Will laptops kill the desktop?

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Stop buying OEM brands and build one yourself.

 

[StrangerGuy]

They won't kill desktops but I'll say for 90% of the users out there laptops already make more sense than desktops; they dont need a 2500K or GTX580 for email, Youtube and Facebook.

 

[Axon]

They won't kill desktops but I'll say for 90% of the users out there laptops already make more sense than desktops; they dont need a 2500K or GTX580 for email, Youtube and Facebook.

Agreed. While laptops have little appeal to me, they're very desirable to most people. My girlfriend uses a lappy exclusively. I think it's slow and unbelievably awkward, but she doesn't care.

Desktops will have a place for the foreseeable future, however.

 

[Texashiker]

My girlfriend uses a lappy exclusively.

My wife probably splits her time equally - 50% desktop, 50% laptop.

Maybe for christmas in 2011 I will buy her a good dual or quad core laptop and see if we can do away with her desktop all together. She has 2 external drives that she stores images and videos on already, so moving everything over should not be a problem.

 

[Kaervak]

laptops are noticeably lower performance and not nearly as durable as desktops. if you left a laptop on 24/7 i doubt it would last more than a year. so no, desktops will always have a purpose

Depends on the laptop. I bought a used Thinkpad T43 in May 09, it was already three years old at that point, it's now almost 5. Since I've bought it it's been powered down for maybe 10 days of cumulative time and that's an overestimation. I leave it on all day everyday, no sleep or hibernate. Granted, Thinkpads are designed to be bulletproof, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of other laptops could do the same.

With that said, I've used nothing but laptops for nearly seven years. For the majority of people a laptop makes a lot of sense, but for others not at all. Depends on what you're doing.

 

[Imp]

Most people would be fine with laptops because they don't know a C2D from an i5, AMD from Intel, and anything inside their computer. These people probably use their computer to surf, watch movies, and do basic work.

I just got a $600 laptop to do basic things with so I can carry it to school and run 32-bit programs off of it (don't like dual-booting). It's collecting dust as I do stuff on my 24" monitor, hi-fi sound system, mostly silenced desktop tower, and full size keyboard/mouse. My god it's got an assload of wires coming out the back though...

 

[Emulex]

what about my hp firebird - it's a laptop in a large water cooled chassis which does that count towards?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

heck no

while laptops can certainly be packed with quite a bit of horsepower, they're generally neutered a good deal in terms of total speed, most quadcores laptops will run below 2GHz if all 4 cores are being loaded.

Compared to the 4GHz 45nm chips and now 5GHz with 32nm, its no contest as to which has more power. Its also far easier/cheaper to populate desktop rigs with 16 or even 24GB of ram.

Then there's GPU power to consider, IIRC mobile GPU counterparts run with far fewer shaders and at a far slower clockrate. Some models might actually sport multiple GPUs, but at that point they're not exactly laptops...and still not nearly as powerful as a desktop.

And of course the deal sealer is hard drives. There's no way laptops can account for the capacity and performance of storage arrays available on the desktop. SSDs have certainly leveled the playing field a great deal in terms of basic raw performance, but there's still no accounting for multiple disc drive arrays.

 

[Cerb]

i want to add. if win8 rumors are true, it will be another sign of desktop death. if the whole os is virtualized in the cloud, and you dont need fast components to run your software, then you eliminate performance differences compared do desktops.

No, when the cable goes out, you realize how idiotic that setup would be. Augmenting processing power, and storage redundancy, transparently over a network, using built in OS features, would be excellent. It would threaten common software niches, but it would make life easier. If the network were required, you would be at constant risk of having a doorstop. Desktop/laptop doesn't matter. If the network reliability is lower than that of municipal water, it fails at its face.

if a laptop does exactly the same thing as a desktop, is even cheaper simply because less mass, and is portable... why would you want a desktop?

Because none of that is true.

My monitor weighs as much as the rest of my PC, and more than any laptop I'd care to have. Few laptops have large enough displays to replace a good monitor, and if I wanted to add to it, even fewer have multiple DVI outputs.

My keyboard could practically be sued as a weapon, and has no equivalent in laptops. Mid-high end Lenovos, and high-end HPs and Dells might have good keyboards, but even the best can't touch what my desktop has.

My mouse needs a nice flat surface to roam on, and to rest my arm on, that is not too high, not too low, but is higher than the keyboard. For non-desk use, anything but a titmouse is also unacceptable.

...there is no way I could actually be productive on a laptop, except in the situation where I would need to be doing something away from a predefined workspace, in which case transporting peripherals would be undesirable. If the laptop plugs into a docking station with all peripheral options, then I still lose out on storage, it's going to be quite expensive, and that's one less redundant computer around, for when one goes TU.

That a desktop can be replaced is ludicrous. That it is a market which will shrink, that the form factors will shrink, and that integration will lead to further commoditization (sp), however, is assured.

 

[Concillian]

I see tablets killing notebooks before notebooks kill desktops.

A tablet + docking station is something you can see in a business environment. Where I work a HUGE portion of the workforce uses laptops + dock already. A HUGE portion of that subset don't need more power than the average tablet (but they do need significant storage).

Conversely, the users at work with desktops, need desktops. They are doing computer modeling and have 12 core systems or multi GPU systems doing GPU processing. Those are not going away.

Simiarly, in the home, a desktop system is often a gaming platform. Power requirements for anything else are pretty minimal.

I see it feasible that a typical household would have a NAS + Desktop or Desktop / NAS combo system plus a bunch of tablets. Any ripping / photo manipulation / video manippulation could be done on the Desktop. Everyone needs storage for those pictures and home video, that will have to be either server or desktop based. Outside of that, people are using PCs for Facebook, email, and Angry Birds. Another generation and low wattage systems will have zero performance problems with that kind of content.

I don't think there is a huge need for something to exist in the space between desktop and tablet. They will coexist for a few years while tablet technology matures, but eventually, I see tablet and notebook merging, and desktops still being around (but slowly reducing in their marketshare). I bet we see a strong push towards desktop / NAS integration. There needs to be some kind of centralized storage for home users. I think any kind of internet storage will have a hard time catching on because people are very aware of additional monthly fees right now, and nobody is going to give that kind of thing away without fees.

 

[hal2kilo]

What's a desktop?

 

[jihe]

They don't serve the same purpose and nether can replace the other. I like my laptop cool and silent whereas my desktop fast and furious.

 

[Rubycon]

What's a desktop?

A computer that tries to be a worksatan.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Tablets are overrated. The only Tablet that's selling really well still remains the iPad. Even the Galaxy Tab is a distant, second. Others are really spec on a 10-foot picture.

Look here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-2820qm-sandy-bridge-mobile,2838-7.html

Sorry if I sound like a marketer, but look at the benchmark. Few years ago, brand-new, top-of the line laptop were performing around the level of a low-end desktop chip, but Sandy Bridge changes everything. Performance sits between the 2500 and the 2600. Battery life is very good too.

I'm thinking I might move completely to a Sandy Bridge laptop and forget about the desktop. Bring one with a adjustable screen so it can be a "Tablet" when needed.

 

[corkyg]

To hell with the cloud. From my perspective, it is another surrender of individual privacy and an invitation for more identity theft, data loss and/or corruption.

 

[SparkyJJO]

This comes up every so often. And the desktop is still here.

No.

 

[Zap]

There can only be one. Oh wait, that was Highlander and we're talking about computers.

Why can't we all live together in harmony?

It's like with game consoles. Which console "won?" I don't know and I don't care. All I know is that I have friends who have two or sometimes all three (Xbox360/PS3/Wii). Does a "winner" really matter when talking about consumer electronics? Computers are not the Superbowl.

 

[RobS10]

Cramped typing, small in-your-face monitor, cheapo DVD drive, expensive batteries to replace, high dollars per performance ratio...hmmm, no. Given my choice, I would always take a desktop (and NOT an AIO like an iMac). But, I understand some people have to cart the thing to and from work or school, or work from different places around the house, and can't afford two computers. To them a laptop makes perfect sense.

Also, I'm guessing that to a lot of un-techy people, a laptop is less intimidating than a big 'ole tower-monitor-keyboard-speakers with all the wires connecting them. Me, I like wires, hooking stuff up ;-).

 

[Emulex]

who says you need to use the keyboard/mouse? thats what bluetooth is for.

GO USE an apple laptop with a multitouchpad - then get back to us.

i love loungin' around watchin' tv with my macbook air on my belly

 

[Bman123]

Laptops wont kill the desktop, no way in hell can that happen. I think if anything that tablet's would kill laptops. Alot more portable, excellent battery life, can be used to make calls on them also. It's like having a cell phone and a laptop all in one.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Laptops wont kill the desktop, no way in hell can that happen. I think if anything that tablet's would kill laptops. Alot more portable, excellent battery life, can be used to make calls on them also. It's like having a cell phone and a laptop all in one.

For some reason I got this goofy mental image of someone holding a tablet PC up against the side of his head :biggrin:

 

[PingSpike]

Desktops will reign supreme again, as they will be naturally selected for. Laptop users will fail to reproduce and die out due to them having cooked their testicles beyond usefulness.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Eventually, yes. Laptops will kill the desktop. But not for a while, and will never completely kill it in the next 5-10 years without some major technological breakthroughs in both thermaldynamics and battery technology. That said, for the typical computer user or office computer user, laptops can meet their computing needs at the moment and for the foreseeable future. However, laptops can not compete in the areas of high performance computing, graphical rendering, or gaming systems at this time, and will not supplant those categories of "desktop" computing for a long time to come without some significant technological breakthroughs.

 

[mammador]

Nobody really needs a desktop, unless for specific apps. For social networking, office apps, general Web browsing, etc. even a tablet would do. This is why IMO most personal computer sales are portable-based, whether laptop, netbook or tablet. Desktops most likely will become a niche, kind of like thin clients, since only specific people would want/need to use them.

 

[Jakeman97]

For my own situation there is reason to have both a desktop and a lappy. I used to have three desktops until very recently...waaaay to much overkill (more like "epeen" if ya know what I mean) . Only using one for the bulk of my computing, business, photos, some video etc. the other two just sat idle (just in case). Finally broke two down and sold all the parts including cases, spare parts etc, on AnandTech & TPU. Bought an ASUS X52-X2 lappy for backup (just in case 'cause the law of averages says, someday that Desktop won't boot)....LOL.