As I've pointed out previously, all in one pcs are somehow an offense among friends in here :P

You're right about the interns of a laptop device being mostly clean. I removed the, uh, "lid" of a heavily used one and it wasn't dusty at all. My desktop pc, however, is bombarded by a strange mix of fur, dust and whatever the hell that is on a daily basis. I took it to mom's place once (she's an outcast who lives on an isolated rural area in here) and yep, same old filthy dust. Weird :D

I like laptops a lot, too. Space saving, a lot less dusty boards, portable stuff and so on.
Really don't care that much about modular systems, though, since I know new parts in here can sometime$ be a little abusive and hard to find. That's where integrated chips (and mobile devices in a certain matter) come in handy! Just don't overuse them so much and you have a fully functional system for years to come.


From what I saw it's a helluvah system. Plays like a wild beast and yep, I love it. So small, so much power.
Check the video I've linked earlier and you'll see what I'm talking about ;)

That's where I'm at. Buy higher-end and stretch it to longer intervals and it generally works out just fine when you spread the cost over the life of the unit, with "life" defined as how long you own it before upgrading to something faster. For example, when I bought this thing 4 years back it cost $1,500 with a dedicated GPU. So far that's $375 per year and that cost goes down the longer I keep it. To get a comparable unit that wouldn't 'last as long' performance-wise (as the integrated unit is less capable of keeping up with newer software / games) would probably cost around half that, or $750, and I'd replace it more often.



Back to the original question: With the 4-year old Intel GPU in here, it sucks wind on a lot of newer titles at the resolution I play at. But Intel HD graphics works fine for me, because nVidia Optimus allows me to choose which one I want to use and thus extend the 'life' of this unit.

I agree on high-end gear lasting longer due to the longer time it takes before they are too slow for modern software (or modern needs). But another thing to keep in mind is that with modular gear like desktops, it's easier to switch in parts to make it faster. On my desktop, I did buy a 1 TB SDD for Windows, My Documents and installed games, while keeping the old 3 TB HDD for use as an internal drive for storage of lesser used files (movies, installation files of the games). Plus the ratio of price to computing power of CPU/GPU is more favourable in desktops.

The laptop with the slow Intel HD of Sandy Bridge type (the one that came with my Pentium B970 processor) of which I complained of slow speeds I didn't buy for lots of gaming, just for a bit of gaming at my parents house. I usually stay for 1 or 2 nights when I visit them and I like to have a computer available there for some games and music in the guests' room where I sleep. And as it's a laptop, it can easily be tucked away under the guests' bed without hindering my mom who uses the table there for her sewing machine when I'm not staying with them.

Another nice use for a laptop at my parent's house is backup of crucial files 'off-site'. Though a HDD stored there would sound more logical, I don't want to take up cupboard space there though, the room's cupboard is quite cramped as it is.

In fact, there's not much complaining to be had due to low graphics power as it was a cheap buy anyway: it costed me €263,- for a 15" laptop with 500 GB storage. For the price of a netbook, I had a much bigger and faster machine. It was one from a range of laptops resold by the company after they had be returned by another - dissatisfied - customer. There was nothing wrong with it, but for the metal surface of it that makes the keyboard feel much more stiff, but I got used to that.

And now I don't even game on it. My older laptop but more powerful laptop I had at home (besides a desktop) had it's function replaced by an ASUS tablet with keyboard (typing at meetings, writing columns in the train, checking email on the couch) that's much more portable than a laptop. I took the old powerful one to my parents and gave the Intel HD a second life as video- and youtube-player for my (dumb) TV. Perfect for downloading videos from "Screening missed" (Uitzending gemist) to watch TV-shows and documentairies in my own appointed time with lower resolution than the TV-channel, but without the dictatorial need of 'Watch now" and no need for paying a cable company for subscriptions and set-top boxes.

What's the model/brand? Thanks!

An Acer Aspire V3-531, it's no longer in production and new it would have costed probably over €450,-. It was cheaper by buying it on Coolblue's outlet page on Marktplaats.nl (that's not there anymore). So if you're asking for model/brand to find it now for that price, you're out of luck.

*edit: but if you want to find a cheap laptop where you live, try searching for outlet or refurbished.

Oh thanks, how nice. Nah, just curious. And refurbished ones in here are no-gos, unfortunately.