Desktops Won't DieDesktops Won't Die

So this week a writer at Slate says that "Soon there will be no reason to have a big, boxy computer on your desk." I think what he really was trying to say was that the days of full-sized keyboards and monitors is over, since most desktop PCs have long since migrated under the desktop. Still, I think he's wrong.Mobile computing is great. I love my Android smartphone, it's great for checking email and sending short messages no matter where I am. It's incredible to get directions and real-time traffic information while driving. That experience definitely offers something different and more valuable than a desktop PC.

Smartphones can't do everything though. Their displays are tiny, and it's darned near impossible to type more than a short message on their on-screen or chicklet keyboard. Twitter's 140-character limit on tweets may have been set by limitations of SMS, but it hardly matters since tapping out 140 characters on most smartphones is a time-consuming chore.

Slate's article extols the virtues of tablet PCs like the iPad, and they're certainly nice. The larger display overcomes one of the drawbacks of smartphones, but there is still no keyboard. That's why I still see them as a read-mostly device, great for passively consuming media but not so hot for producing things. That's where a real PC comes in.

I started this blog entry on a notebook PC, because the idea of typing hundreds of words on a tablet or smartphone is just crazy. Notebooks are real PCs, with decent-sized keyboards and screens. Netbooks are smaller, but still sport a usable keyboard and display compared to tinier alternatives. Portability is the main reason to get a notebook or netbook, whether you're taking it across the country or just across your living room.

Portability comes with tradeoffs, however. For one, the ergonomics of a notebook aren't great. The keyboards don't have the feel and travel of a desktop keyboard, and the relative position of keyboard to screen usually has you looking down at an awkward angle. The size of the screen can be limiting, and a warm notebook on your lap can be, at best, uncomfortable.

Desktop PCs assume that space and size is not a problem. I work at a desk most of the day, and my main computer is a desktop PC with two 1920x1200 pixel displays. There's a reason why financial traders have a wall of monitors in front of them, it's much easier to see what's going on at a glance. Plus, a full-sized keyboard makes it possible to type quickly with fewer errors, at least for a touch-typist like me. Every other device I use has tradeoffs that I'm only willing to endure because they offer better portability.

I do agree with the Slate article on one point though: people will increasingly use several devices over the course of the day. Cloud services like Google Docs make it even easier to have multiple devices and share data across them without even thinking about it. One of those devices will continue to be a desktop PC, at least for me. That's where I finished writing this blog entry.