Who are these people that are still buying desktop computers? You would think this is a moot point in the year 2013. The writing has been on the wall for several years now that laptop prices have made them significantly more affordable. Modern laptops are powerful, light-weight and best of all portable. Tablets are running a close second to laptops.
But, I do know some folks (who have requested to remain anonymous at risk of being made fun of) who insist that a desktop is the only way to go. Yes you may be shocked and surprised to learn that many non-geeks don’t have the latest, fastest, sleekest, quietest, thinnest, greenest, most powerful, highest resolution, lightest devices. I know that’s crazy, right? Yet, these people do actually exist. So over the last six months I’ve compiled a list of the desktop crowds desires:
- Need a larger screen
- Need the full-size keyboard
- Need a larger hard drive
- Need more power for processing images and videos
- Corporate security reasons where they don’t want laptops leaving the building
- Laptops are significantly more fragile and don’t last as long.
Now let me briefly present some corresponding counter-arguments suggestions.
- You can always hook up an external monitor to a laptop or some tablets.
- There are also external USB keyboards that rock.
- External storage is awesome these days. There are high-performance 128GB thumb drives, for example and even multiple terabyte external drives.
- Number 4 above might be the only reason for making a concession towards using a desktop. If you are professional or graphic artist that has video or image processing jobs that take currently many hours on a high-performance quad-core desktop, then you might not want to heat up your laptop to that extreme. For everyone else doing Facebook processing there are definitely some high-powered laptops that can crank on image processing.
- You could always use a permanent security cable like I’ve seen at some hotels and airport lounges.
- One of the most common causes of laptop death is failure to keep it cool. Make sure it sits on a hard surface like a table and not on top of your puffy down comforter all night. If you have a problem with dropping your laptop get it a protective case.
In conclusion, there are very few reasons where a desktop computer is the only solution. The next question you ask me should be “so, what type of laptop or tablet do you recommend?”!