Desktop vs Laptop

[Smithy]

Do you currently use a desktop or laptop when viewing websites. forums etc?

I use a desktop a lot easier to navigate through things.

 

[Rey619]

Desktop

 

[Kyng]

Laptop, since I like the portability.

 

[Mary Stetler]

Laptop. It is on my kitchen table. The desktop is allllll the way in the computer room.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I use an iPad, and it does everything I need to to do and is SO much easier to use than a laptop or desktop, either one. I have the external keyboard, so it functions basically like a laptop does; but it has touchscreen, and all of the Apple Apps instead of using websites for most things. My keyboard is an Apple Magic Keyboard look-alike, so I can just lift the iPad off the keyboard when i need to hold it for digital artwork. The keyboard has a backlight, so I can turn that on when I need it a little brighter.
I also have an iPad Mini, and I use that for reading because it is the perfect size for that. I seldom type anything with the mini, so it does not need the external keyboard.
This is my large iPad and keyboard case, with my Apple Pencil at the top.

 

[Susannah]

I prefer the desktop but I have a laptop too. They are both older now and I have decided not to replace the desktop. I will either buy a new laptop or maybe just a keyboard for my IPad. I needed all these contraptions when I was working but now I don’t. It’s time for me to simplify as they age out.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

I have both, but my desktop is down due to missing parts at the moment. But now all I need is a KB / Mouse combo and a bigger desk. I originally bought my laptop to use as a streaming TV, but while I was in the hospital two years ago, my daughter and 2 of her boy toys went to Eureka and moved my son and I to Edison, and they only brought about 2/3s of our stuff. Other things they "forgot" were we had two main stereo systems in the house, they brought one speaker from each one. Since they don't match, they're unusable until I can find a match for them. (If ever...)

 

[Don Alaska]

We have both, but I prefer the desktop for most things. I have two. I also have a laptop that we bought to use on the train when we did long distance travel by train (my favorite mode of long distance travel). I got a big laptop with a 10 key pad and a DVD player to watch movies on the train and on the planes. I also have a Kindle that has replaced the laptop for most portable functions. It is lighter and easy to use with an external keyboard similar to the one @Yvonne Smith showed with her iPad. Most of my work and play is on the desktop. Wife uses her phone for most things.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

I actually prefer my Windows 7 desktop. I used it to edit and mix a CD for a band in Eureka for them to send out as a demo CD. I did that entirely with free software. My Windows 10 laptop won't run some of that software, so that curtails my music editing unless I spend a ton of money to buy compatible software, that I do not have. I keep snapping my fingers and holding out my hand, but no money appears in it...

It also has my highly customized copy of Euro Truck Simulator 2 installed on it too, with four official addon maps and an addon map mod called ProMods that drastically increases the size of the map. That takes it from 146 cities in 16 countries (in the base games and their official addon maps of Italy, France, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe), to about 450 cities in 50 or so countries. That's almost all of Europe, and there are thousands of miles of highways and roads to drive on.

But that version won't run on Windows 10, and in the only non-Steam version I can find that does work, the developer mucked up the lighting system, by making it only compatible with video cards much better than the one build into my laptop. That only allows me to drive at night when it's dark, and between 6:00a to 9:00a and 5:00p to 7:00p, I can't drive because it's too difficult for me to see. In the remaining daylight hours I can drive as long as I am not going into the sun. The lighting on my Windows 7 desktop is perfect, and I could drive anytime. I had that game since version 1.5 and it's 1.34 on there now, and I bought it in 2013, and played with it, customizing it, getting rid of all the kiddy arcade stuff, from 2014 to 2022... It was just the way I liked it.

But I'm almost at the point where I can see if it still works. I finally have a monitor I can use, and all I need now is a KB and mouse. So I'm saving my nickles and dimes...

 

[Joe Riley]

I have a windows 11 Lenovo laptop that I bought around the time this forum started up. I have tweaked and trimmed most of the MS/AI stuff, and it has been working out nicely.

 

[Nancy Hart]

I have a Dell desktop. Prefer a desktop with a mouse. I spend too much time on the internet anyway. Having a laptop follow me around the house might be even worse. I've been informed this desktop will not handle Windows 11, and it is getting rather old. Expecting it to go kaput any day.

Having said all that, I am now shopping for a laptop anyway, because I need a backup. They say expect a laptop to only have a life of 5 years. Mainly due to the battery life. I can't decide how much money to put into one if that's true. All I know is I don't want a Chromebook or one with a macOS.

 

[Joe Riley]

I have a Dell desktop. Prefer a desktop with a mouse. I spend too much time on the internet anyway. Having a laptop follow me around the house might be even worse. I've been informed this desktop will not handle Windows 11, and it is getting rather old. Expecting it to go kaput any day.

Having said all that, I am now shopping for a laptop anyway, because I need a backup. They say expect a laptop to only have a life of 5 years. Mainly due to the battery life. I can't decide how much money to put into one if that's true. All I know is I don't want a Chromebook or one with a macOS.

Nancy, just tell your new laptop that it is a desktop!

 

[Shortie]

I have used both a laptop and a desktop over the years and I will admit, I much prefer to use a laptop. I find it great that a laptop is more portable so I have the ability to move from one area to another if I fancy a change of scenery

 

[Sunny]

Laptop, but I mostly use it as a "desktop" anyway. That is to say, it rarely goes anywhere other than my desk.

But my old laptop, recently replaced because it had an old OS and was too slow, was moved to my kitchen table. There, it is used for one thing only, to read the newspaper on it during meals. (I am single.) Much easier and cleaner than using a print newspaper.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

I have a Dell desktop. Prefer a desktop with a mouse. ...

They say expect a laptop to only have a life of 5 years. Mainly due to the battery life.

I bought a very low budget laptop in 2019 for the purpose of using it as a Streaming TV when we were at home, and to take on the road when we went on vacation. (Which never happened...) I watched a few shows and movies on it, but it didn't really get used very much or the first three years I had it. When I did use it, I bought a wireless KB and Mouse combo and I plugged it into a 48" Vizio TV. Cindy liked it, but she would turn on one of her cooking or medical shows and then fall asleep, and at the time we had a cap on data transfer on our AT&T lightning fast (sarcasm!) 6mbps internet account, so I would have to turn it off. So it wasn't used much in Eureka.

After the caca hit the ventilation system and we ended up in Edison, I discovered that my daughter's roommates botched a lot of things in the move. Since I was in the hospital, I had no direct control over it. To make a long story a bit shorter, they did things like leaving behind one speaker out of both of our stereo systems, and parts of the stuff associated with my computer rig, the blower I used to blow dust out of computers, fans, etc. All but a couple of the boxes were marked "Kitchen", yet only two actually had kitchen stuff in them.

But my laptop was here, but the KB and Mouse were missing, so I went to Walmart to see what kind of wireless combos they had for sale. Much to my surprise, they had one of nearly the same as the ones I had bought in Eureka, for half what I paid up there. So I bought two, one for myself, and one for my son. And this laptop has been running an average of 14 to 16 hours a day, every day since I got out of the hospital in April 2023.

What I am driving at is that you need a wireless KB and Mouse combo, and you need to plug a laptop into a wall outlet... Thus solving both problems. I used to think that laptops were not good for the things I do. But I see now that was wrong. It does almost everything I want it to do, it takes up less space, and costs less to run. Which in the summer and we have to have AC, every penny counts. I'm using the same KB and Mouse as I did for 12 years in Eureka, and now I have a better monitor.

 

[Mary Stetler]

I have a Dell desktop. Prefer a desktop with a mouse. I spend too much time on the internet anyway. Having a laptop follow me around the house might be even worse. I've been informed this desktop will not handle Windows 11, and it is getting rather old. Expecting it to go kaput any day.

Having said all that, I am now shopping for a laptop anyway, because I need a backup. They say expect a laptop to only have a life of 5 years. Mainly due to the battery life. I can't decide how much money to put into one if that's true. All I know is I don't want a Chromebook or one with a macOS.

My laptop just died and I could not figure what I did wrong. The picture kept fading out even though the sound was there. Went on Walmart site but the one I wanted to replace it with is not available in my city so I got another hp chromebook. It's OK. And it is so clean!

 

[Don Alaska]

My laptop just died and I could not figure what I did wrong. The picture kept fading out even though the sound was there. Went on Walmart site but the one I wanted to replace it with is not available in my city so I got another hp chromebook. It's OK. And it is so clean!

Was it a Windows laptop? I saw that the latest Windows update was crashing some computers and giving a green screen of death. If it was a Chromebook, it shouldn't have been affected by the update.