Comments on: Poll: Do You Have a Desktop Computer At Home?

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:59:09 +0000

There’s still one desktop at home. It’s my TouchSmart PC running Vista Home Premium. I run Media Center on it. I enjoy goofing around with the Touchscreen but mainly bought it for the all-in-one “clean” look. Got tired of all the cables, power cords etc. It’s great seeing what looks like a “fat” 22-inch monitor, keyboard, mouse, and 3 cables (Coax for the tuner, Power, and 1 USB for the UPS).

So our household breaks down as:

2 HP TC4xxx Tablets
1 Toshiba Laptop
1 HP TouchSmart iQ526
1 HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server

For those of you hanging on to a desktop as a server, check out the HP WHS. I love the fact that it’s small, quiet, and just sits in the corner, requiring little to no maintenance and it backs up all my systems every night like clockwork. If I lose a drive on a system, I just replace it and pull the latest backup from the WHS and I’m back in business 25-40 minutes later.

By: Helmut

Helmut — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:17:04 +0000

One dual tuner Media Center Desktop in the Office as the main PC.
One Notebook in the kitchen.
One Netbook for all over the house.
One UMPC currently DOA.
One Nokia Tablet PC.
One PSP.
3 Windows Mobile cell phones in the family.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:51:11 +0000

i’d have a ‘desktop’ only as media storage/viewing as a TV replacement in my house. if i had my own house. but since i’m not settled, i don’t want to make an investment in big stuff that i’d have to move around.

also, a laptop does me just fine.

By: Jimwa

Jimwa — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:36:51 +0000

6 Desktops (3.2 Pentium 4; 3.8 Extreme Pentium 4; 3.2 Core 2 Extreme X9770 quad core – 8 GB DDR3; TWO Core i7 920s – 12 GB DDR3 each; and a Mac Mini)

Server Dual Xeon Intel server

4 laptops (2.8 15.4″ MacBook Pro; Fujitsu P1610 2 GB; HP dv9000; Dell 700m)

iPhone

Can’t help myself.

By: archer6

archer6 — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:08:11 +0000

I began with a laptop, and could not see any advantages of a desktop for me. Never being one to sit around, I enjoy the portability of a laptop and it’s all I’ve ever used.

By: kahm

kahm — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:44:47 +0000

My desktop computer is quad core, has 8gb of ram, 2.5tb of hard drive space, 2 video cards, and *4* monitors. I love my laptops and UMPCs, but I don’t see them replacing my desktop any time soon.

By: cr0ft

cr0ft — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:59:28 +0000

It would be very hard for a notebook to do what my desktop does, so I don’t foresee changing to one anytime soon for my main computing duties.

I have multiple (more than two) screens, I have a sound system with a big subwoofer and surround sound and so on that takes up a lot of space. Just hooking that up to a laptop would be a challenge, starting with needing some very esoteric hardware to just get my screens working, and there would be no point in doing so when everything but the actual computer is too large to move with any ease.

Then add the fact that gaming on a PC is still fun and the need for graphics cards that suck down more than a normal laptop does in its entirety and then going the laptop route would be kind of impossible.

Laptops as sole computers is never going to be able to do what a properly specced desktop can, to say nothing of the utter ergonomic nightmare of using a laptop on a regular basis.

That said I do use portable computers as well obviously, but quite rarely when I’m at home.

By: CSMR

CSMR — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:55:25 +0000

Multiple displays is also why I don’t use a notebook, but when all the new Intel hardware and MS software comes out later in the year I’ll find something that offers dual digital video outs and switch. For triple displays you’d have to wait for displayport daisy-chaining I suppose.

By: CSMR

CSMR — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:49:55 +0000

Never is right. A server usually does not need a display does not need to be carried around, and needs to be opened up. So a notebook will be inappropriate.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:37:51 +0000

I’m really surprised by the responses here. I have three laptops (including a tablet) but none of them can replace my desktops. Why? Screens and keyboards. None of my laptops can give me the screen space I want at home(I have 3 monitors at home, all 20″) or need at work (2 at work, 20″ & 24″) with ergonomic keyboards on both desktops. Also the power of my desktops far exceeds any laptop out there. If I could only have one computer, it would definitely be a desktop and I could just get by with my Blackberry for everything else.