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I must replace my 3 year old desktop I was looking into replacing it with a laptop. I'm not so sure if it's a good idea though so I need some advice, especially from people in a similar situation - I spend all day working at home, mostly managing my own websites, managing PPC campaigns, SEO work - you know the usual Internet small biz stuff. I travel occasionally, plus I like the idea of being able to work from any corner of my house as opposed to being stuck at my desk.
The laptops I've been checking out: 15.4 widescreen with Pentium M processor and 512 MB of RAM. Currently I have a 17" LG LCD so this is one concern: will the 15.4 screen be confortable enough to work with? What about the fact that a laptop is one piece - isn't it a pain to work with for long periods of time? I was also thinking of connecting my external keyboard and 17" LCD to the laptop - is this a viable option? One thing I don't wanna do - getting a desktop and a laptop. I don't need 2 computers.
What do you think?
Thanks:)
With extra monitor etc though it's very handy, and you can use the laptop screen as an "extended desktop".
I connect my laptop at work to a full size keyboard and 20" flat screen. I crunch a lot of numbers, so having the full size keyboard with the 10-key is important to me. The laptop for typing is okay, but I am much faster and more accurate at typing on a full size keyboard, and it is more comfortable.
At the end of the day, I unplug, take my laptop home, and can work anywhere in the house because I have wireless - a must for a laptop.
WFN
Gives you the same basic setup as a desktop, but uses a laptop as the PC unit, so you can remove it and take it on the go. Best of both worlds, although I suspect your choice of systems would be a little more limited.
I think it was a Compaq system I used before - long time ago now, don't really recall! :)
-George
Matt
Is it normal for laptops to be slower than comperable desktops? Maybe this is because of some laptop power saving feature?
I originally thought that the laptop would replace my desktop (for work) but since the laptop is so much slower even with Word and XL, I'd hate to see how slow it is with dreamweaver or photoshop.
So far I'm sticking with the desktop but it sure would be convenient to have a laptop for travel. I don't want to sacrifice performance though.
thought they were pretty slick
In retrospect, next time around I'll probably sacrifice the speed and get something light.
Freq---
With laptops becoming as powerful as they are, I don't know why anyone uses a desktop any more.
For me it was always speed and hard drive space in a desktop vs cost of a laptop. When I built my last desktop about 2-1/2 years ago I put almost the top of the line everything in it and came in under $800. At that time a comparable laptop was not really available with the HD and RAM that I wanted, and the cost of high-end laptops was at least 3-4x higher. Now like you eluded to, the cost has come way down and the power has gone up.
I got the laptop a couple of months ago mainly so my wife would have a computer to use and I could keep working on my desktop. I originally considered maybe using it for my work but when I tried to run dreamweaver and photoshop together it was really slow. Then I read somewhere that by default the laptops power setting might be slowing down the computer to save power even though it was plugged into AC. When I swithced the power setting to the full power setting the computer really seemed to speed up. I don't know if I just imagined it or if it really is faster.
Now I am considering moving everything over to the laptop as long as I can use my 17" LCD and mouse and keyboard (no PS2 ports though.)
Dell doesn't make a proper docking station for this model but they do have a port replicator that I think has PS2 ports. Anyone ever use on of these things? Do they work pretty well?
It would be nice to get out of the house every once in a while and go work at the beach or something. It's kinda hard to do that with the desktop ;-)
One thing that has me a bit puzzled. The Dell laptop has a pentium-m 730 processor running at 1.6g. My 2 year old desktop has an athlon 1.3g processer and it is probably about 20% quicker that the laptop. RAM is the same.Is it normal for laptops to be slower than comperable desktops? Maybe this is because of some laptop power saving feature?
The mobile chip is a different architecture from the chips used in desktops. The general consensus is the Pentium M running 1.2GHz+ offers comparable performance to the Pentium 4. For example, a 2GHz Pentium M offers about the same performance as 3.2Ghz Pentium 4.
A formula I've seen commonly used is you multiply a Mobile chip by a factor of 1.5 to get the approximate Pentium 4 equivalent.
I did a search and found a short FAQ [broadbandreports.com] about the differences. And also came across this nice list:
pentium m -> pentium 4
1.4 -> ~2.0 - 2.2
1.5 -> ~2.2 - 2.4
1.6 -> ~2.4 - 2.6
1.7 -> ~2.6 - 2.8
Hope this helps.
I posted this in the post right before yours.
"Then I read somewhere that by default the laptops power setting might be slowing down the computer to save power even though it was plugged into AC. When I swithced the power setting to the full power setting the computer really seemed to speed up. I don't know if I just imagined it or if it really is faster."
That power setting seemed to have a lot to do with it too.
With laptops becoming as powerful as they are, I don't know why anyone uses a desktop any more.
I recently built a desktop computer for less than $500. To get the same performance out of a laptop would have cost $1800+. I almost never travel, and almost never need to use a computer anywhere other than at my desk. If you're going to have a full-size monitor, keyboard and mouse, why triple or quadruple the cost of your system by getting a laptop that you don't need?
Besides, laptops (last I heard) simply don't last as well as a desktop. I'm interested in systems that I can build and use heavily for 3-5 years minimum. I just don't care to migrate data any more often than that, etc.
That said, I've got a laptop too - but never as a replacement for my desktop.
