[airspirit]

P, you're one of the exceptions, I guess. Most people with laptops never remove them from their desks, making the whole portability purpose unnecessary. I've never been one to want to do much on my couch or in bed (though I know people that like to lie in bed while surfing the web ... I try not to imagine why!). When I do stuff, I like being at my desk with its multitude of places to put beer bottles and junk food, and all of my media is readily accessible (somewhat).

That said, I'll probably be picking up a tablet PC sometime in the future for the wife because it'll be extremely handy during her student teaching and in the classroom. What I will NOT do is buy a $2800 model with all the frills and gimmicks because it is very easy for her to do her gaming, CD burning, and heavy lifting at her desk, while the tablet will be perfect for notetaking, minor text input (via a USB keyboard), and reference (I will probably have 3 different online encyclopedias and 2 different atlases loaded on it, along with other school pertinent reference materials).

At my work they purchased a stack of laptops thinking they'd be worth it in the long haul. Now we have a stack of underpowered machines with no upgrade capabilities that have small screens and are an ergonomic nightmare. With the amount invested in them, we could have purchased twice as many desktops, and the upgrade cycle would be alot cheaper than it currently is (a $6-800 cost per desk rather than $2-300). We would also have better computer distribution preventing the logjams that we currently have where people stand in line to use them. Mind you, these machines have never left the desks where they were initially set up ... they were never meant to be portable, but the management fell into the trap of thinking that smaller is better.

Some people get good use out of them, but most people don't. Many people on my network bought laptops thinking they would be good for school, and now are kicking themselves in the ass because they never take them anywhere, and they're stuck with an expensive and slow computer.