Compare and Contrast: Desktop and Laptops - Essay Example

Input devices include keyboards, mice and cameras, etc. while output devices consist of a display, speakers, printer, etc. Even the components inside laptops and the central processing unit (CPU) of desktops are similar; both make use of a motherboard, which is the main circuit board to which the other components e.g. the processor, and RAM (random-access memory) are connected. Apart from the above-mentioned fact, laptops and desktops can run any program equally well provided that they both are using the same operating system.

It is important to note here that the majority of the present-day laptops and desktops are run on a select number of operating systems e.g. 92.4% of desktops are run on Windows followed by Mac (6.5%) while the most commonly used operating system for mobile systems (which include tablets and mobiles too) is Mac (54.7%). This goes on to show that from a general perspective, the majority of the computing systems used presently have a similar functional capacity in respect of the programs available for use although the specific upgrades of these operating systems (e.g. Windows 7 or Vista) and a processors ability (if it is 64-bit or 32-bit, etc) to support these upgrades does stratify computers according to their capacity to run a program.

Now despite the similar assembly of laptops and desktops, they both cater to different populations of computer users. This is because of many reasons the most obvious of which is that laptops are mobile. There are a variety of shapes and sizes that laptops come in but all of them are lighter than desktops thus making the former much more portable than the latter. This portability allows a lot of flexibility in usage which is evident in the case of Thomas Friedman who once quoted “Sometimes when my wife and I were going out to dinner, I would take my laptop with me and work in the car, to take advantage of the half-hour going and coming.

” Had Mr. Friedman owned a desktop instead of his laptop then he would certainly not be able to take advantage of his travel time, which underscores the fact that laptops have a huge advantage over desktops because they provide much much more mobility as compared to desktops, especially for a person living a fast-paced life. Along with this the small and thin size of laptops make them better looking too and provide the owner many more opportunities to show them off. Also in contrast to desktops, laptops run on battery too thus one can use a laptop even if there is no power.

Despite all the above-mentioned advantages laptops have their downside when compared to a desktop. First of all, although the size of laptops is very preferable one cannot ignore the fact that this makes it that much easier to be stolen or damaged when compared to a desktop. Secondly, laptops are much more expensive than desktops and the latter gives the consumer more value for the money spent than laptops do. This can be appreciated when comparing an $1199 iMac and the same company’s MacBook Pro.

Although both machines are of the same price, the iMac has much better specs (21.5-inch display, 2.7GHz quad-core Intel i5 processor, and 1TB hard drive) than the MacBook Pro (13.3-inch screen, 2.7GHz dual-core Intel i7 processor and 500GB hard drive).