There are many obvious reasons to have a laptop computer. For one thing, the portability is great. With a laptop, you can easily bring your computer with you and work on whatever it is you need to work on from wherever you happen to be. However, while having a laptop can be very convenient and beneficial, if you are going to have only one computer, it should be a desktop.

There are many reasons to have a desktop instead of a laptop, or a laptop and a desktop rather than just a laptop. Aside from the fact that a laptop will probably cost more than a comparable desktop and that desktops are more easily upgradeable and usually have more storage and processing power than laptops, laptops have disadvantages due to the way they are intended to be used.

One thing that will likely happen if you have only a laptop is that you will have a spot set up where your laptop sits when you are home and is plugged in to your printer and a power outlet. Also, you may have it plugged in to external speakers, a mouse, and possibly a monitor and keyboard to make using the laptop at home more convenient.

Some people may have docking stations for their laptops, but for those who don’t, after repeated plugging and unplugging of these connections (which can get to be a bit of a hassle) you may begin to notice some wear on the laptop where the connections are made. From my own experience, I have an old laptop that was plugged in to and unplugged from a set of speakers so many times that the headphones jack on the machine no longer works.

Another physical threat to the well-being of your laptop from these mannerisms is that having the laptop plugged in to the charger all of the time (or all the time when you are home) is not good for the battery. Eventually, the battery will not hold as much of a charge as it used to and then not hold a charge at all.

It is also not a good idea to have only a laptop in regards to the information that you may have stored electronically. While it is nice to be able to work on whatever you need to work on from wherever you are, having it all saved on a laptop is not necessarily a good idea. Current technology allows a person to securely access a home computer from a remote location and thus the information could still be used, but not stored only on your laptop. If you have two computers, you would be able to have the information on both computers if you so desired which would give you a backup copy.

Also, having the information available on your laptop makes the information easier to lose. Laptop computers are much more susceptible to theft than desktops, partially because of their portable nature, and partially because of the fact that they are in the public eye more. A desktop computer stays at home at your desk and the only people who see it are people who are at your house, but a laptop may be used at work, at school, at the park, or at the coffee shop and anyone at any of these locations would be able to see it and that you have it. A laptop can also be left in the car while you run in to a store and be stolen from there. If all you have is a laptop and all your information is stored on it, if the computer is stolen so is everything that you had stored on it.

The final drawback to laptops over desktops that I will mention in this post is that laptops are more likely to incur physical damage than desktops. The first way that this can happen is if you happen to be eating or drinking while using the computer. If you are using a laptop and spill a glass of water on your keyboard, the entire computer is going to be damaged. With a desktop, if you spill a glass of water on the keyboard you can easily purchase a new keyboard for a fairly low price and continue working. A desktop computer is also much less likely to be dropped than a laptop because it is not carried around near as often.

While having a laptop can be very useful and convenient, there are also many benefits to having a desktop computer. Because of these benefits, I would not recommend for anyone to have only a laptop.