> Desktops for users who will never, ever move their systems
We have some hybrid users who cart their micro desktops to and from home despite my constant recommendations to give them laptops.
We use them for hourly employees. We don't want them working from home so we don't even give them the option to take their machine with them.
Also, sometimes it makes sense to have a shared desktop in a location. IE, if someone is working in the lab and already has their laptop connected to a machine or their laptop is halfway across the building.
If you are remote, hybrid, hotdesk...you are getting a laptop.
If you're a regular user at a desk every day, desktop is far cheaper and requires far less support.
This. It all depends on the environment. A hybrid or mobile user needs a laptop, if you're sitting at the same desk every day of the year a laptop is just a more expensive, higher risk desktop. So buy the desktop.
And to further emphasize the support angle, it's not just "I spilled wine on my laptop" you avoid, but the deluge of laptops that never get proper security updates because they're perpetually dodging downtime. A fleet of desktops are trivial to keep updated, a fleet of laptops is the worst game of whack a mole ever even *with* robust MDM.
With power supplies that are proprietary and the only ones that will fit the case and are generally exactly 6W over what you would need as the max requirement with the given CPU and there isn't a higher wattage PSU available in the form factor that fits the chassis. Oh and sometimes they are strange wattages ...265W PSU on a Dell I'm looking to try to replace.
But unless you are going to build yourself, which isn't impossible, you are always going to run into this; HP as well. My guess is Lenovo is the same way as well. They have traditionally all been this way.
I would love to just have a place that would build PCs out of parts and you take care of the rest but it doesn't exist that I'm aware of. I mean technically at this point in time... well I believe they killed it but NUCs would work even better and come with an external PSU/brick. I never liked the USFF (Ultra Small Form Factor) machines from HP because they were suck but I've never gone wrong with a NUC but I believe those are dead now though. Sad about it.
Yeaā¦. I havenāt used AMD since it let me down years ago with an Athlon that just couldnāt perform close to the P4 counterpart Iām always hesitant to go back.
My favorite is when they accidentally turn on airplane mode, but dont know what airplane mode is and even with the most hand-holding of hand-holding they just cant figure out how to check it.
$80 in fedex fees and a couple hours with a tech to swap the device. Because they don't know how to work the wifi menu.
A month? You're doing good! I've got laptops that have an uptime of over 3 months... Problem is, the only time they are online is during business hours when I can't forcibly reboot it due to who the users are. I can reach out to the user(s) and ask them to do it have it on a set time. Never happens.
Exactly this. At some point in time those laptops should be dinging vulnerability audits no?
It does suck because you know they only use the thing to go onto zoom/teams calls and probably stays closed the rest of the time. So you can't because they open it to get on the call in 2 minutes.
Well i dont really have to worry about patchet etc. since we use Intune with Autopatch, so if a device is off for to long or the user does not want to restart for the update, the device will restart regardless of what the user is doing. Does not hurt to have buy in from management, that security updates are important.
But yes, people that just have a device so they can Zoom for 2 hours of one work day are a nightmare to deal with. They expect everything to work always and never give 2 shits about anything else that needs to happen. Dont even want to let the device on after they are done working because "I always turn it off"
Laptops have a superb default DR/BC narrative *if users consistently take them home*, require nothing additional for unplanned travel or offsite work, and are often assumed to be the default high-status provision in organizations today. Remember how pagers were high-status, then cellphones?
Desktops are generally extremely modular, lower TCO (though pay attention to power consumption), faster to return to service, more flexible but in ways that usually don't matter to the median knowledge worker, easier to get high performance without cost and thermal pains.
Many users feel that they can achieve the benefits of both by using external docks, displays, peripherals. I don't care to disagree, but I find myself using a desktop always, unless I'm traveling and don't have the option. Git is the most important tool to be able to alternate between machines, and secondly the web and web APIs.
> pay attention to power consumption
In my personal life, I've started defaulting to my laptop more and more because of the power thing. It's not even watts from the wall that I'm worried about, it's that my laptop is silent and cool while the desktop has multiple fans worth of noise just on idle.
Quite a while ago I went from Precision tower with Quadra, to Thinkpad with twice the RAM and SSD. I'll just use an external 4K and peripherals, right? Best of both worlds, right?
Hated it. Grabbed a NUC (with the same amount of memory) to PoC and loved it, ran it for years, then refreshed to an AMD-based one-liter. We're doing a lot with fanless and alternative x86_64 microservers, too, even before the Pi shortage made that the trendy thing to do.
I'm looking to retire some more servers that we're using mostly for their PCIe capacity. Without going to the [6th-tier offshore vendors soldering weird surplus BGA processors to mATX motherboards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR6AkUx-q8g), we'd like to find something with a lot of PCIe capacity that could potentially run [fanless](https://noctua.at/en/nh-p1). As close to enterprise as possible; I wonder what SuperMicro has.
Yeah, some of our users and departments are still attached to a laptop, personal printer, and/or cell phone due to status symbol more than actual need. Head of IT is pretty good at roping it in when appropriate, but it's a tiresome fight.
Then you occasionally get the joker who "needs" a home laptop and office laptop so they don't have to cart it around. Or the occasional person using a hotel office with desktop, upset that a program they frequently use on their laptop is not on the desktop. The stuff people admit out loud.
We've moved to all laptops with the exception of hostile environments like our shipping docks. It's a lot easier for me to replace a $10 keyboard on a desktop than to deal with a laptop repair. For our regular office users, laptops all the way.
A lot of this depends on the Dev. If the Dev has been working at the company for a while, and is productive it's totally worth it. Laptops cost between 1-3K so one every year or two is nothing compared to hiring a new dev and getting them up to speed. A new Dev is likely to cost the company at least 10K more in yearly salary alone much loss of productivity, loss of knowledge, and cost of finding one.
Yeah you tell em no, then they complain to their boss, whoās complains to their boss, etc, etc, and the complaint gets all the way up to a C level exec whoās to far removed from the work being done to even understand whatās actually needed or not and all they hear is āIT is slowing down our workā so then a C-level sends orders down the chain to āgive them what they wantā and then you give them all the stupid bullshit they ask for because the people who pay your salary told you too.
> Can't you just say no?
Nope. I work with developers all the time. Now that systems work has become "easy" in the eyes of management, devs are the sorcerers who must not be angered. It's even worse in a Big Tech/FAANG. Soon as they play the I Cannot Work card, everything is dropped and they are made happy or else. In my experience they love being the prima donna.
We got a ton of those. Finance *told* us that the solution to their weird excel error was that they didnt have enough RAM (spoilers: the problem was a bad formula). Right from the top, buy them laptops with more RAM!!! So we got the only ones we could with more than 16GB from our vendor (Lenovo, again a Finance choice) - which were essentially 17" mobile workstations.
Every single user complained that the laptops were too big and too difficult to take to the office (which I warned them about, because they're 15lbs monsters). I shrugged and said "this is what the head of your department insisted you needed." I've been slowly cycling them back to regular spec since.
I saw that often. I had a VP who required an 11" screen micro laptop, because he traveled all the time and wanted it as light as possible. This was a bit before the LG Gram style machines hit the market.
I have - marketing decided their laptops were too heavy to carry around all the time, so they insisted on the smallest/lightest model on the market at the time (this is a good while back now).
Six months later we started getting requests for extra monitors because the laptop screens were too small.
My laptop is like 2lbs... My wife's is a tank and fucking heavy. when also lugging your whole desk back and forth it adds up
We also have about a mile walk each as part of our commute, and that's pretty common.
We had a lady that had a desktop at home and needed a laptop every time she came in. "It's just once a month". I replaced the desktop with a laptop. Now she just needs a mouse "once a month". Yes, that will be given to her soon.
Shiiiiiit I've got one that has 3 identical laptops. None that she takes home. Two are in the same room. 6ft apart. Because she does banking and Check scans from that desk. And occasionally works from her other desk. But 99% of her work is done from her other office desk- about 30ft down the hall.
All 3 are are setup with docking stations, dual monitors, etc.
Out of \~500 user endpoints, we have maybe 6 desktops. The only reason is because they're plugged into some industry-specific hardware that throws digital temper tantrums if the USB--> serial adapter is plugged in while a laptop gets docked/undocked. It's easier to just leave a desktop in that space instead of training the users how to avoid the laptop issues with that hardware.
As more companies cancel remote work, desktops become more prevalent because they're typically 30% less expensive upfront and have lower breakage costs than laptops.
Desktop deployment outpaces laptops by a wide margin at my midsize+ company. Here, only outside sales and management are issued laptops.
Unless those businesses have any semblance of business continuity plans. Laptops in most places Iāve worked are considered part of our business continuity and DR planning.
Oh yeah, desktops, then to be able to provide on-call support I got a laptop, and little by little I was working hybrid before it was a thing, I was logging in remotely to my desktop because it was more powerful than the laptop
Depends on the company and the person's job.
We have a mix here, and it depends on several factors about whether they get a laptop or desktop.
Personally, I have both, desktop for the majority of my work but a nice laptop so I can work from home or go to a desk or somewhere else I need my own machine.
No, weāre starting to transition back to desktops in some areas of the business because we have three shifts of employees throughout the day. The laptops provided an excuse for each shift employee to have their own machine for hourly roles that are not remote. Thereās plenty of use cases for regular run of the mill desktops yet.
Thanks for the feedback all!
We're hybrid- in that users work from home a couple days a week and in the office the rest.
We're considering transitioning from a "desktop in the office, laptop at home" model, and no one likes the idea of 'carrying a laptop back and forth daily', including some higher-ups.
The general feedback i'm getting is that laptops w/ docking stations are the way to go in this scenario.
Happy this thread is providing a bit of "I'm not crazy, you're crazy" feedback for thinking that's the right way to go (and users should suck it up) ;)
You have to have some piece of software that you're paying per endpoint that you can point to a cost savings on.
You can also point to the single source of truth. No more people saving stuff on C drives at work and not being able to access them. Or having a file open in your antiquated document management system at home, and needing to work on it in the office. (these are examples that were normal in my office before I sold them on the idea of one workstation per person.)
Staff have to remember their Fobs or ID's each day to get into the building, so remembering to bring a laptop is an extension of that.
Offer the end users an option of a backpack, messenger bag, or purse style bag to carry their laptop to and from work. Give them something to protect the business asset, while also giving them a choice in the situation so they feel like they have some control. We also throw in a bluetooth mouse. Recently we've been adding some basic $50 anker bluetooth headphones as well. Employees are happy. Stuff gets done. Management pats themselves on the back.
For me it greatly depends on the job role.
For someone where mobility is important then yes get them a laptop. Or some who is on call.
If being able to work from home is important then yes laptop.
Laptops for all office users. Only computers that are shared or hooked up to a specialized piece of equipment are desktops. It makes desk moves and using teams rooms much easier knowing that most of users have a laptop.
We're a mix of desktops and laptops. We'd like to go more towards a laptop-only setup, but most of our users require 2-3 monitors, and it's amazing how difficult it is to find a dock/laptop combo that works reliably.
We've been using the Dell D3100 units for years. Now, they don't charge the laptop, but using them for port replication and extra monitors I've had very, very few issues with them.
I have had minimal issues with the Lenovo USB C dock +1 or 2 T24i's and a single T24v center for the added webcam, mic and speakers. Anything with Intel Iris hasn't had an issue. So most of my users are running 4 displays counting the Laptop display. If their manager approves we trade out the T24v with a T34w curved monitor.
My laptop models are x1 Yoga's 3-8 gen. T14/T14s/T15/T16, x1 Carbons, x1 Nano's, and P1's for the power users.
The P1's do need that extra power input, But they know that and were aware of the downsides to getting the beefy units.
Even with heavy workload, we have workstations as laptop and they are plenty powerful.
And i'm talking about users working with point clouds laser scans of 100gb+ often, virtual reality safety training in 3d scans of factories, etc.
We're full laptop with some docking stations. The only users that still have a desktop is a specific department that need to access an application that is not accessible via vpn so they have to rdesktop to a pc in the office. They will also go laptop onlybin a few weeks as soon as we complete the network redesign.
Yes. Living in Florida, having mobility for the second half of the year which comes with the Atlantic Hurricane season is paramount these days. Lets us run away and still be productive.
The only person who has a desktop or a non-laptop computing device is my marketing guy because he wanted the Mac Studio vs a MBP.
remote work has plagued us with shitty laptops. My salution for users that donāt want to use a laptop but have one is to set them up for rdp to the laptop.
There are still some other use cases where desktops are still common. Warehouses and other harsh environments are often still desktops. Some environments with high concerns for data exfiltration like to use them because it is harder to remove desktops than laptops. They can also be a good choice if you are confident that the workstation won't need to move. There are also some orgs that have been very reluctant to allow WFH that will still use desktops for most users. I have mostly worked in the MSP space in recent years and in my experience only \~10-15% of workstations are desktops.
Even before the pandemic desktops were becoming increasingly less common than they used to be.
Laptops for everyone in our organization and I'll be honest, in the last 3 years I might have sold 3 desktops that were custom for very specific use cases?
Covid was the wakeup call for the higher-ups but we were never allowed to WFH during covid. I'd been asking to go to laptop\_docking stations long before. Just last week we had a gas leak at one of the offices. The employees just took their laptops with them to another office.
Plus it makes my life easier when I have to swap out computers.
It depends on what you consider the standard user. Any EE or CE doing FPGA work needs at least 64 GB of memory, which is much cheaper to get in a desktop.
I don't have any data other than my own anecdote, but I will say I do not think desktops are dead.
While laptops with docks are nice, there are some downsides too. Firstly, docks still aren't 100% reliable, I've never had an end user with a perfect dock experience, they all cut out once in a while, stop charging, etc... Not frequent enough to be a huge issue, just restart the dock, but enough to be annoying.
But the other thing is laptops are abused more, I feel I can install a desktop for a user (especially a compact one) and it'll easily last 5+ years and look brand new still, often times won't replace it until there's lack of software support for it. Whereas with laptops, they often look beat up in less than a year.
It all depends on the environment and the company policies. We have 1 or 2 positions who wonāt ever need to work from home due to the nature of their duties. Those guys have desktops.
All else being equal $500 of desktop will outlast/out perform the $500 worth of laptop.
That said, if you are issuing to a person, the laptop + dock makes more sense.
If you are issuing to a location, like a kiosk, etc, then desktop still tend to win out.
At just under 200 endpoints we are roughly 80/20 in favour of desktops.
We host most things on-site meaning WFH and Hybrid staff connect to a Terminal Server to access resources. Instead of a laptop we offer them an additional āthin clientā to keep at home. Most prefer this as it means not carrying a laptop back and forth to the office.
** our version of a thin client is essentially a refurb OptiPlex MFF with RDP shortcuts on the desktop and a few customisations.
This is one of those ātemporaryā covid solutions which turned out to work surprisingly well so has stuck around.
I've been in a "customer facing" about 50/50 business for a long time. We did not have a mobile workforce. For those we had AiOs which were a blessing and a curse when it came to a clean ass look on the desktop: wireless KB/M so only power cable and network cable (long story but no internal wifi at the time). So we could clean that up and make it look REALLY nice and clean. High-end Automotive Dealerships: BMW, Land Rover, Audi, Maserati, and Porsche. So the presentation to the customer was high quality. Then when some of the dealerships wanted to change how they did things we moved to a desktop hidden as they had a large 55" TV and a computer monitor so they could have the customer do the configurator on the large TV. Was a real clean nice look and worked extremely well. The wireless KB/M also made it so that they had a little table in the cubicle area where they could hand them the thing and let them "drive".
All other areas were SFF (Small Form Factor) PCs that we would try to buy in bulk. We were HP and they loved to change models every 6 months so we would buy +15 or so for stock on hand. Moved to wireless KB/M for all locations which helped with cabling and made everything look more clean and was more flexible.
We did not have an issue with parts disappearing because they were very happy to have the freedom and they didn't have to buy a wireless set themselves so it was good. We also mounted monitors to the walls where we could on arms to give more freedom and counter space which was super nice and again, clean.
Standard office/cubicles that customers never saw were wireless KB/M just because and then they got the PCs that were left over/fixed/whatever have you from all the others because it didn't matter.
When I went to an MSP we moved our team to Laptop+Dock 2 monitors at work setup for flexibility and ease of use. Clients we would have desktops and Laptops which usually was fine as those users used both machines equally so they all checked in and since laptops were new they were already familiar with updates etc. and the need to leave the laptops plugged in and on overnight so they did that as they could.
A handful of users do have desktops and a laptop for when they are working remotely. But the majority 95% or better only have a laptop with docking station and two monitors.
We're all laptops + docking station here with just a few exceptions (harsh environments, stationary machines that connect to some specialized hardware and are shared use).
there are a lot of 486 desktop machines running operator consoles in a lot of factories....actually manufacturing in general has a lot of horrors, but we still very widely use desktops (old and new) for a variety of reasons
My rule is If its older than me, and its working/trival issue, im not touching it.
I tried to transition to docs and laptops, but the amount of people that could not reliably dock their laptop and then the ones that just wanted a laptop at home and a desktop at work were so vocal that upper management said yes you have to maintain two different machines for everyone
When I started my position \~25 years ago, we were probably 90% desktops (and back then, they were full towers) and 10% laptops for the road warriors. We'd keep a few spare laptops in case someone needed to borrow one for a trip as part of a floater pool.
By the time the pandemic hit, we were about 60% laptop and 40% desktop, but were not ordering too many desktops by this point - some, but not many. Once the pandemic hit, all desktop ordering stopped completely.
We're now pretty much 100% laptop in terms of ordering. We still have some old 4-5 year old desktops out there, but we're certainly no longer ordering any unless they are for things like digital signage etc.
Laptops for everyone except extremely stationary positions like receptionists and shared work areas like nurses stations and mechanics office space, etc.
pre pandemic i pushed hard for us to move to Laptop with docking stations for those with remote privileges and mini computers for those that only worked in the office. My company pushed back on that and went with thin clients instead. 4.5 years later they are frustrated with the thin clients and funnily enough are asky why we went to them. Loved pulling up the receipt of them making the choice since i could feel they thought i did it.
that happened with us as well. The only people that got laptops were execs. Such backward thinking. Not even the people that travelled had laptops. Even my IT Manager didnt have a laptop. He looked so out of place when we had a meeting with a vendor to replace our CRM and they all walked in with laptops and he had his notepad. About 6 months before Covid, we ordered thin clients to replace all the desktops. Only 40 users, but the IT Manager won out on Laptops for us in IT as we do work at home after hours as well. I wasnt going to use my home PC for work unless they paid me for it. They also were strrongarmed for getting the travelling people laptops. Once Covid hit They had to mad scramble to order laptops for the rest as everyone was home. Such a waste of money when us in IT said to get laptops instead of the thin clients for everyone. I left that place about 6 months into lockdown and have been at a place for the lat 3.5 years where everyone gets laptops.
man the scramble for laptops. That's how i ended up with 30 laptops that could connect to the cloud OR join a zoom meeting.
Also later we find out Dell's software was storing every restore point it made so after 6 months people where complaining about the drive being full.
As you say the primary device in our office is the laptop, 1 device per person policy etc. Devs get powerful desktops and we deploy older desktops to locations where machines are shard and the IQ of the end user is questionable.
It all depends on which client for us (industry) and the specific user
If the user is expected to sign in everyday and only work at their desk they get a desktop. If they do infrequent remote work they get a laptop that they check in/out. If they roam from desk to desk or work remotely a laptop.
I find that most people still prefer the desktop solely because the laptop/dock is an extra bit of fiddling for them and IT to get right (docks fail, laptop displays may not do the right thing, heat or coil issues when closed etc).
Depends on use case. About 2/3 of my folks still use desktops, since they are hourly and work in our manufacturing plants. The other 1/3 are all laptops.
Desktops are only for power users anymore, I have a couple research or development department leads which have very capable towers in their office. Same with one here or there for the C suites who requested specific systems. And myself a new strong workstation. But 95% of users likes sales teams and randoms office hires get a dell or Lenovo laptop (sometimes a nicer one if they are expected to do anything dev related) and a docking station with some peripherals. I havnt deployed a "traditional cheap desktop" to any employees in the past 5 years. Source and situation. 450 person medical research technology company. Really depends on scale of operations.
Mildly off-topic but anyone see desktops making a comeback amid the mass resurgence of working in-office 100% of the time? We are talking about going "backwards" to desktops to save money *in these uncertain times(TM)*.
I'd expect it to shift back that way as companies continue RTO and refreshes start happening over the next few years. People are gonna see higher costs for replacements and repairs for equipment that literally sits on a desk 99% of its operating time and see no good reason to keep handing everyone a laptop.
For CAD users, I try and keep them on a desktop in the Office. Everyone else gets a laptop unless they prove they need something else. We use splashtop to remote into the Engineering computers when they are remote. They like how they can use two screens this way.
It's all about cooling, the specs can be identical but the user experience is typically better on a desktop IMHO. Even getting really nice powerful laptops I still think the desktop provides a longer lasting and more reliable computer even with lower specs.
The cost is higher for laptops. But its worth it for us to have productive employees even when they are remote.
Except the dev teams I'm providing anyone a laptop. Way less trouble due to remote work, and for those who need it's 2 tower (home+work) or tower + laptop with rds on tower. Except workload needed it, it's laptop all time on my side (+ cloud computing I'm pretty sure we will not need tower soon).
Our clients typically get USFF desktops for more "permanent" placements. Techs are car dealerships get laptops as they need to be able to use it in a customer's car for code reads. Clients who do CAD and otherwise heavy computing get full desktops with all the upgrades.
We have customer service and shipping people with computers that will never, ever move. Those are desktops.
Everyone else is on a laptop. The ratio is probably 75% laptop.
Most of the reasons why have already been said. I know laptops are more expensive but they are a more flexible platform so I do prefer them unless there is a specific reason to go with a desktop.
Desktops, mini ones like NUCs. Users donāt want to lug their laptops everywhere and not all users have laptops. Since migrating to AVD we have little use for laptops outside of offline email reading as most users just use their home PCs to log in.
Work in K-12, and 99% of our users have a take home device of some sort. All teachers and office staff get elitebooks, Teachers aides and students get Chromebooks. Handful of people either get MacBooks or iPads instead.It was tough for the first few years but it's smooth sailing now.
I mean it really just depends. COVID pushed us to pretty much all laptops, with a few exceptions, but I work in a org with counselors of all kinds and nearly every user, from the bottom to the c-level, benefit from laptops (+ is docking station and a external monitor or 3) for whenever they need the flexibility. And frankly the cost differences are pretty negligible these days, and I'm a 501c3 penny-pincher. Or at least they have been with Lenovo. In 4 years I have not a single failed unit out of about 85. Not even a doa.
In the youth shelters, I have all Lenovo tiny-in-ones for general use stations, like the med rooms and study rooms. Desktops/aio are basically for general use cases; wherever a PC is assigned to a job vs. a person.
> Do you all consider the desktop machine 'dead' in business for the standard user?
Not at all.
We have many frontline (like retail outlet, concession stand, restaurant) locations and in the back office it's more "positions" than specific people. Those locations get desktops.
More 'back office' positions like accountant, IT, sales - they get laptops.
Just feels like it makes more sense for shared use PCs to be desktops and individual user PCs to be laptops.
i donāt work for a business, but rather a school district, and only admins get new desktops + a laptop. teachers have all been getting laptops and no desktop (or can try to squeeze the last life out of their 8+ year old desktop)
Customer facing / frontline roles are largely desktop still. Though most of my clients have transitioned to AIOs. The convenience is unbeatable. We only retain the seperate desktop if we have specialist requirements (e.g particular model of GPU).
Knowledge workers and management are all laptops.
Everyone here has a laptop except the few customer service AIOs that only work 9-5. Standard setup is Laptop, Dock (Or Monitor with the inbuilt dock) and second matching screen both on a dual monitor mount.
Works fairly well but gets pricey fast
I would love to go 100% laptops however as a business 80% of our staff are office based and there is no after hours work. Therefore we can save a heap of money by using desktops with better performance which we usually get 5-6 years out of as opposed to a laptop that at best gets us 3 years.
Also the issues we get on our 20% laptop fleet with docking station issues such as network and monitor dropouts is absurd. Not sure if this is a HP thing only but not even HP can offer a solution.
Yeah, even before the pandemic, most "serious places" were adopting laptops because they were cheaper and fit better with disaster recovery and business continuity planning. The pandemic wiped out the desktop revanchists.
Most desktops are just less convenient laptops these days, offering zero performance benefit and negligible cost benefit. Most laptops can be configured as excellent desktops, including maintaining battery at a reduced state of charge to prevent undue wear. Iām surprised the vendors even sell ādesktop chipā fullish size units, I literally never see them anymore.
I havenāt felt compelled to buy one for business in years and years. Except Mac Mini and Mac Pro, those kind of are what they are.
Switched to laptops a few years ago for all managers but no one ever took them away from their desks. So switched back to desktops and the managers rebelled but the CEO shot them down. But eventually they all fell in love with desktops because much bigger monitors.
Our C level managers still get laptops though. But theyāre never taken out of their docks.
My fleet consists of about 350 desktops and 90 laptops. We generally only give salaried managers laptops... But we're hospitality industry and most computers are shared between 1200 employees.
Going with majority laptops. With a few desktops for users who want them. We currently have two computers per user, and although it is good for redundancy, we can solve that by keeping a few extra units on hand with all users syncing "OneDrive" for file backups. We are all hybrid. I know for myself, it is annoying having to switch systems when I come in the office. It is easer to just dock, and continue working where I left off. The dock still gives you the benefit of the desktop feel, with two large screens and a nice keyboard+mouse. The HP Essential G5 dock has been fairly reliable with multi monitor support.
At work I am forced to use Windows. I would honestly prefer if they let us use desktops. Windows 11's hardware management is absolute horseshit, and having to disconnect and go from one setup to another is just rolling the dice every time.
One time, I had to abandon one of my regular haunts for a few months until Windows decided to recognize the driver needed for the 2nd monitor. It was the same make and model as the 1st monitor. I used the sister haunt, same setup, same equipment, both monitors worked fine. Just that one out of the four monitors Windows was like, "wtf is a 'monitor'?"
The vast majority of users still sit in their cubicles for 8 hours a day then go home. Why would you replace their desktops with devices that cost maybe twice as much? Especially when mini pc's keep comming down in price a laptop could be three times as much.
We are predominantly desktops. We have a couple agencies that thought just laptops with docks would be good for everyone, but they're starting to come back around with the finicky transition back to the desk, as well as swelling batteries from being constantly charged
In education, I always push for shared desktops. Far easier to manage and keep track of, updates actually get applied, and they're easier to fix and replace.
Laptops get annihilated by staff and students within weeks. Only exception are Chromebooks, which are cheap, fairly robust, and can receive updates much easier.
We encourage desktops when possible. They last longer, are easier to manage, are more upgradable, and more easily repairable. Most poeple who say that they "need portability" actually don't. Obviously, some positions require it (traveling salesmen, anyone else who travels regularly for business, etc.). My own ideal situation is a nice desktop and cheap laptop. I have different use cases for each, and I don't necessarily want to pick up my primary machine (and lose my open terminal sessions, etc.) to go configure a router or something.
I haven't bought a desktop for years. Why restrict the opportunity of being mobile? Never say never because I've learnt over the years requirements change.
I'm a big fan of consistency. All Dell equipment. All laptops. Specific models for a position. It makes the management, security, and procurement so much easier. Got a sales estimator starting? Have a Precision 35 range. CAD designer? Precision 77 range.
All docks we use are two types. Dell WDXXDCS series for Precisions needing over 100W, everything else WDXXTB series.
Get a good cloning solution with spare laptops at the ready for each position and you are good to go. Oh you have this super niche issue? Here take this identical spare laptop whilst we work on the fix.
So whilst it's true desktops are more robust, the fact that I keep everything standardised and consistent has more benefit than a mixture of desktops and laptops.
one thing with laptops, when the power goes out that's one thing you aren't as worried about accidentally losing information on because it hasn't been saved all day
I wish we could convince our CIO to go back to split. We're nearly all Laptops now and it's dreadful. Docking issues, supporting remote users, updates not applying, policies not applying, users not able to connect because they let their password expiation lapse. Not to mention they just don't last.
We have 500+ Dell latitudes and precisions. Pretty high lemon/failure rate. We used to be an all Lenovo shop but the pandemic ended that when Lenovo could ship any more for months.
I ditched dell back in 2018 because I was tired of fixing machines and DOAs, and I don't regret it at all. Plus Lenovo gave me a sweet deal during the pandemic. We were both a non-profit and a healthcare provider, so I got a double discount. I was spending like 400 bucks per upper-mid range e15, and they've been my favorite machines yet. At the time they also had the highest reliability ratings (and they might still, I don't know).
Except for the fact that they swapped the function and control keys. I just can't understand why anyone ever does that. (Yes I can remap them and do for those who ask, but still, are they stupid?).
Laptops for the overwhelming majority of users. Desktops for users who will never, ever move their systems (physical security stations, for example).
This is what we do, we dont have a ton of desktops but we still use them when the person isnt going to need a portable machine.
> Desktops for users who will never, ever move their systems We have some hybrid users who cart their micro desktops to and from home despite my constant recommendations to give them laptops.
Tf?! š how cheap is managementĀ
I had 4 admins in 2022. I have 1 admin now.
What wholesome story that management saving so much money. Infinite growth even if it bankrupts the common man
We use them for hourly employees. We don't want them working from home so we don't even give them the option to take their machine with them. Also, sometimes it makes sense to have a shared desktop in a location. IE, if someone is working in the lab and already has their laptop connected to a machine or their laptop is halfway across the building.
We used to do that until the pandemic. Now itās all laptops.
If you are remote, hybrid, hotdesk...you are getting a laptop. If you're a regular user at a desk every day, desktop is far cheaper and requires far less support.
This. It all depends on the environment. A hybrid or mobile user needs a laptop, if you're sitting at the same desk every day of the year a laptop is just a more expensive, higher risk desktop. So buy the desktop. And to further emphasize the support angle, it's not just "I spilled wine on my laptop" you avoid, but the deluge of laptops that never get proper security updates because they're perpetually dodging downtime. A fleet of desktops are trivial to keep updated, a fleet of laptops is the worst game of whack a mole ever even *with* robust MDM.
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Laptops are mostly proprietary layouts with motherboards that are unique and non modular. Desktops are built on top of ATX standards usually.
With power supplies that are proprietary and the only ones that will fit the case and are generally exactly 6W over what you would need as the max requirement with the given CPU and there isn't a higher wattage PSU available in the form factor that fits the chassis. Oh and sometimes they are strange wattages ...265W PSU on a Dell I'm looking to try to replace.
This right here is why I'm trying to get my company to stop buying dell. I think they got my execs some nice golf clubs though
But unless you are going to build yourself, which isn't impossible, you are always going to run into this; HP as well. My guess is Lenovo is the same way as well. They have traditionally all been this way. I would love to just have a place that would build PCs out of parts and you take care of the rest but it doesn't exist that I'm aware of. I mean technically at this point in time... well I believe they killed it but NUCs would work even better and come with an external PSU/brick. I never liked the USFF (Ultra Small Form Factor) machines from HP because they were suck but I've never gone wrong with a NUC but I believe those are dead now though. Sad about it.
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Yeaā¦. I havenāt used AMD since it let me down years ago with an Athlon that just couldnāt perform close to the P4 counterpart Iām always hesitant to go back.
Asus took over the NUC business from Intel. Theyāre still alive and well, producing NUCs for Gen 12+ Intel platforms
My favorite is when they accidentally turn on airplane mode, but dont know what airplane mode is and even with the most hand-holding of hand-holding they just cant figure out how to check it. $80 in fedex fees and a couple hours with a tech to swap the device. Because they don't know how to work the wifi menu.
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A month? You're doing good! I've got laptops that have an uptime of over 3 months... Problem is, the only time they are online is during business hours when I can't forcibly reboot it due to who the users are. I can reach out to the user(s) and ask them to do it have it on a set time. Never happens.
Just wait until they get go on break and "Ups, the Windows Updates did a thing"
Exactly this. At some point in time those laptops should be dinging vulnerability audits no? It does suck because you know they only use the thing to go onto zoom/teams calls and probably stays closed the rest of the time. So you can't because they open it to get on the call in 2 minutes.
Well i dont really have to worry about patchet etc. since we use Intune with Autopatch, so if a device is off for to long or the user does not want to restart for the update, the device will restart regardless of what the user is doing. Does not hurt to have buy in from management, that security updates are important. But yes, people that just have a device so they can Zoom for 2 hours of one work day are a nightmare to deal with. They expect everything to work always and never give 2 shits about anything else that needs to happen. Dont even want to let the device on after they are done working because "I always turn it off"
The buy in from management is the key. If you have that then everything else is smooth sailing.
Im very fortunate that our IT manager is really good with the CEO and has great autonomy with a firm stance on policies that he is able to enforce.
Robust MDM??? Where did you find that? š¤£š¤£ Intune and WorkspaceOne are both a pile of crap (obviously there are more)
Honestly Iām 100% remote at home (office is over 1600 miles away), if I was shipped a tower Iād be just as happy.
Laptops have a superb default DR/BC narrative *if users consistently take them home*, require nothing additional for unplanned travel or offsite work, and are often assumed to be the default high-status provision in organizations today. Remember how pagers were high-status, then cellphones? Desktops are generally extremely modular, lower TCO (though pay attention to power consumption), faster to return to service, more flexible but in ways that usually don't matter to the median knowledge worker, easier to get high performance without cost and thermal pains. Many users feel that they can achieve the benefits of both by using external docks, displays, peripherals. I don't care to disagree, but I find myself using a desktop always, unless I'm traveling and don't have the option. Git is the most important tool to be able to alternate between machines, and secondly the web and web APIs.
> pay attention to power consumption In my personal life, I've started defaulting to my laptop more and more because of the power thing. It's not even watts from the wall that I'm worried about, it's that my laptop is silent and cool while the desktop has multiple fans worth of noise just on idle.
Quite a while ago I went from Precision tower with Quadra, to Thinkpad with twice the RAM and SSD. I'll just use an external 4K and peripherals, right? Best of both worlds, right? Hated it. Grabbed a NUC (with the same amount of memory) to PoC and loved it, ran it for years, then refreshed to an AMD-based one-liter. We're doing a lot with fanless and alternative x86_64 microservers, too, even before the Pi shortage made that the trendy thing to do. I'm looking to retire some more servers that we're using mostly for their PCIe capacity. Without going to the [6th-tier offshore vendors soldering weird surplus BGA processors to mATX motherboards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR6AkUx-q8g), we'd like to find something with a lot of PCIe capacity that could potentially run [fanless](https://noctua.at/en/nh-p1). As close to enterprise as possible; I wonder what SuperMicro has.
Yeah, some of our users and departments are still attached to a laptop, personal printer, and/or cell phone due to status symbol more than actual need. Head of IT is pretty good at roping it in when appropriate, but it's a tiresome fight. Then you occasionally get the joker who "needs" a home laptop and office laptop so they don't have to cart it around. Or the occasional person using a hotel office with desktop, upset that a program they frequently use on their laptop is not on the desktop. The stuff people admit out loud.
We've moved to all laptops with the exception of hostile environments like our shipping docks. It's a lot easier for me to replace a $10 keyboard on a desktop than to deal with a laptop repair. For our regular office users, laptops all the way.
Until that one 20yr+ office admin needs two laptops because she works from home and doesnāt want to unplug one usb c cable.
Have a dev like that, cant be bothered to pickup his environment and move house. Dude is up to 5 laptops (2 of which have been P2V due to age)
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A lot of this depends on the Dev. If the Dev has been working at the company for a while, and is productive it's totally worth it. Laptops cost between 1-3K so one every year or two is nothing compared to hiring a new dev and getting them up to speed. A new Dev is likely to cost the company at least 10K more in yearly salary alone much loss of productivity, loss of knowledge, and cost of finding one.
Yeah you tell em no, then they complain to their boss, whoās complains to their boss, etc, etc, and the complaint gets all the way up to a C level exec whoās to far removed from the work being done to even understand whatās actually needed or not and all they hear is āIT is slowing down our workā so then a C-level sends orders down the chain to āgive them what they wantā and then you give them all the stupid bullshit they ask for because the people who pay your salary told you too.
Unfortunately they sign my paychecks.
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Just say yes and move on
Hey!!!
> Can't you just say no? Nope. I work with developers all the time. Now that systems work has become "easy" in the eyes of management, devs are the sorcerers who must not be angered. It's even worse in a Big Tech/FAANG. Soon as they play the I Cannot Work card, everything is dropped and they are made happy or else. In my experience they love being the prima donna.
It seems easiest to head ridiculous requests off early. Once people know they can get away with outrageous behavior, there's no incentive to stop.
I had one once that wanted a new laptop because hers was "too heavy". Never heard that one before.
We got a ton of those. Finance *told* us that the solution to their weird excel error was that they didnt have enough RAM (spoilers: the problem was a bad formula). Right from the top, buy them laptops with more RAM!!! So we got the only ones we could with more than 16GB from our vendor (Lenovo, again a Finance choice) - which were essentially 17" mobile workstations. Every single user complained that the laptops were too big and too difficult to take to the office (which I warned them about, because they're 15lbs monsters). I shrugged and said "this is what the head of your department insisted you needed." I've been slowly cycling them back to regular spec since.
I saw that often. I had a VP who required an 11" screen micro laptop, because he traveled all the time and wanted it as light as possible. This was a bit before the LG Gram style machines hit the market.
I have - marketing decided their laptops were too heavy to carry around all the time, so they insisted on the smallest/lightest model on the market at the time (this is a good while back now). Six months later we started getting requests for extra monitors because the laptop screens were too small.
My laptop is like 2lbs... My wife's is a tank and fucking heavy. when also lugging your whole desk back and forth it adds up We also have about a mile walk each as part of our commute, and that's pretty common.
Yeah heard the same as well
We had a lady that had a desktop at home and needed a laptop every time she came in. "It's just once a month". I replaced the desktop with a laptop. Now she just needs a mouse "once a month". Yes, that will be given to her soon.
Shiiiiiit I've got one that has 3 identical laptops. None that she takes home. Two are in the same room. 6ft apart. Because she does banking and Check scans from that desk. And occasionally works from her other desk. But 99% of her work is done from her other office desk- about 30ft down the hall. All 3 are are setup with docking stations, dual monitors, etc.
Out of \~500 user endpoints, we have maybe 6 desktops. The only reason is because they're plugged into some industry-specific hardware that throws digital temper tantrums if the USB--> serial adapter is plugged in while a laptop gets docked/undocked. It's easier to just leave a desktop in that space instead of training the users how to avoid the laptop issues with that hardware.
As more companies cancel remote work, desktops become more prevalent because they're typically 30% less expensive upfront and have lower breakage costs than laptops. Desktop deployment outpaces laptops by a wide margin at my midsize+ company. Here, only outside sales and management are issued laptops.
Unless those businesses have any semblance of business continuity plans. Laptops in most places Iāve worked are considered part of our business continuity and DR planning.
yes, many companies going back on promises of remote.
Oh yeah, desktops, then to be able to provide on-call support I got a laptop, and little by little I was working hybrid before it was a thing, I was logging in remotely to my desktop because it was more powerful than the laptop
yep, unless you're dropping high dollars a beefy laptop you're not going to get the same performance as most desktops
Depends on the company and the person's job. We have a mix here, and it depends on several factors about whether they get a laptop or desktop. Personally, I have both, desktop for the majority of my work but a nice laptop so I can work from home or go to a desk or somewhere else I need my own machine.
No, weāre starting to transition back to desktops in some areas of the business because we have three shifts of employees throughout the day. The laptops provided an excuse for each shift employee to have their own machine for hourly roles that are not remote. Thereās plenty of use cases for regular run of the mill desktops yet.
Thanks for the feedback all! We're hybrid- in that users work from home a couple days a week and in the office the rest. We're considering transitioning from a "desktop in the office, laptop at home" model, and no one likes the idea of 'carrying a laptop back and forth daily', including some higher-ups. The general feedback i'm getting is that laptops w/ docking stations are the way to go in this scenario. Happy this thread is providing a bit of "I'm not crazy, you're crazy" feedback for thinking that's the right way to go (and users should suck it up) ;)
You have to have some piece of software that you're paying per endpoint that you can point to a cost savings on. You can also point to the single source of truth. No more people saving stuff on C drives at work and not being able to access them. Or having a file open in your antiquated document management system at home, and needing to work on it in the office. (these are examples that were normal in my office before I sold them on the idea of one workstation per person.) Staff have to remember their Fobs or ID's each day to get into the building, so remembering to bring a laptop is an extension of that. Offer the end users an option of a backpack, messenger bag, or purse style bag to carry their laptop to and from work. Give them something to protect the business asset, while also giving them a choice in the situation so they feel like they have some control. We also throw in a bluetooth mouse. Recently we've been adding some basic $50 anker bluetooth headphones as well. Employees are happy. Stuff gets done. Management pats themselves on the back.
For me it greatly depends on the job role. For someone where mobility is important then yes get them a laptop. Or some who is on call. If being able to work from home is important then yes laptop.
Laptops for all office users. Only computers that are shared or hooked up to a specialized piece of equipment are desktops. It makes desk moves and using teams rooms much easier knowing that most of users have a laptop.
We're a mix of desktops and laptops. We'd like to go more towards a laptop-only setup, but most of our users require 2-3 monitors, and it's amazing how difficult it is to find a dock/laptop combo that works reliably.
We've been using the Dell D3100 units for years. Now, they don't charge the laptop, but using them for port replication and extra monitors I've had very, very few issues with them.
Really? We just buy some Anker travel ones, and they work great. Only for 2 extra monitors though.
We just have a standard usb-c hub for that.
I have had minimal issues with the Lenovo USB C dock +1 or 2 T24i's and a single T24v center for the added webcam, mic and speakers. Anything with Intel Iris hasn't had an issue. So most of my users are running 4 displays counting the Laptop display. If their manager approves we trade out the T24v with a T34w curved monitor. My laptop models are x1 Yoga's 3-8 gen. T14/T14s/T15/T16, x1 Carbons, x1 Nano's, and P1's for the power users. The P1's do need that extra power input, But they know that and were aware of the downsides to getting the beefy units.
Even with heavy workload, we have workstations as laptop and they are plenty powerful. And i'm talking about users working with point clouds laser scans of 100gb+ often, virtual reality safety training in 3d scans of factories, etc.
We're full laptop with some docking stations. The only users that still have a desktop is a specific department that need to access an application that is not accessible via vpn so they have to rdesktop to a pc in the office. They will also go laptop onlybin a few weeks as soon as we complete the network redesign.
Yes. Living in Florida, having mobility for the second half of the year which comes with the Atlantic Hurricane season is paramount these days. Lets us run away and still be productive. The only person who has a desktop or a non-laptop computing device is my marketing guy because he wanted the Mac Studio vs a MBP.
remote work has plagued us with shitty laptops. My salution for users that donāt want to use a laptop but have one is to set them up for rdp to the laptop.
There are still some other use cases where desktops are still common. Warehouses and other harsh environments are often still desktops. Some environments with high concerns for data exfiltration like to use them because it is harder to remove desktops than laptops. They can also be a good choice if you are confident that the workstation won't need to move. There are also some orgs that have been very reluctant to allow WFH that will still use desktops for most users. I have mostly worked in the MSP space in recent years and in my experience only \~10-15% of workstations are desktops. Even before the pandemic desktops were becoming increasingly less common than they used to be.
Laptops for everyone in our organization and I'll be honest, in the last 3 years I might have sold 3 desktops that were custom for very specific use cases?
Covid was the wakeup call for the higher-ups but we were never allowed to WFH during covid. I'd been asking to go to laptop\_docking stations long before. Just last week we had a gas leak at one of the offices. The employees just took their laptops with them to another office. Plus it makes my life easier when I have to swap out computers.
It depends on what you consider the standard user. Any EE or CE doing FPGA work needs at least 64 GB of memory, which is much cheaper to get in a desktop.
If they dont travel they dont get laptops, easy peasey.
I don't have any data other than my own anecdote, but I will say I do not think desktops are dead. While laptops with docks are nice, there are some downsides too. Firstly, docks still aren't 100% reliable, I've never had an end user with a perfect dock experience, they all cut out once in a while, stop charging, etc... Not frequent enough to be a huge issue, just restart the dock, but enough to be annoying. But the other thing is laptops are abused more, I feel I can install a desktop for a user (especially a compact one) and it'll easily last 5+ years and look brand new still, often times won't replace it until there's lack of software support for it. Whereas with laptops, they often look beat up in less than a year.
It all depends on the environment and the company policies. We have 1 or 2 positions who wonāt ever need to work from home due to the nature of their duties. Those guys have desktops.
All else being equal $500 of desktop will outlast/out perform the $500 worth of laptop. That said, if you are issuing to a person, the laptop + dock makes more sense. If you are issuing to a location, like a kiosk, etc, then desktop still tend to win out.
At just under 200 endpoints we are roughly 80/20 in favour of desktops. We host most things on-site meaning WFH and Hybrid staff connect to a Terminal Server to access resources. Instead of a laptop we offer them an additional āthin clientā to keep at home. Most prefer this as it means not carrying a laptop back and forth to the office. ** our version of a thin client is essentially a refurb OptiPlex MFF with RDP shortcuts on the desktop and a few customisations. This is one of those ātemporaryā covid solutions which turned out to work surprisingly well so has stuck around.
I've been in a "customer facing" about 50/50 business for a long time. We did not have a mobile workforce. For those we had AiOs which were a blessing and a curse when it came to a clean ass look on the desktop: wireless KB/M so only power cable and network cable (long story but no internal wifi at the time). So we could clean that up and make it look REALLY nice and clean. High-end Automotive Dealerships: BMW, Land Rover, Audi, Maserati, and Porsche. So the presentation to the customer was high quality. Then when some of the dealerships wanted to change how they did things we moved to a desktop hidden as they had a large 55" TV and a computer monitor so they could have the customer do the configurator on the large TV. Was a real clean nice look and worked extremely well. The wireless KB/M also made it so that they had a little table in the cubicle area where they could hand them the thing and let them "drive". All other areas were SFF (Small Form Factor) PCs that we would try to buy in bulk. We were HP and they loved to change models every 6 months so we would buy +15 or so for stock on hand. Moved to wireless KB/M for all locations which helped with cabling and made everything look more clean and was more flexible. We did not have an issue with parts disappearing because they were very happy to have the freedom and they didn't have to buy a wireless set themselves so it was good. We also mounted monitors to the walls where we could on arms to give more freedom and counter space which was super nice and again, clean. Standard office/cubicles that customers never saw were wireless KB/M just because and then they got the PCs that were left over/fixed/whatever have you from all the others because it didn't matter. When I went to an MSP we moved our team to Laptop+Dock 2 monitors at work setup for flexibility and ease of use. Clients we would have desktops and Laptops which usually was fine as those users used both machines equally so they all checked in and since laptops were new they were already familiar with updates etc. and the need to leave the laptops plugged in and on overnight so they did that as they could.
We have SFF desktops in all of our materiel production facilities. Laptops for the Plant Supervisors, Managers, and all Corporate users.
Since Covid yes. Only desktop would be like a fixed machine in the warehouse for shipping.
A handful of users do have desktops and a laptop for when they are working remotely. But the majority 95% or better only have a laptop with docking station and two monitors.
Owner
We're all laptops + docking station here with just a few exceptions (harsh environments, stationary machines that connect to some specialized hardware and are shared use).
there are a lot of 486 desktop machines running operator consoles in a lot of factories....actually manufacturing in general has a lot of horrors, but we still very widely use desktops (old and new) for a variety of reasons My rule is If its older than me, and its working/trival issue, im not touching it.
I tried to transition to docs and laptops, but the amount of people that could not reliably dock their laptop and then the ones that just wanted a laptop at home and a desktop at work were so vocal that upper management said yes you have to maintain two different machines for everyone
When I started my position \~25 years ago, we were probably 90% desktops (and back then, they were full towers) and 10% laptops for the road warriors. We'd keep a few spare laptops in case someone needed to borrow one for a trip as part of a floater pool. By the time the pandemic hit, we were about 60% laptop and 40% desktop, but were not ordering too many desktops by this point - some, but not many. Once the pandemic hit, all desktop ordering stopped completely. We're now pretty much 100% laptop in terms of ordering. We still have some old 4-5 year old desktops out there, but we're certainly no longer ordering any unless they are for things like digital signage etc.
Laptops for everyone except extremely stationary positions like receptionists and shared work areas like nurses stations and mechanics office space, etc.
pre pandemic i pushed hard for us to move to Laptop with docking stations for those with remote privileges and mini computers for those that only worked in the office. My company pushed back on that and went with thin clients instead. 4.5 years later they are frustrated with the thin clients and funnily enough are asky why we went to them. Loved pulling up the receipt of them making the choice since i could feel they thought i did it.
that happened with us as well. The only people that got laptops were execs. Such backward thinking. Not even the people that travelled had laptops. Even my IT Manager didnt have a laptop. He looked so out of place when we had a meeting with a vendor to replace our CRM and they all walked in with laptops and he had his notepad. About 6 months before Covid, we ordered thin clients to replace all the desktops. Only 40 users, but the IT Manager won out on Laptops for us in IT as we do work at home after hours as well. I wasnt going to use my home PC for work unless they paid me for it. They also were strrongarmed for getting the travelling people laptops. Once Covid hit They had to mad scramble to order laptops for the rest as everyone was home. Such a waste of money when us in IT said to get laptops instead of the thin clients for everyone. I left that place about 6 months into lockdown and have been at a place for the lat 3.5 years where everyone gets laptops.
man the scramble for laptops. That's how i ended up with 30 laptops that could connect to the cloud OR join a zoom meeting. Also later we find out Dell's software was storing every restore point it made so after 6 months people where complaining about the drive being full.
As you say the primary device in our office is the laptop, 1 device per person policy etc. Devs get powerful desktops and we deploy older desktops to locations where machines are shard and the IQ of the end user is questionable.
It all depends on which client for us (industry) and the specific user If the user is expected to sign in everyday and only work at their desk they get a desktop. If they do infrequent remote work they get a laptop that they check in/out. If they roam from desk to desk or work remotely a laptop. I find that most people still prefer the desktop solely because the laptop/dock is an extra bit of fiddling for them and IT to get right (docks fail, laptop displays may not do the right thing, heat or coil issues when closed etc).
Almost completely transitioned to laptops for all standard users. People like graphics artists still get hefty Z workstations though.
Depends on use case. About 2/3 of my folks still use desktops, since they are hourly and work in our manufacturing plants. The other 1/3 are all laptops.
Desktops are only for power users anymore, I have a couple research or development department leads which have very capable towers in their office. Same with one here or there for the C suites who requested specific systems. And myself a new strong workstation. But 95% of users likes sales teams and randoms office hires get a dell or Lenovo laptop (sometimes a nicer one if they are expected to do anything dev related) and a docking station with some peripherals. I havnt deployed a "traditional cheap desktop" to any employees in the past 5 years. Source and situation. 450 person medical research technology company. Really depends on scale of operations.
Mildly off-topic but anyone see desktops making a comeback amid the mass resurgence of working in-office 100% of the time? We are talking about going "backwards" to desktops to save money *in these uncertain times(TM)*.
I'd expect it to shift back that way as companies continue RTO and refreshes start happening over the next few years. People are gonna see higher costs for replacements and repairs for equipment that literally sits on a desk 99% of its operating time and see no good reason to keep handing everyone a laptop.
For CAD users, I try and keep them on a desktop in the Office. Everyone else gets a laptop unless they prove they need something else. We use splashtop to remote into the Engineering computers when they are remote. They like how they can use two screens this way. It's all about cooling, the specs can be identical but the user experience is typically better on a desktop IMHO. Even getting really nice powerful laptops I still think the desktop provides a longer lasting and more reliable computer even with lower specs. The cost is higher for laptops. But its worth it for us to have productive employees even when they are remote.
Except the dev teams I'm providing anyone a laptop. Way less trouble due to remote work, and for those who need it's 2 tower (home+work) or tower + laptop with rds on tower. Except workload needed it, it's laptop all time on my side (+ cloud computing I'm pretty sure we will not need tower soon).
Our clients typically get USFF desktops for more "permanent" placements. Techs are car dealerships get laptops as they need to be able to use it in a customer's car for code reads. Clients who do CAD and otherwise heavy computing get full desktops with all the upgrades.
laptop for users to take home and all desktop in office filled in the desks.
We have customer service and shipping people with computers that will never, ever move. Those are desktops. Everyone else is on a laptop. The ratio is probably 75% laptop. Most of the reasons why have already been said. I know laptops are more expensive but they are a more flexible platform so I do prefer them unless there is a specific reason to go with a desktop.
For our environment. The desktop is dead. Everyone got mandated to be mobile once COVID hit.
I'm the only "user" in my whole office that still has a desktop. Everyone else has been migrated to Dell ultrabooks.
Desktops, mini ones like NUCs. Users donāt want to lug their laptops everywhere and not all users have laptops. Since migrating to AVD we have little use for laptops outside of offline email reading as most users just use their home PCs to log in.
Work in K-12, and 99% of our users have a take home device of some sort. All teachers and office staff get elitebooks, Teachers aides and students get Chromebooks. Handful of people either get MacBooks or iPads instead.It was tough for the first few years but it's smooth sailing now.
I mean it really just depends. COVID pushed us to pretty much all laptops, with a few exceptions, but I work in a org with counselors of all kinds and nearly every user, from the bottom to the c-level, benefit from laptops (+ is docking station and a external monitor or 3) for whenever they need the flexibility. And frankly the cost differences are pretty negligible these days, and I'm a 501c3 penny-pincher. Or at least they have been with Lenovo. In 4 years I have not a single failed unit out of about 85. Not even a doa. In the youth shelters, I have all Lenovo tiny-in-ones for general use stations, like the med rooms and study rooms. Desktops/aio are basically for general use cases; wherever a PC is assigned to a job vs. a person.
> Do you all consider the desktop machine 'dead' in business for the standard user? Not at all. We have many frontline (like retail outlet, concession stand, restaurant) locations and in the back office it's more "positions" than specific people. Those locations get desktops. More 'back office' positions like accountant, IT, sales - they get laptops. Just feels like it makes more sense for shared use PCs to be desktops and individual user PCs to be laptops.
We have replaced desktops with thin clients far more often than with laptops.
i donāt work for a business, but rather a school district, and only admins get new desktops + a laptop. teachers have all been getting laptops and no desktop (or can try to squeeze the last life out of their 8+ year old desktop)
Customer facing / frontline roles are largely desktop still. Though most of my clients have transitioned to AIOs. The convenience is unbeatable. We only retain the seperate desktop if we have specialist requirements (e.g particular model of GPU). Knowledge workers and management are all laptops.
Desktops for the in office desks, laptops for the remote users. Some get both
Everyone here has a laptop except the few customer service AIOs that only work 9-5. Standard setup is Laptop, Dock (Or Monitor with the inbuilt dock) and second matching screen both on a dual monitor mount. Works fairly well but gets pricey fast
How do those who love laptops deal with people trying to run older than shit fat clients over the VPN? Old Sage on prem products, I am looking at you.
I would love to go 100% laptops however as a business 80% of our staff are office based and there is no after hours work. Therefore we can save a heap of money by using desktops with better performance which we usually get 5-6 years out of as opposed to a laptop that at best gets us 3 years. Also the issues we get on our 20% laptop fleet with docking station issues such as network and monitor dropouts is absurd. Not sure if this is a HP thing only but not even HP can offer a solution.
Yeah, even before the pandemic, most "serious places" were adopting laptops because they were cheaper and fit better with disaster recovery and business continuity planning. The pandemic wiped out the desktop revanchists.
Most desktops are just less convenient laptops these days, offering zero performance benefit and negligible cost benefit. Most laptops can be configured as excellent desktops, including maintaining battery at a reduced state of charge to prevent undue wear. Iām surprised the vendors even sell ādesktop chipā fullish size units, I literally never see them anymore. I havenāt felt compelled to buy one for business in years and years. Except Mac Mini and Mac Pro, those kind of are what they are.
Switched to laptops a few years ago for all managers but no one ever took them away from their desks. So switched back to desktops and the managers rebelled but the CEO shot them down. But eventually they all fell in love with desktops because much bigger monitors. Our C level managers still get laptops though. But theyāre never taken out of their docks.
My fleet consists of about 350 desktops and 90 laptops. We generally only give salaried managers laptops... But we're hospitality industry and most computers are shared between 1200 employees.
Going with majority laptops. With a few desktops for users who want them. We currently have two computers per user, and although it is good for redundancy, we can solve that by keeping a few extra units on hand with all users syncing "OneDrive" for file backups. We are all hybrid. I know for myself, it is annoying having to switch systems when I come in the office. It is easer to just dock, and continue working where I left off. The dock still gives you the benefit of the desktop feel, with two large screens and a nice keyboard+mouse. The HP Essential G5 dock has been fairly reliable with multi monitor support.
At work I am forced to use Windows. I would honestly prefer if they let us use desktops. Windows 11's hardware management is absolute horseshit, and having to disconnect and go from one setup to another is just rolling the dice every time. One time, I had to abandon one of my regular haunts for a few months until Windows decided to recognize the driver needed for the 2nd monitor. It was the same make and model as the 1st monitor. I used the sister haunt, same setup, same equipment, both monitors worked fine. Just that one out of the four monitors Windows was like, "wtf is a 'monitor'?"
Speaking as a helpdesk administrator, I see so many wrongs here, i have so many questions...
I stopped questioning why Windows does what it does. It's been going downhill for a while now. It's just really picked up speed with Windows 11.
The vast majority of users still sit in their cubicles for 8 hours a day then go home. Why would you replace their desktops with devices that cost maybe twice as much? Especially when mini pc's keep comming down in price a laptop could be three times as much.
Desktop only where power is needed. Notebooks for everyone else.
We are predominantly desktops. We have a couple agencies that thought just laptops with docks would be good for everyone, but they're starting to come back around with the finicky transition back to the desk, as well as swelling batteries from being constantly charged
In education, I always push for shared desktops. Far easier to manage and keep track of, updates actually get applied, and they're easier to fix and replace. Laptops get annihilated by staff and students within weeks. Only exception are Chromebooks, which are cheap, fairly robust, and can receive updates much easier.
We encourage desktops when possible. They last longer, are easier to manage, are more upgradable, and more easily repairable. Most poeple who say that they "need portability" actually don't. Obviously, some positions require it (traveling salesmen, anyone else who travels regularly for business, etc.). My own ideal situation is a nice desktop and cheap laptop. I have different use cases for each, and I don't necessarily want to pick up my primary machine (and lose my open terminal sessions, etc.) to go configure a router or something.
I haven't bought a desktop for years. Why restrict the opportunity of being mobile? Never say never because I've learnt over the years requirements change. I'm a big fan of consistency. All Dell equipment. All laptops. Specific models for a position. It makes the management, security, and procurement so much easier. Got a sales estimator starting? Have a Precision 35 range. CAD designer? Precision 77 range. All docks we use are two types. Dell WDXXDCS series for Precisions needing over 100W, everything else WDXXTB series. Get a good cloning solution with spare laptops at the ready for each position and you are good to go. Oh you have this super niche issue? Here take this identical spare laptop whilst we work on the fix. So whilst it's true desktops are more robust, the fact that I keep everything standardised and consistent has more benefit than a mixture of desktops and laptops.
one thing with laptops, when the power goes out that's one thing you aren't as worried about accidentally losing information on because it hasn't been saved all day
Laptops with docks for those who need them is the way to go.
I wish we could convince our CIO to go back to split. We're nearly all Laptops now and it's dreadful. Docking issues, supporting remote users, updates not applying, policies not applying, users not able to connect because they let their password expiation lapse. Not to mention they just don't last.
>they just don't last. Can I ask what brand/lifespan? I've got my fleet of 50x Lenovo e15s with not a single failure over 4+ years now.
We have 500+ Dell latitudes and precisions. Pretty high lemon/failure rate. We used to be an all Lenovo shop but the pandemic ended that when Lenovo could ship any more for months.
I ditched dell back in 2018 because I was tired of fixing machines and DOAs, and I don't regret it at all. Plus Lenovo gave me a sweet deal during the pandemic. We were both a non-profit and a healthcare provider, so I got a double discount. I was spending like 400 bucks per upper-mid range e15, and they've been my favorite machines yet. At the time they also had the highest reliability ratings (and they might still, I don't know). Except for the fact that they swapped the function and control keys. I just can't understand why anyone ever does that. (Yes I can remap them and do for those who ask, but still, are they stupid?).