Laptop for photos ~$700

keep in mind that you can always plug in a "professional" monitor to your laptop. For example, my ~$700 (17in) Toshiba Satellite P775-S7100 have both HDMI and VGA. So don't let the comment deters you from even considering laptops. I had a ridiculous desktop setup that I just was not using cause I was spending so much time outside of my room. A weaker laptop, that I traded my desktop down to, was so much more useful and It was still more than strong enough to handle most thing I threw at it. You can also upgrade some laptop's ram and hard drive down the road if you are willing to go that way. Doing it this way will make your investment even better.

I intend to upgrade my 6GB ram to 8GB ram and would love to switch to a large SSD once the price comes down on it.