Laptops are essential for people who travel a lot and need access to the computer for web browsing, presentations etc. But at home, Desktop is the best choice as the keyboards and mouse combination is really great to work faster and even the bigger monitor really looks cool. Some people may find laptops better than desktops but at home I think desktops are most effective, productive and stable than laptops.
Also Read: 4 Free Tools For Laptop Battery Monitoring
If you are having a laptop for traveling purposes but feel more comfortable on desktop at home then no need to invest so much on a new desktop. You may go for a complete desktop after certain period of time and right now can convert your existing laptop into desktop and work on that. Here is how to convert a laptop into desktop:
1. To convert a laptop into a desktop, you need below mentioned items:
- Existing Laptop (Zero Cost)
- One LCD Monitor (HP L1710 17-inch LCD Monitor – $130)
- One USB Keyboard and USB Mouse (USB Keyboard and Mouse – $20)
- Laptop Dock Station (Optional) (Toshiba Dynadock U Universal USB Connect Docking Station – $100)
2. Attach the monitor VGA Chord to the VGA port of the laptop
3. Insert the power chord of monitor into power plug
4. Attach USB chord of keyboard into the USB port of laptop
5. Insert USB chord of mouse into USB port of laptop
6. Start the laptop, and login with your windows ID
7. Right click on laptop and go to the display properties. Now select monitor 2 from the list of monitors on settings page.
8. Now you can see your applications running on bigger monitor. You can use your keyboard and mouse for their purposes.
9. (Optional) If you don’t want to buy a monitor then go for different stands available for laptops which will make the laptop screen straight at the same height of your eyes. Ex. Oyster which costs $199 on Amazon.
10. Dock Station is also a good choice. As shown in above picture (right side) where one dock station is attached with the laptop which is having lot many ports to attach other peripherals like monitors, Ethernet, Routers, lot many USB devices etc. Above shown dock station will cost you $100 on Amazon.
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