Tower Vs Laptop

It was my son's birthday this last weekend.  He wanted a new computer for his birthday.  He originally wanted a laptop but as we discussed the pros and cons of this he changed his mind to buying a tower.  This got me to thinking "I wonder how many people have this same dilemma?"  So here are my thoughts on the subject.

Laptops
Laptops are great if you need a computer that you can carry.  So most of the time this means a machine that you will be using at work or school.  So it needs to be portable and enough power to get your work done.  If it is your only machine you will want a 15" screen.  I have one with a 17" screen and found it is a bit to big.  At the time it was my only computer so I got an "entertainment laptop".  What this means is that is has a bigger screen better sound and more power than a normal one.  I am not sure I will do that again.  In the future if I buy a laptop I will be going for the 15" screen.  I also want one that would be able to provide a lot of battery power.  This means I want to be able to run it on battery for several hours at least 6 hours.  Most of the time I will never need this but once in a while it is nice.  When I am at a convention or something like that 6 hours is a must.

The bad thing about laptops is that upgrading the machine is more difficult and expensive.  This is also why I don't like the all-in-one computer systems.

So my son didn't need a machine for school, he is in grade 6, so getting a laptop was silly.

Towers
Not portable at all you are working at one place.  They can have the same abilities as a laptop.  In general they are cheaper.  Actually what this means is that you can get more machine for your dollar.  One of the best things about a tower is that I can change parts.  My son's birthday gift is an excellent example.

His uncle found an older tower for him.  It had some good parts in it (power supply, case and hard drives were great).  My son, smart kid, asked for cash for his birthday from his grandparents and others.  I then took the cash and upgraded everything else on the tower.  We spent about $500 on it but in my opinion we got about a $1000 machine out of it.  Okay I admit we saved a lot of money on it because I know how to put together a tower and repair it.  I also had a old monitor laying around and his little brother bought him a keyboard and mouse.  So my son is sitting with basically a new computer.

Summary
So it all depends on if you need to carry your computer.  If you don't I really would not recommend a laptop.  As a side note I hate all-in-one computers.  They only way I would buy one is if I was really short on space.  Okay I would never buy one.


Next post I will tackle apple vs windows. (I don't have a preference)