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First of all, I'm writing this at 2 AM, so if it suddenly looks like gibberish, that's why. I was curious if there were any reasons to consider investing in a desktop to animate as opposed to a laptop. At the moment, I see no need to, and no benefits it would supply over a laptop, but then again, I'm no tech junky so I wouldn't know. 
Thanks in advance!
Last edited by Alaberria (December 21, 2018 (04:42am))
Well for one a laptop is a pc, it's just a different form factor that means less cooling and higher price for hardware but a more portable form factor.
For animation alone, laptop is probably a good choice (as long as it's screen is half decent) due to the portability and small space taken.
Now if you were thinking of upgrading for more editing options and faster edit rendering a desktop would give you the best price for performance. Also a desktop with it's better cooling and price for performance would be best if you wanted to do some gaming or 3d rendering on the side when not animating/editing.
So for animating alone- laptop best choice, for value in an upgrade or speed for things beyond animation desktop is probably a better choice.
Thanks for the information and correction. I edited the topic and description. So far it looks like sticking with a laptop will be the best choice.
I call laptops crap tops for a reason.
1. How mobile do you really need to be?
2. Desktops are not just much less expensive, they can be upgraded every year, as apposed to laptops where most often the cpu, ram and ssd/hdd is soldered on to the motherboard.
3. Your desktop will be out of date by the end of the year. Your craptop will be out of date by the end of the month.
I’ve built my own desktop, and owned many laptops and tablets.
Please, if this is something where you can afford being screwed to a desk and chair, go desktop.
If you have to have the mobility, then be prepared to pay much more upfront for much less long term.
I agree with END.
It also depends on your space.
I've got a small apartment and no room for a desk and huge computer. Hence, staying with my laptop. This laptop was also practical and useful in college when I needed its small footprint and mobility.
The power and upgrade ability of desktops is an obvious plus, so if you have the space and don't need to be mobile, then go for that. It's also the cheaper route. However, for animating and most editing, the power of even a decent laptop will be fine.
It's almost like the webcam/DSLR argument. A webcam, like a laptop, can work perfectly fine for animation. However, a DSLR, like the desktop, has much more power and adaptability for stuff outside of brickfilming. I'd rarely recommend somebody buy a DSLR just for brickfilming, just like somebody doesn't need to build a gaming computer just for brickfilming.
So check out your other needs, as well as your space and budget.
However, from your question, it sounds like you might already have a laptop. If there's no pressing reason to replace it now, (constant crashes, getting obsolete, etc...) and it's working well, just stick with it for now and save up your money for later. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 
Your desktop will be out of date by the end of the year. Your craptop will be out of date by the end of the month.
Your technology is only "out of date" if it no longer suits your needs. Don't go full "pc master race" and feel obligated to upgrade every year or so. - Especially if you'd be tempted to use a desktop due to power for price.
Most programs still support even back to Windows XP and older Mac OS's - its generally the CPU, Hard Disk storage space, and RAM that seem obsolete due to replacements becoming smaller, faster, and cheaper with every year or so.
I used a Windows XP desktop for all my editing needs until not less than 2 or 3 years ago, and, with an external hard drive (2 TB), and one RAM upgrade in the PC's lifespan, it suited my needs perfectly.
Generally, now, I use my laptop - a very modern Windows 10 - and that works fine as well. I've been thinking about getting a desktop again, but that's mostly for my other needs - although, I'll certainly use the added memory and speed for editing & brickfilming purposes as well.
TL:DR If you want a desktop - go for it. But a laptop can work perfectly fine. And if you're upgrading/buying a new PC every year - know that it could have been better spent on more Lego, a DSLR, or other things - especially if the computer still works perfectly for what you need it to do.
I've always thought desktops were very expensive, but then again, I've never done research on them. My laptop's been working very well for animating/editing, just a little short on room. I may consider getting some additional storage.
Yeah, I agree with what has been said by END, Pritchard, and Dyland.
I usually use a desktop, but a few months ago I bought a laptop with similar specs because I needed to animate away from home. I haven't noticed a significant performance difference (at least when the laptop is plugged in), and the portability is super convenient. Laptops aren't 'craptops' unless you really cheap out, but the same applies to desktops.
If your only issue is storage, you might as well just upgrade the storage on your laptop. Of course, that is the main drawback with laptops: the only things you can reasonably upgrade are the ram and internal storage. A desktop is handy if you intend on upgrading other hardware regularly (changing the gpu, keyboard, display, etc. isn't feasible with a laptop).
Basically, I've used both, and they do pretty much the same thing. If you have a fully functional laptop, I'd just recommend sticking with it for now
It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools. I have a craptop running Linux/XP dual, and a desktop running Win7. Both are probably outdated by all reasonable standards. Both run fine, and suit my purposes, so as Dyland said, they're not outdated to me. There's a wide variety of free/cheap software out there. Dragonframe runs on pretty much anything, and a lot of open source software does as well. The graphics card in my desktop helps me render video faster, so I edit there. I also prefer the comfort of having my screen at eye height and a separate clicky keyboard so I don't have to hunch over some flimsy flat key keyboard that's stuck to the screen. But my laptop was MUCH cheaper, I got it refurbed on amazon for I can't remember, less than $150 and is much more portable (I opted for small size, lightweight, and low price, at the cost of RAM and processing power).
Get the best thing in your budget as far as RAM and processing, and that has an operating system you're comfortable with and will support your software.
Totally agree to what Thistof said. If you only need the new device for animation you can pretty much go as cheap as you want. I have a 10 year old laptop that I use for animating. It has horrible specs and it's a total pain to wait until the system has booted but dragonframe has very low system requirements and is one of the few programs that runs on it without a problem. Plus the fact that it's portable is a real benefit for me.
For editing I use a separate machine. I choose a desktop workstation because I can easily upgrade when needed. But again at the moment I'm using the bare minimum of what the editing programs require. It's basically a office PC with a lower end gaming grafics card. It totally works for me
It takes me 12 minutes to render 1 frame working with a GTX 1070.
1 frame is 1/30th of a second (assuming ofc your working at 30fps) so I would need 6 hours to render 1 full second of video. I would need 15 days to render a full minute of workable video. And that’s before editing, shooting retakes and all of that.
So no. I am not going PC master race. The PC master race can’t even keep up with me
It takes me 12 minutes to render 1 frame working with a GTX 1070.
1 frame is 1/30th of a second (assuming ofc your working at 30fps) so I would need 6 hours to render 1 full second of video. I would need 15 days to render a full minute of workable video. And that’s before editing, shooting retakes and all of that.
So no. I am not going PC master race. The PC master race can’t even keep up with me
Ok, fair enough.
I'm assuming that's for 3d animation though, and Ozone does stop motion. For stop motion and 'normal' video editing, laptops can do the job just fine.
I was going to build my own pc, but now i wanna just buy a laptop. I want my own computer good for stop motion and video editing so I can stop using my moms computer.
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