Thread: Laptop vs Desktop

For laptop pros: often have exceptionally complete ACPI support allowing sleep, suspend, hibernate, battery/ac power monitoring, device activity, thermal monitoring, cpu throttling, device wake up, etc.

For laptop cons: sometimes have exotic/proprietary devices/drivers.

Also, I think docking stations help with the easily removed pro. I can take the laptop in, and leave everything hooked up and undisturbed in the vehicle with a port replicator/docking station.

For desktop cons: often more heat (although my laptop get's plenty hot too)

Actually, I think it's hard to make generalizations on many of these things. All can be overcome for either given time and money. I am assuming that more time/money equals con?

Desktop cons:
Generally more expensive and more complicated powering solutions (Opus PSU, shut down regulators, etc.)

Laptop pros:
Most modern laptops come with built-in wireless cards

Equipment prices favor desktops... Laptop parts are generally more expensive than the same spec desktop part.

I've been a long advocate for laptop systems. Let's see some easilly recognizable advantages:

Laptop Pro's:
- They come complete and ready out of the box
- Low power consumption
- Built-in screen (or video card that allows at least VGA out, sometimes S-video or composite too)
- Small in size
- Easilly powered and have internal battery for standby needs
- Shock-resistand hard drives
- Easy to add hardware
- Easy to remove the whole system
- Less worrying about overheating

Laptop Cons
- Hard to fix, rare spare parts (although not so with modern laptops)
- Won't let you do major upgrades like CPU or video card (let's face it, is that even a factor when chosing your system?)
- Easier to steal
- Usually inferior sound/video cards (but personally I hardly feel any difference)


Let's say you're on a budget. You need a simple system to play your music and do some GPS navigating. Do you chose to spend time and educate yourself on the ins and outs of building, powering and setting up a desktop (or those mini board things) or would you buy a cheap Pentium III laptop for $250? I'd chose the latter, so much easier.

One more thing you're forgetting. Tablet PCs have even bigger advantage:
- Small size
- Built-in touchscreen
- Same advantages as a laptop

Tablets are so easy to install and use, they are small enough that you don't even have to remove the housing, just use the whole thing as your screen. Or if you want to fabricate it into your dash, nothing is easier! OK, higher end tablets are expensive. But if you're like me, and don't need to watch DVDs or play Half Life 2 in your car, then you can easilly afford $300 on a Pentium II tablet, it will do most things you need.

My current setup cost me $90. Yes, you heard that right, includes shipping. It's a Pentium 166 with 32 mb of RAM and 7 GB hard drive. It runs Windows 98SE, has USB ports, Winamp is my front-end. I can listen to music and use GPS at the same time, I can use steering wheel controls with it. I can browse the web and wardrive with it. Wifi is there. I can put my main 2.8 GHz laptop on the back seat and remote control it from a touchscreen tablet in my dash via either LAN or WiFi. It's the ultimate budget pc, not to mention it sounds great and is incredibly stable and fast for what it is.


Oh, and my LCD is 10 inches, not 7 Bigger is better, if you ask me

Deleted some posts due to non-FAQ discussion.

Originally Posted by TruckinMP3

Equipment prices favor desktops... Laptop parts are generally more expensive than the same spec desktop part.

True but the large availability of USB2 & Firewire devices these days help offset that quite a bit. I'm assuming your referring to peripheral add-ons as opposed to replacement parts.

Originally Posted by shotgunefx

True but the large availability of USB2 & Firewire devices these days help offset that quite a bit. I'm assuming your referring to peripheral add-ons as opposed to replacement parts.

Initial purchase and replacement/upgrade.

using a mobile designed computer in a mobile installation just makes sense...all of the things that make a laptop mobile are the things that make them benificial for in car use..... much lower power requirements& lower heat...two major hurdles in a carpc install..not to mention smaller....you can ALWAYS find a dc/dc solution.....of course there are unique problems that have to be overcome...but I think a laptop can make a better install than a desktop in most situations..

better doesn't usually come cheaper though...unless you can use the screen in your install...then the bang for the buck definatly goes way up......alot of the times this isn't practical ...unless you want to do a lot more work or settle for a getto install in most cases...although there are exceptions....

Sometimes you can get deals on laptops with busted screens on ebay. This is a good deal for you if you are going to put your own screen in anyways.