The benefit of a laptop is that you have a built in UPS. A laptop is also going to consume less power than most desktops. As an aside, if you're after a nice,

The benefit of a laptop is that you have a built in UPS. A laptop is also going to consume less power than most desktops. As an aside, if you're after a nice, fast, low power solution, you can also look into the Netgate pfsense hardware, eg, http://store.netgate.com/ADI/RCC-VE-2440.aspx http://store.netgate.com/ADI/RCC-VE-2440.aspx.