[blacksmith_tb]

Part of the appeal of a desktop is future upgrade-ability, which (unless work buys you a Framework) is pretty poor in most laptops (slightly better in some non-Apple machines, maybe you can at least add ram or a new / different SSD). I think for personal use desktops are pretty great, not that you couldn't get some of that out of using servers elsewhere (or even at home).

[xupybd]

I've found desktop upgrades to be poor as well. For gaming it's great, you can upgrade to the latest graphics card and get a huge boost but for work not so great. By the time I want a new CPU I'm going to need a new motherboard to allow the next series of CPU.

I find I end up replacing so much that buying a new PC is not much more expensive.

[blacksmith_tb]

Hmm, AMD's AM4 socket mobos can take kind of a lot of different Ryzens (though to be fair you might need a bigger PSU I guess). I guess maybe it would be more precise to say that most laptops aren't very futureproof because they've become increasingly everything-soldered, so it isn't even just a question of not being able to drop in a better CPU or GPU at some point, but of not being able to replace a bad SSD at all?

[layer8]

I agree it rarely works out for CPU, but SSD and RAM often makes sense.