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Never got the emphasis on laptops, unless you travel (a lot) and/or tend to spend a lot of time in coffee shops/college lectures/meetings. You'd want a good, la

by mhd 16y ago

Never got the emphasis on laptops, unless you travel (a lot) and/or tend to spend a lot of time in coffee shops/college lectures/meetings. You'd want a good, large display (or two/three) anyway, and you usually have less troubles and more options with desktops. And for those times when you need to move around, a small auxiliary device will do, too (ipad, tablet, netbook, old/cheap laptop maybe even a smartphone). Less true for the current crop of Macs, of course, where decent expandable desktop systems are way too expensive and laptops have a high entry cost. It would probably still be worth looking into getting a ipad/imac combo over a MBP.

bergie 16y ago
That depends a lot on your working setup. If you do most of your work at the same desk, then iMac is probably better. I do most of my hacking on the road, visiting other companies etc. This is why I go with MacBook Air as my only computer. I want to keep my working environment consistent so I don't even use external displays in my own office
- mhd 16y ago
  That's why my "unless..." part was quite extensive. I'm not saying that there aren't reasons for laptops as primary development machines, it's just that making them the default or even the only option seems a bit overrated in my opinion, especially for work machines. There's a bit of wish fulfillment in there, as we'd all like to see ourselves as traveling a lot, writing our startup code in swanky coffee shops etc. But in the end, there's quite a lot of sitting around in your (home) offices...
- noelwelsh 16y ago
  One thing I don't like about the iMac is that you can't use them as an external display. Displays last much longer than computers IME. My friend reluctantly junked a 20" iMac w/ a PowerPC processor. The computer was useless but the screen was still great.
  - lloeki 16y ago
    My 27" iMac has a DisplayPort input to use it as a "passive" screen. Maybe something on the software side like AirDisplay (http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/ http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/) could be of some use to extend an old iMac lifetime as a screen.
Nate75Sanders 16y ago
The built-in UPS (battery) is nice.
mosburger 16y ago
FWIW, the article was written in 2008, two years before the iPad existed. But I guess there were still a few popular Netbooks around then.
generalk 16y ago
For me, the main pro of a desktop computer is that you can expand absolutely everything. Upgrade the motherboard, the processor, the optical drive (or leave it out entirely.) There's also the ability to drive as many displays as you want, but for me that rarely comes into play. On a laptop, you can expand storage and RAM and use one external display, which is enough for my use case, and you get the added benefit that you can use it anywhere. Not just for travelling, but also for just setting up shop in the living room or patio vs. the office, or taking it into a meeting room. The ability to work anywhere in my house is the selling point for me.

by mhd 16y ago

bergie 16y ago

That depends a lot on your working setup. If you do most of your work at the same desk, then iMac is probably better. I do most of my hacking on the road, visiting other companies etc. This is why I go with MacBook Air as my only computer. I want to keep my working environment consistent so I don't even use external displays in my own office

mhd 16y ago
That's why my "unless..." part was quite extensive. I'm not saying that there aren't reasons for laptops as primary development machines, it's just that making them the default or even the only option seems a bit overrated in my opinion, especially for work machines. There's a bit of wish fulfillment in there, as we'd all like to see ourselves as traveling a lot, writing our startup code in swanky coffee shops etc. But in the end, there's quite a lot of sitting around in your (home) offices...
noelwelsh 16y ago
One thing I don't like about the iMac is that you can't use them as an external display. Displays last much longer than computers IME. My friend reluctantly junked a 20" iMac w/ a PowerPC processor. The computer was useless but the screen was still great.
- lloeki 16y ago
  My 27" iMac has a DisplayPort input to use it as a "passive" screen. Maybe something on the software side like AirDisplay (http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/ http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/) could be of some use to extend an old iMac lifetime as a screen.

Nate75Sanders 16y ago

The built-in UPS (battery) is nice.

mosburger 16y ago

FWIW, the article was written in 2008, two years before the iPad existed. But I guess there were still a few popular Netbooks around then.

generalk 16y ago

For me, the main pro of a desktop computer is that you can expand absolutely everything. Upgrade the motherboard, the processor, the optical drive (or leave it out entirely.) There's also the ability to drive as many displays as you want, but for me that rarely comes into play. On a laptop, you can expand storage and RAM and use one external display, which is enough for my use case, and you get the added benefit that you can use it anywhere. Not just for travelling, but also for just setting up shop in the living room or patio vs. the office, or taking it into a meeting room. The ability to work anywhere in my house is the selling point for me.