Poor old desktop PC, sitting unloved in a dusty corner

I’m sitting here 2 desktops up and running and not a laptop or tablet in sight.

I got rid of my desktop very recently, and I can’t say I miss it! I just removed the hard drive and then put it up on freecycle. The guy who came to pick it up was delighted, so I can assure you that even if some people no longer use them, there are lots of people who would be really pleased to have even a simple old desktop like mine (I think it was about 7 years old!). The main reason I’d taken so long to get rid of it is that I didn’t want it to go to waste, so I was really pleased to find a way to dispose of it without just throwing it out.

My old desk-top broke down recently and I was without it for several weeks and had to “Try” to do everything on my nice new all singing all dancing laptop…
I was not a Happy Bunny, it just could not cope with all the heavy traffic…
It’s great for all web cruising etc etc, but try to do anything that needs extra and it falls away drastically…

Just increased desktop ram to max 4gb, and bought a new 24 ” screen.
Lovely for my large Excel spreadsheets.
Would love to buy a thin, SSD Ultrabook but cannot justify it !
If I was still working I would buy a tablet for emails etc, whilst on the move ( i.e better than the pesky small screen on the smart phone .)

I couldn’t work without a desktop with a large screen. I also own an iPad and iPhone which are very useful devices, but each for their purpose. For everyday office use I could not cope with using sucha a small screen on any device.

I rather think it is the laptop which has had its day. Netbooks became obsolete following the introduction of tablets, and i rather think laptops will go the same way.

A smartphone, a tablet and a large screen desktop are the perfect combination right now.

Like someone said:
A tablet will do everything a PC/desktop will do.
Badly.

I have got a colouring set.

I have a respectable desktop computer with a 24 inch screen and a 15 inch laptop. I can only afford one copy of Adobe CS and other expensive software packages. Until a couple of years ago, this software was on the desktop computer and I had cheaper software such as Microsoft Office on both machines.

I decided to move the expensive software to the laptop, which means I can use it anywhere. The screen is much smaller, but for what I do it has proved to be a very sensible decision. I far prefer the trackpad on my MacBook Pro to any mouse, though will use a mouse for some tasks in Photoshop and Illustrator, for example.

Yes I will use the desktop computer for a large spreadsheet or for any purpose where I need the large screen or work with two word processing files side-by-side, but the laptop does fine for the vast majority of what I do.

Many games are still best played on desktop machines. For example I use mine for Flight Sim X.
I also prefer the search engines you seem to get on a computer. BBC for instance seem to have more info than when logged into it on a phone or tablet.

I have room for both in my life, but then I use my computers for work as well as domestic purposes.

My laptop is there for when I travel way from home, or need to use my person software packages for work. But because I can sit in any room of the house, I also tend to use my laptop for email and web browsing.

My desktop PC has a 24” monitor and large hard disk. I use it for video editing, which is impossible on a laptop unless you spend megabucks. I also favour it when working all day on a document, project or tax return. The ability to independently adjust the monitor and keyboard position means my posture is better.

There are many problems with laptops (and laptop substitutes) compared to desktops that the average consumer does not consider:

They are expensive for what they are in terms of performance.

Because laptops are designed to be portable, they are flimsy and because they are both portable and flimsy they tend to get broken easily. This is usually fatal, or at least uneconomic to repair, unless you are capable of fixing it yourself and have all the necessary skill and patience.

For instance, simply tripping over the power lead cracked the power jack on my Sony laptop. I was quoted £££’s to repair this and the laptop nearly went into the skip. However, hours of searching the Internet finally threw up the correct replacement part for £15. This then required literally hours of painstaking disassembly and reassembly of the laptop to fit and a number of specialist tools most people just wouldn’t have at home.

There are few things you can do to enhance the specification and performance of a laptop, so it tends to become obsolete much more quickly than a desktop, which has a number of separate components that can be upgraded.

And you can almost guarantee the lithium battery will fail within 2-4 years. I’ve just spent £150 replacing mine and had the devil’s own job to source a Sony OEM battery, even though the laptop is less than 4 years old. Many “genuine” Sony replacements on sale on the Internet are fakes or cheap copies which could be a fire hazard or just fail to work properly.

So overall, laptops are more expensive and less environmentally “friendly” (if such a thing can be said of any computer) than a desktop. Unless you need portability or have very limited space at home, a desktop computer is better value and will have a lower total cost of ownership.

I am sure that the use of Laptops is a fashion and is not driven by practicality. Using a Desktop PC with a keyboard firmly positioned on the desk and large monitor located at head hight is not likely to give back problems, wheras bent over a laptop located on your knees which moves as you use it will. My Desktop tower unit has had a larger hard drive installed, a bigger monitor and additional RAM. It was upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 64bit and despite its age is still perfectly adequate for my needs. It is neither practical or cost effective to do any of these things with a Laptop PC. There is also the problem that Laptop batteries have a life and if it is still possible to purchase a replacement when they fail, it will certainly not be cheap. Whilst I accept that a Laptop is portable and a Desktop PC is not, I would suggest that a Tablet is a much better solution if portability is your criteria, with a Desktop PC also available for when you wish to do work that is not as convenient or possible on a Tablet.

Well there’s not much support for laptops in this Conversation, so I hope Which? will take note and keep their eyes on desktops well into the future. The serious world has not ‘moved on’ and just because the newer IT developments give portability, and are more image-making perhaps, it doesn’t mean we are all going to forsake our trusty heavy-weight machines in favour of the racing model. We have a laptop in the house [somewhere] but everything we do is on desktop PC’s, and I don’t think there is anything better for creating and processing documents, spreadsheets, reports, web browsing across a number of sites, and all the other functions mentioned by previous contributors. We don’t have smartphones or tablets because when we are ‘on the move’ [as important people say] we are usually in the company of each other or friends or relatives and it is not appropriate to use a gadget. Likewise, we cannot see that any communication devices have a place in the bedroom or the kitchen or the sitting room. We also think our PC’s should be shut down no later than 7 pm [I probably shouldn’t have written that – I expect somebody’s going to dig up one of my late night posts from a very old conversation; it’ll be the exception that proves the rule!].

My last desktop PC stopped working eight years ago. I gave it to a technically minded friend to see if she could get it working and after several false starts where it worked for a couple of hours before crashing, I gave up on it and bought a laptop. This was the best decision I ever made. Instead of being isolated in the study/spare room on the desktop, I could sit anywhere in the house – except the lavatory – and use the laptop. Instead of spending a couple of hours a week on the PC, I now spend more than a couple of hours a day on the laptop. About the only thing I miss the larger screen PC for is large spreadsheets, but as time goes on, my spreadsheets become fewer and smaller.

I only have one laptop, no smart phone or tablet, unlike most of those posting in this discussion. I would not have a smart phone because the screen size would be useless for me. If all of you multi device keepers had to select only one device to keep, which one would you choose?

Err – I have 3 HP server style PC desktops (superb for games) – 9 printers – and 4 HP laptops – I produce 1000s of colour newsletters bi-monthly – design and run websites etc. I only use the Laptops to take to the OAP club I help run to teach those that want to – how to use a computer (I used to teach Information Technology) – and sometimes to show interested parties photographs and websites I have produced. in places where there are no computers – To carry 4 Desktops to the club is a little heavy for my 82 year old frame. The three servers are used in tandem to ensure I have double back-up in case of break-down – So far since using PCs from 1980 (used main-frames before that ) for around 4 hours a day – I have had one very minor breakdown. There is one server on three of the 4 floors of my house (nine rooms) so I have ‘instant access’ – The only problem I’ve ever had was when operating systems were updated and the existing PC could not cope with updated facilities – But as I built computers for sale it was no big deal – until PCs became cheaper to buy than build. I don’t like small screens – I watch TV when I want to – through Virgin On Demand. Desk Tops forever!!

i have an ageing desk top pc and am thinking of replacing it but the choice of possible options is too confusing so i’ll probably just keep this one until it breaks too badly to fix. but there is another option. do i buy some off the shelf parts and just replace the guts of my pc and my old style 19″ monitor. its 19 inches from from front to back nearly too. all that would probably be about the same as buying a whole new machine anyway……..oh the confusion 🙁

My 10 year old PC has been dying for years, but being a Desktop I can get the vacuum cleaner nozzle in to clear to the dust and painstakingly apply a artists brush to stroke the tiny dust caked fans and reseat all the plug-in boards and connectors. Try that with a laptop.

However what was once fast is no longer so and I will be replacing with a new DESKTOP, probably a custom build. Why?

I want the computing power to run voice recognition, film editing, photo editing, large Access databases and Excel Spreadsheets, write newsletters using Desktop Publishing and benefit from dual hard disc drives for secure storage and an SSD for speed. Oh and a 27″ high definition monitor on a fully adjustable stand.

Sure you could do this with a (large and expensive) laptop, but you would need to buy a business model that includes a docking station connector in the base in order to have the separate keyboard, mouse and monitor that ergonomic (DSE) guidelines say you must have.

Perhaps I am a Luddite? I appear to be in good company here, but I have also have a ASUS Transformer Infinity (NOT Which? reviewed). This demonstrates the disaster area that is the modern tablet environment, in which even “simple” viewing of the BBC web site is impossible, unless you install unofficial software to make the videos work and where the ‘oh so pretty’ “Apps” include fewer features and options than version 1.0 of most PC (Desktop) software.

I consider myself a tech geek and have the following setup. galaxy s4, nexus 7 hd, and a 11.6 inch chromebook, then a laptop, which is hooked up to dual 24″ screens docked with a keyboard and mouse. To me it is the perfect setup, if you need more video power… then I could see getting a desktop but with an ssd and 8gb of ram it does everything I want and fast, plus I can undock when needed. The screen space and full keyboard and mouse are the key to productivity, I prefer the docked laptop over the desktop though as I can still well…use it as a 15″ laptop the few times I can’t do something on another device.

Hi, can you help? I have an old Dell Inspiron 530 desktop. I use it to store my cds, financial records and photos and play spotify on it. Its hooked up to my hifi and TV. It has lots of storage but is just incredibly slow. I am not sure whether to transfer everything somewhere else and ditch it or get someone around to get it to zip along (I’ve tried all the usual – deleting temp files and files from recycle bin and defraging it). Really I turn it on very infrequently (usually to download bank statements once a quarter) so I am reluctant to spend £600 on a replacement. I have what looks like the usual array of laptops, ipads etc but have always thought of the desktop as holding this space. am I really out of date and missing something? I would appreciate comments!