In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| But why would you buy an all-in-one if you want
| a desktop? It's usually more money for less flexibility.
| []
| Yes, but some people are willing to pay it for the tidier appearance. My
| brother bought one (around Windows 8.1 time), and he's certainly no
| dummy - just not "into" computers like most of us are here.

I think it's not just an idea of tidier. People get
seduced by compact and sleek -- dumb or not.
But smaller usually means more expensive. A good

Sleek, maybe, but not necessarily compact or smaller; the one my brother
bought is quite a big screen (bigger than the monitor he'd had on the
laptop it was replacing, by quite a bit IIRR). He just liked the idea of
only having one thing - monitor (or all-in-one) - on the desk, rather
than monitor plus another big box alongside, which would have given him
no extra functionality that he actually wanted. (He transfers with
memory sticks; OK, the optical drive is probably a bit more awkward to
use, but as he uses that once in a blue moon, it doesn't matter.)

example is the competition to make the thinnest
laptop. People get excited over cutting off a couple
of mm, even though the laptop itself isn't made any
lighter.

Like the concerns over weight - which don't include the power brick. My
W98 laptop (which may actually originally have been earlier; it doesn't
have Windows keys in the usual places. It had '9x on it when I bought
it) has the power brick inside (the mains lead just goes straight in the
back): much easier to transport around. (OK, it's thick and heavy! But
that's more to do with when it was made.) If I was buying a new laptop,
and one similar - especially as power bricks are now so much smaller
anyway - was offered, I'd put it high on my list; but it's never going
to happen anyway.

The idea of a thin client was marketed around
2000. Really it's a dumb client. A small, compact
computer meant to go online for functionality.

It oscillates. We originally had dumb terminals - glass teletypes (or
even printing ones!) that connected to a mainframe. Then we moved
towards machines that did a lot of the graphics etc., and even
processing, locally; then, for large companies anyway, there are dumb
clients (even if they have more power than the mainframes of old!) that
work with a central database. It drifted back, and now we are reverting
- although it is more the software and storage that is centralised,
rather than the processing and graphics capabilities. (When I've looked
into some of these machines with only 32G of solid-state storage in my
local stores, and seen how little of that is actually free once the OS
and a little software is installed, I've decided they're not for me, but
they might suit a lot of people.)

But it was just more money for less computer.
I can see buying less for more money (laptop)
in order to get mobility. But buying a limited
desktop with little or no upgradability, for more
money, makes no sense. (Even the Apple fans

To you. It does to some, especially in small homes. (Which, in UK
anyway, are becoming commoner.)

knew enough not to buy Cubes, even though they
fell for iMacs.


I use laptops, as you say for portability - though rarely on battery.
Though when I got my first one (the '9x one mentioned above), I thought
it would remain for use only when out and about, my desktop remaining my
main machine - but it soon became my main machine. Now, my desktop (I
still have one) hasn't been turned on for weeks if not months.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

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