IT's Love-Hate Relationship With Laptops

Ian Lamont writes "Are laptops really as great as they're cracked up to be? We love their portability, and we've been charting the steady rise of laptop sales for years. Yet while many of us depend on them for work, our IT departments view them with mixed feelings. IT managers point to wi-fi configuration, complicated authentication procedures, and eight other issues as making their jobs a lot harder. What else is missing from the list of laptop limitations? What would you like to see in the next generation of laptop computers?"

Comments

their list

[mincognito]

1. Battery life still bombs.
2. Laptops get banged up and broken.
3. They're tough to fix, and they die young.
4. They get lost.
5. They're difficult to secure, digitally and physically ...
6. ... and security precautions make users nuts.
7. Wi-Fi is still the Wild, Wild West.
8. Laptops spawn a new breed of uber-entitled user.
9. They're too big or too small.
10. Software performance just ain't the same.

Shorter Lifespan

[dfm3]

In my brief experience with IT at a small university several years ago, I learned that laptops have a much shorter expected lifespan in the real world compared to desktops- two years versus four or five before they need to be replaced. Even if users treat them like their firstborn, they just aren't designed to last much longer than that. Out of the half dozen or so laptops that we have floating around the office that are over 2 years old, not one of them has a battery that lasts for more than 15 minutes off of AC.

Re:Shorter Lifespan

[Anonymous Coward]

That's crazy talk. Laptops that sit on desks are far superior to desktops.

Advantages:

1. 3 hours of battery backup, compared to maybe 5 minutes on an UPS for the desktop. And replacement batteries cost no more than a good UPS, which needs replacing in the same timeframe.

2. Quieter.

3. Built-in display gives you instant dual-display capability.

4. Backup keyboard and pointing device if a peripheral dies.

5. Smaller footprint.

6. Generates less heat.

7. Consumes less power.

8. Far fewer hardware failures over time, at least with ThinkPads. Things that constantly fail in desktops, like power supplies and fans, hardly ever fail in laptops. Other than DOA's we hardly ever see a hardware problem in our 70+ machines.

9. Resale value. After three years on the job a desktop isn't worth selling. A ThinkPad is still worth $200 and is light enough to ship profitably.

10. Portability, if you need it.

Disadvantages:

1. Cost, though you have to subtract a couple hundred bucks if you are going to use the built-in display as part of a dual-display setup, because that's what an external LCD would have cost. Keep resale in mind, too.

2. Upgradability, though how many companies really upgrade anything but RAM, hard disks and optical drives, even on their desktops? CPU upgrades are usually a non-starter because the whole motherboard and socket would have to change. GPU upgrades aren't very common in normal office environments. What else is there? Nothing. And upgrading RAM, hard disks and optical drives is easier in laptops than in desktops. Plus, the bits you pull out are worth selling on eBay.

Re:input device?

[yokem_55]

Try running syndaemon on your login. This little program is included with the synaptics X driver and it disables the touch pad while you are typing and reenables it automaticaly after a specified timeout (I have mine set to 2 seconds).

Re:input device?

[epp_b]

You would think that in the years that have gone by, they would have developed something better.

They did. It's called a trackpoint

Re:More upgradeability

[syncrotic]

You can't just throw a graphics chip into a laptop as an afterthought: the entire machine has to be designed around the thermal profile of both the CPU and the GPU. Given how marginal laptop cooling systems are, an increase of 5W in GPU power output might be enough to overheat the system.

A laptop really isn't designed to be upgradeable - the good ones, especially so. They're integrated systems, carefully engineered for structural strength and heat dissipation. The only laptops that could accomodate a modular graphics interface are the cheap 17" ABS monsters.

Re:My problems with laptops

[Rakishi]

1. They are too fragile. So are desktops if you tried carrying them around and throwing them about.

2. The internal guts are too hard to work with. Anything more than a RAM upgrade is a nightmare of tiny screws and shielding tape. So? Very, very few people do upgrades on their computers nowadays. They may build them from parts but aside from the hard drive and ram "upgrade" means getting a whole new system (motherboard, cpu, video card, etc.). Technology changes too quickly and parts are not that backwards compatible. For most people messing with the inside of their computer is simply a waste of time, both techies and non-techies.

3. Operating systems are targeted for desktops and servers, they don't make it easy to set up a laptop the way you want, with encrypted partitions, network configuration, etc. Sure these features are there for the tinkering, but I don't want to mess around, I just want to get to work. So you want to mess with the hardware but not the software? Anyway, everything requires tinkering if you want it to do what you want. You're simply used to doing things ones way (and setting them up) on a desktop.

4. Laptop hard drives are so slow! You would think there could be a slightly larger drive form factor that would allow for a drive whose speed approaches that of a standard hard drive. ...when was the last time you even saw a laptop 1995???? Laptop hard drives are 7200, guess what desktop hard drives are? 7200.

5. The batteries are all different. Hard drives, RAM, etc. are interchangeable to some extent, why not batteries? Because manufacturers have nothing to gain from it and battery sizes vary a lot.

6. Those tiny little laptop cooling fans drive me batty. I really hate the high-pitched whine. So get a laptop with a large fan.

7. While I appreciate the small size, I would gladly trade a pound or so and a quarter inch of thickness for less whiney fans and a faster hard drive. If it's too big to fit in my pocket, it should be a real computer. I repeat my previous point "...when was the last time you even saw a laptop 1995????"

8. Not much to be done about it, but it's not possible to use one in comfort; the ergonomics inherently suck. It's called a docking bay with external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Re:From the My Computer Is My Monitor Dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever taken apart a laptop? I've personally replaced the screens on 3 computers. The hinges are usually just screws. Take the keyboard off and follow the wire trace to where ever it goes. Pop it off and replace.

Re:My problems with laptops

[forgotten_my_nick]

Your post may of been valid say 10 years ago.

1. Most modern laptops are not fragile, unless you mean throwing a the floor or trying to crush it. In which case it is as fragile as most flat screen monitors.

2. Changing ram/hard drives doesn't happen often but again all modern systems are a simple case of remove 1-2 screws then pull out and slot in the new hardware. Long gone are the days where you had to take the laptop to pieces to add something.

3. Bull. Operating Systems work fine on laptops. There is no difference between them and a desktop.

4. Again this depends on the laptop. Some sacrifice speed for heat. Again the newer models have very fast HDD.

5. How many times are you changing batteries? I've had my current laptop two years and I am still using the same battery. The life on it by the way is max 7 hours.

6. Newer laptop models can run quiet.

7. Are you talking about laptops or notebooks? Different things.

8. Again it depends a lot on the laptop. I have two laptops (lenovo + Dell XPS). The Dell is more like a PC keyboard with a XTFT monitor attached. Great for gaming, not noisy. The Lenovo T60 is small, very quiet and very fast. I have have a docking station for the second and a montior and keyboard plugged into that docking station.

For using it on my lap I got a lapdesk which is great for stopping any heat issues and keeps it locked on my lap while still being able to use a normal mouse.

I think any IT Admin who has problems with laptops these days should probably look at a new career.

ThinkPad on a ship

[wikinerd]

I actually do a lot of my work on a ship using an HSDPA/3.5G connection and various laptops. One of my laptops is an IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad machine. On one occasion it fell down on the metallic upper deck's floor. A PCMCIA (3G) card on it was completely destroyed, but there was absolutely no damage on the laptop itself. Not even a small scratch. No damage to my 7200RPM HDD (Seagate, custom upgrade by me) at all, which is incredible considering that it was working when it fell down. The durability of my IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad really surprised me. My biggest problem was actually my lost SSH connection (which I revived soon as I luckily had another 3G terminal with me, and from that day I always use the nohup command whenever I am about to execute anything time-consuming on a server).

On another occassion, the same IBM ThinkPad machine was exposed to large amounts of seawater by accident (shit happens). The water actually entered into the laptop through the cooling holes. Again, the laptop had absolutely no problem working.

In general, having used 4 different ThinkPad models over years, I can say that their durability is great. A very old IBM with a 100MHz processor still works as if it were new, and its screen hinges have not shown any signs of aging. An old Dell Latitude I have, however, suffers from a too relaxed screen which dances on every little move (never bothered to fix it as I don't use it much).

It also worths noting that my IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads have never had problems with radio interference, although other laptops I have go crazy (random keystrokes/mouse clicks/speaker noise etc) whenever I place a 3G terminal too close (2-4 cm) on them.

Re:From the My Computer Is My Monitor Dept.

[maxume]

Most people would go with a brand that wasn't busy making their laptops more expensive to purchase, ignoring any reduction in cost of ownership.

Re:Laptops

[Ephemeriis]

I'd say that your argument enforces that laptops are better for most users because it causes some people to actually think about the relevant security and backup issues.

It may very well make people consciously think about security and backup issues... But you simply cannot claim that desktops are equally vulnerable to the same kind of issues.

Laptops are small and portable. While it is possible to steal a desktop PC, it is harder. Especially if you've got some kind of security on the premises. Not impossible, but harder. Laptops, on the other hand, are routinely toted from one place to another...they could easily be nabbed out of your car, off your shoulder, off a chair at the library/terminal/cafe. Laptops are genuinely easier to physically steal.

A desktop is easier to consistently back up, since it is generally connected to the network at all times. You can easily use a utility of some sort to pull data off that desktop PC whenever it is necessary. A laptop could very easily be off the network for days at a time. Sure, you can use some kind of VPN or web access to anything important...but what if they have no bandwidth at all? Keeping data safe and backed up is more of an issue with a laptop.

And while we're on the topic of VPNs and bandwidth... Your average desktop doesn't leave the building - it stays on your network with your security/antivirus/whatever in place at all times. Laptops often wind up on somebody else's network. Maybe they're grabbing free bandwidth at a hotspot somewhere...maybe they're using the hotel's bandwidth...maybe they've got a cellular modem... Regardless, they're no longer behind your firewall, and are now at the mercy of whoever set up the network they're using.

You claim that desktop HDDs fail just as often as those in laptops... I'm not going to debate that, I have no data either way... But I doubt if desktops get knocked off tables, dropped, tripped over, or have crap spilled into them nearly as much as laptops do. Again, laptops are portable, people are carrying them around. People drop things, trip, fall down, slip. By contrast, a desktop is generally stuck under/on your desk and doesn't really go anywhere. Sure, you might have damage to a mouse or keyboard from time to time...but those are just peripherals. You aren't terribly likely to do serious damage to your CPU/motherboard/HDD if you spill coffee into your keyboard on a desktop.

The fact that laptops are portable, routinely leave your building, and connect to other networks makes them uniquely troublesome.

Re:Laptops

[jollyreaper]

Part of the issue is that people demand laptops when they don't need them. They do have the attractiveness of not having cords or other extraneous things that confuse users, but at the same time, being mobile is oftentimes not the best practice. Security is a major issue - can you trust that your data won't be compromised if lost or stolen? Do you have a reasonable backup? (Most people don't) For most employees, a desktop is often enough. And if laptops are handed out, then users need to be very, very careful. (Encrypt data, daily backups...) I'm thinking a better solution would have a laptop that works as a dumb terminal. My last job was like that, anyone who needed to work from home got a laptop. Of course, these same simps never bothered to make time to get training on how to work from home with IT. In fact, the rationale for the purchases was never run by us, we were just told to make it so. These people all had desktops at home and fast connections, they could have just used the terminal server to log in instead. They were either working at home or working at work, there was rarely ever a location C involved. Only a few people ever truly required a laptop because they could be any of a dozen places. For the most part, laptops encouraged poor data security practices, not so much fear that they would lose the data to a thief but that they would lose the data with no backups maintained on our servers. No matter how many user-invisible techniques I tried to make this simple, they never seemed to work, always making things more complicated than before. We would send out directives telling people that they should not store things locally but again, nobody ever listened. Every time I went to help someone directly I'd check their my documents and tell them they shouldn't be doing that and they wouldn't listen. I tried remapping my documents to point to the public file store and they'd end up saving things to the desktop instead. We had at least three serious "oh shits!" when hard drives in laptops failed and a lot of important info was lost.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Likewise, you can lead a man to ponder but you can't make him think. You can also lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.

Re:my list

[WuphonsReach]

Thinkpad X61s - 2GB RAM, Core 2 Duo, 160GB HD along with the extended (9 cell?) battery will get 6-7 hours on a single charge. With only a moderately aggressive power saving scheme. The downside is that it's only a 12" XGA screen. On the flip side, it is very lightweight even with the extended battery.

Things like "turning the monitor (back light) off after 2-3 minutes" or only running the display at half brightness go a long way. The Thinkpads have a function key combo that allows you to adjust display brightness, so I'm always turning the brightness down to get more life.

In comparison, my T61 (3GB RAM, Core 2 Duo, two 160GB HDs) with the standard battery only gets around 2.0-2.5 hours of use. But that has a larger 15.4" 1680x1050 display, the second HD, and the smaller battery pack.

The Macbooks are rumored to have better then average battery life, but I haven't personally used them.