QOTW: Where do you do most of your work: laptop or desktop?

by Parm Mann on 17 November 2017, 16:31

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Today's laptops are truly stunning pieces of equipment. Incredibly thin, practically silent, pleasantly powerful and outfitted with jaw-dropping screens, they showcase modern technology at its very best.

Yet I'm an old-school worker, and when I want to get something done, I still prefer to sit down at my tried-and-trusted desktop. The machine is getting on a bit - it is based on a 4th-gen Intel Core processor - yet the bigger display and proper keyboard and mouse make it feel like home. There's a sense of security about it, and whether I'm writing content, editing media or doing a Sainsbury's shop, I tend to be more productive than on a laptop.

I'm stuck in my ways, but what about everyone else? For this week's tech question, we're asking where do you do most of your work: laptop or desktop? Share your thoughts using the comments facility below.



HEXUS Forums :: 31 Comments

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We have laptops in my place of work, but they are on docking stations connected to monitors, keyboards and mice; they never get taken off them. I guess they have done this simply to save office space but yes, we are neither here nor there when answering this question as we use laptops as if they were desktops haha.
I work in a lab testing gas analysers. A couple of years ago IT decided to move away from desktop PCs, now all new rigs are laptops. Most users get a bog standard bottom of the range thinkpad, but they do seem to be OK. In my lab we have mounts that take the laptop on one side and a separate screen on the other, but both screens are at the same height, used with Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Its works surprisingly well and gets back some space, although a mini pc would also work. 90% of our works laptops are used for email, data logging, running VNC clients and interpreting data using excel, they shifted to office 365 a couple of years ago and everything is run from that. I have also installed an all in one pc with touchscreen to run some gas blending kit, it looks nice and we use it display work schedules and other exciting excel stuff!! Most of the laptops could probably be replaced with tablets if we wanted to, have demoed a couple for reading SOPS, the windows ones can do most of the data logging stuff that the laptops do.
“We live in an age of stunning laptops”

Yes… but you're either dreaming or tripping if you think my work would splash out on anything that even vaguely resembled ‘modern’ technology. And even if we got something that ran at 50GHz and had 500 petabyte drives, IT would still bog it down with so much security junk and conflicting software that you're better off using a calculator watch… We're lucky we ever got Windows 7 and even luckier that it's still working!!

Besides, if you have a laptop, you're still required to dock it and use an external monitor mouse and keyboard, for reasons of DSE and correct seating position. Might as well have a desktop.

At home, it's a desktop. Desktops let me choose and use whatever screen size and type, keyboard, mouse, monitor arm, sound system and whatever else I want.
Laptops are either restricted to whatever they come with, or can connect to so much of the above that you might as well get a desktop and leave everything connected. Plus I can do a lot more in terms of upgrades and personal mods/builds/customisation. Laptops are generic-looking same-sames and the best looking ones are still made by GRiDCase.
Desktop running VMWare Workstation so I can run a second desktop which is my “work PC”.
Desktop. In my not so humble opinion, laptops just have too many compromises. Horrible keyboard - will never be an ergo keyboard. Trackpads are horrible compared to a mouse. Underpowered hardware. Small monitor. … You can't build your own.

I hope and pray that I never have to have a mobile job.