Fairly sure I know what HomerJ meant by power consumption as well - Desktops don't have batteries that can run out. Laptops do.
That is what I meant. For desktops, low power consumption is a luxury to help on electrical bills. For laptops it is a must to increase battery life. All this means higher cost or lower power. Check out the prices:
Laptop:
Core™2 Duo processor T5450 @ 1.66GHz
2GB DDR2 667
160GB SATA
DVD±R/RW super multi double layer drive
15.4in. WXGA TFT active matrix
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Realtek ALC861 Software Sound
802.11a/b/g/n WLAN, 10/100 LAN
Microsoft Windows Vista Business
$1054.99
Desktop: Asus P5GC-MX/1333
$64.99Intel Core™2 Duo E4500, 2.20-GHz
$129.99
2GB DDR2 667
$59.99
160GB Western Digital SATA
$54.99
LG DL DVD±RW
$29.99
Acer 17" TFT Active matrix
$199.99
Asus Extreme GeForce N7300 GT
$59.99
Realtek ALC883 High Definition 5.1 (integrated) $0
PCIe 10/100M LAN controller (integrated) $0
Economy mid-tower ATX case
$24.99
Nspire ISO-500D 450W ATX Ver 2.0 Power Supply
$39.99
$664.91
+Vista Business ($144.99)
$809.90
These are just 2 random systems that I picked out. I picked the laptop and then configured a desktop to be very similar. Both from the same site. The desktop is about 20% cheaper and slightly more powerful.
And about UNIX drivers: they really suck on rare or unique laptop hardware. I use Gentoo Linux and configure the kernel and all drivers myself, so I am aware of how this works. If I were to purchase a laptop, I would keep well-supported hardware in mind, but that isn't always the best deal. All of the hardware in my laptop is supported, but it is over a decade old.:frown: