[kijinbear]

> some of them can be overcome: external peripherals for ergonomics, larger screens, and extra storage.

Once you've attached an external monitor, external keyboard and mouse, and an external hard drive to a laptop, you're using the laptop exactly as you would a desktop tower: something you only need to touch if you want to insert a piece of removable media.

In that case, you might as well fork out a few more dollars and put a real desktop tower in that space. Sync everything and enjoy the extra speed.