I know it's been predicted for a while, and laptops and tablets are de rigueur right now, but will the desktop PC go the way of the dinosaur or will it continue to live on?

I quite like the fact you can upgrade bits and spec your own, whereas a laptop seems less customisable... or are laptops heading this way?

(Currently speccing myself up a sweeeeeeet i5 with various bits an pieces, reminds me of the old days buying computers from the PC company)

Will be the same year as the year of Linux on the desktop

For personal use, they're already pretty much obsolete yeah?

At work we almost exclusively use desktops to run our instruments (mainly cos for the older stuff we have to). However, more and more instrument manufacturers are going to USB so who knows in another 5-10 years.

Nope, given cost/battery etc there are oodles of applications where a laptop will not replace a desktop, likewise I think tablets are shit for anything more complicated than squiggling some lines or dragging things around. They all have their place.


edit: personal use if you are playing games on a pc then the vast majority are on desktops rather than laptops.

even if I wasnt playing games I see no reason to have a laptop as sitting there using a laptop screen + keyboard etc you end up needing all the bizzo that comes with a desktop anyway

for the home market maybe.

but the office market I would say no.

I was thinking with CPU development slowing down, and not needing to throw out all your other components from your desktop (PSU, motherboard, etc), people might start upgrading them again rather than buying all-in-one units.

I'm happy to be proven wrong on this one, I just remember home users used to buy individual parts a lot more.

Does someone make a modular laptop you can upgrade like a desktop?

There's only a few desktops left in our office of probably 400ish people. Same with all the offices I've worked in in the last decade.

Flexi working, hot desking, remote working and working from home have killed the desktop.

I was about to say the same as dwgknz. No office worker in my company has had a desktop for 10 years. We still have them for instruments, but everything else is laptop.
The field guys actually do half their work or more from an iPad.

We have a few "beasts" in the office, but we generally remote onto em from our laptops. The laptops these days are very very capable for home or office use. I just plug in a keyboard and screen.

Caveat: I don't game or watch high end video.

Depends on the industry. Laptops will never be as fast as desktops due to power and heat dissipation constraints. But laptops were fast enough for 99% of the population years ago, work or home. This is obvious - most consumer electronics/appliance places like dickes or harvies haven't had even a slightly acceptable desktop range for years.

For the people that still need the power, desktops will be there. Compiling/rendering/heavy handed design software/image processing/audio processing, plenty of people want speed aside from gamers.

Personally, I can't stand working on a tiny screen, low to the table, with a shit keyboard and either no mouse or a tiny portable piece of crap, and awful little speakers useful only for communicating with rodents. The tiny fans that whine like a bitch when the going gets tough...

By the time I add a large screen at a good height, ergonomic keyboard, full size mouse and a stereo, I may as well buy the rest of the desktop that goes along with it over a laptop and docking station.

dwgknz wrote:There's only a few desktops left in our office of probably 400ish people. Same with all the offices I've worked in in the last decade.

Flexi working, hot desking, remote working and working from home have killed the desktop.

nearly all the apps/software at my work are running on citrix server so hot desk is not a issue with desktops and most people have dual monitors when not working with desktops tied to other equipment. I was trying to use a colleagues laptop yesterday and the small screen made it unpleasant.

Yep. I've got two lots of high real estate screens plugged into mine. the standing desk arrived Tuesday for mega-win.

I've a very similar setup at home with my personal laptop. Everything is so cheap now! I think the monitor arms were mebbe 150, keyboard and mouse SFA. Those who don't setup properly will always find em a pain....

Everything is cheap apart from high resolution screens. 1440p is still too expensive, let alone 4k. I'm currently using two screens, but I can't wait until I can get something with good enough res that one will do. Two screens results in either compromised screen placement or compromised speaker placement.

I'd love an adjustable sitting/standing desk, but they're so expensive. Might have to make one.

I think my sit/stand for home was around 3-400. At work they simply replaced the legs for around $300...

AgrAde wrote:Everything is cheap apart from high resolution screens. 1440p is still too expensive, let alone 4k. I'm currently using two screens, but I can't wait until I can get something with good enough res that one will do. Two screens results in either compromised screen placement or compromised speaker placement.

I'd love an adjustable sitting/standing desk, but they're so expensive. Might have to make one.

How big do you need? There are a few sub 800 dollar 28 inch 4k ones now


I want a 1440p 144hz jobbie but a rog swift is the only option and they are 1400 odd