-They are very sensitive and prone to damage if used roughly
-They heat up very quickly
-The have limitations in hardware and customization
-They are hard to maintain.
They are not very sensitive and prone to damage. That depends a *ton* on what laptop you have. There are laptops that are used in military environments and do you think they are treated roughly and still last a long time? You bet. Regarding the heat, that's also true of Desktops but desktops are typically in an environment more easily able to *manage* that heat. Heck desktops get hotter than laptops typically in ideal environments for both. Put a blanket over a laptop, sure that'll be bad but if you provide them with a decent chance to dissipate heat they do it pretty well. Also with regards to maintaining them.... in my experience laptops require no effort to maintain them other than the occasional hdd failure or swapping the ram which isn't difficult on most laptops I've used.
-They are easy to maintain
-They can operate in rough environments and are "tougher."
-They are easily customizable.
I disagree about the easy to maintain.... they're a lot harder to maintain because of issues with getting correct graphics cards and correct motherboards for your cases and hardware etc.... They also don't operate in tougher environments because they are bigger and the fans are bigger and dust and other crap tend to get in them more and can ruin the desktop more easy. They are more customizable but not necessarily easier, that just depends on the desktop and laptop.
Basically the correct advantages and disadvantages of each are:
Laptop:
Advantages:
- More portable
-
Usually integrated better
on average than desktops
-
If they're well built, easier to maintain than desktops.
Disadvantages:
- Usually limited in hardware to a certain extent, you cannot have GTX Titan in a laptop for instance
- Potentially less flexible in terms of upgradability if everything is solder together for instance
- Potentially less flexible because of the potential for proprietary stuff and connectors (see Apple BUT there is always OWC)
Desktops:
Advantages:
- Usually better hardware
- Usually easier in terms of upgradability BUT not always
Disadvantages:
- Bigger and bulkier (usually)
- Hard to upgrade yourself (you need to know how the system exists and what supports what type of components and power requirements etc) BUT this is also true of laptops to a certain extent except in the case of Apple laptops (at least this is the only one I'm really familiar with) and in that case OWC only supplies you with stuff that is guaranteed to work (if you tell them the correct model laptops etc.)
- Requires more time to maintain
- More expensive if they're good desktops (but again this depends on a ton of other factors too so may not necessarily be true).
Basically both come with a ton of asterisks and really it comes down to what *you* want and what *you* are willing to trade off for.
