Looking to Move from Desktop > Laptop

So need an opinion from some people - maybe some advice as well.

Currently I have a desktop I built a few years ago that hasn't given me any trouble lately, but I am thinking about moving away from the desktop and going back to the laptop way of life, just for portability and such. I have two 22" monitors but lately the second one hasn't been getting much use lately.

My thought is to sell my monitors and get a nice 15-17" laptop and if I need to use a big monitor I can plug the laptop into the TV and use a wireless keyboard / mouse for things. My only concern is storage - so maybe buying a Network Attached storage device and throwing my old drives into that and accessing them if need be. The only processing intensive thing I do on my PC is Android Development and Photo Editing (Lightroom / Photoshop) - not really much into PC gaming.

My desk right now is my two monitors and a TON of paper so I just feel its useless and causing clutter. Any ideas, thoughts, advice?

Has anyone moved from the desktop to laptop solution? If so, how do you like the change? Is it tolerable? Do you like being able to bring the laptop places with you (currently I bring my netbook and its lacking in power).

Any good model laptop to get? Thanks in advance!

22" monitors are about 120-150 new. So 50-60 used. So your looking at about 100 bucks for your laptop budget. You aren't gonna get a nice laptop with that.

Quote from nizzy1115 : 22" monitors are about 120-150 new. So 50-60 used. So your looking at about 100 bucks for your laptop budget. You aren't gonna get a nice laptop with that.

I obviously wasn't just going to use the monitors to fund the laptop.

Looking to spend no more than $800 on the laptop since the desktop could use a few upgrades as it is.

It wasn't that obvious.

Quote : My thought is to sell my monitors and get a nice 15-17" laptop

Anyways, an i7 8gb ram laptop 15" can be had for that budget. Best buy had a toshiba for 699 the other week and it even came with office home office 2010.

Quote from mdonders : . The only processing intensive thing I do on my PC is Android Development and Photo Editing (Lightroom / Photoshop) - not really much into PC gaming., how do you like the change? Is it tolerable? Do you like being able to bring the laptop places with you (currently I bring my netbook and its lacking in power). Any good model laptop to get? Thanks in advance!

14-15 inch laptop are fine as portable desktop replacements. You just need a good 7-15 ports USB hub and laptop stand. I also use a external mouse and keyboard with stand.Amazon.com: Griffin [amazon.com] and Amazon.com: Allsop [amazon.com]


Good laptop are the Lenovo T420($536), T520, x220($700), x130($484) | Lenovo Outlet (US) [lenovo.com]

Get a dell latitude/precision, HP elitebook, or Lenovo T/W series along with their respective docks. That way you don't have to fuss around plugging in 5 cables every time you want to use your desk. Plus it is more than possible to game on the workstation laptops should the need arise.

I made the switch about 6 years ago because I was traveling a lot. If I were to be in the same situation now, would probably have kept the Desktop (and made some more hardware updates) and bought a tablet for mobility. Laptops are nice but there are many many issues that drive me crazy -- difficult to do a lot of hardware updates, overheating issues, battery issues. Those problems are especially bad at the <$1000 range IMO.

I'll echo what a couple of other have said - Lenovo T series or Dell Latitude with the factory dock would be a good replacement for a desktop machine. However, you may have a tough time getting both under $1k