Desktop or Laptop?

I would like gauge how many of you have a desktop or a laptop as your primary computer that you use at home? I am only interested in folks that use their computers primarily for school, labs, certifications, so no gaming rigs which are only used for gaming.

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N2IT

Desktop

Mini Form Factor with 8 GB's of RAM, SSD, 4 GB graphic card and I7 processor.

Custom made the machine, bought the case (cooler master) and ASUS mini system board for 30 dollars. Had a processor from an old machine that was trashed, (it's an older I7 processor). Had the 8 GB of ram. I added a new power supply and a 4 gb graphics card GTX. This thing beast modes for 350 dollars.

*** Work machine is a T440 i5 processor SSD with 8 gbs of ram. (Laptop)

discount81

Desktop at home, laptop at work.

As powerful as laptops have become, I find they still aren't ideal for running certain applications

dave330i

Desktop. Dual display and full size keyboard. Laptops just aren't the same.

wd40

Desktop with 2 monitors at home (+ a wireless laptop mini mouse

) .. Planning to upgrade to 3 x 27" screens "within the next 5 years

"

Old Lenovo T420 for work.

bhcs2014

Desktop.

Want a laptop though so I don't have to be sitting upright all the time. Would be nice to study/lab while laying on the couch

Expect

A Lenovo T440P connected to a 23" screen.

I don't have enough room for a Desktop anymore..small table, small room. but it does the job

tpasmall

Desktop for working from home/gaming. Laptop for studying. I have TeamViewer installed so if I'm on a secured network I can remote in from my laptop and run applications on my desktop.

jamthat

tpasmall wrote: »

Desktop for working from home/gaming. Laptop for studying. I have TeamViewer installed so if I'm on a secured network I can remote in from my laptop and run applications on my desktop.

Desktop at home, work laptop for just about everything that isn't at my home office desk. Will soon be purchasing a server for the house which will be my new testing and lab workhorse

edit: Galaxy Note 4 is basically a small tablet that I have on me at all times lol

JoJoCal19

I've used a laptop exclusively since I sold my desktop back in 2002. Unless you are needing the power to run a big nested VM environment (even then you CAN find laptops to do it) I think it's better to have the portability of a laptop. Keep a monitor/docking station set up on your desk for when you need the extra screen real estate. I know for my security lab (VMs) it's something I can sit on the couch with the wife while we watch TV shows and practice hacking, coding, school work, writing, etc. It's nice to not have to choose between being stuck in the office or getting nothing done.

H3||scr3am

Desktop 12 actual cores, 12 threads, 18GBs of DDR3 RAM, and dual GPUs driving a 4K monitor. Great for spinning up VMs, and doing virtual labbing, etc. Also doubles for gaming, but mainly built for Pent test labbing and brute forcing hashes/etc.

Trifidw

Another desktop user, but could be tempted to replace it with a laptop that could dock into a desktop so I get dual monitors, keyboard, mouse decent sound without plugging in a million things. It would have to be quite a powerful laptop as I have a i7 920 with 48GB of RAM.

wgroom

3 laptops serving various roles, and a Dell 1950 for VMs. I do have two 23" monitors to connect to a laptop if necessary. A newer Vaio laptop, an IBM T42 laptop, and an old Dell running Linux for testing connectivity to Cisco network.

gc8dc95

Laptop at work = 2 monitors, dock, kb, mouse, i5, SSD, 16GB Ram

Laptop at home = 2 monitors, kb, mouse, i5, SSD, 16GB Ram

Desktop at home = 2 monitors, Xeon, SSD's, 32GB Ram

--chris--

Laptop, multi monitors at work & none at home.

Jon_Cisco

Desktop I own both but I barely turn on the laptop.

MTciscoguy

I have several of both and they get used pretty equal.

mweaver84

Just bought a new Surface Pro 3 yesterday. Not the top model but loving it so far. i5, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. Bought the docking station for it , only run one extra monitor with it right now. Might purchase another monitor soon and run 2 xtra monitors along with the surface...

N2IT

mweaver84 wrote: »

Just bought a new Surface Pro 3 yesterday. Not the top model but loving it so far. i5, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. Bought the docking station for it , only run one extra monitor with it right now. Might purchase another monitor soon and run 2 xtra monitors along with the surface...

Keep us posted on how it runs the second monitor if you wouldn't mind.

mweaver84

Will do, my boss actually uses a Surface Pro + 2 external monitors for his computer at work and really likes it. He has the top model Surface though

ssnyderu2

Desktop

8 core CPU, 16 GB RAM, Radeon 7870 and 256 SSD.

CCNTrainee

15-inch Sager Laptop I bought back in 2013, has been my baby every since.

i7, 16 gigs of DDR3 (Upgradeable to 32gb), 2 slots for mSATA SSDs, (x1 250 gb, x1 500 gb). I have a home docking station that is connected to a 32" monitor, a LED mechanical k/b and LED mouse.

Use for pretty much anything at this point... run labs, CBT Nuggest study materiel, run virtual machines, simulation software and even build a small scale virtual domain. I would invest into a workstation desktop when I am ready to start running an entire VMware network. I forgot to add that I recently upgraded my HDD for a 2 TB.

LeBroke

Desktop at home for most things except reading. Little Lenovo X230 for on the go, or for reading at home. Desktop at work.

I just ordered another laptop, so I'll be doing more things on it, but it's mostly there so I can have access to personal VMs at work, or do gaming/etc in other parts of my apartment instead of just the desk.

yzT

I always find laptops to be somewhat slow. This past Christmas I bought a Lenovo for my mother, don't remember the model but it has 6 GB RAM, 2 GB VRAM and i7, and still it's slower than a desktop with worse specifications.

LeBroke

yzT wrote: »

I always find laptops to be somewhat slow. This past Christmas I bought a Lenovo for my mother, don't remember the model but it has 6 GB RAM, 2 GB VRAM and i7, and still it's slower than a desktop with worse specifications.

Stick an SSD in there.

Actual specs are pretty irrelevant to how fast something feels. A 5 year old Core Duo with 4 GB RAM is still perfectly fast for most things (especially internet browsing and the like). It's the typically slow 5400 RPM drive that makes laptops (especially cheap laptops that have a 5400 RPM, non-cached drive) feel extremely clunky.

SSD, and they're suddenly super responsive.

It's just, desktop platter drives, are a lot more responsive and have better seek times, so you wait a lot less to do things like boot up or open a folder.

Kinet1c

Laptop all the way, like the portability. Only thing I'd use a desktop for these days is gaming and I'm done with that.

Smilies

An old optiplex 320 running a linux distro + a lenovo T400 connected to a 24" lcd for work

And an laptop for home, have a tower but using it for a ftp server.

philz1982

Desktop:

Corsair 900D
Corsair H110i All-in-One Cooling
Intel I7 4770k OC 4.1Ghz
32 GB DDR 1600
OS: 256 GB Evo Black SSD
Storage: 2x3TB 7200 HD Black in RAID
3x R290 4GB Cards
1600W Dual PSU
2 32in BENq LED, 4k Screens.
Win 7 64 Ultimate

tpatt100

iPad followed by laptop which if I included gaming my desktop would be right behind my iPad in usage.

dou2ble

I just bought the Surface Pro 3, i5, 128gb ssd, 4gb ram, keyboard and so far love it! I use an external hdd for extra storage. It replaced my laptop and desktop. I use it for studying and personal use. Mostly MS office. I don't build any virtual environments at home or play games.

spicy ahi

My desktop is a dell 7100 with the 6 core amd phenom processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and a 2TB 7200 for storage and dual video cards (don't remember exatcly what but they are ATI somethings) Still capable of running everything I need to do without issues. I've gone through several laptops in the 4+ years since I bought the desktop including a Dell, a MBP, a MBA, and now the latest is a Surface Pro 3. The Dell was a beast both in power and size and was difficult to carry around. The MBP was not as powerful, but was much lighter. Ditto with the MBA. My issue has always been that in order to match the power of a desktop, the laptop had to be of comparable size and/or weight. So I started to go with thinner/lighter but less capable. This Surface, however, has so far been able to run everything that I run on my desktop so I may change my vote in a year or so. The only thing I haven't been able to do on the Surface that I can easily do on my desktop is run VMs though that's more of an issue with virtualization implementations on Virtualbox for Windows 8.1. That's getting better though so that might not be an issue for very long.