I’ll admit it. i have been to your blog SIX times since your last post looking for a new post…….

For home, I probably won’t get another iMac and go for a Macbook with externals plugged in like you.

If you can afford it…get both. If you can’t there is always Visa, MasterCard and Amex… :)

However, the grunt work of burning DVD’s is done on tower machines- they handle it better.

Laptops are nice to sit where ever you want- instead of being stuck in the study with the desktop. Socializing, anyone?

Although I can’t see me buying a desktop any time soon, but I think Chris touched on an important point — posture. With a laptop usage, posture tends to be terrible. A way to counter it is to always work at a desk, but it kind of defeats the purpose.

But a laptop for a desk doesn’t make sense, I tell them. Yes, but they look better and they take up less space. The fact that they’re not (easily) upgradeable, and generally underpowered is irrelevant to them.

What should be important to them is that they will literally do themselves an injury using one. As someone who properly knackered their lower back through using a laptop in a bad position (and it’s difficult not to), and speaking to specialists in the field following that, I think there’ll be a big backlash in the next 12-24 months, as the posture-related problems occur, and that will go a long way to redressing the balance as far as the mass-market goes.

The desktyop is way better for your health I reckon, yet the Notebook gives you miore flexibility.

I just finished my Shuttle SG33G5 build w/ a 8800GT so I can clock some hours into Call of Duty 4 and Crysis. The fact that I can pick up my whole computer in one hand makes me wonder why I didn’t jump on the SFF bandwagon sooner. A remotely similar gaming laptop would easily cost 3x the amount I spent.

While I can’t bear to type for long on my Dell M1210, the desktop paired with my Logitech Wave keyboard, I can literally go on for days. Perhaps the ultraportable vs. full desktop comparison isn’t valid. I do love the feel of a Macbook Pro’s keyboard and palmrest though.

Desktops always felt faster to me – perhaps I haven’t been investing enough into my laptop components. :)

Anyways, I’ll be taking my Shuttle box back to Tech, no way I can bring a Mid/Full ATX tower as “carry-on” for the plane ride.

I certainly agree with you that laptops are catching on, however if you took my laptop away, I wouldn’t miss it. Well, it’s a Dell, but that’s a whole ‘nother arguement.

Your friend should strap a phase-change assembly to his backpack and try to push a Merom XE to the limit while in lecture… just a thought.

Anyways, to end a long reply… Yes I’m typing this on my laptop, but that’s because I’m throwing Vista Business x64 on my Shuttle.

Yes. Microsoft.

Although I use my Mac mostly now….I still use my HP Pavillion 753n for streaming video on Ustream.tv and it has Adobe Audition.

Once I get fully mobile, then I think I know how everyone feels :)

Paul, what is a desktop computer anyway? :-) I used to know what that meant, but the last time I used one was almost ten years ago, when I got my first ThinkPad 600. The moment I started using it I knew I’d never go back to a desktop machine.

Another nice thing about ThinkPads is that they have good keyboards, and for the most part IBM/Lenovo has never tinkered with the keyboard layout. I’ve gone through five or six generations of ThinkPads and they have all had the same keyboard layout. (The only minor exception being that the latest models added the Windows keys.)

And… The TrackPoint! For a touch typist, no other pointing device comes close to the usability of the TrackPoint. You can point and click without moving either hand from the home row.

There’s nothing like a Thinkpad!

Desktops still have their place though for gaming, and it can be handy to have a desktop running for apps you want to run 24/7, FTP servers, torrents, etc.