Reid's primary system is a HP Evo N800w mobile workstation. "I purchased the n800w primarily to work remotely and then complete the more serious 3D work on the dual processor machine, but I was quickly surprised by how fast the n800w was," he says.

The Evo N800w ships with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 M processor, 1 GB RAM, and a 60 GB hard drive. Most importantly for Reid's line of work the Evo comes with ATI's MOBILITY FireGL 9000 workstation graphics accelerator. The FireGL 9000 is designed specifically for 3D designers like Reid. The card itself has been designed and tested with the leading CAD and DCC software applications. It also comes with all the features you would expect in a desktop workstation, including dual monitor support, hardware accelerated anti-aliasing, overlay planes and more.

"I set up some render tests between my main desktop and the notebook in the first few days of owning it and the n800w put up respectable numbers," according to Reid. "I began keeping project files on the notebook and not transferring anything to the desktop because it would take longer to do it that way."

With the FireGL 9000 on-board, the Evo delivers superior image quality and stable OpenGL drivers for lightning fast 3D and 2D graphics acceleration. Reid says, "Now I have no problem working on video, film, or 3D projects on the notebook."

Running the leading design and graphics applications on the market, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, After Effects, Maya, and Avid Xpress Pro, Reid can do most of his work location. For operating systems, he uses a combination of Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional.

Although Reid stills spends the majority of his time in the office, the portability of the Evo n800w has made his workday a lot more interesting. "I tend to have the best time while out shooting with my camera and editing with the notebook," Reid says. "I love the dynamic of having all the gear I need with me, ready for anything."