Desktops and laptops in current form-factors have been around for more than 10 years. Both of them have been gaining speed and features, but the basics haven't changed much: laptops have always had 80% of speed at 120% of the cost.

I don't see anything new, that hasn't been around 10-15 years ago, that will push desktops out.

I use both, for various reasons.

It hurts to watch laptops users trying to get something done without a real mouse with applications not designed with keyboard navigation in mind. It's like watching stop-n-go traffic. Unless, of course, that laptop happened to be a ThinkPad with it's gorgeous "UltraNav".

This is why I love vim: I am equally productive with it regardless of the machine I happened to run it on.

So WHY do you think desktops will disappear? What is it, that current crop of laptops offer that I couldn't get in 1998?

>"laptops have always had 80% of speed at 120% of the cost."

Where do you get this from? I have the impression that the price difference has been decreasing.

I still don't get why people by HDTVs and not just an HD projector for the same price or cheapter

My understanding of the current situation is that good projector bulbs are fragile, only last about 1000 hours, and can cost as much as half the projector's price. After a few bulb replacements, the cost of a projector can be the same as or more than a large HDTV, so other factors come into play: you get a bigger-but-dimmer picture with projectors, some of the cheaper DLP projectors are bright but flicker horribly, etc.

I've read several articles about small projectors using LEDs that should be hitting the market Real Soon Now(tm): novalux.com, as well as some stuff from established companies. They should be cheaper, too: a few hundred $. I don't know when this will occur, however.

Because projectors require a few things that TVs do not.

1. A dark room

2. Nobody getting in between the projector and the surface it is displaying on

3. Extra space

Don't get me wrong, projectors are cool, but there is a reason they aren't as popular as regular TVs.

this is a hacker crowd -- I imagine most people here have a ton of content already on a computer, which using a projector makes it much easier to watch.

1. agreed on dark room.

2. if the projector is mounted high (as it should be) this is not an issue

3.I was in military barracks half the size of a normal bed room and my projector still had a very tight 4-5 foot screen on a bare wall -- oh and it was $600 OTB.

All good points, to which I would add:

4. Projectors often have fan noise

Unless my info is out of date (Checked this a couple years ago), the projectors use something like 2 orders of magnitude more energy. Over the long run this can lead to a significant cost difference.

I have neither; is the image quality the same for both?

How much does a good, portable screen cost?

AFAIK LCDs have higher image quality and good screens are not cheap. The cheap option is to paint a wall with special paint and use that as a screen.

I bought a 47" Westinghouse LCD last year.

$100-$200 for portable screen (or use awhite/ beige wall and you'll be fine)

Image quality imho is very, very nice on a projector.

FWIW, imho, its' about the same as a movie theater, at scale

Setup.

I flick my TV on, you go plugging things in and finding a nice wall to point at.

and post-setup? with a $600 projector rand a $200 surround sound system, an Xbox 360 or laptop, it's honestly 15-20 minutes to setup.