laptop or desktop

[cwend]

Ok, so it seems my desktop has died and my laptop is a few years old. So heres what Im thinking...get a new laptop...probably 15-17inch 4-6gb, and 500ishGB HD, somewhere in the $500 range is my budget. I can use it for a laptop and when editing photos I can plug it into the 23" monitor from my desktop. I can get one or two external HDs for redundant backups for photo storage. Would a laptop like that work to run LR3 and CS5? I dont game really, just a couple of older games (TW golf and a flight sim that was designed for win98 ha) so other than photo editting, it will be for internet browsing mostly. Or do i need to get a new laptop and desktop? thanks for the help

[Charles Putnam]

The advantage of a laptop is it's portability. 15" is the preferred size by most, as 17" can get heavy.

There are some key things to think about. First - battery life. A $500 laptop won't have the best battery life. Also, they may not come with a decent graphics chip/card that has the ability to support Open GL2, that LR3 and PS CS5 can take advantage of.

[darktiger]

I agree with Charles... 500 would buy you a bottom of the line photoediting laptop.. well maybe not bottom of the line, but not middle.. $500 would prob get you a decent computer... with maybe even a i5 processor if you decide to build yourself.

[ChrisTX]

I have a couple of Toshibas that I got to use as office computers. They were on sale for $375 from original $450. One has LR 2.7 and CS5 on it. It works perfectly fine. I've also used it for tethered shooting too. The battery will go three hours.

[cwend]

I'm not real concerned with battery life as it will mostly be plugged in as a home (sole) computer. I want a new laptop as well, so if I can get one laptop that will work for both purposes. I'm not stuck on 17", my old was 15.5 so I can live with that if I had to since it will mostly be plugged into my big monitor at home

[hdctx]

There are plenty of laptops you could replace your desktop with, just not for $500.
Good luck

[cwend]

I ended up getting a Lenovo for 599. Has an i5, 6gb ram, 640g HD. Ive loaded CS5, LR3, all the topaz plugins, and about 300gb of pictures. Ive been doing some editing and it seems every bit as fast as my desktop was. Thanks for the replies