Opinion: Why laptops will kick desktop PCs to the curb

Years ago, the desktop dominated the PC market. It not only provided users with unequaled power, it proved to be a far more suitable machine than its notebook counterpart, which suffered from a short battery life and a prohibitive price tag. But in the last few years, the industry dynamics have changed and notebooks have quickly pushed desktops aside and become the focus of consumer and vendor attention. And although desktops will still persist, they will soon only appeal to a niche market that's looking for a specialized device to perform specialized tasks.

2007 was undoubtedly the "Year of the Notebook." According to analysts, laptop shipments rose 21 percent to a total of 31.6 million units, while desktops sales dropped 4 percent to a total of 35 million units. IDC believes that 2008 will be the first year that notebook sales will exceed desktop sales and by 2011, it expects laptops to represent 66 percent of corporate purchases, with 71 percent of consumers picking a notebook instead of a tower.

"Notebook purchases are driving consumers beyond one PC per household to one PC per person and manufacturers are reacting by focusing their attention on customization and personalization," said Bob O'Donnell, IDC's vice president of Clients and Displays. "The ability to see and touch these devices in the retail environment and pick one out that matches a consumer's unique style is a critical part of the buying process for consumers."

But the intrinsic value of notebooks goes far beyond touching them. Aside from the obvious—mobility, greater power, and competitive prices—notebooks provide a number of benefits that not only make them an attractive purchase for any consumer, but also make them a far better choice than desktops.

The corporate world

In today's corporate environment, mobility is one of the most important aspects of running a business. According to Business Travel News Magazine, business travel is at its highest level ever, and more than 300,000 organizations in the United States alone claim to have "significant business travel expenses."

The enterprise is a major contributing factor to the notebook's rise in popularity and one of the main reasons why desktops have become obsolete. Businesses are finding fewer reasons to acquire desktops, and as employees continue to work outside the office, organizations find that notebooks are a driving factor behind higher ROI. Employee utilization is also increased and organizations are quickly finding that businesspeople are working on notebooks when they otherwise would not be working at all if they had desktops.

Mobile broadband

Mobility is a key factor in the supremacy of notebooks, but only recently was its true potential harnessed with the widespread adoption of mobile broadband. Granted, it's not found in too many areas in the United States—it mostly hugs big cities—but mobile broadband services are helping businesspeople and consumers stay connected to the Web in places where there isn't a WiFi or wired connection.

Over the next few years, adoption rates will increase as mobile broadband becomes more ubiquitous. The merger of Xohm and Clearwire could be a major first step in accelerating the availability of mobile broadband and keeping users connected in a world that's requiring greater access to the cloud and network resources.

And once again, the desktop isn't included in that equation. The enterprise and consumers are demanding Web connectivity wherever they go and mobile companies are delivering. All the while, desktops stay wired to the router at home and offer no opportunity for mobility.

It's all about the looks

Technology is quickly becoming an extension of who you are. Years ago, we were forced to look at beige towers, and most manufacturers realized that design wasn't a necessity for consumers. But today, all that has changed and design has quickly become a key component in the success or failure of notebooks.

Apple's notebooks are sleek and elegant. Falcon Northwest offers customizable designs that add your personality to the notebook. Even HP and Dell—two of the biggest culprits of bad design—are getting in on the act and offering devices that are better looking.

Much like cell phones, notebooks have become a status symbol and an extension of one's personality, while desktops typically are not. Laptops come with us wherever we go and the public sees them all times, while desktops sit beneath the desk and their design rarely reflects well or poorly on us. Working on a MacBook Pro at Starbucks says something about who we are; a Mac Pro sitting beneath the desk at home doesn't say anything. It may sound simplistic, but technology is a part of who we are now and desktops simply don't tell that story. 

Life's accessory

On a more sociological level, consider the fact that technology has become an integral extension of our lives. Almost everywhere we go, someone (maybe us) is furiously typing out a text message on a BlackBerry or inputting important data into countless mobile devices that aim to bring our lives on the road. And laptops are no different.

Like a cell phone on steroids, laptops can bring our lives with us wherever we go. Instead of leaving sensitive business data or even our shopping list on the desktop at home, notebooks allow us to have that information with us at all times. And, in the process, we connect personally to our notebook, much like we do with our cell phone, in a way that we never could with a desktop. Notebooks have become a living accessory that comes along with us wherever we go and houses our digital life, making it a far more important and desired product than the desktop sitting at home, waiting to be turned on.

Computing power

One of the biggest issues facing notebooks in the past was their lack of power. For years, we were forced to use notebooks that weren't nearly as capable as their desktop counterparts. Unless we wanted to simply surf the Web, check e-mail, and write up some documents, all the resource-intensive work was saved for the desktop.

But in recent years, notebooks have matched most desktops, and it's becoming much easier to find a desktop replacement from every major vendor that easily outpaces all but the more advanced towers. Just three years ago, the concept of a desktop replacement was a pipe dream. Back then, the super-hot components running desktops were incapable of running in notebooks, while the industry was failing to address battery issues that plagued them and made them less-than ideal desktop replacements.

But with the availability of Intel's Core Duo and Core 2 Duo chips, all that changed. Power conservation became a key element in the newest generation of processor technology and that shrank the difference between desktop and laptop processors. Now, the key differentiator between laptops and desktops is the number of cores and, for most uses, that doesn't have a big impact on performance. Unless more software is made that leverages multiple processing cores, desktops will lose the major advantage they have relied upon to stay relevant.

Price

Given all that flexibility and the notebook's other appealing attributes like lower power consumption and mobility, it should be far more expensive than a desktop, right? Think again.

According to NPD's pricing figures from June 2008, the average Windows desktop PC costs $550—$2 more expensive than it cost last year—while the average Windows notebook costs just $700. That's a $92 drop since last year and a whopping $177 decline since 2006.

For just $150 more, notebook owners are getting a product that goes above and beyond the functionality already being offered by desktops. Can you bring your desktop to Starbucks? Nope. Can you use that desktop on the plane ride home? Not a chance. Can you use your desktop to sit in the car, edit video, and burn that movie to a DVD when you're finished? No way. In essence, notebooks can now do more than a desktop for a price that's no longer prohibitive, and customers are quickly finding that out.

But one of the main reasons why notebook pricing came down was the commoditization of the technology industry that sees most companies offering the same basic components in a given device class. And each chip that's being installed into laptops today also combines functions, making the total unit costs drop significantly and helping to bring notebook price points to a more attractive level.

As a result, notebook prices are dropping significantly and could shortly hit the same average price point as desktops. Once that happens, the only differentiating factors desktops can cling to will undoubtedly only appeal to a small portion of the worldwide consumer base.

Sticking points 

For all of its benefits, the laptop doesn't lead desktops on every attribute. For starters, desktops still provide users with the customizability notebooks simply don't. If they're looking to install a new graphics card or build a new rig from scratch, they can't do that with notebooks. As powerful as they may be, notebooks still don't stack up to advanced towers like Apple's Mac Pro, which makes them less ideal for those needing extremely high performance to edit and encode video. Lastly, mobility isn't ideal for everyone; for example, at medical practices, few people really want their personal history walking around in the hands of a doctor or nurse.

Those instances may make desktops relevant to some but, considering the fact that few people are willing to build their own computers, and still others don't need to worry about heavy video editing, desktops are clinging to benefits that don't necessarily impact the vast majority of users. Desktops were once the most practical way to work and perform tasks, but now, they're nothing more than machines that provide only a handful of benefits that the majority of people simply don't care about.

While the death of desktops may not yet be upon us, the inertia of the industry and our own buying preferences make it abundantly clear that its days are numbered and it simply doesn't offer what the many of us are looking for in a computer any longer.