A desktop is a powerful full featured computing experience. You can have as many monitors as you like with whatever keyboard and mouse combination. For heavy lifting, the desktop is king. A laptop is a compromise device that trades-off some of desktop efficiency for portability. Some people need to carry around a full computer everywhere they go, so they opt for a laptop.....with the obvious compromises. Good laptops are difficult to make. They are expensive and prone to failure and breakage. Why? Because you are carrying around a desktop computer in a small package.....just look at the keyboard and thermal issues Apple is having with their MacBook Pros. Apple Care is more expensive for a laptop because they are more likely to need coverage and support.
The iPad is really good (maybe better than a laptop) at certain things:
Reading Books and PDFs
Annotating and Marking up documents
Taking Notes in meetings/class
Making sketches
Reviewing and responding to emails
Browsing the web and finding reference material
Outlining and editing
Some people just don’t need to carry a full computer around with them everywhere they go. They might have a desktop in their home/office, and only need a light portable solution for on the go productivity that does the stuff listed above real well. For example, before I retired, I spent a huge amount of time in meetings. Occasionally, a colleague would bring a laptop to the meeting, and it always struck be as a strange thing to do. They would be clacking away taking notes during the meeting basically transcribing everything being said. When I would discuss action items after the meeting, they often didn’t have a clue what the meeting was really about. They had a transcript without understanding. When I took notes, I wote a few words often accompanied by simple sketches or diagrams of timelines or processes....whatever. My point is that for me a Laptop is a terrible tool for meetings because it encourages the wrong behavior.......the iPad would be much more effective for me.
So, it really depends on what you do for work when away from the office desktop environment. When I left the office, it was primarily for “meet and deal” type activities and interactions with sponsors and others. I rarely flew to a client site and then sat down in their office to write a 200 page document or built a giant spreadsheet. If I flew somewhere, it was to have an interaction with a person.....not to use their office as a workstation. Perhaps, some of the people on this form do need to produce large volumes of product away from the office. Then, a laptop makes sense.
