Vince Pinto Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Hi guys, I don't know about the rest of you, but I totally gave up using a desktop about 5 years ago when I purchased my first Dell Inspiron and I've never looked back. I have one PC (it's now a Sony VAIO notebook), and it travels with me everywhere, internationally and home to office (although I generally work 4 days a week from home). I no longer concern myself with synchronisation, duplicate software installations and updates, yada yada. Sure makes life simple. Everything I need is in single piece of hardware. The other thing is that Hong Kong is big on "Wi-Fi", so I can get online at most coffee shops, shopping malls and offices so, if I have my notebook with me, I'm still connected. What about the rest of you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlin Orr Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 I have had 13 Toshiba notebooks in a row. Had one floppy drive failure in my second one - a Pentium 75 - the first mainstream Pentium notebook built. Bought it for $5,800! I like to have the latest and greatest in notebooks. I also use a Shuttle Spacewalker mini for my playing around and video stuff. Hate to use my WORK computer (laptop) to fool around with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 I gave up on desktops a long time ago. There's just no reason to own one as a primary computer these days. Personally, I think the component PC as a primary computer is going to go the way of the Dodo bird. I'm glad your Sony works for you. Damned if I could find one that kept up with how fast I sometimes am able to type. What's killing WiFi here is unrepentant greed. Instead of making it a "perk" to lure customers, places here charge the hell out of you for it - yet another reason wireless technology in America will lag 5 years behind the rest of the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 PowerBook: I had originally planned to get another desktop to replace my old iMac, but decided that the portability would enable me to upload digital video from the matches that I shoot and enable me to get my email from hotels etc. whilst travelling to/from matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Both Coach! But seriously, I keep a big tower around with a 1600x1200 calibrated CRT display, graphics tablet, scanner, DVD burner Video I/O and large format printer for the tasks that need that. But I pretty much live on a portable using RF connect at home and at work. -- Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Same here.. I can more or less get whatever I want from work, so the desktop box with the honkin CPU and mongo disk is used for video editing and Media Center (TiVo in a PC!) stuff, and all the rest is done on a small laptop that pretty much goes everywhere I do. Its got cell-wireless, 802.11a,b & g, so all I need is a power socket every couple hours.. Best thing one local sandwich shop started doing-- free wireless, stores all over town. Other places are getting the hint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dminor Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Vince, Arnie and I use his Sony VAIO notebook most of the time. I still have a desktop, a Sony VAIO with a flat moniter, that I do some of my work on. It is nice to have all that extra space at our desks to clutter up with other stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoser Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Well, darn, Denise beat me to the answer again! I used to have an IBM notebook and a desktop PC. As Vince stated, it was a royal pain to coordinate files between the two, it always seemed as though the file I wanted at the time was on the other machine. So, I got the Sony VAIO and have been happy ever since! Arnie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Hayden Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 Notebooks/Laptops - Have one, hate it - I use it as a terminal only - Video is too slow, screens too small, too grainy for everyday use, CPU is too slow... Ok, I'm whinning. If I'm traveling, I use it to VPN top my network, and bring up Terminal Sevrices window to work on the faster boxes. Not traveling it gets thrown into a drawer. They're ok for Word/Excel/Mail, but I hate them for development, at 1600x1200 the fonts give me headaches, and running all the application servers I need, plus the IDE makes them too slow. If I could get a decent one that ran @ 2.4Ghz or more, with 1GB+ RAM for a decent price I'd look into getting a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 There's just no reason to own one as a primary computer these days. Heretic! I use both --- but wish I could just use a laptop --- or even better a pocket PC. For picture editing, color correcting and printing the LCDs found in most notebooks simply aren't accurate enough. We still need color calibrated CRTs for that part of the job. At the moment, my desktop is newer --- and therefore runs all photosoftware faster --- and since it connects to the net via cable modem my image transmissions via FTP software take half the time. On the other hand, I was able to shoot all day at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia last year, and was able to edit and transmit a dozen images to the office each day via cell phone modem during the hour train ride back to Trenton. And I can go out to cover spot news 30 minutes before deadline and get a picture back to the office. Idruna is already making pocket PC software to allow for editing, basic color correcting, captioning and transmitting images over a pocket PC. In the future --- I see me using one of those for virtually everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uscbigdawg Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 I've got the dual monitor super graphics/AutoCAD computer at the house with a docking station, that I ordered about 3 months ago . I'm ordering the laptop today....finally! Gotta love corporate accounts! Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 One of these days I'm going to get one of them new fangled laptops, but there are advantages to desktops which will probably prevent me from mving completely to a laptop. 1. Easy and cheap to maintain and expand. If a disk drive goes bad, I can get a Maxtor RMA processed in about 4 days and replace it myself in about 10 minutes. Contrast that to the hassle of a laptop repair - except maybe for an in-warrantee Dell. 2. SATA/RAID. See #1 above. 3. Disk capacity. 120GB is small on a desktop. 60GB is huge on a laptop. Fiigure $1.00/GB to expand the storage on a desktop. 4. KVM switch allowing instant toggling between an XP and Linux system (I run my development web server and a samba file server on the Linux box) 5. Durability. Laptops tend to "wear out" (mechanically sooner). Broken keyboard on a desktop? $13 at Newegg takes care of it. Broken keyboard on a laptop? Usually means a new laptop since the maintenance on an old one is cost prohibitive. 6. Speed/Cost - A super fast desktop means you can get by with a moderately priced laptop for on the road and at the range work. If the laptop is your sole machine, you'll spend a premium to go high end. 7. Overclocking & motherboard control - Desktops typically give you more options, particularly if you buy a high end component motherboard rather than a Dell (which are great machines, but tend to protect you from yourself if you want to overdrive the CPU) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Heretic! It's the story of my life... ...like when I told my idiot brother-in law in 1997 that getting Novell certified was a total waste of time and money. Which he promptly went out and did anyway. I'm with Rob on the cost/expandability issue, but my gut feel is that the future even for home users is going to be laptops/LCD workstations with black box servers as data repositories and where you plug stuff like scanners, printers, raid arrays etc. into. Or, I could be totally out to lunch as usual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Pinto Posted January 16, 2004 Author Share Posted January 16, 2004 Hi guys, I don't know who put up the cool poll, but what the hell does "other" mean? Three units? No units? I'm so confused .............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Hayden Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 I figured one of these: Tablet, Server, or PDA Or perhaps, the infamous "Workstation"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RHall Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 I like my custom built desktop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yardbird Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Homebuilt desktop here. I love to tweak 'em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shooter Grrl Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 Media Center (TiVo in a PC!) Hey Shred... tell me how I have TiVo now and I LOVE IT. But I wanna burn some of the shows to DVD - how do I get the TiVo in the 'puter????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 Media Center (TiVo in a PC!) Hey Shred... tell me how I have TiVo now and I LOVE IT. But I wanna burn some of the shows to DVD - how do I get the TiVo in the 'puter????? I'm using the Microsoft Media Center software (they call it an OS, but it's really XP Pro with some extra code). That config with a TV tuner card and remote control and I'm all set. Works like a TiVo, but not. I can burn DVDs of the shows I record with the Roxio video editing program. Now doing that with an actual TiVo that isn't already DVD-enabled (Phillips has one, I think) may be tricky. There's a bunch of hackers out there beating on TiVos though, so it has to be possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Ellis Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 I have both. The laptop is used at work as a maintenance terminal for rotorcraft powerplant monitoring and troubleshooting. Business software is used for my convenience as I don't like waiting in line to use a company terminal. During breaks, I make use of the 11g wireless network to do the 'Net. The beige box at home is a homebuilt thing from obsolete hardware the gamers at work get rid of. Which means it's about 6 months old. Current uses other than business software are photo editing, and document archiving via Adobe Acrobat. In the future I plan to install video editing hardware and software to transfer my VCR tapes to DVD. This where the beige box shines. Altering hardware configuration to match the task to be completed is much easier than with a laptop. Synching files is no problem. I've been using PCSync by the Laplink people and can sync both machines in about 10 minutes. A computer is a tool. I match the tool to the job. The laptop isn't adequate for some of my home work. Dragging my beige box to a helicopter to download a FADEC isn't practical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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