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Old 11-04-17, 07:18 AM   #14
Rockin Robbins
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: DeLand, FL
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I'm not a laptop guy at all. Desktops are the only long-term computing solution there is because each component is standardized, with dozens or hundreds of companies competing to produce that part better and cheaper.

If my GPU takes a crap I have hundreds of choices, each of which will plug in and just work. Motherboard? Same. Memory? Same. Optical Drive? Same. All components are instantly available, cheap and better quality than a laptop.

My main computer, which has had a motherboard malfunction, was built in 2007. Since then it has had three motherboards, six processors, four video cards, at least half a dozen RAM configurations.....it goes on and on. A desktop is forever rebuildable, forever reconfigurable, forever useful.

Standard practice for even a high end laptop is that all parts are proprietary, no sources available except for the OEM, and they only stock parts for a year. After that, as parts sell out they will never again be available. Your $1000 laptop becomes a boat anchor. It will NEVER be worth using in ten years, as my desktop has been.

I fix laptops. Every time I get tempted by one of those pretty things, I am reminded, by having to tell a customer that they are the proud owner of an expensive paperweight, that I don't want one. For $400 I can see having one. For the over $2000 that Microsoft wants for theirs that you can't replace an SSD, RAM, a keyboard or display panel in, no thanks. Consumer Reports says a quarter of them won't last a year.
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