Laptop or PC?

Hi gang!

At the time of writing I'm sitting behind my new laptop which I got myself so that I could access my mail (and do some Office related work) while on the road. And what do you know? It's also powerful enough to run Minecraft. This critter isn't the most powerful (Intel Celeron CPU) but more than enough for me, also considering that I don't plan on using a laptop that extensively; I'm more of a PC guy. Still.. this is a 2-in-1 device, meaning that I can fold it apart (360 degrees) and use it as a tablet, which is really nice

So I just hopped online to take care of my auction and well.. not too bad. Hardly as fast as my PC but still enjoyable (the main idea of this laptop is to give me access to my mail & documents with Office).

tbh I can't believe how small / thin and light this gizmo is. Hardly more heavier than 1kg, my previous laptop (Toshiba Satelite Pro 60) has copper heat sinks and easily weighs 3kg or such (came installed with win98, now runs FreeBSD).

aaanyway, it made me wonder what you use to play Minecraft? Because even though I still prefer my regular desktop with full keyboard I can definitely get used to this. The keyboard is a lot less worse than I would imagine Win10 night mode is nice too.

At the moment, I "only" have a powerful desktop, and mostly only play Minecraft on that. I only really use my laptop for Minecraft when I'm on holidays, but the experience is not great as despite turning down all setting, the framerate is quite poor. I prefer my desktop in general, as it allows me to use 4 monitors, has more storage, always stays at the same location, and many more reasons.

When I go to university next school year, I will likely have to buy a faster laptop, which will be only somewhat slower than my desktop, and made me wonder whether I'd want to use that instead of not. I do, however, still think I'll keep on using my desktop primarily, as I don't think I can set up all the monitors and peripherals easily or at all, and it's more convenient anyways to be able to just turn it on and have it work immediately.

Uh, a Mac is also a laptop or desktop (PC).

As the official Technology Sales Associate at Staples, I need to clarify what the differences between these are.

TL;DR - A PC is not a Mac according to Apple, so a PC is any Windows or Linux computer (including laptops). So the question would instead be "Laptop or Desktop?"

The long version:

The term PC means "Personal Computer," and while that is broad enough to cover all Windows and Mac computers, Apple has made it entirely clear that their computers are not PCs. As such, nobody actually refers to them as PCs.

Due to this, the term PC refers to any Linux or Windows based computer, laptop or desktop.

So the question really should be: Laptop or Desktop. However, the term desktop actually has two variations as well. There are Towers and then there are AIOs (All-in-One). Tower is the standard separate computer unit connected over cable to a monitor. AIOs are essentially standard monitors with the PC built into the back of the monitor. The iMac is an AIO, for example (although Apple doesn't call them that ).

Then when you classify Laptops, are we saying traditional or 2-in-1 (like Shel's). Then you look at something like the Surface Pro which is a really a tablet but performs as well as any standard laptop!

So! That all being said, the question should be "Laptop or Desktop." However, to get a really in-depth analysis of people's preference, the poll could be:

Which do you prefer?

• Windows Tablet
• 2-in-1 Laptop
• Traditional Laptop
• Desktop Tower
• Desktop AIO

But since I think Shell just wants a simpler view of people's preferences, his question would be more relevant for his purposes

So, here is my response to the actual topic!

I prefer laptops, any day. I like being able to be entirely mobile with my computer, so a laptop works for me. I appreciate the power and stability of desktops, however, the value of being mobile outweighs those benefits.

However, I unfortunately pay the price due to needing a powerful computer to run my games and schoolwork. As such, I have a rather bulky 15 inch Alienware laptop that weighs about 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms). In addition, there is a price premium in laptops vs desktops. For the money I spent on my laptop, I could have built a PC that was much more powerful.

One thing I've considered doing is building a desktop and buying a light and cheap laptop and setup a remote desktop solution. Then, I could use the power of the desktop with the mobility of the laptop. The biggest issue is latency though, which I haven't done enough research into to see how bad it would be.

Well, that's my 2 cents on the topic I'm also curious to see what the general response to this is

Desktop primarily. Better value for the performance and easier to customize + upgrade.
Surface and Macbook when I need a mobile computer.
For mobile netflix or gaming I use an ipad.

I use laptop

I play on a laptop, and have done so for quite a while now. I like to chill in the living room and watch shows while gaming

If you want to do any real gaming of any kind (Minecraft would probably be ok) then don't do this. Even if jitter was completely stable, the additional latency of just basic movements is enough to drive you mad. Its doable for sure, and steady internet on both sides goes a long way. But the conditions to meet requires high-quality on both ends. I work with some real nerdy boys who like to pay AWS fees to have 'cloud gaming'. With the software provided these days, its definitely tempting, but these guys are using cloud machines with huge unwavering backbones, and it still feels... off.

I live my life with both and have for quite some time. I have quite a few laptops that serve different work/personal purposes. I usually have 2 or 3 in my bag, and I have a very nice desktop at home.

I love where high-end laptops are at these days. And I enjoy most of the machines I spend the money on. But I'm a different entity on my desktop, and I couldn't imagine a day without sitting in front of my desktop when I get home. Whereas I feel I use my laptops to expand the functionality of my desktop. If I ever need to do anything 'Important' I always have a remote connection ready to go to the desktop.

Laptop. I have a favorite spot on the couch I like to sit at while gaming and/or browsing the web.

Currently, I use an Asus ROG Strix GL12 tower as my primary.

I have an Asus laptop for my backup. Unfortunately, my HDD failed in my laptop with a bit of my data being lost. Until that gets fixed, I can't multitask and play just anywhere.

However, on a positive note, the performance and qualities of my desktop are too great for me to have any complaints. Mobility will have to wait.

Yeah, that's been my biggest concern and I wasn't sure if modern software was capable of doing it yet. I know that there are some companies that are starting to offer cloud gaming services like you described in certain parts of the US.

Given what you're saying though, my end goal would basically be to always have a high-end laptop and just have a setup at home that I can just plug my laptop into. USB C will be awesome for this too, just have a USB C hub that is hooked up to a few monitors, possibly even a mouse and keyboard and basically use the laptop like a tower. Having a dedicated home tower and mobile laptop is an option like you mentioned, but I think I'd rather have just one PC that I use all the time. Like you said, there are tons of really amazing high end laptops today.

Plus, external GPUs over USB C looks really promising for being able to use a high-end laptop for much longer than you could before. I'd love to have a super powerful processor in a laptop with a mobile GPU, then plug into a desktop GPU when I hook up to my home setup. Atm there are still some bottlenecks, but as the technology advances it could become a really effective solution to these problems.

I have a fairly powerful tower at home for gaming, but at college I recently started to use a surface pro 6. It doubles as a tablet for note taking in my classes and is super light (and fanless!). It runs minecraft with no issues at max graphics and plays league of legends and dota 2 fairly well as well. For how tiny this thing is, I'm extremely impressed with it's power. I think the rate at which laptops are getting more powerful is faster than the rate at which games are needing more power. I can run many slightly "old" games on it, such as skyrim and civilization. Although we are close to hitting the limit as to how physically small it's possible to make a processor, I think software side optimizations and laptop assembling/space usage optimizations are going to catch up to modern games and most gamers will be able to use laptops. Not to say I dont like my nice big keyboard and double monitors at home, but I think laptops are very practical.

Thanks, I found it a very strange question. I wonder what Shell has to say on this.

I am not sure myself. Right now, I am using my desktop. What do I notice: the keyboard is quite heavy, and I have to actually put effort into hitting the keys. It makes a nice sound, though, and it feels nice. I like it! I also have an actual num pad, and full-sized arrow keys. On top of that, I have a big monitor—small for today's standards, but bigger than my laptop's, and more importantly, with a higher screen resolution. That's nice as well. I'll be going downstairs to get my earphones soon, so I can listen to things without the rest of the family being bothered with it, but I like having speakers, that I could use if they don't mind. My laptop's speakers are terrible, probably even worse than my iPad's as far as sound goes, and they reach a low peak volume.
So I prefer a desktop pc, I guess! At the same time, I am planning to look into buying a new laptop today. This is because in Amersfoort, where I live myself, I don't have any plans for getting a desktop pc. It would take up room, and I don't have that much room. A laptop is convenient because I can easily take it off the desk and have breakfast without electronics in the way. Moreover, I can take it with me to university. As long as I go to university, I'll need a laptop—preferably one better than the one I've got now. I probably won't get a new desktop pc (this one stays in Heerenveen, my parental home) until I don't need a laptop anymore, which will be after finishing my Master's, I suppose.

Defenetly desktop...

A laptop, for me, feels like some sort of magic box that does thins when you open it, but entirely in its own way.
A desktop, espessially when you half build it yourself, like me, you can open to change things and buy exactly the components you want to have. Not only inside, but espessically outside the main case. I have two screens: one of them is really calm and easy to look at for a long time, the other one has amazing colour quality, as that is what I needed. I tested out a lot of keyboards and bought the one I thought typed best. I miss this freedom with a laptop.

It's also that I just cannot type on a small keyboard, as I learned to play paino before I learned to type, I use paino technique, which does not work well on laptops (you cannot press the key deep enough and the keys are too close together.).

Then, just as Tom, I'd also need a laptop when going to Universety, but that one for me preferebly stays a small laptop only used when somewhere else...

I have 2 desktops, 1 laptop
The shop desktop is a Dell Celeron. It does not like Minecraft (very slow) but does well otherwise.
My home desktop is the first PC that I ever built. It sports a D900 Corsair tower (Huge Tower) I'm not joking when I say huge. And a Asus mother board ROG Maximus w/GTX 1070 video card and 32 gigs of ram. And it's water cooled. I love this thing!
Laptop is a Dell Inspiron N7010. This is what I use when I'm on the go.

I play on a pc because I cannot get on a desktop and I also don't have one yet Untill i build one in the summer (July August time)

Sorry, but no. Apple can't just decide that their stuff is so special that they are not PCs. Apple laptops and desktops and AIOs are still PCs. Sure, calling them a Macbook or whatever is fine, but they are PCs, and a Macbook is still a laptop, and a Mac Pro is still a desktop. Even in the sense of using the other definition of "PC", "IBM PC compable", Apple's computers still fall within that area, and have done so for more than 12 years.

Ahh yes, I also have a mechanical keyboard, and before that had a membrane keyboard with a really long keystroke, and am therefore also used to pressing long and hard... whenever I type on school keyboards, or on the keyboard of my laptop, I end up mashing the keys down way too hard... It's fine, though, helps increase the noise a bit, which I like.

External GPU's are amazing. I don't think you get the same power out of them because I feel like they just don't cool down enough BUT thats like complaining about getting 99% instead of 100%. GPUs these days are so effin powerful that small losses are negligible.

Thunderbolt hubs are actually the future. I have a couple of clients who use laptops exclusively for their business, and every user has a desktop Hub that they plug into when they get to the office. These let them fluidly go from a single display laptop, to a Triple Display setup with all the extra external whistles. And this is done over traditional USB 3.

When you start looking at the strength of the Thunderbolt lines of Hubs, its nearly drool worthy. With the proper care and research, I could see myself even giving up a desktop to a laptop/dock type sitch. Still, I would say my biggest hurdle is I already carry so much I could not imagine getting a huge laptop to add to that weight. I like my laptops to light and versatile.

Is a Mac technically a PC? Yes. But if you have a Mac and somebody asks you what type of computer you have, and you say a "PC" - they will be confused when they see you pull our your Macbook While Macs fit the definition of the term, nobody actually considers them as such.

Yeah, I think we will soon reach a point where the performance loss will be almost negligible for eGPUs. Many of the reviews I have seen for them have stated that they still perform better than mobile GPUs. Also, have you seen some of the new Nvidia MaxQ laptops? Those things are very thin and light by comparison to standard gaming laptops. I think that one of those laptops would be perfect for an eGPU setup. For example, the new 15" Razer Blade is only .7 inches thick and 4.5 pounds. That's way smaller than my current Alienware at 1 inch thick and 8 pounds.

While you lose some performance and cooling capabilities with them, the eGPU would easily be able to make up for that when you plug into it at home. A lot of the eGPU enclosures I've looked at even have video out ports on them, as well as USB. Being able to just plug right into that over a single Thunderbolt line is amazing to me.