Buy a Laptop or a Desktop Computer?

Computer Buying Guide: Desktop or Laptop?

Guy using laptop computer
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You may be on the market for a new computer and you’re not sure if you should get a laptop or desktop and you’re trying to see your options. The most important thing in the decision making process is how much you can pay or want to pay for a brand new computer as the more budget you have, the faster and more powerful and with better and more features you’re going to get, along with better looks, ergonomics and versatility. The first most important difference is laptop is mobile and more compact whereas a desktop needs a fixed spot on your desk so if portability is not an issue you tend to get more for your money with desktops in terms of power, speed, multimedia and other features and you will need more and a dedicated space to accommodate your desktop and if space is an issue where you live or work then laptop is a better option. And if you want a larger screen and if you’re going to get a laptop with a 17 inch and more then that laptop is not going to be very portable.

There are of course mini desktops which are the compact portable versions of desktop computers that you can easily carry around as long as you have a screen and keyboard/mouse to connect them too: You are probably familiar with the Mac Mini’s and HP and Dell also have mini models like Pavilion Mini and Alienware Alpha with Windows operating system and then you have the Chromebox with Google Chrome OS. Although there are many gaming laptop models on the market, generally speaking desktops tend to be better gaming or workstations with more powerful desktop type processors, more memory, hard drive and dedicated graphics cards. You can have pretty much all of these on a laptop but because of the portability advantage it will almost always cost more and you will get more for your money with a desktop. Take Apple Macbook Pro and iMac models and compare the specs and you will realise for a Macbook that costs the same as an iMac, you are getting a faster processor, Iris Pro 6200 GPU rather than a 6100, a much larger display and more storage space (although SSD is standard on Macbook’s).

Guy at work on Desktop Computer
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It is not so much the case with iMac models or other All in One desktops but with regular desktop computers it is very easy to change or upgrade the components to be able to improve the performance and with laptops you can usually upgrade the RAM and hard drive. If all you’ll do is browse the internet, check and send your emails, use Facebook, Twitter and other social media, watch videos or listen to music, any modern day laptop or desktop will do the job and it will come down to how mobile you want your computer to be. If the size of keyboard is something you care about then the keys will be better spaced out on a wider keyboard with a numeric keypad on a larger screen laptop and you won’t see the numpad and large keys on 13 inch and below. It is a fact that computer companies sell a lot more laptops than desktops but there will always be a demand for desktop computers from business pros, heavy gamers and others due to their power and performance with a better processor, upgradeability, features, larger display, better graphics card and other reasons. Try and read the reviews and do your research thoroughly to make sure you don’t buy a desktop or laptop to find out that there is a better model with a higher processor and other components at the same price only two to three weeks later.