Notebook vs Desktop Computers

The major advantage of a Notebook is its portability. This will be the most important factor in your choice if you need to use your computer in different locations such as libraries, at home and in the office or trains. The disadvantage of a Notebook is that it is usually a lower specification for a given price and the possibilities for upgrading are more limited than a desktop. Notebook often have a shorter useful lifetime than desktops, partly due to their lower specification but also due to the fact that their nature means that they take more punishment (vibration/knocks) which can cause components such as hard drives or screens to fail.

Another major drawback of a laptop is that their parts are "proprietary" which means that if your laptop breaks, only the company that made it will be able to fix it, and after the warranty expires they will be very happy to charge you an exorbitant price for that service. While with a desktop computers, you are able to take advantage of your local computer store which will often fix it at a much more reasonable rate.

A third drawback to the laptop craze is that in general, laptops are far more expensive than desktop systems. For the price of an average laptop, you could purchase a much more powerful desktop. Of course, what you are paying for is the portability of a smaller design, but is that worth it? While it can be very fun to take your computer with you on a camping trip, how often do you need to type something up while fishing?

Laptops should be viewed as a purchase that should only be made when necessary. You would not purchase a car with 4-wheel drive (no matter how fun it looked) unless you actually had use of that feature, because otherwise it wouldn’t justify the added cost. The same is true of laptops. Laptops are stolen at an alarming rate, because they are just so easy to steal. And when that computer is stolen, not only do you lose the value of the computer, but also all of your valuable data.