Discussions

Will Laptops Ever Replace Desktops? This is a recurring question and it seems that everyone has his or her own opinion on this matter. Let me share mine.

There is no doubt that for the common user who just wants a computer for running office-like applications and accessing the Internet laptops are a terrific substitute for desktops. The benefits from this migration are obvious: less space required on the desk, ability to carry the computer anywhere and less power consumption.

Laptops also provide some disadvantages over desktops, and are based on these disadvantages – some of them are nothing but myths – that many users refrain from giving up desktops and using only laptops. Let’s see:

•    You can’t upgrade components from a laptop: This is partially a myth. Usually you can add more memory or replace the hard disk drive. Plus some models offer expansion slots like Express Card. But there is something funny about this claim. Average users, apart from installing more memory, replacing the hard disk and replacing or adding a video card, are not upgrading PCs like they use to do a few years ago. This means that the average user (who doesn’t want to learn technical details on how to replace parts and is willing to pay someone to do this for him or her) will simply buy a new computer instead of trying to upgrade the CPU or motherboard. The problem is that we usually base your rationale on ourselves – heavy technical users. So the only area that this statement holds true is regarding the video card, which traditionally can’t be added or replace on a laptop. But, hey, you can eBay your old laptop and buy a new one with a better gaming performance. Of course if you are the kind of user that likes to open your PC and play with its internal parts then a laptop is simply not for you (at least as a primary computer)!

•    You can’t play games on a laptop: Well, you can play games on an entry-level desktop either, so what are you complaining about? The problem is that on an entry-level PC you can add a good graphics card and you will have a decent gaming machine, what is not possible to do with a laptop. So the difference is that if you want to play games on a laptop you have to keep this in mind before deciding on a model that is right for you. The market has changed quite a bit in the past year and you can now have a laptop that has gaming performance similar to desktops – or even better, depending to what desktop you are comparing to. But you will have to pay more for it, of course.

•    Laptops have lower performance: Myth. If you have a laptop with a high-end configuration and compare it to an entry-level desktop, the laptop will be faster! So everything depends on the configuration you pick. The only area where laptops are traditionally deficient is gaming performance, but this is changing.

•    The laptop screen is too small: This is a myth. There are models with really large screens around. The only kind of user that laptops are not really addressing out of the box today is the one that wants more than one display (even though we’ve seen prototypes of monitors with two displays). You can solve this, however, installing an external LCD monitor and configuring your laptop to use the second monitor as an extension of your Windows desktop. It works just like on desktops with two monitors.

•    The laptop keyboard is too small: Pure myth. You can simply buy a regular USB or Bluetooth (if your laptop supports this technology) keyboard to solve this issue. Using a laptop with an external keyboard you will still be using far less space than a desktop computer.

•    Laptops are more expensive than desktops: Laptop prices dropped a lot in the past few years and in fact there are good entry-level laptops that are cheaper than entry-level desktops. On the high-end arena gaming laptops tend to be more expensive than their desktop counterparts, but the price difference isn’t so huge as it used to be some years ago.

So what is really holding more people to change from desktops to laptops in my opinion is to them to realize that the market has changed a lot in the past few years and their opinion about portable computers can be based on myths created on a time that they could really be true.