One of the fundamental differences between phones, laptops, desktops, and beyond is size. While that sounds obvious, it also means that the amount of processing within the device is constrained by that size.
The constraints relate to how much energy can be used by each device and more importantly, how much cooling is available for the system.
It means that there’s a physical limit on how much work each device can do without being unusable.
While miniaturization is a factor, it’s not linear and you can only get so small before you fail.
So, depending on what you want to do in any given time, the device you use will dictate what’s physically possible.
One of the fundamental differences between phones, laptops, desktops, and beyond is size. While that sounds obvious, it also means that the amount of processing within the device is constrained by that size.
The constraints relate to how much energy can be used by each device and more importantly, how much cooling is available for the system.
It means that there’s a physical limit on how much work each device can do without being unusable.
While miniaturization is a factor, it’s not linear and you can only get so small before you fail.
So, depending on what you want to do in any given time, the device you use will dictate what’s physically possible.
Compute can be outsourced to the cloud (not that I think that’s good, but it does lift the limit on small devices)