Does Your Desktop PC Fit in the Mobile Age
Our world today is defined by mobility. Not all our technological advances have necessarily been about being bigger, better, faster, and stronger. On the contrary, smaller, more portable, and how many functions we can cram into a mobile device have become the norm. A paradigm shift that was arguably started when people realized that they didn’t need brute strength to do computer functions, but that they needed those functions to be with them wherever they went.
And so, like the Star Trek PADD (Personal Access Display Device), we’ve been begging for smaller, more versatile mobile devices over desktop PC’s and even laptops. So where does that leave our venerable Desktop PC’s? Well, desktop PC’s aren’t truly dead-yet. The following reasons explain why the desktop PC is still a considerable force in the mobile world.
Bigger is sometimes better
No matter how powerful your mobile device’s processor is, as of now a desktop PC is still the king for running programs that require heavy calculations, like CG or CAD rendering. For the same reason, unless we can come up with a holographic screen soon, the sheer size of a desktop PC’s screen will always trump a mobile devices touchscreen.
Home Base
A desktop PC is the perfect home base – even if the only use is to store files, or to be a central unit for all your external hard drives. But that’s not all when it comes to being your home PC. This could be the PC where all your emails are downloaded, where you synchronize all our browser and received information from your mobile device. And that’s not even thinking about how it could be the main unit for any computerized automation or security measures for your home.
Multimedia integration
And speaking of being the home base the desktop PC might not even have to be on a work desk. It can be right there in front of your couch, as part of your home theater setup. With the right equipment and software, your PC can become your audio and video command center, and you can even play PC games from your couch, given the right wireless controls and a 40-inch screen. With the coming of online media content, this sort of setup may be the wave of the future
Communication
In keeping with your “There can be only one” theme for your desktop PC, you can also set it up to be your VoIP, landline and fax unit. In fact, there are services available online that can smoothly integrate your landline and your VoIP lines such that you can integrate all fax, electronic, voice, and video communications into your PC. Worried about privacy? A simple KVM switch box (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) can route all PC activity to a smaller workstation when you don’t need your couch and the 40-inch screen. With the right equipment, this can even extend to specialized phone/AiO printer combos that can function as your telephone, VoIP phone, fax machine, printer, and scanner.
Energy
Granted, a desktop PC, any way you look at it, is an energy hog – but on the other hand, as long as you have power in the home, you won’t have to worry about low-battery issues when you’re in the middle of receiving important information or an important phone call.
As you can see, the desktop PC is still an important part of our technological lifestyle. But it isn’t the center of our interaction with the virtual world, anymore. Rather than having ourselves sit in front of a desktop for hours on end, we can now have the option to be mobile and access our virtual world from anywhere. But desktop PCs will still be our heavy lifters, entertainment centers, and home communication points for some time to come.
Henry Conrad is a 29-year-old gamer from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Aside from gaming and being a tech junky, he also dabbles in creative writing, which allows him to create great storylines and backgrounds for his characters.He worked with RingCentral for their IP PBX services as a writer. Follow him on Twitter and join me in Google +
