Desktop or Smart Phone?

So here I am on Day Seven of the seven-to-ten days that my computer could be in the shop (with no call being received from said shop thus far) and Day Nine of no computer access at Casa de Kev. It's been pretty inconvenient to go to school on non-teaching days to get stuff done, and it's still put a major dent in my ability to communicate with many of my friends, especially in the all-at-once fashion that I'm used to with AIM.

I had thought, upon getting the MacBook two summers ago, that one computer would serve all my needs...but now, I'm not so sure. While the laptop is great for trips, visits to fraternity chapters, and so on, I'm aware of the fragile nature of that type of computer (due to the miniaturization of the components and so on, as I've been told). It's definitely been a major disruption to only have one Internet-ready device at my beck and call these days.

I've been known to put out queries like this to Musings readers in the past. Before I received the MacBook as a gift, I polled everyone to see whether they thought a laptop or contacts would be the better immediate purchase. (Once I got the laptop, though, I decided to hold out for LASIK, which is still in the "thought" stages at best.)

So there are two ways that I could have backup Internet readiness: Throw down for a desktop (which might take a while to save up for), or, when my phone contract comes up for renewal in a few months, go for the iPhone. The desktop would be nice for storing my big collection of music (not to mention the music-writing program that I hope to get before long), but it would be fairly pricey (since nothing that's gone wrong thus far has been bad enough to even start to convince me to look outside the Mac World, so we're not talking about a cheap PC here). Also, unlike some of my close friends, I'm not a hardcore gamer, so there's a question as to whether I'd need to have my computing power spread over two machines.

When the iPhone first came out, I noted that I didn't need one at the time (having over a year left on the contract, being quite happy with the RAZR, and having a perfectly good new iPod), but the Net access would seem to be a bonus at this point in time. I've never done the Net over a device that small, but it would seem to beat the situation of having no availability at home whatsoever.

So I throw it open to your suggestions: Desktop? Smart phone? Or should I just be prepared to deal with these things as I'm doing now, which is hopefully only on rare occasions? Chime away in the comments.