18.4 is both odd and large for a laptop, but what some of you may not realize is that there's a fair chunk of computer buyers who will buy a laptop not with portability as one of the main determinants, but size. Laptops take up less. Having worked retail in the past, i've seen people who wanted a computer for a small desk and ended up with a 17" laptop over a micro-ATX desktop PC. When people look at a laptop for $700 versus a computer bundle for the same price and see the specs aren't that different (never mind the slower components and less and costlier upgrades), they start to see the laptop as the desktop that's portable. The majority of users probably don't even upgrade much aside from adding RAM or another hard drive, both of which a laptop can handle.
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18.4 is both odd and large for a laptop, but what some of you may not realize is that there's a fair chunk of computer buyers who will buy a laptop not with portability as one of the main determinants, but size. Laptops take up less. Having worked retail in the past, i've seen people who wanted a computer for a small desk and ended up with a 17" laptop over a micro-ATX desktop PC. When people look at a laptop for $700 versus a computer bundle for the same price and see the specs aren't that different (never mind the slower components and less and costlier upgrades), they start to see the laptop as the desktop that's portable. The majority of users probably don't even upgrade much aside from adding RAM or another hard drive, both of which a laptop can handle.