Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueSkyJaunte
The only reason we still have a desktop at home is to have something to rip DVDs with and to sync our iPhones to. So that's a 2009 iMac 24" that I stuck a 2TB drive into.
Everything else is either cheap or old. Or both.
Home 3d print server -> Raspberry Pi Zero running OctoPrint
Home media server -> RP3 running OpenMediaValue + a couple 4GB USB HDs
Home theater devices -> RP3s running Kodi
Home arcade device for kiddos -> RP3 running EmulationStation
Wife's web-surfy thing -> Cheap-ass ChromeBook
My 3d + general workhorse -> 2013-era Lenovo Yoga 13
My web-surfy thing -> iPad Air
Kids' homework -> MacBook from 2007 (I think!)
Kids' plaything -> iPad mini 2
Unless you're a hardcore gamer, you don't need even a 4-year old desktop. And frankly, you can get plenty hardcore with a PS4 or whatever the latest console is. Hell, my oldest kid spends hours playing mostly iOS games.
The consumer market for desktops is dead. The gamer market for desktops is heavily eaten into by consoles. Nobody in my company has a desktop of his own - if he needs more horsepower than the standard IT laptop he can log into one of our virtual environments.
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You can get hard core with a PS4, but it doesn't allow us to play the games we like and it doesn't let us connect in the LAN without a stupid account.
For example, the kids and I played a real time strategy game together, each on our own computer with our own screen and controls. Sometimes we all race together, again with all our own screens and steering wheels. Or we fly against each other, or battle against each other. Sometimes we have parties and have had a couple dozen people, all with their own machines and our own dedicated server to control everything. You can't do that with a console.
There are a lot of people that like consoles because they are easy for the kids. But, there isn't much you can do on a console that you can't do on a decent computer. But not the other way around. Plus, you are limited in the peripherals you can connect to a console.