Anyone go laptop only (no desktop)?

My desktop is my main machine especially now that I have a 27" IPS panel for it, and for all mobile uses I use an iPad. For work I use a laptop as I often travel and need the portability and for what I do an average laptop is sufficient.
 
I've always used laptops as my desktop and primary machine. Due to my job, I move around a lot. Always buy one very powerful 15" laptop (currently on a Clevo P150HMA). When home, I dock it onto a Cooler Master U Stand cooler, plug in my external monitor, HDD's, speakers and peripherals, and I'm good to go!

Yes, they'll never be as powerful as a desktop, but it can run all my games at the highest settings. It looks really good sitting next to my monitor, plus it's like I'm using a desktop anyway? Then when I go away for a month with work, I just pack it into my bag, and I'm off. Always got my desktop on me.

Now if I was based out of home all the time and not moving around so much, I might have a desktop, not sure though. Each to their own!
 
Wow...I do pretty much the same as the guy up there ^^, no cooler stand though. I had a desktop at my old job years ago (it was mine from home), once I got laid off I kinda retired it and just rocked a laptop. I travel a lot (or did...not lately), so having a laptop is vital. It's to much hassle syncing things with a desktop. Plus, all the games I play run fine on my P150EM. Best laptop I've ever owned.
 
Heh, I love my P150EM, best laptop I have ever owned too. It's really the first laptop I have had that was actually fast enough. I can literally do anything on this laptop.
 
I'll be using my Thinkpad T430 until I get a new desktop (Nothing wrong with my desktop, really, it's just a bit on the old side, so it's kinda slow, especially compared with my t430 and its SSD)
 
If you want a laptop that can game check out the inspirion 17R SE laptops. 1080P screen, 32 gig ssd cache drive, and 2 gig dedicated video card. Really nice.
 
Yes, my main is a 15" MBP that I connect to external 30", kb, mouse.

I have an older desktop I use for gaming occasionally.
 
We have two towers right now and I plan on them being the last. My son has my old gaming pc which is four years old and I have my new (upgraded) pc that is in my sig. I don't plan on building any more tower pc's. My next computer will most likely be a MacBook with Retina display although that will be a few years away yet. My wife is laptop only with a Win7 laptop and a MBA.
 
leh18621 said:
We have two towers right now and I plan on them being the last. My son has my old gaming pc which is four years old and I have my new (upgraded) pc that is in my sig. I don't plan on building any more tower pc's. My next computer will most likely be a MacBook with Retina display although that will be a few years away yet. My wife is laptop only with a Win7 laptop and a MBA.
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I am really fighting not making a horrible Lord of the Rings joke here :D
 
You can see the rig in my signature.

The 680M overclocked basically matches a very mildly OCed GTX670 desktop so I should be good :)
 
I am seriously thinking about going to laptop only,
I have heard about docking stations, but never looked into them.
Can someone please post of info and personal experiences with them.
It would be greatly appreciated.
 
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I have my own "docking station" I use a USB hub/cooler with a bluetooth mouse and an HDMI display.

This means I put in power, monitor and USB hub and everything is good to go.
 
so basically you don't really need anything physical, just plug in the monitor cable, and power cable and you are good to go?
 
You want to keep connections to a minimum to make it convenient as possible or you wont use it so yes pretty much.

It helps to have a machine with a decent built in keyboard so you don't have to use an external one.

Having the Hub/cooling pad puts it at a nice angle and encourages the area to be kept clear for the notebook to be placed.
 
Meaker said:
It helps to have a machine with a decent built in keyboard so you don't have to use an external one.
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This doesn't work as well as I expected it to, because the laptop I use gets pretty warm under heavy load, and it's not comfortable to use its keyboard for 8 hours a day. So I end up using external keyboard just cuz of that.
 
I've used a notebook as my primary machine but generally go back to my desktop. I enjoy my dual screens, ergonomic keyboard, and external mouse. Sure I could get another good business machine like the current latitudes with a dock to run dual external monitors but at that point I don't really see the point.

I will say I spend a good amount of time on my 13 inch macbook pro which is an i7 but for serious work I go back to my desktop. Also have a dell xfr notebook that I use a fair amount of(it is my older notebook).

I do have a friend who is also an admin who only pretty much has his 13 inch macbook pro as his home machine. He mostly uses it on his coffee table or dinning room table. I just am too happy with a desktop.
 
I haven't owned a desktop since 2005. I currently use my laptop as a second monitor when hooked up at home. I have been really happy to have a WUXGA IPS laptop screen over holidays, traveling to family and staying up late to work in my laptop.

I don't really have time for gaming anymore so the appeal of a desktop is limited (though I still consider it from time to time). I'm currently wondering how much longer I can stick with my current laptop as it is going to be 3 generations old this summer. But the screen is irreplaceable with the switch to 16:9, thinking of doing my work in 1080p when traveling makes me cringe.
 
Wasn't happy with the performance I was getting from a Sager 8130... I mean it's fast, but the GPU is sub-par compared to a GTX 670. So now I'm building a mini-ITX Z77 to bring with me, and a 27" 1440p IPS... worth the hassle.
 
Meaker said:
You can see the rig in my signature.

The 680M overclocked basically matches a very mildly OCed GTX670 desktop so I should be good :)
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3940xm, nice. I have been thinking of upgrading my Vertex 4 to a Vector or Samsung 840 Pro. The 3920 and Vertex 4 were the best out at the time when I bought my system. I find the 680m to be a bit slower than desktop 670's, although I am running the stock VBIOS so I am not overclocking it a ton, just as much as the stock VBIOS allows (like 850Mhz or so, cant remember exactly).
 
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I've been laptop only since 2005 now due to travel with work. Never really missed having a desktop. My current Clevo P150HMA is very quick, plays everything I want with great settings at 1080p. Plus it's a 15" laptop that is easy to transport when I go away. When I get home, it goes on the Cooler Master U stand, I plug in the external monitors and peripherals, and I have what is essentially a desktop again!

Now if you want to use multiple monitors for gaming purposes, I'd suggest going a desktop. Plus one of the biggest perks is the huge tax benefits you get for using a laptop instead of a desktop. Each year when I upgrade and sell the previous one, I'm not really losing much. With a desktop I'd be seriously out of pocket each year...

If my job didn't involve the constant travel and moving, I might have gone with a desktop. They do have their perks, but I'm happy with being laptop only.
 
extide said:
3940xm, nice. I have been thinking of upgrading my Vertex 4 to a Vector or Samsung 840 Pro. The 3920 and Vertex 4 were the best out at the time when I bought my system. I find the 680m to be a bit slower than desktop 60's, although I am running the stock VBIOS so I am not overclocking it a ton, just as much as the stock VBIOS allows (like 850Mhz or so, cant remember exactly).
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Mine is running at 1100/2550 :D
 
I had an HP laptop only,and my family share a desktop,i like play games on the desktop.
 
I have a 15" laptop as my main computer, and it works fine for me. Nvidia 635M graphics, so it can handle a ton of gaming :)

I also have another 17" laptop as a web and file server, though it might get put to use as a secondary workstation...
 
Andyk5 said:
if I spend more than 2 hours in front of a laptop my eyes get tired and my back hurts
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right on. However, isnt the point and purpose of laptops to >carry< them as they are mobile?! Thus, why use a laptop for home computing? Ifcourse, you could attach a 21" monitor, USB keyboard + mouse to it.
As for 4gb vs. 6or8gb, smaller HDD, and a slightly slower CPU for the same price as desktop... well, in case of fire I could run out with a laptop.
BTW, ifcourse battery power isnt impressive.
 
Most people now are laptop only that I know, desktops are a niche product, can I go laptop only? Nope because laptops are horribly expensive and completely impossible to do any sort of reasonable upgrading. The whole point of a desktop is that you can buy a nice case, and PSU and those will last you 10+ years, you can invest extra in a really nice monitor and keep using it. It cuts the cost of your upgrade path and allows you to sustain a far higher quality of computing over time. But for most people who do not build or upgrade they treat desktops the same as laptops and throw the whole thing out, so they gain little to nothing from a desktop and no longer see any use for it. And for them even when I try to get them into it the desktop often costs more than the laptop, but its just like consoles or anything else, you gotta pay a little more to save alot down the line. But instead most americans go for the cheap buy in and pay more over the long run.

If I didnt have to travel alot for business I would just get rid of the laptop and grab a cheapo tablet or something and only use that on the go.

The other problem is alot of people must have at least 1 laptop. So the desktop seems like an added cost. I mean look at the op all those laptops had to cost like 8 grand. Imagine what type of desktop you could run for that. And that is always the problem with laptops, you cant buy into a nice screen because dropping 2k just to turn around have be forced to do it again in 2 years is so expensive.
 
I went laptop only in '09 when my q6600 rig self immolated, basically everything was cooked so I was looking at a ground up rebuild so I decided to hold off and see what came out of the sandy bridge stuff. At first I went back to my old dell 9300 and well it kinda sucked but it was good enough for the very minimal gaming I was doing at the time. Then in '10 I got a MSI GTX760DXR and I loved it but the laptop died in a car wreck. I just replaced the previous dead MSI laptop with a newer MSI GT70, it has a synapses caching ssd and a 750gb hdd, think I will upgrade it to a samsung 840 pro when I get my tax return, unless something better comes out by then.
 
Custom 1.087V based off the MSI engineering sample.
 
Thats pretty cool. The GPU with the max overclock on stock BIOS @ stock volts is fast enough for me. I'm not a big fan of bumping the volts on laptops, but it's cool that there is so much potential in these GPU's.
 
I love desktops and always have. Problem is I don't actually use mine enough. Right now I've got one okayish notebook I use, a nice desktop I don't, and a tablet now that is nice but not something I find myself using as often as I planned. I think the only sensible thing for me to do is just buy one nice laptop w/ a touch screen and great display and replace everything else.

The only thing really perfect for it's intended tasks in the desktop. There are drawbacks to all my other devices at what they do. Tyring to find the perfect notebook has been a lot harder than I thought and I'm not even sure it exists for me quite yet.
 
Been laptop only for a few years now. First I had the Asus G73 now I have a Alienware m18x with dual 6970m's... I have no regrets.
 
I use a desktop as my primary machine in my den that I do most of my computing on. I always get a budget friendly 17" DTR laptop for my room as a personal machine that I do light browsing on or some office work.

I have a iPhone 5 and iPad 4th gen synced via iCloud and all that pretty much takes care of my mobile tasks.
 
Laptop only since February 2012..so almost a year now. Only reason i got it was i had a nice tax refund last year so i treated myself.
It makes for a nice little laptop for running Vmware Workstation since i was able to throw 16gb of ram in it, contrary to Toshiba stating 8 was the max. Now I'd like to replace the optical drive with an ssd drive for my vm storage. The Intel HD 3000 graphics is adequate enough for my gaming needs.
 
Too much to manage with a dektop + notebook. I replaced the DVD in my notebook with a 256gb SSD so I have 250GB HDD for storage and 256gb SSD for OS, applications, etc. Who uses DVD anymore?

One of these stands at home with a 24" monitor and I can't tell it's even a notebook:

c02020281.jpg
 
I use a laptop as a primary for it's portability and possibly using less power than a desktop to game on. Just hate how most of the parts are so expensive.
 
I converted over to laptop only (macbook air). The only reason I needed the desktop was for gaming and once that stopped.. I didnt need a desktop.
 
I'm rocking a Dell Latitude D830. Core 2 Duo (2.2 Ghz) + 2 Gigs of RAM + Windows XP + Samsung 830pro + $200 (the price we paid for it AND the SSD we threw in) = one mean workstation.

Other than that, I run two desktops - a Winder's box and a Linux box. :D
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I'm rocking a Dell Latitude D830. Core 2 Duo (2.2 Ghz) + 2 Gigs of RAM + Windows XP + Samsung 830pro + $200 (the price we paid for it AND the SSD we threw in) = one mean workstation.

Other than that, I run two desktops - a Winder's box and a Linux box. :D
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Yea an SSD in a core 2 or higher is still a very usable machine. The XFR in my sig is a d630 with a 2 or 2.2 core 2, 2 gigs of ram(I have more to put in but I've been lazy), 830 ssd, etc running windows 7 enterprise. Thing runs great. I still use it as my test notebook for doing things at client sites. My replacement for it(i7 macbook pro) is used mostly at home.
 
^^^ For sure. I had a core 2 duo T7200 system before I bought my current laptop. Had a 256gb Crucial M4 in it. It was hilariously fast, now it's even moreso that I have it in a SATA3-capable system :D
 
I use a laptop and handheld virtually all the time now that I'm not playing many games, like for more than a year. I find both acceptable substitutes for pretty much everything but gaming.
 
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