, some new memory card reader) that would have to be a separately inventoried if it was an external add-on for a laptop.

A desktop can easily be expanded into a cheap, low-end server. Most laptops don't meet this criterion very well. Memory limits asre often lower, the memory is more expensive, and you only get one hard drive in 99.8% of models out there. Lots of small businesses or working groups in larger ones tend to turn an old PC into an impromptu server for a while until the budget allows a proper server.

There might be some split into laptops for the masses, workstations for high-end work, and servers for rack-mount applications, but you can be sure lots of businesses will the just buy workstation or server machines as desktops. As long as the business world demands the mini tower, it'll be available for you to buy from Dell and HP. The enthusiast sites will probably still offer them long after that.

Besides, when has "lower growth" ever meant "decline in number"? Last I checked, growth meant more units sold, period. Less of an increase than last year, maybe, but still an increase. What if one day the market saturates and everyone only buys replacement systems? Will all the suppliers of hardware close and not bother?

Desktop Real Estate, Computing power, etc

[syukton]

The reason I like my desktop (computer) is because of the amount of desktop (display area) real estate I have. I have a 24" wide screen LCD as my center screen, flanked by a pair of 20" widescreens. I will eventually upgrade to all 24" panels. Show me a laptop that even comes close to competing with that (while still being "portable") and I'll consider this "it's the end of the desktop!" notion to be valid. There's only two ways I can think of this happening, moving forward. Option one is that my laptop will have a built-in projector that can display the ginormous desktop I desire. Option two is a HUD that projects said desktop directly onto my retina. I would surely welcome either option, but neither is really technologically nor financially feasible right now nor do I see them being so within the projected 5-7 year timeframe.

Also, as others have mentioned, I can get superior graphics performance from a desktop because it's easier to manage thermal output and you can therefore utilize video processors which have greater thermal emissions. "Graphics performance" isn't limited to games here, either; I enjoy being able to do high-polygon work in SketchUp with 4x anti-aliasing turned on.

The cause I see for the spike in laptop purchases is twofold. One, more people are buying them because they're affordable. Two, they're replaced more frequently than desktop PCs because they are abused (and therefore broken) more frequently than desktop PCs. I don't drop my desktop on the floor regularly, but everyone has been known to drop their laptop bag now and again without thinking. I don't have a tendancy to block the air vents on my desktop, but laptop air vents are often placed in very inconvenient locations. etc, etc. These two aspects are related, really. The drop in the price of laptops is mostly due to them being made more cheaply (not a "more bang for your buck" cheap, but a "lower quality" cheap) and therefore more prone to failure when mistreated/misused. I think that people are replacing laptops on a more frequent cycle than desktops, and that's why we're seeing this surge in laptop purchases.

Re:It's all about the I/O

[dal20402]

Just as anecdotal, but...

I only know a couple of people who have more than one computer. Among those people (of which I'm one) there's usually one desktop, or possibly two.

Among the vast majority of my friends/acquaintances, each person only owns one computer. In every case where someone only owns one computer, it's a laptop. Many of those people had desktops five years ago. None of them does anymore.

My conclusion is that laptops are replacing desktops for those people (i.e. the vast majority) who don't need something only a desktop can do. The desktop will increasingly be relegated to the office (unless laptop volume gets so much higher that the extra cost of a laptop goes away), hobbyists, and specialized uses.

New tech is "bigger" first

[Miykayl]

The supply of desktop parts is likely to continue also for this reason: Newer tech is easier, though more expensive, initially, to produce "large." The newest nVidia card will be big (sometimes requiring 2-slots). Only after a new design has been tested, produced, sold (recovering -some- capital) can the process of optimizing and miniaturizing begin. Yes, a manufacturer could step out-the-door with a very small, low-power, low-temp chip, but only by skipping all of the revenue they could have received by marketing earlier revisions of the tech... for the desktop, of course... And I'll be happy to buy it, handing down my previous "best card" to one of my other computers. I upgrade my best computer, and pass on the replaced part to one of my other 5 desktop machines. All my machines slowly get upgraded. The cycle takes longer when I have to buy a whole new mobo/cpu/ram/vid card (PCI-Express). But in any case, my DELL laptop is left out in the cold... becoming a relic that must be replaced in its entirety, or nearly so. Mind you, the manufactures might well prefer that incremental upgrades not happen, and that, in order to get an extra 5 fps in your FPS of choice, you must replace your entire system. However, I am comfortable that the death of the desktop would NOT be in the best interest of the consumer...

Not dead yet

[marcosdumay]

"while worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow 12.2% this year, portable PC volumes are expected to grow 28% and will make up more than half of all PC shipments in the U.S. this quarter."

Well, I'd wait untill desktop shipments start to reduce until I call it dead.

It's not quite sane to call dead something that is growing 12% a year.

Re:Guess I'll be one of them "die hard" desktop us

[Phil_At_NHS]

I agree with everything except the part about graphics. As an IT manager, I have a nice Sony Vaio, with a large screen built in, as my only work machine. Yes, when I sit down at my desk I have a nice large monitor, which becomes my second screen, giving me a useful two screen environment. However, In terms of video hardware, what I got is what I got, and this is the way with pretty much any laptop. Either you have shared video RAM, which is definitely a generation or more behind in performance compared to a dedicated RAM high speed card, or you have x amount of of Video RAM, which cannot be upgraded. These are almost always less RAM then you can get on the newest cards, and even if you pop for the ultimate primo top of the line king of the hill video setup for your laptop, within six months, you existing on board Video will be blown away by the latest greatest available, with no opportunity to upgrade. Add to that the fact that you only get ONE adapter on a laptop, and current technology allows you to bridge multiple GPUs for ultra-screaming performance, you are just not going to be able to get top end desktop performance on a top end laptop. When the fate of human race depends on it, a laptop just isn't going to be top line cutting edge. Only a desktop can insure the ultimate gaming experience. Now, for spreadsheets, databases, and all things boring, yea, a laptop is as good as a desktop most of the time. Better in some cases, with it's built in UPS...

Re:Games + Laptops = BAD

[starglider29a]

I have. Those cool doldrum shaped things make it curve left (thrown right handed). Effective range is only about 5 meters. Less if you have to get it through a cubicle 'doorway'.

Re:Not until the keyboards improve

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

True, but that day is probably way off in the future.

Laptops are Vulnerable

[dlenmn]

A lot of people are talking about how laptops are slower/more expensive/have smaller screens, and those are all true, but those aren't -- IMHO -- the main problems with laptops.

When I went off to college I got a laptop -- before that I had always used a desktop. It was pretty nice being able carry my computer (life) around with me. Then I slipped while going down some stairs, my laptop took a spill, and the hard drive went into a death spiral. I was able to get the data off it (and I had an older backup) but it made me realize that it probably wasn't a great idea to have such a vulnerable device for my main box. Now I have a desktop with a RAID sitting in my room. It's not going to get dropped or stolen. If I need something on it, I can ssh in. I still find my laptop very useful, but not as my main computer.

Re:Guess I'll be one of them "die hard" desktop us

[Haeleth]

However, the ability to take the computer home or on trips and still be able to work or play games is totally worth the performance loss.

Until someone nicks it from your hotel room and you discover that criminals now have access to confidential personal details of all your customers. :)

Very few reasons for a desktop

[plusser]

I have come to the conclusion that today there are very few reason for a desktop.

1. Cost - but most cheap desktops are rubbish
2. Screen Size - but then most laptops allow you to run dual screens. I only use a laptop at the moment at home and believe me I love using two screens. Try this on many desktop Pcs without buying a new graphics card, unless you have an Apple that is.
3. Lack of internal upgrades - but most new desktops have smaller chassis and after a few months it will still become difficult to upgrade without changing the motherboard, essentially replacing the whole computer.
4. 3D video cards - My laptop has a reasonable video card ofr the day (it is two years old). It will not play the latest games, but then if I wanted to play games I would by an XBOX360/PS3/WII because I wouldn't have so many constant you need to upgrade issues and the basic hardware is soo much cheap.
5. The old chassis form factor is too big for the modern office.

The advantage of a laptop is a computer that takes up less space. The problem is that most of them are not very portable.

The problem will be is that the latest PDAs and Smartphones (iPhone included) that have wifi and standard web browser can easily be used to virtually control a desktop or laptop using remote desktop software, some of which is free. On this basis, I think that the large laptop will become obsolete in the next few years, to be replaced by small form desktops and larger screen PDAs.

Apple are well ahead with the MINI, IPhone and IMAC.

No not really

[gelfling]

Most people with a home computer rarely have a desire to power down and go to Border's Books or the Bagel shop to do exactly the same thing.

Gamerz are still Gamerz and they only want the fastest biggest gear.

Laptops still have a 2x price premium for the same performance of the corresponding desktop.

Cheap laptops are much lower end machines than cheap desktops.

Desktops are upgradeable, laptops are not.

People like larger screens than the usual 15.4" laptop screen. And 17-19" monitors are pretty cheap.

But I will give you this - what the home user needs is a much smaller machine, like an all in one form factor of an iMac or miniMac or an ITX form factor, small fanless design with enough power to make it cost effective.

Computers are bought by the square foot.

[dbc]

(Or square meter, in some countries :)

In the 35 years that I have been a computer professional, I've observed that the form factors change very little. The computing power and storage available per square foot has gone up radically, and some new form factors have emerged -- lap top, palm top -- but the fact remains that, by and large, the "square foot" categories remain the same.

1975: Pheasant Under Glass computer rooms.
2007: Lights out server room.

1975: PDP-11/35
2007: Single rack departmental server stack.

1975: 24x80 "glass teletype" time shared VAX.
2007: desktop

1975: first "lugables" on the drawing board.
2007: lap top.

1975: HP-55 calculator
2007: Palm (or whatever they call themselves today).

The desktop will not die until the desk dies. It may change form, as the mainframe has been largely replaced by racked up servers, but the *footprint* still exists.

Why would desktops disappear??

[MoxFulder]

Just because desktop sales have leveled off doesn't mean they're going away. Sheesh! Okay, so everyone who needs and wants a desktop has one today. That's why sales are leveling off! It doesn't mean we no longer want them or need them!!! (By comparison, I doubt toothbrush sales have experienced phenomenal growth in the last few years... but that doesn't mean people don't need or won't buy toothbrushes anymore.)

There are many cool and exciting new uses for laptops/PDAs/tablets, but desktops have many uses as well. For example, most computer users have a desk at home or work where they get a lot of work done: there's no need to have that computer be mobile, and desktops are CHEAPER and MORE UPGRADABLE and MORE RELIABLE.

Upgradibility in particular is a huge issue for power users and hardware enthusiasts:

• Upgrade speed: With the nicely designed OEM case of my Acer minitower, I can have the case open in less than 15 seconds. I can replace an expansion card in about 30 more seconds. I can replace a RAM stick in about 30 seconds. I can add a new SATA hard drive in a couple minutes. I can replace the processor in 3-5 minutes. The power supply in 5-10 minutes maybe. I can do a whole mobo swap in probably 10-20 minutes. And I don't need any tools.
  By contrast, with my laptop, it takes maybe 5 minutes to replace the hard drive, and I have to mess with a bunch of fiddly little screws. To replace the RAM or optical drive I have to remove several panels and it probably takes 10-15 minutes. Replacing a MiniPCI wifi card is a huge pain and probably takes at least half an hour. And everything else simply can't be upgraded.
  
• Upgrade cost: Desktop computer motherboards, drives, expansion cards, power supplies, cases mostly use standard form factors and connectors. I can mix and match parts to my heart's content. Not so with the laptop! The hard disk is a standard FF, the optical drive is sorta standard, the miniPCI wireless card is sorta standard... and that's it. Good luck replacing the graphics card on your laptop, or the RAM on some models, or the processor, or the motherboard.
  
• Upgrade options: You can upgrade everything on a desktop. You can't easily upgrade anything but the HDD and RAM on most laptops, doing anything more requires tiny screwdrivers, a lot of patience, and the knowledge that you can easily hose your motherboard and have to replace the whole thing. And if you need specialty expansion cards for things like GPS or data acquisition, your only option is an external device--with lower performance, more clutter, and often more limited selection.
  

other concerns

[GlL]

Keep that laptop off your lap. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,118884-page,1/ar ticle.html Laptops may be the perfect gift for those id10t users who should have a little chlorine thrown in their gene pool. However until they fix the Darwin Award Winner generation issue, I think the popularity of laptops will be... muted. The other issue is the ergonomic nightmare that is the modern laptop. http://web.mit.edu/atic/www/disabilities/rsi/lapto pergo.html Add-on devices for ergonomics defeat the portability purpose of laptops, so with increased laptop use there will be increased RSI and soon the laptop surge will lead to the "Coming Dominance of the Desktop PC" articles. That's my take on this article.

Now that's a load of horse hockey.

[Inoshiro]

"The reason laptops are starting to outsell desktops is simply that the cost premium has all but disappeared."

If I were to sell my MacBook Pro to get the latest model (gaining me an upgrade from an ATI X1600 128mb to an nVidia 8600M 256mb, a newer chipset, a 2.4Ghz CPU from a 2.16Ghz CPU, and an LED backlit display), it would cost more than a recent desktop upgrade I did. This desktop upgrade was roughly $800, and got me a 2.4Ghz AMD X2 CPU (vs. a 2.0Ghz X2), a 256mb nVidia 8600GTS (vs a 128mb 6800), 4gb of RAM (vs 2gb of RAM), and a much better motherboard (an Asus M2N-Sli deluxe).

The thing is, I got to keep all the old parts of my computer as well (allowing me to trickle them down to other machines) -- unlike the laptop situation, where I have to roll along the money by selling the old one to pay the majority of the difference on the new one.

My entire desktop setup, with 24" monitor, 5.1 speakers, and a local storage of 1tb of HD space cost $500 less than my MacBook Pro (which has a much smaller monitor, crappier video card, 1/5th the HD space, slower CPU, less RAM, etc). MacBook Pros, given their specs, are within $200 of similarly equipped Dell and other name-brand laptops. No-name laptops tend to have the kind of parts I wouldn't buy (Via Unichrome chipsets, for example), so aren't in consideration.

The funny thing is that a 17 or 20" laptop has an even larger price premium -- I could easily have a 30" monitor with my setup for the same price as one of those laptops.

Name for me 1 laptop that I could buy for less than $800 CAD that would let me play Oblivion at 1920x1200 45fps with all the settings turned up. My desktop rig can do that.

This price premium you speak of seems alive and well to me!

The biggest issue I have with laptops is...

[Jon.Laslow]

...the video cards. Sure you can get a docking station to provide all of the other fun stuff that a desktop has (like (additional) serial ports, more USB ports, an extra LAN jack, etc...), however laptops still haven't overcome the limitation of un-upgradable video cards. Sure you can get expensive laptops with high-end cards, but when all of the games move to the newest version of DirectX, if you want to play them and keep the FPS up, you have to get a new laptop. Until the industry moves to swappable graphics cards, laptops won't be the be-all-end-all replacement for the desktop computer.

Re:The biggest issue I have with laptops is...

[mdwh2]

But nobody is trying to make laptops the universal replacement for desktops.

Well, the title says "Time to Start Saying Goodbye", and the researcher claims only die-hard desktop users will be left.

True, for most people, who don't know much about computers, a desktop will suffice. I'm not sure it's accurate to label people who are into computers, and prefer desktops, as "die-hard".

My preferences for using a desktop as my main machine are easier to upgrade, and easier to repair (just replace the bad bit, rather than sending it in for repair - which is more expensive, and also means me handing over all my data to random-corporation).

Desktop Applications

[Anonymous Coward]

How come the whole debate once again boils down to "gaming vs productivity" apps? One comment, above: "My 400$ Dell laptop is good enough... for browsing the web, getting email and productivity apps." (like what, Word or Excel?)

I use a lot of professional sound editing and composition tools, as well as video editing tools. I understand the specs of firewire and usb but i can tell you: playing 75 1-8 second 96kHz stereo samples with a 8-second seek-ahead buffer off a usb-or-firewire external drive just blows wadly chunks, causing latency problems in the audio hardware and screwing up live overtracking. Add to that the overhead of SMPTE, midi and a software synth and i'd like to see the notebook that won't crumble with that kind of I/O. So, sorry; the "use an external drive" approach just doesn't work in this situation.

You can compose on a notebook, maybe even lay down some scratch tracks, but you aren't going to produce an album on one.

My laptops are satellites; useful for checking email, playing with drum loops, writing the occasional hate mail to the MAFIAA, etc. Two of them serve as troubleshooting and analysis tools and only have system software and utilities on them (of course running Linux :P)

  I'm only using them because clients have given them to me when they've rushed on to the next "upgrade" because they think they need 3GHz, 1GB DDR-2 and some craptastic ATI gutted integrated graphix to read their Hotmail or watch their cracked "Clueless" dvd.

You cannot replicate my full tower with 4 internal RAIDed hard disks, two cd/dvd disks, dual network cards and dual graphics cards in a laptop package; just no way. And i USE that power.

And, incidentally, it does come in handy for the occasional frag-fest x.x

Soldered-in processors??

[Khyber]

Almost every laptop I've ever worked on, from my Compaq LTE Elite 4/50CX to HP dv9000s, all have had removable processors. Some laptops now ship with the ability to swap graphics cards (HP nx9420/9440 and some Dell models) and that will be a norm soon enough. RAM's always been upgradable, and the wireless in many notebooks is one of two slot factors, and easily accessible in most cases. Laptops will eventually be as easy to upgrade as desktop systems, from what I've seen in my own work experience. The najor challenge is engineering the board and case just right.