To still prefer browsing via my laptop than a phone?

[MissMarplesCat]

I run a small business online so have used a laptop for web related work now for many years - site maintenance, building, etc. Obviously a lot of this kind of work doesn't fit well 'in-app', so an ipad or phone would be arsey.

Reading my stats I am aware that over 96% of my visitors are using Android mobile, followed by iphone. Of course I see this all around me, so it isn't quite news, but it did make me realise that I have a preference.

Whenever I have to access the net via my phone the experience always feels much poorer, a bit hemmed in, and less immersive?

At home I will watch film, view art/photography and shop on my laptop, as well as using it for work purposes. It isn't just the larger screen, I find it better for posture, general chilling out and just moving around the web. I do prefer the ipad to view app related stuff such as instagram, but would always use my laptop to view mumsnet, because the app feels a bit too 'locked in' and and there seem to be fewer choices around navigation and jumping between browsers, etc.

ipads seem to be somewhere in the middle, and according to stats, a much younger age group prefers them. That makes sense, especially for children, but I can't get my head around why adults prefer to do most of their browsing on a phone. My sister is one of them, and has barely used her ipad in years. She's developing a bloody hump!

But what probably concerns me the most is that in-app browsing feels very corporate controlled and restricted, so many apps are like a walled garden that don't have much fluidity regarding getting out of them without losing your place, IYSWIM?
So if I am reading a site like Reddit in an app, if I pop somewhere else for a moment the damn thing resets when I pop back. This feels really limiting and utterly fucks with my attention span.

YANBU, I even doom scroll on my laptop 🤣

But that's because my eyes are quite bad even with glasses and I guess I'm just used to a bigger screen.

Also, I'm a touch typist and one-fingered typing on a phone is just slow and weird.

Mostly I prefer using my phone, especially when there is a lot of text. I never read mumsnet on my pc I find it much harder to read. I pretty much only use my computer for work and watching some videos

I agree OP. I only browse on my phone as a last resort, I find using a PC is much easier

I mainly use my iMac, in fact I have two, I bought a new one recently and put the old one upstairs, I much prefer it for shopping, banking and general browsing, I don't really use my iPhone much at all but do use my iPad more often, all of these are linked so any message and 2FA codes come through automatically to all of them. When we go away in our caravan I tether my iPad to my phone and generally use that, phone only gets used when I'm out really.

100% agree OP. Computer for me, preferably desktop.

Always use laptop if there is a choice. If I'm on hols and stuck with my phone, I hate it!
I can type quickly on a laptop, I can have lots of tabs up and flit between them. So OP ... I totally agree with you!

I have a tablet too, even that is nowhere as easy as a laptop... but better than a phone!

Well I will be honest , expected a roasting, lol.
I am 52, so do wonder if age has anything to do with it, since I began on a larger screen, whereas many very young people didn't? I also first discovered computers via image editing in art school, so that might explain my preference, too.

I love my phone for maps, texting, a bit of insta and pinterest scrolling in doctor's waiting room or waiting for a train, not to mention booking tickets, but never for relaxing or pleasure.

I think if you are heavily into social media the phone is the thing, too. I never took to SM so only used it for work.

Surprised people are still using desktops - I loved them for creative stuff, but sad to see less of them on the market now. I also think many tech skills are lost to apps, too. I used to run several blogs back int he day, and it used to take some serious fiddlng/code, etc.

I use a laptop, DH uses a desktop and is not a gamer!

Some things are definitely easier to do on a full-sized computer IME.

I love a desktop, mine is green to match the decor

Laptop for me too. Rest of the family it's phones.

I have been forcing myself to use my phone for looking for stuff and booking stuff lately because i feel like i should be better aquainted with how to do it.

I can hunt for and find specific things on my laptop more efficiently than husband can with his phone. Even things which i'm not familiar with to do with the house build.

I can touch type on a keyboard with barely any mistake whereas on a phone it's a shambles.

I think possibly OP, that laptops are the choice of people who can type, as you can type so much quicker when using all your digits rather than 2 or 3 on a phone. My DD often moans that I send her really long messages via Apple 'Messenger', on my MacBook, because I am a typist, whereas it takes her ages to input even a couple of sentences on her iPhone.

Oh yes! Sometimes I have to type a long email and on a laptop it takes no time. On a phone... not!

But apps and travel stuff like visas etc has to be a phone much as I dislike it!

Another laptop user here, and with the same issues with phones - I'm less skilled with it, but fast as a fast thing with my Mac.

For context I'm 70 and was a teacher (or am I still? but that's a TAAT ) where a laptop was provided and could be taken home, and phones subject to too many rule changes.

Ah, I do find typing easier on a standard keyboard, and am strained on a phone even with mini hands (not like Trump before you say it, lol!).

One thing I do prefer with a laptop is the browser and url options. I find copy/pasting really temperamental on touch screen devices. You'd think they'd have solved that by now. Predictive text is my nightmare, much simpler on a regular keyboard. I think ipads and phones are too sensitive.

I have an old macbook air here and dread it dying as I can't excuse the cost of another with an ipad lingering in the room.

I can't stand typing anything longer than a paragraph on a phone or ipad.
I was once stuck with my ipad for several months whilst staying with a relative in Scotland. I wished I'd taken my bloody laptop it wasn't even that much heavier to haul!
I am a good typist, often go so fast that i make some pretty silly typo's, but the predictive over-sensitivity of the ipad almost drove me mad. There was a spell where it placed a comma after every word as if I'd suffered a brain injury. Just whyyyyyy?

Mm, the cynic in me wonders, conspiratorially, whether perhaps we are being dumbed down..... encouraged to type less, and shout more.

Much prefer the laptop, yes. I'm 43, but I don't do any social media and I'm not that into my phone. Not even sure where it is at the moment.

cromebook always for me at home

I take my laptop whenever I can. So much easier to type more than a few words. We've just been away for 3 days, I left my laptop, it did my head in having to do what I always do on a phone.

I jumped from iPhone 6 to iPhone 14.
I am what you'd call a reluctant phone enthusiast. That said I love my new camera, but that's about all I have for my money.

Laptop every time. I am a touch typist and it is so much quicker if I want to post to do it using a proper keyboard.

So it looks like my assumption may be right then, how interesting.

Don't use my phone for hardly anything other than messaging or google maps if I am out and need to look up an address.

I could quite easily manage with the cheapest smallest android phone and then use the money saved to buy a 32" screen for my desktop and be very happy.

Yeah, well it’s got a bigger screen. Who cares.

My Ipad mini is my browsing device of choice.