It depends.
A 2-5 year-old laptop, you want to web browse, maybe watch some videos, use google docs or open office, you probably never need a terminal
If it's a really new laptop or you want to get the most out of video drivers and push it harder, you'll probably need to be ready for some light terminal crap. Gets a little janky if you have a dual-video-card setup. Nothing hard to handle, but if you're not looking to have to handle anything...
I think the numnber of available packages is better on the Debian side. Mint or Kubuntu run newer hotter stuff, debian runs older more stable stuff.