This sounds like a troll comment, and maybe it is. But I agree, and for me, switching a lot of my usage from a laptop to a desktop was a solution.
After 5-6 years of adoring a series of macbooks, I finally got fed up with Apple slowly locking down OSX. And if you're not willing to run OSX, then even the macbooks lose a lot of their luster.
If you run a desktop, though, then most everything pretty much works great (even with Linux). You can spec up to a giant monitor or multiple monitors, incredibly powerful graphics, CPUs with lots of cores (or even get two), and 64 or even 128GB RAM, or any combination of the above. Or you can build a compact, low-power system. And you can swap components in and out, buy upgrades, and sell/gift parts you don't need, etc.
I still have the laptop, but I only use that whenever I have to move around (and I use syncthing to keep everything synced continuously between them to make smooth transitions between them).
I was thinking the exact same thing. I recently got Intel NUC boxes for every developer at our office. Linux support out of the box. It's 4 inches square ans easy to take different locations provided you can hook up to screen.
Everyone's got a laptop too, but they can now also VNC or SSH to their Linux machine if they need to work remote. Hell you can VNC into them from a chromebook.
I can't bring my desktop to any environment, therefore it's a non-starter.
I _do_ think it's interesting to think "maybe buying 1 (even 2) desktops is actually better for me than buying 1 laptop", but I cannot bring my desktop to the library. I feel like this comment is on the same level as "don't buy a phone, you can do better with a laptop", which is absurd on a similar level without extra context.
My personal solution is a desktop and a 7-inch tablet. Sure the tablet loses some of the power as compared to a laptop, but huge portability gain. And it fits my use case. I don't write code while on the move. I do that at my desk. For all other use cases like consumption of data or even blogging, the tablet works.
Blogging with an onscreen keyboard is painful, and carrying around tablet + bluetooth keyboard is more cumbersome than a 9" or 11" "ultrabook". The ability to run old binary-only windows/x86 programs comes in handy too.
What do you do for a phone? What works for me is: 6"+ phone that does anything I'd use a 7" tablet for (smartwatch means I don't need to take it out my pocket as often), 11" ultrabook for doing things on the go, 18" "desktop replacement"/"gaming laptop"/"luggable" for home and the occasional longer trip or LAN party. (I do have a desktop/"home server" but these days it's pretty much an oversized NAS).
I used to think that. But then i got the hang of it and now I do most of my writings on my tablet
> What do you do for a phone?
I don't have the use case for an expensive phone or even a data plan. I have a low end smart phone ($70) that I use mostly for just texts and calls. Even my whatsapp is on my tablet (needs manual .apk as playstore won't let you do this).
I am at my desk most of the day (office), so all Internet related things I do on desktop. After work hours I have my tablet at home so don't really need my phone for much else. Have a desktop at home as well.
So you leave the tablet at home? Do you keep your phone on you at home? (not criticizing, just curious).
For me it just meant one less thing to carry (you could see it as less getting rid of the tablet and more buying a tablet that does phone calls so that I don't have to carry a phone around). Public transport especially is where a 6-7" device is really handy, but I don't want to be carrying more than I can fit in my pockets.
I don't know, buying a prebuilt desktop is just as bad of an experience. Building one piece meal from Newegg shouldn't be as convenient as buying something from Dell, it's damn close some days though.
Building a desktop from parts is easier than some Lego sets these days. I think the only possibly tricky part is making sure you apply the thermal paste and install the heat-sink correctly. Everything else you just screw in, snap in, and plug in.
Not necessarily. My budget is pretty finely calibrated at the moment - my desktop is going to remain pretty broken for a while so that I can get a new laptop.
In which dystopia does it cost you $1000's to fly locally, as many would do? I can cross my goddamn continent for $600 return and that's over 4000km away. Going interstate costs $200 return on a good day.
Sure, but the marginal utility of a given flight is far higher than the marginal utility of a second computer. Moreover, I may be paying for my computer but my company may be paying for my flights.
A desktop does nothing more than marginally better for my work use cases; I have one that's literally strictly for video games, and I don't care in the least about making those portable. But I care about going to my client's office and being able to work. Why would a desktop be "better"? If a desktop was sufficiently "better", why would I buy a good laptop? If I have to buy a good laptop, what delta exists, for me, to incentivize buying a good desktop as well? This is of course not an answerable question for you, because you have no idea what I or the literally hundreds of millions of people on this planet who own laptops do with our computers--so why did you then act like your preferences are so universal?
Past that: it costs me three hundred dollars, round-trip, to fly from Logan to Reagan. Where does "thousands" come into it? Why would somebody who occasionally fly for business necessarily have the cash to burn on redundancies? Why would having that money imply that one should?
Laptops do not make desktops redundant. You will not be able to strap on a 6" tower H/S or better to cool down the highest performance processors, let alone be able to pack a battery to run said processor and a HP GPU into any laptop form factor.
It is true that not every work load needs such a capable machine and you should only spend as much as you need.
That being said, I was working with a friend on a recent project and he told me that his MacBook was "burning up" while running through a build script that put together a a handful of Docker containers. My ~5 y/o Desktop barely even hiccuped on the same thing.
I would have thought, given the thrust of my post, that the "for me" with regards to redundancies was completely and wholly implied, no? Of course desktops can do things laptops can't; I've been careful to say nothing at all to the contrary and that's fortunate because that would be a stupid statement. And laptops can do things that desktops can't, too, and whether or not that matters depends wholly on you and your needs. Which is why the sneering you-don't-need-that of the post I originally replied to rustled my jimmies in the first place.
