If you were in the market of replacement computer what would you chose and why?

I recently changed my system and went for a laptop. The reason was mainly down to my three year old son (I know blame someone else). I did not need to change due to a speed or capacity issues, my system was fine. It was down to the problems caused by my son repeatedly powering it off by either switching it off at the wall socket or pulling the power cable out of the back. Due to lack of space there is no where I can hide the base unit so it was impossible to keep little hands off. After three months of this, 4 rebuilds I decided enough was enough. Having been a desktop chap for the last 8 years moving to a laptop did not seem like a good idea but I could not face another system rebuild.

Finding replacement was fun but thats another story. I am not a gamer so I did not need to worry about the speed of the screen or graphics. My only concern was that it had a decent display which was rich in colour, enough memory accommodate the next release of Windows (or whatever) plus my office suite.

Now my son cannot get to the machine and it can be left on all day without a second thought, no more rebuilds (except when XP has a funny moment).

Are laptops ready to replace desktops, no. There are still the issue of heat and the speed of the display refresh, get these sorted out an I'd say yes.

Si

It has got to be a spanking new PC !! Laptops are so, erm..non-configurable. Sure, you can carry them from room to room (although have you seen the new PC media boxes?) and they sit nicely on you lap BUT can you whack a massive 256mb graphics card in, upgrade the RAM to 4Gb, change the monitor size ?? No, you can't.

Laptops have their uses but I will stick to my trusty PCs any day.

AMD or Intel?

Hey PCHFers!

This is a conversation that bears bringing up again. Si brings up a very good family oriented reason to move into a laptop.

Old thread, yes, but good tip none the less.

Any other input on families, toddlers, and computers?

Let's hear what your experiences are.

LGW

One way you can sort this problem is to build a PC with a case which has door over the power buttons and then cover up the back somehow.