Laptops don't make sense anymore: Why a mini PC and tablet are the superior option

Published Oct 4, 2026, 7:30 AM EDT Monica J. White is a journalist with over a decade of experience in covering technology. She built her first PC nearly 20 years ago, and she has since built and tested dozens of PCs. PC hardware is her main beat, and graphics cards and the GPU market at large are her main area of interest, but she has written thousands of articles covering everything related to PCs, laptops, handhelds, and peripherals. From GPUs and CPUs to headsets and software, Monica's always willing to geek out over all things related to computing. Outside of her work with How-To Geek, Monica contributes to TechRadar, PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, SlashGear, Whop, and Digital Trends, among others. Her ultimate goal is to make PC gaming and computing approachable and fun to any audience. Monica spends a lot of time elbow-deep in her PC case, as she's always making upgrades, testing something, or plotting out her next build. She's the go-to tech support person in her immediate circle, so she's never out of things to do. Whenever she has spare time, you'll find her gaming until the early hours and hanging out with her dog. Anyone who knows me also knows I'm no big fan of laptops. As a PC builder for 20+ years, it'll surprise nobody that I prefer to just build my own thing instead. But when that's not an option, I'll still pick something else over a laptop. I firmly believe that a mini PC is a way better choice, and that's what I tend to pick when I need something portable. And no, it's not just because their price-to-performance ratio is actually really weird right now. My laptop spends most of its life pretending to be a desktop I paid for portability that I prefer not to use I've been building PCs since my early teens, but this year, my whole love of it has been put to the test. I actually bought a prebuilt for the first time ever, and I've also fallen in love with mini PCs. The same cannot be said about my laptop. I pretty much hate that thing. Admittedly, it is a bit of a "it's not you, it's me" situation. Not entirely. My laptop is pretty awful, and that's largely because it's old-ish and it was never powerful to begin with, but most of my problem comes from the fact that it's ... well, not a desktop. And even though it's not a desktop, I immediately start trying to use it like one the moment I am forced to use it. I plug in a keyboard and mouse, and a monitor or two if the situation allows. Having to use a trackpad and that super-flat laptop keyboard makes me want to pull all my hair out. So if I'm using that laptop as a weak replacement for my desktop, why do I even need a laptop in the first place? After all, it's just sitting there, trying to pretend it's a desktop even though it's not. Meanwhile, I'm still left to deal with all the compromises, and they're not small. A laptop has to fit the display, battery, cooling, speakers, webcam, keyboard, and everything else into one thin chassis. That affects thermals, port selection, upgradability, and more. Buying a good laptop is pricey, and buying a "meh" laptop is cheaper, but underwhelming. Over time, I realized that in my particular situation, I didn't need a laptop; I just needed a somewhat portable desktop replacement that doesn't come with so many downsides. A mini PC lets me spend more of my budget on the computer The screen and battery stop eating into the same purchase That's where mini PCs start making so much more sense to me. Instead of having to pay so much more money for components I'm already replacing with standalone options, such as the monitor or the keyboard, I could be putting that budget toward getting a better portable PC. On paper, many mini PCs aren't actually faster than some laptops. They still use the same mobile-class CPUs, and most of them don't have discrete graphics cards, which some laptops may offer. But we should make sure we're comparing apples to apples: You're not getting a beefy discrete GPU in a $1,000 laptop, and you're also not getting one in a mini PC. The difference is you can get a whole lot of performance out of that PC at a lower price point, sans the GPU. You're getting more RAM, more storage, better ports, faster networking, and sometimes better cooling, all for less money than most laptops. Of course, it depends on which mini PC and which laptop you're buying. I also like that mini PCs tend to give me more room for upgrades. Many still use replaceable SO-DIMMs and standard M.2 SSDs (which is a luxury in this economy). This means that if the RAM-pocalypse ever lets go, I'll be able to upgrade the mini PC with relative ease. The tablet handles the kind of portability I actually want I don't need another workstation when I'm not at my desk There's a glaring downside to mini PCs (which I actually listed as a bonus above). They don't have a screen, so they can't be used without some kind of a monitor. But most of us have a monitor, sort of. A tablet. If you don't need a second full-blown workstation when you're away from your desk (which I don't), you can get away with something that's easy to carry and good at the lighter stuff. A tablet does the trick just fine, although portable monitors are often larger and don't weigh a whole lot these days, so there's another option. You're lugging things around anyway, what with a laptop and a charger; might as well get something that's closer to a PC at a similar weight. The caveat is that you'd mostly be in one place, though. You can move from point A to B, but then you'll stay at point B for a few hours, at least. But if you're constantly on the move, well ... this might not be your dream solution. I'd rather have two devices that are good at one job each With a mini PC and a tablet or a portable monitor, you end up with two dedicated devices that don't need to split their attention across multiple use cases. Yes, you're carrying around more stuff than just a laptop, but if that doesn't put you off, I genuinely enjoy this setup more than I do my laptop. Mini PCs have their merits. Have I convinced you to give one a try? Make sure to tweak some BIOS settings first, then.