Machine and display questions

[imahawki]

What concerns should one consider when hooking an external display up to a laptop? I'd like to get an IPS display for more serious and accurate editing (as well as to have a larger display) but right now my primary workflow and editing machine is a laptop. So I assume one concern is that it probably doesn't have a great video card. Which raises an explicit question... is the ability to calibrate a laptop screen or monitor LIMITED by the video card or not? I've never been sure if the changes you make to calibrate the display are controlled by what options you have in your video card control panel or if they are made using software that comes with the calibration device.

[HankScorpio]

Generally speaking you should set your graphics card's control panel settings to default and never touch them again if you are using a hardware calibrator. The only adjustments you need to make are on the monitor. This does limit your ability to calibrate a laptop screen as they generally lack RGB or Kelvin controls but an accurate calibration is still possible. The main thing to check is that your laptop graphics card can drive the resolution of a big monitor. IPS panels are typically 1920x1200 at least.