Just done a journey from Baghdad to Tampa via Doha and Philly. Kept laptop with me until the gate in Doha, boxed, packaged and bagged to the side of the gate as others have stated. Might be worth a mention that I've got a large 17" laptop, but it just fit inside one of the boxes after being bubble wrapped. They didn't seem bothered about my large power brick staying in my carry on, nor were they bothered about my noise cancelling headphones which I was allowed to keep.
I was one of the first off the plane on arrival in Philly; after passport control two QR reps were already in place waiting for the belt to start. Electronics boxes came off the belt first, to be 'caught' by the two QR reps and placed in fenced off area. Must've been about 50 boxes. I had stuck a couple of additional stickers I had with me on the outside of the packaging to help ID it; also worth keeping an eye out on the labels as when they take it from you in Doha it is checked through to final destination; it was the TPA baggage label that caught my eye ahead of the stickers.
Once I'd spotted it, had it cross checked off a list and was free to go. I removed the laptop from the packaging there and then, and placed it back in my carry on for the rest of the journey.
All in all fairly painless.