Using laptop as main machine?

[living_joke]

Any forum members use their laptop as their main machine? For a long time, I was thinking about my next computer upgrade just buying a laptop, and using it as my main machine. I want to hear positives and negatives of that approach from people who tryed it before?

 

[discharge]

I haven't considered my laptop as a main machine. However, on occasion, I went to the beach for extended hours and used my laptop. During those occasions where I used my laptop for many hours it worked reliably.

Using a laptop as your "main" should work great. Do remember though that in order to use a laptop as a main machine, you should keep it plugged in all the time. Battery power won't last you more then 8 hours and you would wear out your batteries if you constantly had to recharge them. When thinking about using a laptop as your primary computer, also consider the screen quality. Is the screen big enough? Will you experience any eye strain if you look at the laptop screen all the time? You may want to get a docking station instead, and hook the laptop up to the docking station, and use your current screen, keyboard and mouse thru the docking station.

 

[xstatic]

Any forum members use their laptop as their main machine? For a long time, I was thinking about my next computer upgrade just buying a laptop, and using it as my main machine. I want to hear positives and negatives of that approach from people who tryed it before?

My parents only own a notebook. They will use it on the dining room table, while sitting on the sofa, and in their bedroom. Nice thing about a notebook is that you can take it with you, no matter where you go. Not a bad way to use a computer.

 

[Rob Williams]

Really depends on what you plan to use it for. I have a few friends who use a laptop 100% of the time and they have no issues. As long as the screen can support larger resolutions than 1024*768 [unless you like that res] then it can get tedious when Photoshopping or working on projects.

The bad side is battery life if you plan to always walk around the house to use it. 3 hours is not a very long time.

 

[Tech-Daddy]

here here Rob...

My issue with lappers currently is their inability to upgrade toe video components. Now, Nvidia tried with the mini PCI-e card, and I saw a few vendors pick up on it... but it need to be widely adopted. *THAT*... is the only thing that sticks me from purchasing a lapper as my main rig. I dont want to drop 1.5x to 2x the cost of a good desktop... only to be cemented into a video solution that will be outdated. I want the ability to replace that video solution should a better one come along.

 

[phonywish]

The bad side is battery life if you plan to always walk around the house to use it. 3 hours is not a very long time.

I seen ultra-slim laptops advertised that claim to have 8 hours battery life per single battery. With two batteries that is 16 hours of battery use before you have to replace a battery, enough for a full day of laptop use while walking around the house. I would look into one of these ultra-slim laptops with extra long battery life if I was going to get a laptop as my main computer.

 

[Fr00zen]

For a long time, I was thinking about my next computer upgrade just buying a laptop, and using it as my main machine. I want to hear positives and negatives of that approach from people who tryed it before?

Why are you thinking of using a laptop as your main computer? If you play a lot of games, you won't be able to stick a high-end graphics card in a laptop like you can with a desktop PC.

 

[PUTALE]

i really want a laptop. I am waiting for dual core and 64bit integrated into current pentium M cpu before I buy it I think. Also, kind of hoping that dedicated gfx becoming a standard.

I think eventually laptop will slowly becoming the main cpu among many users.

 

[Greg King]

I too am in the market for a new notebook. I am currently looking for a good blend between strong gaming and everyday use. My last notebook was good for gaming to an extent. It had an ATi 9700 Mobility and I was able to play BF2 at a decent frame rate so I had no complaint. Then it died and I was sad.

There are a few companies that I am looking at for a replacement. One is Asus. The others are Dell, PC Torque and Toshiba. There is a Fujitsu that I played around with at the GDC that had an S3 mobile chip in it and it was able to play WoW really well. While I dont play WoW, it was good to see a 3D game running well on a so called "budget" notebook.