When I first started using desktops in the 80s, this rule was still invariably true, and even 10 years later I would have preferred the big box under the desk. That changed with this great entertainer:
It had the most powerful i7 processor at the time, an 18.4-inch screen. At the time, a staggering 8192 MB of main memory, two huge hard drives (640 GB) for the time, a fast graphics card for games at the time, an HD audio controller, separate audio ports, Firewire, USB, eSata, Gigabit Ethernet, controllers…just up to Webcamp, remote control, optical BD drive…everything a desktop could never offer for multimedia lovers like this. It came with Windows 7 Premium 64 bit and still runs better with 16 GB main memory, 2 x 1 TB SSD, Windows 10 and Linux Manjaro than many a laptop that is sold off cheaply. This machine is good for 1.5 million music tracks with Roon and already has 13 years of life under its belt!
The only bottleneck for larger tasks was the main memory.
There I now have 64 GB and that would be enough for 5 million music titles.
Heat and noise will only be experienced by the hardcore gamers. Use with browser, Office and Roon doesn’t tax either machine much if only the main memory is reasonably sized.
I have Roon on notebooks, tablets and mobile. Macbook Pro from 2009, my Acer V5 touch and Acer V5 anti-glare are also older, the 13 year old and very good Solution 8943G and the fresh XMG. My tablet and phone (Android) have Roon. iOS/Android as a remote control do not find so great. The youth thinks differently about it.
I like to save power when I don’t listen to music at night and use a device with USB DAC/headphones sometimes with Grundig V7000 (80s technology) when I only listen to music in one room.
These solutions are as mobile as any cell phone with/without external hard drive!
I read marketing arguments but am always wide awake as to the actual experience. Permanently on and always available would be uninteresting to me. Turn on and off myself, only use power when needed, not too exotic or far away in the closet…we have different needs.
For me, anything else would be pointless and not the right tool. If my XMG with Linux Manjaro was the bottleneck, I would have chosen a different solution. Here, the bottleneck is not in the end device, not in the user network, but in the cloud infrastructure run by Amazon AWS. Perhaps Microsoft or Google will help as the next contractual partners, or the Roon team still has ideas on how to make “Identifiy” run faster with an unchanged cloud structure. No program code is set in stone.
Loosely based on George Bernard Shaw, I would say:
I have learned not to expect too much from Roon. That is the secret of all true serenity and the reason why I always get pleasant surprises instead of bleak disappointments.