Desktop for the win (I hate small things)

Dell's quality is excellent.

sounds good

if id have had the option again id have bought a desktop . . . . . laptop was handy when i was up at uni, it was a top of the range jobbi when i bought it . . . . dated now though and its too expensive to upgrade it, a desktop would be so much easier 2 do it ureself

The main difference would be portability.
Choose the one you prefer!

As usual, m'seu bennett's advice is spot on. Building is always better than buying with regards a pc. All pc brands have some problem or other and no pc brand suits everyone (You know, one size fits all...) When you build, you buy the components that you require to suit your purposes at a price you want to pay (or can afford), whereas branded pcs tend towards to being all things to all but nothing to none. Before you can even decide whether to procure a laptop or a desktop, you have to provide answers to very specific questions:
1. For what primary purpose are you going to use the computer?
2. How much are you willing to pay?
3. Is status an issue? (remember, there are Ferrari and Lamborghini branded laptops out there, to name a few...)
4. Is space/portability an issue?

Only once these have been answered can you even begin to make any informed decision on which route to take. Only you know what your requirements are, so we can only assist with blanket advice at this stage until you yourself narrow the comparison criteria.

As some of the other posters have mentioned, laptops are great for portability, word processing, simple database/application design/running, low to to lower medium graphical requirements, but with the constraint of battery life and higher cost etc. Oh yes, and pretty lousy graphics, and smaller hard drives. Plus you get the components that the brand install, as every device is built to a price.

The same about components pretty much goes for branded desktops.

But when you build, the sky is the limit, or your budget... Best of all, you get exactly what you pay for, which in my book is the clincher on any deal.

Actually, there are many laptops that serve well as desktop replacements and even game well.
I build my own, but it's very easy to get someone to build one for you, or buy a factory job to just about any spec.
There was a time you could save money building your won, but that's a thing of the past at the moment.
To my mind, the only issue here is portability.

That's true, I remember a classmate of mine did exactly that..they bought a laptop that was totally with the specs they wanted, and not a pre-defined one from the company...it could be costly, but you would be getting the same functionality from it as you would off a desktop, just with the portability factor...

You can get a desktop or laptop built to whatever specs you want. Desktops are easy to build yourself if you're comfortable with it, but most people wouldn't be (if you want to learn how, this forum is a great resource).

It really depends on what you want the prtability for. I personally have desktops and a laptop, I use desktops at home and my office and use my laptop for school, traveling, and those days I just don't want to get off the couch. But I also have friends in dorms/military or with jobs that require a lot of traveling that just keep a laptop.

Modern laptops can game, it will cost you more to get a system with a geforce9 or radeon3k series GPU but you'd be looking at similar pricing for an exceptionally long battery life or tablet screen. Anything that stands out from the pack will cost more, no matter what it is.

If you do most system intensive work at home anyway, but want to be able to work on projects around the house/town I'd say get a budget laptop and a good desktop.

If you do everything around the house, just get a desktop.

If you do all your intensive projects away from home (graphics assignments at school, gaming away from the house, ripping movies at friends houses, ect...) I'd say get a good laptop and keep your current desktop around for a while.

You should probably just shop around for desktops and laptops, if you see a desktop you fall in love with buy it, and the smame for laptops. If you decide down the road that you need both I don't see how it could hurt to break up the investment.

Thanks, I will start a thread on that now...