Desktop, laptop, phone.

Desktop for heavy workloads and work when at home

Laptop for work when at work

Phone is useless for any sort of meaningful work and is used for Slack and/or browsing memes.

It’s not necessarily even that phones are too weak for work, it’s that it’s god-awful to try to get any work done on a phone when the only input method you have is touchscreen.

I have a personal gaming desktop and, at last count, three four laptops. I’m part of an IT department and I have a bad habit. I take junked laptops from the scrap bin home and repair them, then lose interest once they’re working again.

Shit, I have all of the above, in multiples.

I have kind of abandoned keeping a gaming PC up to date because I get sick of the bullshit. But the one I have currently isn’t too far behind, hardware wise.

But I use it for piracy, image management (including editing), video editing, etc. The stuff that punks out other devices.

I have a dedicated media PC that is hooked up to the TV and stereo, but is isolated from anything else. That’s what I still run Windows 7 on because musicbee on Linux isn’t ready for prime time.

Then there’s my wife’s old computer that’s hooked up to my kid’s tvt, not that it ever gets used. But it’s functional, so until it dies, that’s what it does.

My laptop is exclusively for my writing. Dual boot with win 10/mint Linux. The win10 exists only for a specific piece of software that makes publishing to amazon easier. No games, but I do some media playback with it when I have to travel.

Phones suck at media management, word processing, and pretty much everything else tbh. Too many lobbyists limitations, too much crap for proper multitasking, no good apps for long form writing. But I do use them as music players at home via headphones.

Tablets are for portable video consumption, crappy mobile games, and reading. Some short form writing is possible on a decent tablet.

I don’t see phones taking over much of what I use a laptop for, ever. And the screen size of even the biggest phones would suck for media management, even if it was realistic to store large amounts on one.

I’ve been a laptop-only guy for over 10 years, here’s my take:

At first, I wanted a powerful and colorful desktop computer, so I could play all the games I wanted, maybe touch on some 3D software, and overall have a cool setup. However, I couldn’t afford it at all (though times during and after the 2009 crisis, in Portugal), so I ended up just sticking with the handful of years old, 17 inch and 4Kg laptop my older brother had given me.
The years passed and I never bought a desktop. The mobility and versatility of laptops was too good to give up, and having poured many hours into configuring my system (first years of laptop-only coincided with first years of Linux, pretty much) I didn’t want to have to manage and sync two different computers. I wasn’t aware of Nix and similar OSs, but even that doesn’t solve the sync issue. Now my work requires me to take a computer with me, so I must have a laptop. I also work from home quite a lot, but I like to work outside, in the porch/garden.

Nowadays you can get really good and mobile (gaming) laptops, like the ones from XMG (and their sister brands) or even the newer Frameworks (which are also great for other obvious reasons). Even XMG laptops are quite reparable, outside of CPU/GPU failures, and DIY is supported by the seller. I’m currently rocking their XMG Fusion 15 L19 (late 2019), and am incredibly happy with my purchase, it’s still in pristine shape!

Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I think a laptop is generally a safer bet, if you know where to buy.
Happy to discuss this further! :)

Edit: Just wanted to drop an very nice laptop-focused channel: Bob Of All Trades. It seems they haven’t been very active as of late, but they were very informative and had good guides some years ago, when I was looking for a new laptop.

Just laptop. I don’t have a space for desktop, unfortunately.

Gaming PC is in the living room for gaming and media center.

Laptop in my office up stairs for programming and I use Steam Remote Play for games that require keybmouse. Its nice because I can just unplug it from my dock and head downstairs with it if I want to browse on the couch.

I have a tablet too, but that’s used solely for movies, YouTube, or when I’m DMing because the footprint is smaller.

I like having a gaming laptop as it’s easier to grab and go to game at friends’ places. Sometimes I do like to bring my desktop and set up for a good old fashioned LAN party, but other times I want something quick. I also like having a laptop for working on projects on the go, connecting to devices for projects without having to relocate my desktop, etc. Traditional smartphones are too limited for most work and are only good for web browsing and communication tasks. Linux phones are too experimental to rely on but are getting better and better. I have done quite a bit of coding on my Linux phones but their use there is still somewhat limited. I also have a Steam Deck and it is better for gaming on the couch, on the go, or in bed, but it’s not really suitable for keyboard and mouse FPS gaming and it’s not convenient to do work (such as programming) on without external peripherals.

Yes, I have both. The desktop is pretty beefy and runs Windows (for now) and is mostly used for games and Adobe stuff. The laptop is a Thinkpad running Linux Mint, and is my couch computer. I use it for normal web browsing type stuff, and for managing my home lab server that sits in a closet in my basement. I also play some lightweight games on it via Steam/proton.

Win 10 desktop for recording with Reason. Laptop running Linux Mint for everything else.

my laptop is my personal desktop ;)

I have both. I avoid using my phone for anything as much as possible. Even just general internet browsing is an absolutely chore on the phone, I’ve never understood the popularity.

Personal desktop, work laptop, personal phone and work phone.

I am on the fence about getting a laptop as well, it is just sutch a fantastic tool.

On my future laptop, if I get one, I will run Linux as it extends the functionallity of a laptop massively.

I would mostly use it for managing photos, media consumption, SDR listening, network analysis and light gaming.

At the moment I an quite happy with my personal desktop computer running Windows 10, but with the insane crap M$ is pulling with Windows 11, I even disabled the TPM in my computer to avoid W11 from installing automatically.

I do however work in IT with Windows 11, and I enjoy my job, so that won’t change.

Unless you really need some big GPU thingie… Laptops are too good nowadays.

No, laptop functions have not been offloaded to phones. Phones have simply taken time from real life interactions 😅

I use my laptop for anything that requires a real keyboard or bigger screen. Then I have my server, and my phone. So I mostly just use the laptop and the phone. I do have a dual screen phone though so that helps a bunch for multitasking.

I do have a backup laptop, which does come in handy for the rare case of, for example, making a new install.

But yeah, i feel like a laptop is an awkward middle ground between a phone and a desktop. It’s not as powerful and has a small screen, but it’s also not as portable as my phone.

Granted if i travelled more i would need a laptop, and then i would have a dock of some kind at home to extend its capabilities (USB hub, second monitor, etc)