sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

I am also looking. Great info on the G750. Will check it out.
Also looking into ditching the laptop in favor of a desktop PC. There are a few people around here that will build a gaming style tower for less than retail. I agree the monitor should be an IPS. Dell and I think Acer make a very popular 24" in the $300-$350 range.
Interesting when I checked out laptops only at Costco and Sam's Club, there was nothing for sale with dedicated graphics card. Next stop will Fry's Electronics to check out their refurbs and new units. Kind of leaning towards a desktop at the moment. Seems like more bang for the buck.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

LINK for G750 specs:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/sectors/campaigns/asus/g750/asus_g750.asp?srkey=asus%20g750&srkey=ASUS%20G750

Desktop machines do give more bang for the buck since there's no space consideration to fit all that stuff into a portable, battery powered case. But the prerequisites for what is needed for photographic PP work are still valid.

BTW if you only want 8 or 10 bit color LUT (look-up-table) covering 99% of sRGB, then you can get away with an IPS display for $200-$300 for a 24" monitor and maybe cheaper on Cyber Monday sales from B&H, NewEgg or TigerDirect with free shipping and no tax.

Frank2013 Loc: San Antonio, TX. & Milwaukee, WI.

Not positive but don't believe Adobe CC will work on a Chromebook. Pixlr will.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

I'm currently using an HP Pavilion with 17' screen i3/2.40GHz CPU w/6GB RAM and an HP Graphics 3000 that I downloaded an upgrade to make it OpenGL capable. I'm currently running Photoshop CS6, Lightroom 4, Photomatix 5, Topaz, NIK and OnOne software and ProShow Producer 6. Yes, there are times I wish I had more RAM and will eventually upgrade. BUT.....I guarantee the laptop did NOT cost anything like $1200.00, and I'm editing RAW images in HDR and Panorama just fine. Yes, a fully loaded I7 will work much better than what I have, but you definitely will be able to more than adequately handle digital editing with a laptop in the budget you have stated.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

HP's integrated graphics is the same as Intel Integrated graphics and is part of the MOBO and Bridge Controller circuitry. It also robs up to 2 gig or more of the system RAM when fully engaged. The software upgrade of HP's graphics enabled the use of OpenGL for graphics like gaming and 3D renderings which also allows for max (2-3 gig) use of the system RAM for video applications. However, without dedicated graphics memory, geometric algorithm smoothing of the video will only slow a machines processing speed when implemented. This is the advantage of having a dedicated GPU with it's own video RAM. Multi-threading is also limited for CPU's less than i5 or AMD FX CPUs or A series CPU/GPU units.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

All very true and unarguable. My point though was that even with those limitations it can still run Photoshop CS6 extended with plugin suites. So $1200.00 won't get the top-of-the-line laptop, but it will get one that can run any software editing package you can throw at it.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

I've always been an advocate of a laptop system that has a dedicated GPU as well as a CPU and sufficient RAM to support both separately. Photoshop is a CPU/GPU and temp file hog and LR is a storage system hog when used with multiple libraries.
Most inexpensive laptop machines come with minimal HDD space and no ability to have 2 drives or internal SSD implementation or GeForce or nVidea graphics chips. The ASUS line of G550 and G750 laptops have all of these advantages as do some others like Alienware or custom laptop systems costing considerably more.

That said, you can get away with a $500 laptop but it will have limited graphics engine capabilities. All the laptops below this threshold are mainly designed for business and document/word processor applications.

The OP's consideration of a desktop machine has greater versatility and expandability of future use with far less expense. Great desktops can be had or built for less than $1000 and easily expanded when the need arises as long as the right MOBO is implemented. For Intel, the 1150 socket and for AMD, the AM3+ socket.

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

Talked with a son-in-law a few hours ago. He said he thought a good IPS monitor would be double what I was looking at. More colors? He invited me to plug my old laptop into his 30" Apple monitor to see if a better monitor is all I need or will have to get whole system. Should be interesting. Don't think I will be able to talk him into giving me his monitor for Christmas if that is all I need! Lol

smith934 Loc: Huntsville, Alabama

what makes you think Adobe will release CC for a device like the Chromebook? PS requires some real computer horsepower, which a Chromebook doesn't have.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

The monitor is only half of the formula for more colors. If you don't have a graphics card and 8 bit Intel Integrated Graphics, then you can only get a less than full rendition of the 16.7 million colors of the sRGB gamut where as with use of a real video card and a photo quality 14 bit monitor, you could be getting 99% or more of the 1073 million colors in the AdobeRGB pallet. To compare, the old VGA colors were limited to 256, so almost any new monitor using the HDMI or DVI ports will give significant improvement.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Laptops have inferior displays - nearly all of them are 6 bit depth, making them unsuitable for photo editing. You can, however, use them with an external 8 bit S-IPS or H-IPS display that would give you 99% or higher AdobeRGB color space and 8 bit color depth for more accurate color.

If you absolutely need to edit on the laptop, then would get this machine:

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6678-clevo-w670sjq-p-6993.html?wconfigure=yes

With the following options:

16 gb ram
500 gb SSD boot drive
17" wide gamut display (72% NTSC)
1 TB storage drive

It should end up costing about $1300 -

They have faster, more capable machines that can take up to 32 gb ram, accommodate up to 3 internal drives, workstation graphics cards that support up to 10 bit display color depth, etc etc - I recently configured one for a student that was a really excellent editing station for around $2200. It is as fast as my desktop, which is no slouch.

Off the shelf machines that are preconfigured might be cheaper, but certainly less suitable for photo editing. Clevo machines have a reputation for having excellent displays, but I would still use an external one for important work.

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

Appreciate the info and advice from singlevikng and Gene51. Don't even remember my old laptop components on my antique Gateway mx 6454. Will take a ganderat specs and see how bad this really is. Laptop was new in (don't laugh) 2006.