Technology Tips: Should I get a Laptop or a Desktop?
Many people ask me what the right machine is for them, Laptop or Desktop. My general feeling is that unless you are a heavy technician and professional computer user, having more than one computer can be more trouble than it’s worth. Certainly if you have two, you should have both a a laptop and a desktop, but can you get away with one or the other? I believe you can, and I believe the answer is to get a laptop.
A laptop needs to find a balance between two elements: portability and screen size. You can’t have both. I will always frown on a laptop with too large of a screen, because you’ve got to carry that machine around every day. That larger screen makes it heavier, more awkward, and more likely to get damaged as you cart it around from location to location in a bag slung over your shoulder. I recommend a laptop with a nice small screen, like the 13″ MacBooks or MacBook Pro.
Many clients complain that a laptop of that size eliminates their comfort with using it. They say that without a full-size keyboard and mouse, as well as a larger screen, the machine is useless to them at home. I suggest rather than having your home machine and your travel machine, that you get a small sized laptop as well as a nicely sized flat screen monitor, a full sized keyboard and a mouse.l You can dock your laptop into that large screen, keyboard and mouse setup when you’re home, but when you unplug it and go mobile, you just take the laptop. In this way, you get the screen size when you’re at home, and the portability when you travel, accomplishing the best of both worlds with only one machine.
Category: The Mac Whisperer
