Desktop for power at home, netbook for on the go.

Desktop.

Desktop cause it was what I could afford at the time. I'd love to have a Laptop soon though. +5

Desktop for the power and flexibility. You can have a MUCH more powerful system in a desktop, and it's MUCH more flexible in the different kinds of components you can put in. You can't exactly swap out a video card with ease on a laptop. Nor can you get a very powerful one as of right now. If I recall correctly, the most powerful video card for a laptop is a 9800gt. The video card I have is quite a bit more powerful than that, and is much cheaper at that.

ALTHOUGH. When it comes to convenience and cost, a laptop is a better choice. It won't be near as powerful or flexible, nor will some of the components be as cheap or available, but in the long-run, it's much cheaper. The desktop I'm running right now is quite powerful. I can run Crysis on FULL settings at 1024x768 on a 17" desktop monitor and 1440x900 on a 50" Plasma with no hiccups. And that's with iTunes running in the background. But the power consumption is monstrous. I use about 410 watts every hour with this beast. I just can't justify the electicity costs, when I could have a decent laptop that consumes not even a fourth of that--WITH a blu-ray player!

Soooo, in the end, prolly a laptop for just how much more cost-effective it is in the long-run.

laptop. portable, light, and i have no desk so yeah =)

Desktop at home...while laptop when travelling. Desktop is much more user friendly..

Laptop for its portability.

That depends on what you need a computer for.

Personally, I have a tower and a netbook, and I use them both.

My tower has a 20" CRT, a 256MB video card, and 2.1 speakers. The big screen, the oomph to run it at high resolution and a decent framerate, and the stereo+subwoofer sound make it better for multimedia or gaming.
Also it is the print server for our home LAN, the optical drive for my netbook (via file sharing), and my transcoding box since it has more RAM and twice the clock speed.

My netbook is for surfing, since my wife is often home and wants to be online herself so a second computer is mandatory.
I also use it as an e-book as it has a few shelves worth of PDF files (mostly RPG books) that I like to peruse when I am on the go but don't feel like lugging (literally) my own weight in hardcovers around.
It can do videos, but the sound isn't nearly as good and the screen isn't something three people can siit on the couch and watch from a distance.

I have multiple needs and some of them require mutually exclusive features. Try getting a 20" screen and a decent subwoofer small enough to fit in a three-ring binder with room to spare.

I steer away from laptops. They are not as powerful as desktops unless you want to get one that either has a battery pack too big/heavy to carry comfortably or can deal with only using the thing near a wall outlet. They are also not as portable as a netbook, and often have shorter battery life than a netbbok with a 6-cell battery.
Add in the cost (often more expensive than a netbook and a decent desktop combined) and you get a machine that really doesn't appeal to me.

desktop for the always ready power and storage also I have a screensize of 24 inches which is so great.charging a laptop or netbook battery is a chore they only work for so long.

Desktop. They are more versatile, can be upgraded more easily (more boards, etc.), and since I never go anywhere or have anything really important to do computer-wise, I don't need a portable system.