My 15-year old daughter just recently got her first desktop. Why? Well, because instead of just consuming (which she does on her phone) or doing homework (chromebook), she wanted to do video editing, and also drawing using a Wacom tablet. She found that the non-desktop options were just not that great.<p>Had it been a passing fancy, no doubt she would have done without the desktop, but it wasn't, so she got a tricked out desktop (intended for gamers, I think) and now has the most powerful computer in the house. She still uses her phone and (when in school) her Chromebook, but when she's in creator (not consumer) mode, she uses her desktop.
For the average person this might be kind true, however I can think of at least three places where desktop computers are very much cultural and symbolic:<p>* “Gamers” or other enthusiasts with their battlestations [1]<p>* Finace workstations with many monitors and Bloomberg terminals [2]<p>* Potentially musician workstations as well [3]<p>Any other niche ideas?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/</a>
[2] <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/KfaJMqBp8JVkW6Yn8" rel="nofollow">https://images.app.goo.gl/KfaJMqBp8JVkW6Yn8</a>
[3] <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/sVjkdWvKNrMN2xdD8" rel="nofollow">https://images.app.goo.gl/sVjkdWvKNrMN2xdD8</a>
There's nothing better than a huge display with high resolution, keyboard and mouse. The computer might be in a separate chassis or a laptop or whatever but a huge display and a mouse are indispensable.
I’m 36 right now and have always made sure to have a desktop computer with accounts for each family member and it’s used all the time.<p>I agree it’s a feature that’s disappearing, but if anything it’s because people are getting more personal computers, like a laptop or modern smart phone, than ever before.
My desktop computer -which doubles as my workstation- is going to be 10 years old soon. The replacements during these years make it a beast to this day, it beats a $5000 Macbook Pro into a pulp for a fraction of the price. I'm not considering ditching it for now.
I have more "home computers" now than ever before. It all started when I figured out you can network boot the Raspberry Pi. Now I have one connected to a cheap monitor in nearly every room in the house. Because you can switch what OS they boot into just by renaming a symlink on the server, sometimes they play music, sometimes they show movies, sometimes they show live TV, sometimes they browse the web.<p>I'm probably a little eccentric but I really enjoy this a lot more than simply carrying a laptop around the house.
I've just bought my first desktop in about 20 years. The main reason, the bloody clutter.<p>I have two (work issued) laptops, one that runs Windows and one for NixOS, both with SSDs that are too small for me to dual boot effectively. Then there are my two external monitors, my mechanical keyboard and mouse. I need a keyboard and mouse switch as there are an inadequate number of USB ports on the laptops and I want to share peripherals, USB-C hubs on the laptops to get video out to more than one monitor and also provide power simultaneously and read/write SD cards.<p>My desk is an absolute cluttered mess.<p>Minimalist laptops/tablets just end up producing more clutter for me, are hard if not impossible to upgrade, and tend to suffer from planned obsolescence. Now I don't need to travel to work every day, I'm happy to have a desktop at home and then use a co-working space with a Raspberry Pi when I do need to go into the office.
I recently rebuilt my gaming PC with a Ryzen 5000-series. Surprisingly, it has become my main work PC, and I haven't used it much for gaming. It's faster than my i9 Macbook pro, and another benefit is that I can only work when I'm sitting at my desk. With a laptop, I can do work pretty much anywhere. Which is a double-edged sword.
Regarding the physical presence of a small computer, something I actually miss is people hitting the monitor, when in despair, rather then the true culprit (as in "the box"). – There's actually some kind of magic in this misdirection.<p>With flat screens, this isn't a thing anymore. (Also, the kind of despair that would urge someone to attack the machine, has become increasingly more abstract, as has the underlying architecture causing the despair. What would you do? Take a plane to hit "the cloud"?)
Right before the pandemic, I was shopping at Best Buy, and saw HP 32" monitors on sale, cheap. (The old 2K, not 4k)<p>Phoned home to check with the Misses, and she said no, get 2 of them, one for yourself, and one for sproutlet.<p>Having a nice big screen really helped during the quarantine after getting sick, and the time after.<p>It doesn't really matter what your "computer" is, be it an old Mac Pro tower, or an HP laptop, the Monitor, real Keyboard and Mouse are what make a desktop these days. The old beige box is optional now, the rest isn't.
I detest mobile: I find the interface very difficult to use. I would give up mobile way before giving up my desktop. I realize, though, that I’m in the minority.
A friends family doesn't have a single desktop/laptop/tablet/printer in their house. They all have decently highend cell phones. If the children need to type up a book report one of the adults brings home their work laptop.<p>Meanwhile, I've moved back to desktops. If I ever need a laptop again it will be the lightest weight one I can get, and will use it to remote access my main machine.
Per usual, clickbait polemics that propose absolutes cause controversy.<p>I realize that the comments here will largely be filled with people variously proposing that one do EVERYTHING with the iPad, and folks opposed to that. As this article is from 2007 and desktops are not extinct may I humbly suggest that a tablet device SUPPLEMENTS and COMPLEMENTS desktop and laptop computers running “full featured” operating systems (ones that allow you to manage files conveniently, for example, or configure the system as you wish it to be).<p>The question is not so much about processing power, but of form factors. A PCI(e) based audio interface is still superior to a USB one in latency and jitter, commodity RAM in standardized slots as an easy consumer upgrade, one can speak of the physical space required for proper USB ports if OTG and a zillion fragile dongles aren’t going to work for you.<p>The vast majority of content creators that I know, (including myself) use a tablet in conjunction with a traditional computer form factor. They use the tablet variously as a remote control, as an input device, and as a portable idea capturing device. It doesn’t replace a sound or video studio, it’s a welcome addition to one.
I remember being able to borrow the big old Apple II from school (my mom was a teacher so in the summer I could borrow them for a time... otherwise they just sat dormant in school).<p>It sat on the kitchen counter like an appliance / shrine.
The home computer has been replaced with the iPhone.<p>What boggles my mind is that the industry accepts Apple's restrictions on what kind of computing can happen, how their software can be distributed, and how their gross/margins are taxed.<p>These devices have done a perverse thing to our field.<p>Consumers love them, but fuck are they awful for freedom, business, and small time success.<p>We used to build platforms in the open that we all benefited from (ie. the Web). Even Microsoft Windows was and is more open than these goddamn monopoly devices.<p>The DOJ needs to rip Apple's control of the iPhone away. It's not their device anymore. It's the industry.<p>Computing belongs to the people. It'd make for a healthier playing field, and Apple would still be making bank.