Choosing a new computer

My computer, a mid-high range laptop from early 2009, was quite old, and couldn't handle the work he was required to do. So I needed a new computer. Choosing a new computer is somehow quite a strategic move. I could go a few different ways. I will here try to explain my reasoning.

First I could follow the consumer trend and go tablet, keyboard, cloud. The plan is renting a dedicated machine for 45$ a month, to have high bandwidth and a non restrictive computer remotely controlled by a cheap tablet when need be.

This solution has the advantage of being able to be fully mobile and quite cheap. The main inconvenient is that this solution is still restrictive, and require lot of work to do natural things. Mobile platforms like iOS or Android are quite restrictive by default. The second non negligible inconvenient is that I lost control over my computing and my data. Third inconvenient is that I lose the ability to play powerful games mainly for latency issues (though it should change in the future when higher bandwidth network will be available).

Second I could go the laptop way. It's the old fashion choice. I guess it's quite OK, but rather expensive. It's expensive because computer seller would rather sell you some tablets, so laptops are becoming more expensive. Would have I selected this option, I would have chosen a Retina Mac Book pro, mainly for the display. But it's very expensive and the disk is so small, it cannot handle a correct triple boot computer.

Third choice, and the one I have selected, is to have a home desktop computer, for use as a home server. If you buy it from distributors, it's quite expansive because they take such a large margin to compensate for the lost market due to the arrival of tablets. But if you assemble your computer from new computer parts, and that's so easy for anyone, it's really cheap (less than 1000$), powerful (4 core, 8thread @ 3.5Ghz, 16Go Ram, 3 To hard disk), and customizable. Concerning display, you can use the living room TV screen, to enjoy a 10 foot-experience, raspberry-pi for display on any screen, and remoting with Splashtop for a fully mobile tablet screen experience.

This third option is I believe the smartest choice for about any home computing need, it will allow efficient use of both tablets, and clouds.