Two of the main reasons why I’ve never switched to a laptop as my main platform is performance and multiple display support.
With today’s laptop performance is almost nil. The cost compared to desktops is almost trivial and the performance a laptop can offer these days is absolutely incredible. Unless I am a performance nut, such as someone working in film or audio editing and you need quad-core processors, four hard drives and 8 GB of ram a laptop can usually fit all your needs these days. If you’re a gamer they even have laptops with SLI on board (although these are still fairly expensive).
However, multiple displays has always kept me back. I love my dual 20” displays. I also don’t want a 17” screen on my laptop. The whole point of a laptop to me is portability. When I go to a presentation or a conference I don’t want to lug around a 12 pound machine and then fight for chair space when I try and open the behemoth in the audience. So I want a lightweight laptop with a 15.4” screen. That causes a problem when I’m home at my desk.
In the last few months USD-DVI cables have started coming out and the performance is pretty amazing. Here’s a company allowing you to run three simultaneous displays as 1600×1200. After a firmware update coming out in the near future you’ll get even more performance and resolution. Amazing!
Check it out:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-dvi-lcd-display,6777.html