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Portables Hardware

Laptops Outsell Desktops in Retail Stores 347

Posted by CmdrTaco from the paying-twice-as-more-for-half-as-fast dept.
TechnoPope writes "According to this article on MSNBC.Com, laptop computers accounted for 54 percent of of 500 Million in retail computer sales last year. Also mentioned was that LCD's outsold CRT's in retail as well. "
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Laptops Outsell Desktops in Retail Stores More

Laptops Outsell Desktops in Retail Stores

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  • Outsold in dollars not units. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snags ( 18929 ) * on Thursday July 03, 2003 @03:58PM (#6361980) Journal
    Not included in the article is discussion of the fact that, per unit, more desktops/CRTs are sold than laptops/LCDs because of the costs. When people buy more laptops/LCDs despite the price, then I'll be impressed.
    • Ummm. . . Actually if you were paying attention to the article you'll see that at least with the LCD's they seem to be refering to % of total sales not the value of said sales. (i.e. In May 2002, LCDs were only 22 percent of total monitor sales, said NPD. This past May, that more than doubled to 52 percent.) Admitidly though the article was a bit more ambiguous with the PC/Laptop sales and I can see how that one could be read either way.
      • The article did seem vague. But going to NPD's press release [npd.com] on the study, the Desktop/Laptop numbers were for dollars while the CRT/LCD numbers were for units. I am duly impressed with LCDs.

        Now, I'll be impressed when there are more LCDs in use than CRTs.

        • Pipe dreams... (Score:3, Funny)

          by Archfeld ( 6757 ) *
          Couldn't pay me enough to give up my CRT. A laptop I have for the sheer convenience and mobility, I need an over-priced UNDER performing ONLY MADE in a a few places in ASIA LCD, like our CEO needs another bonus, and HE DOESN'T. They've been trying like crazy for several years now to convince people that LCD is 'DIGITAL' and there fore somehow better than a CRT...
    • Outsold in dollars may be important to R&D people (rather than consumers), as they're likely to spend a greater percentage of their development efforts on the products that make companies the most money. So this could be the real tipping point where LCDs start coming down in price quickly.

  • LCDs outselling CRTs? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @03:59PM (#6361996) Homepage
    Now that LCD monitors are getting more and more affordable, of course the better technology will sell over the lesser. As far as laptops over desktops, I believe large corporations account for the majority of computer purchases and from what I have seen in my own company, everyone gets a laptop and a docking station (to simulate a desktop).
    • dude. the article was about retail, not corporate bulk
    • I would not be surprised if flat screen displays doesn't reverse the trend of laptop sales out pacing desktops. The main reason for buying a laptop is size. In most companies the cost of having people move CRTs around the office is more than price differential between lap tops and desktops. It costs about $20 more to ship a computer with a 17" CRT than a laptop.

      Personally, I wish more PC manufacturers would get a clue and adopt some of the space saving features of laptops and produce smaller desktop model

      • Re:LCDs outselling CRTs? (Score:3, Informative)

        by dago ( 25724 )
        In most (big enough) companies, desktop pc are standardized and administrated as a bunch of them. You can usually walk to any desk and get your dekstop and files there. No need to move them.

        Smaller Form Factor : did you saw SFF pc from dell/compaq (for the OEM) ? ever heard about shutlle barebones (for the DIY) ?

  • this may just be a phase. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 2MuchC0ffeeMan ( 201987 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:00PM (#6362007) Homepage
    weren't computer sales down 6 months ago?

    corporations don't have the money to upgrade anymore, that's a big bulk of a downcline in desktop sales...

    and, universities would rather use laptops rather than desktops becuase of space and power requirements.

  • It's a misleading title...sales $ vs. units (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:00PM (#6362011) Journal
    I read this yesterday and thought "whoah! More laptops than desktops!" but after reading the article I became aware that the money brought in from laptop sales was more than the money brought in from desktops. Considering the average laptop costs twice as much as the average desktop, you've still got roughly a 2-1 ratio of desktop units sold over laptops.
    • Not to mention the fact that there's almost no upgrades you can do, besides maybe memory and the hard drive. Need a new computer? Gotta buy a whole new one! My old Thinkpad is nice, but for home use I'll stick to my desktop. MUCH cheaper that way.
      • "Not to mention the fact that there's almost no upgrades you can do, besides maybe memory and the hard drive. Need a new computer? Gotta buy a whole new one! My old Thinkpad is nice, but for home use I'll stick to my desktop. MUCH cheaper that way."

        Yeah, but's it's much easier to sell and old and crappy laptop than it is an old and crappy desktop. When I had this old 486 laptop to sell, I posted a little low profile one line ad in the university newspaper and I got maybe 15 enquiries about it in 1 week.

    • " Considering the average laptop costs twice as much as the average desktop, you've still got roughly a 2-1 ratio of desktop units sold over laptops. "

      Perhaps. However, laptops have overcome many of the hurdles that used to hold them back. LCDs are good enough that they update quickly with good color. They come with 3D cards now, allowing for game play plus 3D art generation. They have large hard drives and can come with generous amounts of RAM. Plus, they all come together in one neat little package

      • I don't think it'll be too long before everybody is choosing laptops over desktops. Sooner or later, portability is more interesting than a few hundred megahertz.

        I don't know how it is other places, but where I work laptops are really taking over, for convenience and quiet. Sometimes you need to go work with somebody in a lab. Or during a meeting you want to take notes (or look like you're taking notes while actually getting work done). And then obviously there's travel. And work from home. The price

        • I can think of several reasons why I haven't bought a laptop, and probably won't for a long while.

          Ergonomics: Laptop keyboards *suck*. Also, bring your own mouse to plugin, because laptop 'touch mice' are a joke too.

          Sound: Laptop speakers just ain't gonna reproduce sound as well as seperate speakers. You could plugin headphones, of course, or speakers, but then you might as well just use a desktop PC as they're not easily portable.

          Upgrades: What upgrades? You can't upgrade a laptop like you can a PC.

  • Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:00PM (#6362014)
    People want mobility with out sacrificing performace. Todays laptops seem to do that nicely, especially Apple's power books. I never liked palm pilots but laptops are quite nice on the average. I just wish heat wasn't such an issue. I used to have an Acer laptop 5-6 year ago and it left burns on my lap after an hour or so of use.

    • Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Insightful)

      by EnsignExtra ( 667953 )
      Still desktops generally have faster HDD speeds. I've seen a notebook with a 5400rpm drive, but it's still slower than desktop drives. On the subject of heat, I worked for a large computer manufacturer and we were stricly enjoined from calling them "laptops" for that very reason! They are mobile computers or notebook computers.

      • A true LAPtop (Score:2, Insightful)

        by SunPin ( 596554 )
        The Sony Picturebook is the only true laptop I've come across. It's a great little machine. The battery power lasts at least 12 hours (quad battery) and it generates *no* significant heat. Being in a wheelchair, I'm always critical of the term for exactly the reason you mentioned. Most of the laptops sold today might not be safe on a wooden table, like alone your lap.

  • just a theory... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thoolihan ( 611712 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:00PM (#6362016) Homepage
    Is this a sign that 'joe user' starting to realize that software is no longer requiring upgrades every 6 months? (ease of Desktop ugrade is no longer a driving factor)...

    -t
    • Is this a sign that 'joe user' starting to realize that software is no longer requiring upgrades every 6 months? (ease of Desktop ugrade is no longer a driving factor)...

      This is such an ignorant generalization. Firstly if you are a gamer then you still need to upgrade every 6 months to keep up with the jones's (I get away with upgrading evey two years tho).

      Secondly, if this a thinly veiled attack at M$ bloat then it doesn't make sense, when was windows xp released ?, when will the next windows be relea

  • Same article, different format (Score:5, Informative)

    by krs-one ( 470715 ) <(vic) (at) (openglforums.com)> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:01PM (#6362020) Homepage Journal
    Pretty much the same article on CNN, but a little nicer format with less intrusive ads: CNN's article [cnn.com]

    -Vic

  • In dollars, not units.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:01PM (#6362021)
    Bearing in mind that desktops are cheaper, and that you can upgrade them more easily using off the shelf components, this doesn't mean that all of a sudden the world+dog are switching to laptops, especially not first time computer buyers looking for a family pc.

  • Homebuilts - (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jpsst34 ( 582349 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:01PM (#6362024) Journal
    I wonder how many PC users build their own - as in what percentage of desktop's are homebuilt, since these don't figure into the "retail PC sales" numbers.

    In our little geek world, I'm sure the percentage of homebuilts is very high. But in the "real world," I wonder where that percentage falls to. I wonder if homebuilts account for enough to push laptop sales back under 50%, thus negating this /. story.

    • Re:Homebuilts - (Score:4, Informative)

      by mercuryresearch ( 680293 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:19PM (#6362245) Journal
      It's a very small number. I research this stuff for a living, and 2% of people with PCs even open the case to upgrade graphics cards each year. Building your own system was less than 1% of PCs a few years ago, and that's when you actually saved money with DIY PCs.

      With system prices now, unless you have components to reuse, it actually costs you money to build it yourself (i.e. buying a prebuilt Dell is cheaper than the prices of the components bought individually in low quantities.) Of course there are other (better) reasons to build your own system than just the money involved.

  • portability + power=profit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:02PM (#6362026) Journal
    I never thought notebooks were that usefull until I got one myself. Its almost as powerfull as my desktop,but portable and more comfortable to use. Which makes me wonder if a stupider labtop that simply connects to a more powerful desktop would be even more usefull. I guess they still need to workout the bandwidth and display issues.
    • I have never understood the idea that laptops are more comfortable than desktops. My forearms are resting on my chair's armrests, my 21" monitor is at eye level. Try that with a laptop (sans docking station).

  • A hidden reason (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ignorant Aardvark ( 632408 ) * <cydeweys@noSpAm.gmail.com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:02PM (#6362030) Homepage Journal
    We all know that porn drives all the technological progress we evidence around us. What do you think the first telescopic lens was made for? To look at the sky? Hah! Gallileo happened to have a really attractive woman living next door.

    So it should be no surprise that laptops are outselling personal computers, because they are much more suited for the Viewing Of and Whacking Off To porn. Personal computers are large, unwieldy, and it's easy to get caught "doing the nasty" in front of them. Not so with laptops, in my personal opinion. They're portable, and can be transferred to anywhere in the house (along with thier pornographic contents) for ease of masturbation.

    What sort of innovations does the future hold? I can't say for sure. But I can say for certain that they will bring pornography to us in more detail than ever before.

    • Re:A hidden reason (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hans Lipperhey of Middelburg invented the telescope in October 1608. Galileo did not construct one until June or July 1609. These dates are even more difficult to ensure since Sidereus Nuncius was not published until March 1610. Regardless, any advantage that Galileo had in terms of quality or power was lost by 1611. Maybe he was a pervert, but like most perverts he was only creative with known tools.

    • Re:A hidden reason (Score:4, Funny)

      by lactose99 ( 71132 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @06:17PM (#6363356)
      Galileo lived around the age of the Renissance. Women, particularly in Italy, were considered beautiful if they were big, or at least full-figured. I don't think Galileo would have needed a telescopic lens to see his "really attractive woman living next door" under those circumstances.

      Rather, I suspect Galileo was more interested in checking out the beautiful Amazonian women on neighboring planets.

  • Steve Jobs = Nostradamus? (Score:5, Funny)

    by tweder ( 22759 ) <stwede@noSpAM.gmail.com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:02PM (#6362039) Homepage
    And here I thought Steve Jobs was simply weilding the "Reality Distortion Field " when he declared this year as "The Year of the Laptop."

  • But Still... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rocket97 ( 565016 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:03PM (#6362044)
    I am sure that there are more *new* desktops in use than there are laptops. You have to take into the account the amount of people that build their own desktops as compared to those who build laptops (not too many people that I know of build their own laptops). I would say give it a few more years and then I can see laptops truly outselling desktops.

  • And this is a suprise? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by infonography ( 566403 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:03PM (#6362050) Homepage
    As far as I've seen Desktop buyers almost routinely build their own. Even non-'IT professionals' are building them. I don't know many people building laptops for fun.
    • You know a lot of very nerdy people if desktop buyers "routinely" build their own machines. I don't have numbers, but I'm sure the percent of people who build versus buy is miniscule. I know a lot of people with desktops, only of them was homemade. Most people aren't interested in the hassle for little reward.

  • Microsoft must be so happy.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ozzy_ball ( 675566 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:04PM (#6362054)
    ... since almost all laptops are guaranteed to be running some form of Windows. I'll buy one when they ship it to me with FreeBSD installed.

  • My theory (Score:4, Funny)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <mrpuffypants@gm a i l . c om> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:04PM (#6362060)
    Once again proving my time tested old theory:

    The fatter and older we nerds get, the slimmer and younger our computer get.

    • Re:My theory (Score:3, Funny)

      by hendridm ( 302246 )

      > The fatter and older we nerds get, the slimmer and younger our computer get.

      Which proves my theory, that Germans love David Hasselhoff.

  • Cash amount, not number of units... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Man Eating Duck ( 534479 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:06PM (#6362079)

    I read this as "Higher number of laptops than desktops".
    As laptops generally cost a lot more, it's not that surprising. I also think that laptops are most popular among business / professional users (who can afford the higher price for increased convenience), while the vast majority of home users have desktops as their primary /only computer.

    Could something similar be the case with the LCD's?

    Pardon my English...

  • Who here is in love with their laptop? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:07PM (#6362089) Journal
    I cannot imagine computing without them. I carry mine around almost everywhere I can. Sitting back in a cafe typing out code before a friend shows up or playing a game. I use mine everywhere.

    It is also nice to be able to sit the thing in my lap and sit in the same room as my wife and hold down a conversation instead of being relegating to one room while I aimlessly surf.

    Any others? Who loves having a laptop?

    • I rather enjoy any time I spend in a computer-free environment. I do other things like talk to people, watch people, have a drink, breathe the fresh air. I cannot succumb to the temptation to check my e-mail/Slashdot every 5 minutes, or play a game.

      It is also nice to be able to sit the thing in my lap and sit in the same room as my wife and hold down a conversation instead of being relegating to one room while I aimlessly surf.

      I think the key here is to not "aimlessly surf". Unless your wife is a hor
      • Trust me... if/when you get married you will continue to aimlessly surf, if only to come up with new and interesting things to talk about with your wife. After being married for a year, my daily grind drivel is only so interesting to the one person who's listened to it every day.

        IMO aimless surfing can be a mind-expansive activity if done to do more than simply waste time.
    • I'm trying to get a job that would involve an hour trip in a train each way, and I'm thinking of getting a laptop for that, just to do some gaming and/or web work done on the train to ease the boredom. Just a thought at the moment, which may give way to an iPod and a book... :)

  • And where do all those laptops go? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Minwee ( 522556 ) <dcr@neverwhen.org> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:07PM (#6362095) Homepage
    That's hardly surprising. How often do you think people replace a stolen desktop?
  • In other news today, the President of the United States is George Bush! More News at 11:00.
  • It's not surprising when you think about how much the price gap between laptops and comparably equipped desktops (with a 15"-17" monitor) cost.

    As a recent p-4 2.4ghz with 15" screen laptop only runs about $1100, a comparable desktop (retail) runs close to $1000, why not get it in a portable package?

    ( OK, a hardcore gamer who wants to swap in a $400 graphics card would not want this... But somtimes you just need to use a machine to accomplish work, learn, communicate, etc. honest...)

    Kremvax
  • Personally the demise (or semi-demise) of the desktop market will be a sad day for me - it'l mean cheaper laptops for sure, but it means that to do the following i'll have to pay a fortune for server hardware which no longer benefits from having commonalities with desktop parts. Laptop hardware (at least at present) can't meet these requirements:

    Easy and cheap to replace one part only when it breaks.
    Cant run for days (currently at 48d 7h here) under high load without overheating.
    Means you have to buy _two_
  • less people actually need a new desktop, and more people want a laptop to go to college, to haul around for business, etc. I know since getting my thinkpad (used, not retail) i rarely use my desktop.

  • LCD's are cheap (Score:5, Informative)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <vasqzr@noSpaM.netscape.net> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:12PM (#6362143)

    I got an email from TigerDirect today.

    LCD specials [tigerdirect.com]

    14" for $159
    15" for $219
    17" for $319
    Do we see 17" LCD's for $249 this Holiday season?

    LCD's are great for multiple monitor set ups, your desk doesn't collapse like with CRTs. Then again, your colors don't quite match up either...

    • Re:LCD's are cheap (Score:3, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      We do multi-LCD demos on the road, our software uses 3 concurrent screens. They match up fine IF you buy 3 of the exact same make and model and production run.

      One of our demo screens died, and we pretty much wound up replacing all three, because the replacement (same make and model) didnt match color-wise.

      LCDs are nice desktop displays for most work. But the fixed resolutions, ghosting, and color problems will keep CRTs around for a while to come. They're a slowly expanding niche market, IMO.
    • Those are great prices, but 25ms response time and no DVI port explain the cost reduction. And huge white borders around the LCD, while designed to give the illusion of a brighter display, also serve to make it feel smaller. Huge borders also make for less practical multi-monitor setups.

      Still, for those who have to reclaim desktop space, reduce electric bills and ambient temperatures (say in a corporate environment where the aggregrate of dozens of LCDs can save mucho in utilities bills over the long run)

  • Unsatisfied customers! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:12PM (#6362153)
    Yeah, LCDs outsold CRTs, but how many of the LCD owners are unsatisfied with their slower responding pixels and limited viewing angle?

    Every day where I work, users are saying they want an LCD monitor for their workstation. Of course, we have no money in the budget for that, so I have to tell them 'no', but they don't know that the LCDs have downfalls. They just think that they are 'Cool'.
    • Well, "cool" sells! How do you think smokers learned to smoke?

    • Actually, I bought a LCD at the beginning of May, and I am quite satisfied with it. There's only a slight pixel lag which is most noticeable when scrolling webpages. (No joke!) I can't even notice the lag when playing games or movies. As for the viewing angle, I have no problems whatsoever. I can look at my screen from pretty much anywhere and have no problems.

      20 watt power consumption, reduced heat radiation, and smaller footprint on my desktop all while having sharper text than before? Sign me up :D

    • Re:Unsatisfied customers! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pmz ( 462998 )
      ...they don't know that the LCDs have downfalls.

      For most professionals, there are no downsides for LCDs. Most jobs don't require super-accurate colors or ultra-small pixels (although Apple seems satisifed with LCDs), nor have I noticed problems viewing good LCDs from angles.

      LCDs are appropriate for every non-gaming non-animation task I can think of, right now.

  • totally obvious (Score:2, Interesting)

    by undoman ( 9820 )
    With wireless networking beeing around - this was becoming totally obvious. if you would ask me to expend 2k euro on a small and superflat laptop just for surfing, mail and irc.. i would say yessss!
  • Well . . .

    Maybe because more people are realizing it is a better idea to build their own desktop PCs from retail parts rather than buying an Expensive, Non-Upgrade-Friendly, Pre-Windows-Loaded Piece of Junk.

    And They can't build their own Laptops. :(

  • wrong (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    they compare laptops vs. desktops by looking at sales, not units sold. where i work we buy machines every week, and while we buy 2 times more desktops than laptops, the totals are the same. i think that's because laptops have a longer lifespan. ppl say: i'm going to throw out that extra 500$ for that up-to-date model since it will be harder for me to upgrade later. same thing for CRT vs LCD, we bought a 19' lcd for trade shows and we could have bought a shitload of 19' crt for that price.

    desktops still rul

    • Re:wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @05:16PM (#6362837)
      I agree "outselling" is ambiguous, but you goofed by saying desktops still "rule the market." A market is *always* measured in dollars, not units. Otherwise one would say that the market for automobiles is dwarfed by the market for M&Ms.

  • One reason for this (Score:3, Informative)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:28PM (#6362339)
    If I buy something with an LCD screen, I want to see it fired up first with an all black, then an all white screen to make sure none of the pixels are defective (yes, my current laptop has 1 green pixel that is on all the time, and it's annoying as heck!) Don't have this problem with CRTs...

  • laptops outsell desktops, except that they don't (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:32PM (#6362374)
    laptop computers accounted for 54 percent of of 500 Million in retail computer sales last year

    But if you look at the statement, they only say that laptops accounted for 54% of $ of retail sales. Given that laptops are generally more expensive, desktops still outsold laptops in numbers. Add to that the average guy can build his own desktop, which is not counted in these numbers, but cannot build his own laptop or notebook, and the actual number of desktops as well as dollars spent on desktops far exceeded laptops.

    So they can twist sales numbers to say what they want, even if it isn't accurate. What else is new? And who really cares?

  • Portability is the new killer app (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot AT elliotjohnson DOT com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:46PM (#6362521) Homepage
    I bet laptops will continue to gain market share over desktops. For most people a good laptop has more than enough power to use office apps, Internet and maybe the odd game. And that's all most people need to do with their computers.

    Now that you don't have to sacrifice power and performance for portability in any significant way, why would you bother buying a desktop other than cost? So I think a lot of people are thinking that getting a desktop that they can only use in one location is a major drawback.

    Personally, I've been drooling over the new Apple G5s, but I really think my next computer will be another Powerbook. I take my TiBook everywhere with me, and with WIFI at home and work, I can use it all day. If I buy a desktop for home, I won't get to use it for most of my day.

  • Laptops and LCDs are economically justified... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vudufixit ( 581911 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:57PM (#6362618)

    Real estate is more expensive than
    computers. And getting more expensive.
    Computers get less expensive, at least
    expressed as computing power and features
    for a given amount of dollars.
    Businesses want cubicles to stay small
    (or get smaller) and people with home offices
    want to make maximum use of that space.
    It makes perfect sense on that basis.
    However, I think there a lot of downsides
    to laptops that overzealous desktop replacers don't see, including proprietary components,
    vulnerability to physical damage and theft,
    and relative difficulty of backing up whole
    hard drives.

  • Laptops are convenient. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:58PM (#6362632)
    Does anyone else think that laptops could be gaining ground simply because of the overall convenience of having a small computer with a built-in screen that can be carried around? Aside from hard-core gamers, not too many consumers have a need for a desktop and a large screen. It also saves one from having a big ugly desktop and monitor sitting around, which is nice from a aesthetics perspective, especially in apartments.

  • Possible reasons (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @05:02PM (#6362681)
    Before anyone jumps to grand conclusions about what this means vis a vis desktops vs laptops:

    I don't see anyone noting how laptops are inherently hard to upgrade. If your laptop is sluggish, you basically have two options: 1) add more RAM, and if that fails, 2) buy a new laptop. Whereas, with desktop PCs, you have several more options, like upgrading the CPU or buying a new graphics card. This means that the average desktop will have a longer upgradeable life than the average laptop.

    A related factor is that the average desktop for under $1000 is way more powerful than the average $2000 laptop. So a desktop bought today is much less likely to be made obsolete by horsepower requirements within a given time frame than a laptop also bought today, if only because it has more horsepower right out of the box, even if that desktop costs a lot less.

    And because of the inherent cost differential, people who can afford to buy laptops can afford to upgrade them faster.

    Also, many people who buy laptops buy it for the chic factor, so they're going to upgrade (i.e. buy a new laptop) sooner than those people who buy the decidedly unchic desktop.

    Laptops are undeniably at least partly about image, and people consume them every bit as conspicuously (and in the very same places !) as people consumed Filofaxes, cell phones, and PDAs before. And I've noticed many smirks or at least raised eyebrows when someone trundles in a 3-year old, heavy-as-hell-with-passive-matrix-screen laptop into a meeting. And many if not most of the laptop-advocates here are familiar with the satisfaction of hauling in the newest, coolest laptop, hearing the oohs-and-ahhs and having the neatest toy in the board room for the next month or so.
  • But seriously... I wonder what the statistics are of the amount of PC's bought in retail compared to on-line and how many specifically how many laptops vs. desktops are bought retail vs. on-line. Stastics show whatever the collector wants them to show. Here's some interesting points to think about... - How many of those laptops were purchased by people already owning desktops from previous years - People tend to want to purchase a laptop from a retail location because they can "feel" the product, where

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