jmke

One of the fastest growing market segments in terms of computer sales is of course the mobile sector. As we have repeated many times in the past, for most of the work people do on a computer we have now reached the point where a decent laptop is more than sufficient. Yes, you will still pay more money than you would for an equivalent performance desktop. Yes, many desktop components are faster than any mobile options. And yes, we still find keyboards, mice, and desktop LCDs to be far more pleasurable to use overall. However, if you only have one computer in your household, there are plenty of good reasons to choose a laptop.

We'll start with the last area: input devices and displays. If you don't plan to move your laptop around, it's extremely simple to just connect a desktop keyboard, mouse, and LCD. More likely, you can set up a computer desk for normal use and use the laptop as a sort of docking station. Then if you ever want to go somewhere else to work - the couch, a coffee shop, the park, etc. - you can easily pick up your computer and cut the wires. As far as performance goes, outside of gaming and a few high-end applications, there's not much need for a state-of-the-art quad-core processor with a powerful GPU. In fact, if you don't plan on playing games at all you should be more than happy with the integrated graphics solutions.

Before you actually decide to take the mobile plunge, however, we need to step back for a moment. You may not need all of the performance that a modern $1500 desktop can offer, but sometimes needs change. Besides the additional cost of the notebook relative to a desktop, upgradability is without doubt one of the major deficiencies of laptops. Take just about any budget desktop system and you can add more memory, more hard drives, better audio, and significantly faster graphics cards - if you're willing to put in a bit of time spent tinkering. You can even replace the motherboard and processor should the need arise.

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3439

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