Support and warranty work is simplified when you only have 4 or 5 models of computer in your org, and can reference a spreadsheet to see exactly what a given user has in front of them.
I still prefer a desktop PC for my personal use, because I play videogames, and a desktop is what's historically best for that. A side benefit of having a personal desktop means that I can reuse whatever peripherals, furniture, etc between either my 'work' or 'home' desk configuration.
If I wanted to go full-circle optimized for my next PC build, which I may as well think about, I could plug all of my peripherals into the same thunderbolt dock, and only worry about that one cable, instead of the (potentially) 4 USB devices I'd be switching back and forth.
In theory you could treat desktops the same way. Any hardware problem? Discard entire machine.
This is obviously wasteful compared to replacing only the component which is broken. But it's hard sell to label that as a disadvantage.
I'd wager that sending a laptop back and forth twice is probably about as expensive as a single round trip for a desktop, and with less risk of breakage, since all the parts are soldered in place, with much less wiggle room for heavier stuff to break off.
This is what I do with my laptop today. I am considering building a SFF desktop in the future just to have, but before I do so I'd like to find a robust and performant solution for TB4 switching, at which point I'd use the same set of peripherals and input devices for both systems.
Going down to mini-ITX motherboard size means I'm going to probably be low on ports and expansion options, so having a dock will be an important part of the setup, and will also help reduce cable clutter/cable shuffling.
One other thing I might look into is an audio switcher. I don't have an 'audio stack', but usually can't stand the electric whine on most basic onboard audio. If I can keep my headphones on, and just flip a switch to change the channel they receive from, I'd be thrilled.
The downsides are the obvious extra cost for the laptop. Less obvious is the maintenance.
Every few years I will spill a drink on my keyboard. If it's an external keyboard I can repair it or replace it easily. If it's a laptop it could be catastrophic failure. Yes I know I can attach keyboard to laptop.
Then there's the laptop screen, it is easily damaged when traveling. Sometimes the damage is minor. My laptop screen recently started having problems, sometimes it works, sometimes it flickers, sometimes it's just a black screen. External monitor is currently attached, but that's a poor mobile solution. Replacing an external monitor is cheap. So, I found a website that can sell me the replacement monitor. I have to decide is it worth repairing or should I get a new one. Cost of repairing is about 1/3rd the cost of a brand new equivalent laptop.
I thought this only happened in movies. I always have drinks around my laptop and desktop, and it hasn't happened to me even once in the last 20 years. In my opinion, the 1/1000 chance of a spill happening in a given year shouldn't guide your purchasing decision.
> Then there's the laptop screen, which is easily damaged when traveling.
How does this happen? Do you drop your laptop often? Do you take it to the beach and does it get full of sand? I always travel with a laptop and cannot picture the screen getting damaged, unless I place the laptop in checked baggage.
I haven't lost a laptop screen to dropping it, though I have had a laptop screen spontaneously fail--two in fact. Both were HP laptops. Not buying those any more.
It's really hard to internalize it if you are not "weird" in any of those ways, but we should all be more aware of it.
I don't ever let them leave my pocket, of course, so I'd need to forget my pants to forget my keys...but we did agree not to get started on personality disorders. ;)
Regarding spilled drinks, sometimes it's just been morning coffee, sometimes it's a beer late at night. I've only had one cup of coffee go into this laptop (apparently without damage as it was months ago), but I've taken out several external keyboards over the years.
- A laptop will never have greater compute power and heat dissipation than a similar tier desktop.
- Current laptop models will often consume more power than can be provided by their included power supplies (one culprit is USB-C's 100 watt limit, the other is simply cost). Thus, their compute endurance is hampered by the battery. I see this when merely running Google Meet.
A lot of assumptions wrapped up in such statements - one of which is the one you found: Batteries are typically among the first components to die.
2) My M1 MacBook begs to differ again
I feel like you are talking about laptops that should not have been laptops in the first place here
1) Even with the thermal dissipation a M1 macbook has, a desktop could cool a M1 better. There's simply more room for a larger heatsink with more surface area, and fans that don't have to throttle, than a laptop format could ever provide And with the coming M1 desktops, we will see this in action.
2) The M1 MacBook Pro has a measured draw of ~120 watts under load (measured by anandtech; there's still the GPU to power, despite the better performance of the M1 itself). Apple power supplies, until recently, topped out at around 90 watts.
Here's where Apple's slightly ahead of the game - they're using the updated PD specs in their latest chargers to get a 140 watts out over USB-C, and packing them with the new 16" macbook pros (though not the 14", they're still topping out at 67/94 watts).
So the outlook for M1's in terms of power is better than average, so long as you pay the Apple tax. Worth it? Perhaps. Perfect? Not yet.
I have never managed to spill anything on my MacBook and I travel 24/7 and it is in prime condition.
Speaking about condition, it seems to me like you really just have to condition yourself to not place any liquid near it and always keep it in a good protective bag.
Macbooks have become notorious for industrial design faults that come up late in the lifetime of a laptop.
There isn't any laptop that gets anywhere close to a 64-core Threadripper on threaded workloads. There are some that are competitive with 8-core desktop processors, but then they cost ~twice as much.
But this only matters if you care about more than single thread performance.
Challenge accepted.
https://www.mediaworkstations.net/systems/portable-amd-works...
-- George Bernard Shaw
Mobility is a negative: so now your company can ask you to carry your laptop with you when you're on holiday, or ask you to complete work at the airport when traveling to the Denver office. And I feel like you missed GPs point about ergonomics -- you won't get any of that when moving. If you feel like mobile is a benefit WRT ergonomics you simply don't care about ergonomics.
The laptop form factor takes up extra desk space, and laptops are sill significantly more expensive for similar desktop performance.
You get all the benefits of a desktop environment plus the convenience of being able to work remotely and carry your machine with you when needed.
I don’t have a company telling me to work from an airport. And as for ergonomics, you don’t get those with a desktop machine either when moving so I don’t see what different does that make.
A laptop offers you options. That’s why for some people is appealing.
When combined with a docking station and external peripherals and input devices, a laptop is just a desktop with an integrated battery backup and screen that can become a mobile computing device on demand.
I've fully adjusted to this way of working, and the real crossover point for me was when laptops became available with enough RAM and graphics capabilities that I no longer felt I needed a desktop to do some of my work. I can run two external displays off my laptop with it as the center screen using ergo monitor stands, and run my external mechanical keyboard, ergo mouse, and my headphone stack, boom microphone, external camera, and wired networking all from a docking station with sufficient bandwidth to not be problematic in 2022. I no longer need or want a desktop.