Laptop or mini PC? Suggestions please.

S

Skyrunner

New Member
Hello forum,
Sorry if this has been posted about already.

I need a computer for travelling and for a home PC workstation. Budget - about $600. I like the freedom of separate peripherals - keyboard, DVD drive, etc. The mini PCs have all the connectivity features and are small enough to fit in my luggage. The ZBox for example, only measures about 8" x 8" x 1.5", but..... is it stable and reliable enough to use as a full-time workstation?

There are other mini PCs out there measuring only 10" x 10" x 3" - only slightly larger but usually more powerful.

Laptops are convenient and well established but I'm still not sure which format will be the most reliable. It's a general question but, all components being roughly equal, is there really much difference in performance, reliability and connectivity of the PC vs the laptop? I must have solid reliability for work purposes.

I want at least a duo-core but is it worth spending more on a quad-core? I'm won't be gaming; only using it for work.

So,.. laptop or mini?
Thanks to all.
 
moving it much would lend yourself to a laptop. For working, and general performance, you will get more from a laptop than a mini computer (which is generally limited to a Atom or c series AMD).

As for Dual or Quad, what kind of work do you do?
 
get a laptop.
IMO, mini pc won't have much upgrability, no big different from laptop.

If you really want mini pc.
Antec ISK 300-150
http://www.directron.com/isk300150.html?gsear=1

Intel Core i3-2100T
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116394

ASUS P8H61-I (REV 3.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...a-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3332167&SID=u00000626

Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591

G.SKILL Value Series 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424

Sony Optiarc SATA Model AD-7710H-01 - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118058
 
Thanks to both for the advice. The laptop after all is just a mini PC with a monitor and keyboard attached. I was wanting a mini but with the laptop, I have the convenience of portability plus I can always add a big separate monitor and separate keyboard whenever I want the home PC computing experience. Laptop it is.

As for Dual or Quad, what kind of work do you do?
Click to expand...

Online retail, and I usually have lots of applications running at once, plus Firefox is a major memory drain. I'm currently using a single-core P-4 Dell 5150 3gb processor and 1.5gb memory - dated by today's standards. I don't do gaming so I'm thinking duo-core with 4gb memory should be sufficient.
 
yea, dual is fine for that.
If you have many apps running at once, go for 8Gb or 6GB of DDR3 ram. It will add speed to your system.
 
Go with a laptop the specs are a lot better than you will find on a mini PC. Laptops these days are built very well so you have nothing to worry about
 
i don't think so, you can get a much faster minipc than lappy, one, on a mini-pc you can get a 2600k and a gtx590, find me a lappy that can hanle that, oh you can't, didn't think so:P while you're at it find me a lappy with water cooling for an oc of 4.5+ghz, a ssd, and 2tb's storage, still no luck :P
 
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