Should developers be given laptops or desktops?

Question

I'm aware that a similar question has been asked before here but this is more of question of which is better of a departmental scale. At my last job Code monkeys were given desktops and project managers were given Laptops. The reasoning being that project managers went to more meetings so needed to take thier computers with them.

Because they wouldn't allow us to have the code on our personal machines in order to work from home, we had to remote desktop over a VPN into work in order to work from home.

At my new job I've been given a laptop and personally I love it, I plug into a monitor at work and use 2 screen, and I can work from home without having to deal with a crushingly slow vpn.

In general though accross a development team is it better to give developers laptops tor desktops?

Desktops have raw power and cost in thier favour, plus it's easier to get the holy 3 monitor setup on a desktop, but if you work from home or anywhere else you can't work on the same machine. Laptops can have an extra screen are obviously portable which allows you to work anywhere, but cost more and are likely to be less powerful.

What does everyone think?

Answer 1

Whichever they prefer.

Answer 2

Laptops are good if you want to travel, but otherwise I want power and screen real-estate.

Answer 3

In our group, each developer can decide for him/herself. I have a laptop because I work from home a lot, but others who don't have desktops.

Answer 4

both - desktop for office, laptop for home, meetings, demonstrations, etc.

both should be crushingly fast ;-)

Answer 5

It's up to the developer. I'd give each what they request.

1. Desktops tend to have better performance than laptops, even today.
2. Laptops are more mobile, as you noted in the question
3. Because of #2, they're a more attractive target for thieves. I've had laptops stolen from me at my last two jobs, believe it or not (no, not by my negligence).

Personally, I prefer a desktop, and prefer to VPN in from home. But if you want a laptop, be sure you invest in some sort of encrypted filesystem technology to keep company secrets and source code secure if it walks away from you.

Answer 6

The best solution is to use powerful laptop with docking station + normal keyboard, mouse and monitor at the desk. So when you are in the office, you use a dual-monitor desktop-like system, and when you travel - it is only the laptop, but the same one you use in office.

Answer 7

Unlike most companies we often send programmers into the field to visit customers. In the past we had a desktop and a laptop, both medium priced. A couple of years ago they realized that it would be less expensive to get a good high end laptop, actually a portable work station, to replace both. This included not only the laptop, but also a docking station with a graphics card slot and an extra monitor. For us this has worked out well.

Answer 8

I prefer a personal laptop, (that I own). I'd love for my employer to pay for it, but it is more important to me to have a single, seamless environment for everything that I do, personal and professional.

Of course I keep confidential files on the server at home.

Answer 9

I just wanted to add that if you go with something like a laptop, do not fear, you can still go 3 or more monitors with something like this. Just get as many as you need to get the screenspace you want. I havnt personally tried them, but if I went the laptop route for most of my work, i definately would have at least 1 of these.

Answer 10

I think a factor you should consider is the office environment.

And for most places I've worked in I would make the default a laptop - but it has to be the absolutely best performance laptop around. My rationale is that although Peopleware has been around 20 years a lot of development offices still look like typing pools, it's a real bonus to be able to move your work machine around and it makes a lot of otherwise pointless meetings worthwhile.

I think it's nice to have the option of both, but I've rarely seen both a desktop and a laptop used well.

Answer 11

On my team, each dev gets a laptop (Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram), Desktop (Core 2 Quad, 4 GB Ram, two hard drives) and two monitors + docking station. We also run an ESX Server so they can set up virtual environments, and each has a copy of VMWare Workstation to create whatever they need.

Answer 12

I have a laptop with a docking station and a standard 19" LCD Monitor through work.

Then I spend some of my own cash and pimped it up with a 27" Dell 1920x1200 monitor and an iogear USB video card.

Result: 3 Screen glory (19" Monitor, 27" Montor, Laptop screen) for less than 1000$.

I think that the extra pixels should improve my productivity enough to offset these costs. (If only I would not browse SO with it all the time.)

Answer 13

Laptop. Developers need to go to meetings too. Developers also need to run around asking questions and helping others out.

Answer 14

Where I work, we have very beefy workstations -- Core 2 Quad, 4GB. I would personally prefer a good laptop because most of the projects I work on aren't so crushingly slow that they benefit from the faster system, and I hate working from home via Remote Desktop -- our development environment is complicated enough that I don't really want to try to maintain it in two places.

One thing I've been considering for my personal projects is sidestepping the problem entirely and getting VMware Workstation. That way, I can create a working environment in there and move it between my desktop and laptop as needed. I know some other .NET developers have been doing this and they seem to be pretty happy with that flexibility, especially because it also allows you to snapshot your VM and test various configurations.

Answer 15

Do your devs go to meetings or sit at their desk all day? if the do less than 2 meetings a day give them big grunt desktops. I would guess only user facing devs would ever have laptops. If it is for reasons of taking work home.. desk tops. Define work home boundaries. Its unhealthy to EXPECT employees to work from home. Asking for home access is different.

Answer 16

Macbook pro with Parallels. I don't mean a "bare bones" I mean a decked out MBP.

I use a desktop at work, and have fought the laptop battle because of the lack of power those have compared to my desktop - although I'd have two screens, regardless. I VPN through my macbook, and often test from home since I've got access to every browser/environment I'd need on it.

Unfortunately, a macbook pro is also the most expensive of all options.

Answer 17

An argument for buying employees laptops is that they take them home with them, so they are more likely to work at home, so the company gets more work done.