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Once upon a time, your classmates just knew that you were a computer geek when you transported your micro-computer to your dorm room. Today, they know that you are a geek if you do not have a laptop. (In fact, laptops are cool; desktops are ancient artifacts on university campuses.)
Laptops let you wear a full-powered computer anywhere on campus. You can finish your work in your dorm as easily as you can in the library or elsewhere.
Most colleges and universities offer a laptop requirements sheet that tells you what kind of equipment that you should look for when buying a laptop to school.

Laptops is often quite expensive. They are also takes money to maintain. They can be easily stolen. While battery life often never lived up to the specifications. It is difficult to get work done on an airplane or a coffee, either because people look over your shoulder or ask questions on the laptop. Ack!

Thanks to their light weight, long battery life and more and more computing power, a laptop computer ideal for just about anyone. If you do not have a laptop today, you will one day.

Obviously Adam Osborne was right: Computers need to be portable! The question should really be: Why buy a desktop computer that’s stuck in one spot all the time?
Naturally, a desktop computer is more powerful, expandable, and cheaper than a laptop. But you can’t take it with you! Well, you could, but by hauling all that desktop stuff around you’d really look like a dork. On the other hand, it’s impossible to look like a dork with a laptop. Imagine yourself sitting in that trendy coffee shop, sipping some overpriced caffeinated beverage while pouring over your e-mail and chatting on a cell phone — that’s hip! That’s so five-minutes-from-now!
Seriously, you want a laptop for one of the following reasons:

• As your main computer Why dither over saving money with a desktop when you really want the portability of a laptop? A desktop computer cannot pretend to be a laptop, but a laptop can certainly fake being a desktop: You can use a full-sized keyboard and monitor with your laptop. You can also connect any number of popular desktop peripherals such as a printer, scanner, external hard drive, and so on. But, unlike a desktop system, you’re free to disconnect the laptop and take it with you whenever you want.
• As a space-saving computer system Unlike desktops, you don’t have to build a shrine to your laptop computer — that is, you don’t need a computer desk. If space is tight in your house, apartment, or dorm room, keep the laptop on the shelf or in a drawer. Then set it up on the kitchen table or coffee table when you’re ready to work. Forget about the constant mess and clutter that orbits the typical desktop computer station. Viva Adam Osborne!
• As a second computer Why buy a second desktop computer when you can get a laptop and enjoy not only the presence of a second computer but the ability to make that computer system portable? Further, you can network the two computers together, allowing them to share the Internet connection, printers, as well as data and files. But you still have the luxury of having one system that’s portable.
• As your on-the-road computer Laptops let you take your work on the road. After a few moments of synch, you’re off and running to anywhere you like (though being in direct, bright sunlight can make it difficult to see the laptop screen).

When you return from your “road warrior” trip, you perform another synch, and both computers are all caught up for the day.

• Laptops let you escape the confines of your office and do work anywhere you like for a few hours. For a few hours. Or if there is power at your location, you can plug in and work all day.
• The laptop lets you take your work with you when you travel. It lets you experience the reality of using a computer on an airplane (which isn’t as sexy as it sounds).

From the time when the first computer was powered on in the early 1940s, users have craved mobility. I’m certain of it. Sitting in the lunch room, some guy with a crew cut, thick glasses, and a white lab coat popped up and said, “How ’bout we put wheels on the ENIAC? Then we could roll it out into the quad and work outside on a sunny day? Hey?” And so the dream was born.

Any computer can be mobile. The solution is simple: Just add a handle. I remember my first portable TV. It may have weighed over 40 pounds, but dangit, the thing had a handle, and therefore it was portable. Seeing that portability is often desired in a product, manufacturers were quick to add handles to everything, blessing products such as blenders, table saws, microwave ovens, and grand pianos with the gift of portability. For computers, the desire to make it portable is a primeval one. It was a quest for the Holy Grail, but without a Holy Grail. That’s because the true notion of what a portable computer is, and what it could offer, changed subtly over time.