Because of travel and out of office use, the last laptops I used regularly were for work. Small Lenovo ThinkPads that (as I recall) had a drop in docking station kept on my desk for in-office use. That made it into the equivalent of a desktop, with a corded keyboard, a large display, and a mouse. I suspect the same would be done now with plugging in a few cords.

For personal use, then as now, I have limited need for portability and have always had desktops for home use. I currently have several Lenovo All-in-Ones, each with a good sized touchscreen and a wireless keyboard and mouse. I am very happy with them. They're neat and leave the surface they're on uncluttered. There's only one cord, for power. What makes a laptop useful for travelling, a small size, makes them not useful as a day to day machine for home use. Sure, I could set up the equivalent of a docking station but I prefer to not have a cluttered appearance. If I were buying a new laptop today for travelling, I'd probably get a Chromebook with a 10 inch screen. I have a 10 inch Lenovo windows PC and it's the right size and is adequate for me for now. I don't like using tablets.

I second Elmer's praise for Lenovo All-in-Ones. One has been my PC of choice for some time...over and above previously custom built PCs.

jrb451 thank you for your response. Could you tell me which Dell you bought. My situation is similar to yours. I do financial work, spreadsheets, stocks, bonds, etc. Plus I'd like enough space for photos as I also work for an orchid society where I have to save and submit photos. I assume they are all solid state drives.

Thank you,

Jane

Thank you Elmer and Winter for your information. I want to get a Dell. Have had many in the past and never had a problem. I'm typing on one which is so old, sat in a closet for many years. My experience with the HP laptop was a nightmare I do not want a repeat of. What a piece of junk.

I'm not familiar with Lenovo however my husband was given one as a gift from our daughter. He rarely used it and continued to use his Dell laptop. I think, in his case, he just liked the familiarity of his old machine. I do not have any expierence with Lenovo so won't judge it.

My experience has been that Dell machines, both desktops and laptops are very well made and their customer service is superior.

However, I would like a tablet type laptop as well, and might look into Lenovo. I need a small laptop for travel.

I've never had an 'all-in-one' but it sounds like a great idea to keep the desktop neater although I have so many plug ins that it probably will still be cluttered.

Thanks all for the help. I just want a good desktop that has storage, speed and a good monitor. Hopefully the all-in-ones have that combination.

Jane

"although I have so many plug ins that it probably will still be cluttered"

What all do you have plugged in that leads to clutter?

@jane__ny,I bought an XPS 8940 with 1T SSD, 32 Ram, Logitech wireless key board and mouse. I also, later, bought a 27” monitor. I could have spent less but I am hoping to get 10+ years from this one.

Re: cables, I now have fewer. Gone from underneath my desk are the cables from the keyboard, mouse, ethernet, and printer.

DW, hybridizies daylilies, she has more than 1,000. During season she will take 100+ photos a day which are then downloaded to the pc and archived. This process works much better on the new pc.

Why so much RAM?

I'm curious about the RAM also.

I have external speakers plugged in to the computer, I use a few external drives for storage and files which I have to take with me. I use a printer which I plug in because the wireless signal to it is poor. I do use a wireless keyboard/mouse.

Elmer I have two lamps on both side of my desk which have cords, of course they run behind the desk to the outlets, but there seems to be so many cords. I am using a laptop but the All in one sounds good. Just wonder if it has the power of a regular desktop.

Jrb, I had an XPS many years ago. It was my favorite of all the computers I've worked on. It was wonderful years ago, I'm glad to hear it is still one of their best machines.

Jane

I do a bit of video editing so I thought the extra RAM was a nice to have but not a need to have. It was only a $100 upgrade at the time to go from 16 to 32. I figured it would probably come in handy if I end up using this pc for 10+ years as I have my others. I remember paying $50 a megabyte for extra RAM on my 486 Gateway I bought in 1994.

Interesting, I would have thought 16GB would have been more than enough, especially with a solid state drive.

Jane, an all in one is a desktop in a more convenient form factor. No difference at all other than the normal differences that always exist between one PC and another depending on how differences in installed hardware and how equipped. These days, many brands use the same innards procured from the same sources, and Intel is integrating more functions into its motherboards as well, so that the difference between brands is often more about customer service, specs of installed hardware, and assembly quality and less about the components used.