I use i3 a lot, it's great. I still find my 5 monitor home pc setup WAY more effective for coding on my monster central monitor and side vertical documentation monitors than changing virtual desktops on a single monitor or a laptop. I feel as slow on a laptop as a vim user would if you removed their config.

About all I can really do on a laptop is code in the car or an airplane, or do documents, and event that I'm starting to run out of screen real-estate.