Ask HN: Laptop or Desktop?

Have two laptops. A light one (surface pro) I carry with me and a heavy one (a "gaming"-branded thing from 4 years ago) that stays at home pretty much all the time. That second one moves homes with me when I do, which isn't often but still makes a desktop too unwieldy. I see no meaningful performance advantage in desktops for my use cases either.

I used to have lots of neck pain and back pain. Tried all sorts of things from standing desks to Aeron ergonomic chairs.

Now I strictly use a laptop, no more multi-monitor setup, no ergonomic keyboard, no standing desk, I have poor posture, and, I have no more back and neck pain.

Turns out that my anxiety was wiring my pain neurons together with certain pressures. Basically I was scared, and at some point the neurons that fired together wired together. It's a similar mechanism in the brain as somebody that has phantom limb pain.

What really helped me with this was the Boulder back pain study, which studied people using functional MRI machines and analyzing the pain region of people's brains. And using Pain Reprocessing Therapy and then analyzing with the functional MRI scans again. And many of the people who had a level 4 or higher pain for 5 years or more, got down to a zero or one. So I read that study, and I read the book on the study which is called The Way Out, and there's a film on the study as well called Pain Brain Film, and there's a podcast called Tell Me About Your Pain. I basically binge watched, listened and read all of this stuff and eventually unlearned my pain.

And now I have wonderful freedom with a laptop anywhere in the world! I can sit on a park bench or a s*** chair, or on a comfortable couch, I still have poor posture. I don't try to sit up straight anymore. And I don't have any chronic back pain or neck pain anymore.

For work I use a work provided laptop, mostly folded on my desk with an external monitor and keyboard and mouse.

At home I use a Macbook Pro.

Because of the RAM cost rises and desire to run LLMs locally, I have considered a mac mini or some other desktop mac instead of upgrading my macbook pro. (Since loading it with 64GB of Ram now has a purpose is probably didn't for me before.)

The most important thing for posture is to have a good office chair (herman miller Aerons are cheap used) and lift weights at the gym. A regular deadlifting (once per week) builds a strong back and core and keeps your posture in check.

For work I use a laptop plugged into a docking station. External monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers, webcam, etc. In practice it's a desktop in laptop form factor.

I never work in a coffee shop. I never work on a plane. I use computers at my home or work docking stations only. I don't benefit from the laptop form factor.

I'm on team desktop 100%. At home, a mac mini does the job. Arguably just as portable as a laptop if you are simply carrying it from docking station A to B. Fits in a laptop carry bag just fine. It's 2026; a "desktop" doesn't need to be an un-portable massive box that weighs 30 pounds.

My current plan is to ride the Apple M chip wave while avoiding their expensive laptops. Mac mini delivers the goods in a cheaper, just as portable package.

Desktop with 27 inch monitor.

Modular, as well. There's an iMac sitting in a box because the display went out.

I can't sit on an easy chair (or anything, for that matter) and use a laptop, or even a tablet. Too awkward. Mouse beats trackpad. I use two mice since the Apple mouse's horizontal scrolling is both a blessing and a curse. Damn finder windows wig-wag back and forth unless the columns fill the screen WHICH SHOULD BE THE DEFAULT. There was a cool applescript app that would resize the window appropriately but it quit and I can't find the source.

Trackpad will ruin your wrist. I got a mouse for the iPad with case. (which sits on a desk, actually, the top of the electronic piano)

well it depends like i have both and i mostly use laptop until or unless i have to do gaming and stuff for coding and programming mostly laptop like you cant take a desktop to the college you know. but there is better way to use laptop which is to get those portable stands that can change angles this has helped me a lot in maintaing my posture while i am on the table using laptop and they are easy to carry and not that expensive

My compilers prof said #1 thing about this career. Take care of your back. He messed his up from years of poor posture hunched over looking at screens.

I don't really understand the choices. Is a laptop that is normally docked on a desk considered a desktop for the purposes of your question?

If you're not travelling and comfortable sitting in once place, full desktop is best (or a laptop with a desktop like setup), just get the right chair, table and monitor adjusted to keep your head lifted and back not hunched.

> Ever since I got a laptop I've had recurring neck pain and issues from not being strict with desk setups and using laptops here and there instead of at a table.

Continue what you are doing and eventually you will get chronic debilitating pain.

I went through a period of trying to combine my laptop and desktop workflows (through shared directories behind a VPN and such), but in the end I've settled on docking my laptop with a Thunderbolt cable.

Desktop. Very hard to replace the parts on a laptop when something breaks especially the track pad.

Desktop. It is easier to upgrade.

Mainframe.

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