Latest Update: 25 August 2021
When it comes to the decision of laptop vs desktop, our preference is always desktop. The desk life isn’t for everyone though. Some people need to move around a lot – maybe they need to visit clients often, maybe their work involves flying between provinces every now and then, and most recently, some people just aren’t sure when they’ll be working from the office and when they’ll need to work from home.
For people like this, a laptop really is the only reasonable option. Laptops do have their drawbacks, but there are a few things you can look for to give yourself a better time when shopping for a laptop.
Main Components
It’s really tempting to just go for the most affordable i7 you can get your hands on, but that’s not the most effective way to choose a computer. RAM and graphics card are other important considerations. Depending on which programs you plan on using, they might even need priority over the CPU.
You should also pay attention to which generation of CPU is in whichever laptop you may be looking at. At the time of writing, Intel is on it’s 11th generation, and AMD is in its 5000 series. Anything older and you won’t be getting the performance you expect or are paying for.
As you can see, a newer i7 (11800H) greatly outperforms even an i9 of the previous generation. The 11th gen i5 isn’t far off from the older i9 either.
keep in mind that these two generations were released only one year apart.
You’ll want to do some research to figure out what you’ll need for the programs you’re using, but this can be quite time consuming. There’s a pretty simple solution to save you all that time though. We’ve got a lot of experience with different software, and we can quickly help you figure out the ideal specs for you.
Everything else
There are of course some other specs that can narrow down the choice of laptop vs desktop. Storage is one of these considerations. It used to be a choice between speed and capacity, but at this point in time, we’d recommend speed in almost every situation. Laptops these days are often fitted with NVMe SSDs that are both ridiculously fast and have enough storage that it’s not a compromise at all.
The size of the display is also something to think about. Smaller laptops are a lot more convenient, but larger laptops are able to fit in higher performance components – graphics cards in particular. Smaller laptops have a greater variety of accessories available, like bags and sleeves, but they also don’t have much space for cooling.
Apart from the size of the display, some laptops also feature better displays than others. Some laptops have higher framerates, such as 144Hz rather than the standard 60Hz. Some even have up to 300Hz! There are also higher resolution monitors, all the way up to 4K. These features aren’t important for everyone, and might be added costs for features you don’t need, but these features are extremely useful for a lot of people.
Closing thoughts
Laptops don’t make for as easy a buying experience as desktops, since they’re all sold as pretty much complete units with limited customisation available. Marketing tends to add a lot of confusion to that mix.
Like with any other purchase, we’d recommend doing thorough research before putting your money down on a new laptop.
We’d love to help you greatly cut down that time, and we’ll even give you a free consultation. You can tell us about the programs you plan on using, your budget, and any aesthetic preference you may have, and we’ll figure out exactly the kind of laptop that would help you get the most work done in the least amount of time.
2 thoughts on “Laptop vs Desktop”
I have recently bought a Laptop and would like to get a CAD expert’s opinion on it.
who can i mail the Specs to?
Hi Louis, you can contact me at kaamraan@modenacomputers.com. I’d be really happy to help you out.