laptop vs tower/desk top

J

JAW

New Member
My young adviser tells me that laptops overheat, have problems with leaks from the screen and generally should be avoided unless peroability is absolutly essential. Any comments? He wants to build me (Ithink really for him) a mini tower with lots of specs. he records music and plays EVE

My other son has a Toshiba satellite laptop off the shelf at a retailer for A$1400, mostly used for internet browsing e-mail and somemovie watching. Has not had problems but he dosn't move it,it just sits there.

I will need to use an ethernet Lan connection and use it for e-mail web searching and some downloads. Mostly use MS office software. A good video card would be great. 160G HD and 2G RAM will be fine for me.

Thanks
 
So what are you looking for exactly?

Sorry, the laptop stuff is throwing me off here. I think your son
wants to build you a desktop pc, correct?
 
I'm looking for a small ie laptop size unit to network to the adsl modem in another part of the house. I use e-mail and MS office plus web search, and have specialist software for using the search results.

I think my son has discovered that a laptop will not hold all he wants for his desires ie music recording (from his band) and web surfing/game play. So he has put together a shopping cart of parts for what he wants and intends to pass on his old tower to me(he has said it's not long for this world).

I just want to know if the problems with laptops he told me about are in fact true. I see laptops everywhere even in office and retail use where a tower was always used even 2 years ago. don't want to be forced into another unsatisfactory purchase from lack of knowledge. He says Vista is not as good as XP, I don't have a preference there.
 
JAW said:
I'm looking for a small ie laptop size unit to network to the adsl modem in another part of the house. I use e-mail and MS office plus web search, and have specialist software for using the search results.

I think my son has discovered that a laptop will not hold all he wants for his desires ie music recording (from his band) and web surfing/game play. So he has put together a shopping cart of parts for what he wants and intends to pass on his old tower to me(he has said it's not long for this world).

I just want to know if the problems with laptops he told me about are in fact true. I see laptops everywhere even in office and retail use where a tower was always used even 2 years ago. don't want to be forced into another unsatisfactory purchase from lack of knowledge. He says Vista is not as good as XP, I don't have a preference there.
Click to expand...

A toward can hold more and that means the motherboards will be more versatile. You can also build a tower by yourself for much cheaper than a laptop.

Laptops do overheat, but that wouldn't really be an issue for you (especially know laptops are tested to determine their faults before sold).

Overall I'd say you'd probably would be fine with a laptop. EVE may have trouble playing on a $500 dollar laptop, but MS Office and internet would be fine.
 
I don't see where a problem would be. If you sit the laptop on something
hard, like a table or a book, there should be no issue with heat.
 
Umm well laptops are not that bad, they may not be as reliable as dektops, but they certainly arent as bad as you making them out to be.

Although i will say that, laptops do over heat, e.g. i had to swtich my cpu due to overheating problems(250$) and i had to switch my fan 3 times, becaus they couldn't cool the cpu properly.


But really it all comes to this.
1. Can you afford the laptop.(Because you can get so much more preformance out of a desktop than laptop.)
e.g. You may get a laptop that cost 1500$ and runs a intel duo running at 2.2ghz with 4 gigs of ram.
for 1500$ you can get an intel quad core running at 2.6ghz, and can overclock to over 3.5ghz, and has 4 gigs of ram, with a decent video card, and Great sound card.
Basically you can get the perfomance of a 1500$ laptop in a 800$ desktop.

2. Is he going to be moving it around, if not then go desktop...

3. Since hes recording music, you would be better off getting a desktop, because you have a Big variety of sound cards, unlike laptops which have little options.
Desktops are easier to upgrade than laptops.


I would go desktop.
 
Laptop vs Desktop

I quess the concenses is that a laptop is fine for me(the guy who is paying) but a desktop is better for the misic lover even though he will load it into a car and take it to friends homes.
He is talking about making the new unit a server for our LAN so software will be available from the single HD. If he does this and takes it out of the house other users will up the creek right? If so I must tell him to leave the network on the NetCom ADSL 2 modem router.

On top of everything else my old stand alone PC (not this one) has just died. Was using it to write a book, everything is on the drive (backup available but no software on other computors) Seems the hard disk has shut the door and will not answer my knock. I hear 2-3 "ticks" when I switch on but thats it, nothing else happens at all. Power supply is fine as lights and fan working.

It's too early to go to bed and cry.
 
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