Working w/ Lightroom and Photoshop laptop/desktop

[Josh-H]

I have always worked from a desktop for my main photo editing work with a nice large calibrated monitor and used my laptop strictly for work in the field.

I was just wondering how many others do the same - or if more people simply plug their external monitor into their laptop and use their laptop for everything these days - especially given a fully loaded laptop offers pretty good performance these days.

I guess I am just second guessing the purchase of a new dedicated desktop and thinking I may be better off just using my macbook pro plugged into the external monitor and pocketing the new machines dollars.

[petermarrek]

Every time I use my laptop ( MacBook Pro, 2.3, 4 gigs ram , I am painfully reminded how nice it is working with an 8core 12gig ram desktop with 2 calibrated screens run by a fast video card. The speed difference in opening large files and working with them is astounding.

[Geoff Wittig]

I'm with Petermarrek. I got a decent laptop late last year for road trips, and with 4 gig ram it actually ran Photoshop faster than my older desktop with the same amount of memory. But the laptop has always been more of a pain to work with due to the smaller keyboard, lack of flexibility, video output limitations and internal disc space.

My desktop died last week, and I bought a new one. It's amazing how much prices have dropped even as capacity has increased; you now get a quad processor and 8 gig of ram (at least for a PC; Macs are still overpriced) for barely over $1,000 U.S. off the shelf. Photoshop, Bridge, and all the other image editing software I've come to depend on are far, far quicker on the desktop. Very good quality video cards and built-in high speed card readers are now pretty much standard.

So unless you're really cost constrained, you'll be much happier using a desktop as your main image editing tool.

[andyptak]

I've been very intrigued by the new Lenevo W700 - a rather heavy laptop (8lbs) that they bill as  portable workstation, and they are actively marketing it for photographers (wean them from their Macs). From the specs it looks as if it should be very fast, but I wonder how it compares to an Alienware laptop, made for gamers, but very useful for photogs. Anyone know anything about it?