It's hard to say.

At the moment I only have a laptop, easier for me with the fact I am moving around a lot at Uni and it allows me to have access to things when I need them.

But a desktop does have the advantage of upgrading when you want to and you can tinker with things a bit more (and generally better support for *nix)

But then my laptop has a lot of things integrated, usb/firewire/bluetooth/wireless/ethernet/card reader etc. Which does make me feel like I am buying a well rounded system as opposed to a box with parts in...

I tend to use a laptop for everything and upgrade them. For example this L2005CL has an upgraded hard drive 160g, upgraded ram (all the way), upgraded Turion MT-36 and upgraded DVD-DLx8 lightscribe burner.

At the end of these somewhat extended life cycles (4 years) I tend to go for AMD dual or quad core Laptop Chips, (Maybe AMD Video next time) SATA drives (I hope external SATA ports appear on laptops).

I can't upgrade the motherboard and LCD but I can dock them via the Expansion Port or USB.

And I buy the most common brand that has the batteries and parts. I am very selective about the motherboard and LCD/Video since they have to last the longest.

Now if we can only get HP to install a Linux on their laptops. Now I just take a live kubuntu disk make sure that works before sale then put openSuSE on.

Hasta Le Vista Baby!

I mean, if someone really needs mobility, than he doesn't even have a choice, only laptop will do. But for anything else, and especially 16hr/day computing/playing/whatever, desktop rules. MNSHO.

[ ...typing this on 22", two 320GB SATA disks in mirror, 2GB RAM... ]
--
www.linuxinsight.com

masalai

wherever you are clevo is the maker of what I have. for the fiddlers & upgraders try their amd with 2 x hdd (mine is 100g each, dual dvd drives, 4G ram & modest nvidia geforce go 7900 with 256mb feeding a 17inch 1920 x 1200 lcd screen plus your other little bits & pieces. Even when I could not afford a notebook and used a 'mini-tower' I found that I replaced before the need to tinker/upgrade the internals.

I have found the screen better on these aging eyes & even movies are OK with the note on my belly in bed!

A recent contract to the tropics of PNG made me happy with my AMD core as the apples & Multiple Sclerosis people using intel on top of fan mounted stands warning that my machine would die from the excessive heat. I went bush for a couple of days, with the machine left on so a friend could use it in my absence - no problems. So why the need for a BIG box.

use the web and find that which meets your needs.

Go linux