Last Updated on November 29, 2015 by Dave Farquhar
I found this oldie but goodie Lifehacker article: When two computers are cheaper than one. It advocates buying a cheap laptop and building a desktop PC to meet your computing needs.
I think it makes a lot of sense. A few weeks ago, a coworker asked me what the most I would be willing to pay for a laptop. I hesitated, thought for a while, and said you might be able to convince me to spend $600. “Wow,” he said. “I’m considering a $3,500 laptop.”
I wouldn’t.You can build a nice desktop for a small amount of money. I’d start with an AMD A10 CPU, a motherboard with four memory slots like an Asus F2A85, 16 GB of RAM (in two DIMMs so you can upgrade to 32 GB later), and as much SSD as I could afford, like a Crucial MX100. A rig like this would give very nice midrange performance, allow me to connect multiple monitors to it and a nice full-size keyboard like my go-to IBM Model M. I always recycle as many items as I can, so I build a PC like this every few years, generally spending less than $500 at a time and occasionally dropping in a sub-$200 upgrade to extend its life a bit. With a nice keyboard and mouse and dual monitors, it’s a lot nicer to work on at home than a laptop.
Then, when I need portability, I use a laptop. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron that I’ve upgraded to 4 GB of RAM and a 120 GB SSD that I use. If and when I need to replace it, I might buy an off-lease business laptop or just buy something new and low-end, but whatever I bought, I’d install an SSD and max out the memory. In the end I’d have $500-$600 in it, and probably not all in a single purchase.
My laptop is about nine years old, and I would expect almost any laptop purchased today, outfitted with at least 8 GB of RAM and an SSD, to be adequate for a very long time as well.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.