For reliability and price/performance, desktops are the way to go. For websurfing at Starbucks, use a laptop.
Thanks. Based on what I see on Dell site, instead of a pricey laptop, I could buy a reasonable powered desktop and another medium powered laptop for the same price or + few bucks more. Thanks again for your inputs.
For price/performance, yes, but not sure about reliability. I've had 3 IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads (T-series) over the past decade and never had a single issue with any of them other than that the sound occasionally drops on my current T430. My main concern with reliability is data loss. But get a good SSD and your data should survive a drop from the top of a 2 story parking garage. Laptops would certainly be more reliable in the event of power loss. My 4 year old laptop still runs 3-4 hours on battery.
Presuming your "mobility" needs are more about fun and convenience than serious workload, that's what I would do. Get a quality workstation for a low price and then whatever laptop would be capable enough. A higher-end laptop would likely cost more than a "workstation + convenient laptop". Speaking of "higher-end laptops"... my wife works at a university. All of the "educators" simply must have a Mac, you understand. So she bought one too. I thought it would be a bit more than the Windows version @~$1,300. But when she told me she paid $4,000 I was floored. She's had it a while... complains about it often... says she'll get a Windows one next time. As for me, I have a workstation laptop which I use occasionally. It retailed for >$3,000 when new. I bought it off lease for $475. Difficult to justify the high price of some laptops.)
I am amazed that Apple can charge such a high premium for their laptops. I'd never buy one. Just the fact that they can decide to drop OS upgrade support for their products after only 3 or 4 years is enough to turn me off. But apparently there are enough people out there to put up with that bull***t and Apple has been doing very well with very little innovation on their part...at least since Steve Jobs died. I'm not a Windows fanboy. My favorite OS is Linux Mint.
I have no horse in the race, but the Apple/Win price differential for laptops is less than it once was. It might even be ~zero, if you compare vs high-end Win machines.
That's just not true. I have a macbook pro from 2010 which is running the LATEST OSx right now... You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
No, you're the one that has no idea what you're talking about. Here's an example: http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...duo-2.4-white-13-early-2008-penryn-specs.html Introduced Feb 2008. Last supported OS was 10.7 (Lion) which was released on July 20, 2011. So they only supported that Macbook for just over 3 years before they dropped OS support.
Just buy something new at business segment for both desktop and laptop but not with very fancy features, just something top from basic models for each cases and you will be more then good to go. Tech changes each day. For example now Ryzen 3000 will be super hot.