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For some of us, a laptop is essentially an easily movable desktop. It's not portable as in "I want to travel with it", it's portable as in "I can easily take it

by the_af 2y ago

For some of us, a laptop is essentially an easily movable desktop. It's not portable as in "I want to travel with it", it's portable as in "I can easily take it anywhere within my house/office". Those kind of "movable desktops" benefit from performance, additional ports, etc, and instead have little use for thinness or less weight. I simply cannot see myself ever owning a bulky, noisy desktop ever again.

wtallis 2y ago
The desktop replacement segment of the laptop market exists, but does not undermine the validity of more portable machines or make a fanless laptop a terrible idea. The viability of desktop replacement notebooks as desktop replacements is in large part due to the efficiency gains driven by the demand for the other kind of laptop—the ones that are thin and light. A 5lb+ slab of a notebook is still a pretty constrained form factor compared to the thermals and acoustics of a mini tower desktop. I can understand you characterizing desktops as bulky, but calling them noisy in comparison to desktop replacement laptops is ridiculously wrong. Small fans with restricted airflow are what makes computers noisy, and they're much easier to avoid with a desktop form factor. Your laptop cannot sustain desktop performance without getting loud, and if it doesn't get loud under sustained load it's because your laptop is choosing to instead get slow.
skydhash 2y ago
> it's portable as in "I can easily take it anywhere within my house/office" As I grow older, that is becoming less and less true. Unless it’s for quick tasks, I prefer my office chair, my big monitor and my comfortable keyboard. Laptop are still great, for ad-hoc computing and traveling, and I’d prefer a less power-hungry device for these.
einpoklum 2y ago
My argument was actually focused on "I want to travel with it". But - I travel with it to places where I need to connect to to things: A monitor in a hotel room; a USB device of a friend or host; a physical network in an institution or company or a home I'm visiting. That's what the ports are for. As for the keyboard - I absolutely need a decent keyboard to type, traveling or no.

by the_af 2y ago

wtallis 2y ago

The desktop replacement segment of the laptop market exists, but does not undermine the validity of more portable machines or make a fanless laptop a terrible idea. The viability of desktop replacement notebooks as desktop replacements is in large part due to the efficiency gains driven by the demand for the other kind of laptop—the ones that are thin and light. A 5lb+ slab of a notebook is still a pretty constrained form factor compared to the thermals and acoustics of a mini tower desktop. I can understand you characterizing desktops as bulky, but calling them noisy in comparison to desktop replacement laptops is ridiculously wrong. Small fans with restricted airflow are what makes computers noisy, and they're much easier to avoid with a desktop form factor. Your laptop cannot sustain desktop performance without getting loud, and if it doesn't get loud under sustained load it's because your laptop is choosing to instead get slow.

skydhash 2y ago

> it's portable as in "I can easily take it anywhere within my house/office" As I grow older, that is becoming less and less true. Unless it’s for quick tasks, I prefer my office chair, my big monitor and my comfortable keyboard. Laptop are still great, for ad-hoc computing and traveling, and I’d prefer a less power-hungry device for these.

einpoklum 2y ago

My argument was actually focused on "I want to travel with it". But - I travel with it to places where I need to connect to to things: A monitor in a hotel room; a USB device of a friend or host; a physical network in an institution or company or a home I'm visiting. That's what the ports are for. As for the keyboard - I absolutely need a decent keyboard to type, traveling or no.