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The H-1B becomes a whole lot more restrictive the moment you apply for a green card, since your transferability just vanished.

This is less of a problem for people from non-Indian and non-Chinese backgrounds, since the wait time is reasonably short. The priority dates for Indians and Chinese though make it such that once your green card is started you're stuck for literally years.

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Once you've applied for a green card and the PERM and I-140 has been approved and your I-485 has been pending for 180 days, you do have portability. You can leave your current employer, but you must find another position that is substantially similar.

Labor certification and I-140 processing used to be painfully slow. I waited 3.5 years just for my labor certification. However, the new PERM process is much quicker, so you'd probably only have to wait 1 or 2 years to be eligible for portability.

You can't file for an i-485 if your date is not current which is the case for folks from India/China. So there is no true portability.

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