If you graduated from high school in June and you're getting ready for college in the fall, you may have thought all the big decisions were behind you for a while. But you still have one major choice to make:
Desktop or laptop.
Like searching for the right college, finding the right kind of computer can be nerve-racking. Desktop computers are cheaper and more comfortable to use, but they're pretty much stuck in one place. Laptops are easy to tote, but they're more expensive, fragile and easier to lose. To make the right choice, you have decide how you intend to use the PC and how much you're willing to spend.
"Unless you absolutely need the portability, you'll get a lot more power out of a desktop and it'll last longer," said Zach Rorke, a hardware sales associate at CompUSA.
There's virtually no disagreement on that point. Laptops cost about twice as much as desktops with the same processing power, and cost more to repair. Dell's least expensive Dimension desktop computer, with a 400 MHz Celeron processor, 64 megabytes of memory, a 15-inch monitor and network adapter, sells for about $1,200. Its least expensive laptop, with a slower processor, is about $2,400 similarly equipped.
At the high end, IBM's multimedia Aptiva 585, with 128 MB of memory and a DVD drive, is about $2,300 with a monitor. The company's similarly equipped ThinkPad 770 laptop sells for about $4,500.
Even the least expensive laptops, including Apple's slick new iBook, start at about $1,700.
If something goes wrong with your computer, generic desktop replacement parts are sold at most computer stores, but laptop parts are proprietary and frequently available only from the computer maker.
"If you lose something, you've got to shell out a lot of money and order it from the manufacturer," Rorke said of laptops. "It's a lot more headache."
Size is a selling point for desktop use. A standard mouse is easier to manipulate than a laptop's touchpad or rollerball. A laptop's smaller keyboard may frustrate students who are used to typing quickly on a desktop machine.
Memory Expansion and hard-disk upgrades cost more for laptops. So, one factor in the decision is what kinds of programs you intend to run and how much you plan on cramming onto your hard drive.
"Give me time and I can max out the memory on anything," said Joseph Deinlein, a junior from Kingsville majoring in communications at the University of Dayton in Ohio. "Sound files, games, documents, Photoshop, Pagemaker ..."
