by A.W. Mosby

Created on: April 16, 2008

Owning a computer is in many ways similar to owning a vehicle; to some it may not matter what you have because you didn't buy it for any specific purpose other than to fulfill a "just in case" situation. To others, however, a computer is much more than a nicety. Its uses span from business to gaming and word processing to media creation and editing. In this way, almost every human has some purpose to use a personal computer.

For the die-hard gamers, programmers, media freaks, and high end software users, a desktop is the best choice because of its dynamic nature of usage. While the desktop isn't particularly portable, it does make up for it with a higher capacity for necessary resources and the ability to stand up under heavy abuse. Although you may not be able to get away with putting physical strain on it, you can do much more in a technical sense than a laptop would allow. This would include:

1. Leaving the power on for long periods of time. This would not be possible on a laptop due to the lack of cooling hardware, which consequently affects everything else on-board that absorbs radiant heat. With a desktop, cooling is much more efficient and you are able to leave the PC on almost indefinately without sustaining damage.

2. Over-stressing computer resources. Again this is not possible on most laptops as opening too many programs with high memory requirements would simply cause a system crash. It is possible to do the same on a desktop; however, it will take quite a bit more to crash a desktop than it will to crash a laptop with the same specifications.

3. Customization is much less troubling on a desktop which most usually wouldnt require any modifications to the casing. Expansions are easily installed and can be done by any home user with very little know-how. A laptop does not have the physical capacity for many expansions that aren't plug-and-play; you are constrained to what the casing will allow, this means that unless you are replacing a single piece of hardware with a better one of the same dimensions, you can't do it without serious casing and board modification.

Mainly considering these three points, a desktop is the more logical choice for anyone that doesn't intend to use their PC for business or school projects.

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