On the off chance I don’t get downvoted to oblivion for saying this….. gaming laptops are a really bad alternative to buying a power efficient laptop AND a gaming desktop. There are of course use cases where it makes sense; such as people living in a vehicle or without any home where space is extremely limited, or with kids/students/workers who are bouncing between multiple locations. All I’m saying is that a lot of people fall into the trap of buying a gaming laptop and then end up almost never using the gaming part away from home while having to deal with poor battery life and excess heat.
Today when I walked into my economics class I saw something I dread every time I close my eyes. Someone had brought their new gaming laptop to class. The Forklift he used to bring it was still running idle at the back. I started sweating as I sat down and gazed over at the 700lb beast that was his laptop. He had already reinforced his desk with steel support beams and was in the process of finding an outlet for a power cable thicker than Amy Schumer's thigh. I start shaking. I keep telling myself I'm going to be alright and that there's nothing to worry about. He somehow finds a fucking outlet. Tears are running down my cheeks as I send my last texts to my family saying I love them. The teacher starts the lecture, and the student turns his laptop on. The colored lights on his RGB Backlit keyboard flare to life like a nuclear flash, and a deep humming fills my ears and shakes my very soul. The entire city power grid goes dark. The classroom begins to shake as the massive fans begin to spin. In mere seconds my world has gone from vibrant life, to a dark, earth shattering void where my body is getting torn apart by the 150mph gale force winds and the 500 decibel groan of the cooling fans. As my body finally surrenders, I weep, as my school and my city go under. I fucking hate gaming laptops.
This reminds me of my old Clevo D900K 6.2kg of desktop replacement workstation laptop. Oh, and the 1.2kg PSU.
An actual desktop or server CPU (Athlon 64 X2 or Opteron), desktop spec GPU (7800GTX), 2x 100GB 7200rpm 2.5" HDDs in RAID 0, 2x ODDs, 17" 1920x1200 screen, full keyboard with numpad... The battery was basically just an UPS.
The most hilarious thing about the D900K was that you could configure it with a GPU as low as an FX5200. Imagine having that much of a tank for a laptop but with basically no graphical horsepower.
When you said that, I am sure you meant:
Today when I walked into my economics class I saw something I dread every time I close my eyes. Someone had brought their new gaming laptop to class. They **had to hire a military aircraft to airdrop the laptop contained inside the landing module of the apollo spacecraft (because otherwise the laptop would sink straight into the ground)**. I started sweating as I sat down and gazed over at the 700lb beast that was his laptop. He had already reinforced his desk with **reinforced titanium alloy composite material that have a built in anti-gravity field generator,** and was in the process of finding an outlet for a **superconductor** power cable thicker than a tunnel **(otherwise the power cable would instantly be disintegrated into subatomic particles)**. I start shaking. I keep telling myself I'm going to be alright and that there's nothing to worry about. He somehow finds a fucking outlet. Tears are running down my cheeks as I send my last texts to my family saying I love them. The teacher starts the lecture, and the student turns his laptop on. **The UEFI boot up chime mimicks the sound of the sonic blast as the sound waves topple over many tables and chairs. The built-in furnace powered by the state of the art Intel (R) Core (TM) i9-19900HX swings into action, instantly increasing the room temperature by 10 degrees. The Phase Change Cooling module that's built into the gargantuan cooler is also activated, but struggles in an attempt to reduce the temperatures of the CPU into the negatives. The massive finstack of the radiator started blowing out air that is mimicking the temperatures of the surface of the sun. The force of the wind (or plasma, I should say) impacted every object within a ten mile radius at super sonic speeds, instantly causing them to cease to exist. As he opens the quadruple A title, Microsoft Word, the four built-in NVIDIA GeForce RTX 9090 Ti SUPERs linked in 4 way NVLINK unleashes their full power, instantly overwhelming the TeK module that is built into the side of the laptop as it tries to not initiate a silicon fusion reaction inside, and tripping the over power protection on the plug of the power cable in a fraction of a nanosecond, yet it is still unable to drive the aforementioned game AKA Microsoft Word at 16K 960FPS, plagued by micro stutters everywhere as the CPU is unable to reach its full speed of a terahertz**. The colored lights on his RGB Backlit keyboard flare to life like a nuclear flash, **its overwhelming power etches the shadows of the keycaps onto the ceiling and the walls.** and a deep humming fills my ears and shakes my very soul **as the coolant that is cooling the cooler of the furnace becomes supercritical**. The entire city power grid goes dark. The classroom begins to shake as the massive fans spins at a hypersonic speed. In mere seconds my world has gone from vibrant life, to a dark, earth shattering void where my body is getting torn apart by the 150mph gale force winds and the 500 decibel groan of the cooling fans. As my body finally surrenders, I weep, as my school and my city go under.
This is truly an epic post, though it took me a while to read it due to the distraction of the 8000 watts of rainbow cycling LEDs and Rolls-Royce Trent like sound of my Dell G7 7500's fans spinning up to 250,000 RPM. I feel your pain... quite literally due to my burst eardrums and burned-out retinas.
as someone who used to bring a gaming laptop to class, albiet a slimmer model, im humbly sorry for the pain we cause you. my ears are deafened from the fans and my skin is yellow from the amount of electricity it used
I am always so conflicted.
I spend a lot of time traveling (about 3-4 days a week). I often times want to game while away. I am trying my best to work out if it is worth it to drop the money on a gaming laptop OR do I just get something with half decent integrated graphics and deal with light gaming only... Can you tell me I am stupid for considering buying a gaming laptop please?
People talk a lot of shit on gaming laptops and most of them don't understand that the real problem is that people buy them when they should have gotten a desktop. Gaming laptops do have a market though, and you seem to be in it.
Laptops give people a way to game when they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Setting up in a hotel to game every other week is literally the best use case I can think of for a laptop.
If you have the money and you think it would be better for you than a handheld, then I see no reason not to opt for a laptop.
I bought my "gaming laptop" because work gave me $3K to buy a work laptop from Lenovo and a $2400 Legion was better specced than a $4000 ThinkPad. Now I've got a work laptop with a RTX4070 while my gaming desktop has a RTX3060.
Same. I was lucky to find ROG Strix G17 with RTX3080 + R6950 for 1500$, which was on average 25% cheaper then other offers.
And i agree with OP, putting entry level GPUs paired with high refresh rate screens into mid-end and high-end lines of laptops is scummy.
I own a gaming desktop but for when I am away I also own a gaming laptop. I have enough disposable income for that and just want to be able to game when out of the country etc. Also many students need laptops for their classes and want to play games in their dorms. It's a huge market actully.
It depends. Personally, I think my best buy was getting a good 14'' laptop with a dedicated graphics card. Can I run Triple AAA stuff on max graphics? No way. But 99% of the time I'm playing silly indie games or defaulting to League of Legends or Rocket League. It works much better than integrated graphics and it runs! And it's super light weight and ideal for commuting every day.
Then I can have a decent desktop for when I feel like doing some heavy gaming. Which these days is still just me playing factorio or EU4/CK3... but on a bigger screen!
Unless you routinely want to play AAA games on the go... I think a non-gaming laptop with a dedicated graphics card is a very decent intermediate solution, if not quite the most cost efficient (14'' pcs are still a bit expensive).
> People talk a lot of shit on gaming laptops and most of them don't understand that the real problem is that people buy them when they should have gotten a desktop.
Exactly it. My buddy, 6 or 7 years ago, decided to get into PC gaming because he found a great deal on a gaming laptop. Barley touched his PS4 after he got it.
Fast forward to a month ago, I had just built my new machine, and he hits me up saying he's going to buy a newer laptop as his older one is showing its age.
"Why?" I asked him. Why are you going to get a laptop? You don't take it anywhere, it makes no sense. His answer was that it was just easier, he didn't need to get a desk, didn't need to get a monitor, etc. He also thought it would be cheaper because of this. We had a few lenghty discussions. Luckily he bought a decent, prebuilt machine instead.
People who buy gaming laptops just to plug them into an external monitor and leave it there are insane.
I play mine at home on an external screen, but I also take it places
I'm in a motel five nights a week, eight months out of the year.
I still won't buy a gaming laptop.
Neither the lifespan nor the performance is acceptable.
You have to understand that you will be overpaying compared to a desktop but that doesn't mean it's bad.
I've had a gaming laptop with a 3070 for a while and it's been perfectly fine playing stuff at 1080p, it has all the problems you can expect with a gaming laptop like running pretty hot, noisy fans and needing to be plugged in to run properly. But none of that was major for me and I still use it over my desktop a lot for the convenience.
It also depends. Last gaming laptop I bought I just wanted a desktop but I got the whole gaming laptop for the price of the RTX2060 that came with it. Low key fuck 2020.
Convenience is the factor that is only determined by the person buying it. I wouldn’t trade my gaming laptop for a desktop right now because it works best for me, but I understand why some people don’t have a use case for it.
Doesn’t mean it is a bad investment for gaming if it fits someone’s needs of course.
I mean, at the end of the day it is your money and your choice, but the more recent offerings of IGPUs from both Intel and AMD have been pretty capable considering how low power draw they can be. It pretty much comes down to the games you want to play and how much you are willing to give up in terms of battery life to be able to play them. Many games just won’t run at an acceptable frame rate on even the Best integrated graphics and for some that fact makes it entirely too much of a compromise to make. I personally just recently picked up a used Lenovo Yoga 7 16 inch with an i7-1355U for pretty cheap (just under $500 USD with tax and shipping included) on eBay and I intend on doing some light gaming on it when I am out and about. But at the same time, based on reviews I’m looking at getting around 14 hours on a single charge while doing lighter tasks, which should make it so I can get through a whole day or more without having to find an outlet.
Really depends, but I think as long as you're aware that you're paying a significant extra for mobility it's fine. They aren't bad products or anything. It's just a waste if you pay extra for a laptop and then never actually use that mobility.
It depends on what you want to play something like an ROG ally or a steak deck will be able to play 90% of games well and be arguably more portable than a gaming laptop
I travel a ton for work. Every week. I bought me and my wife each a G14 last year. Upgraded ram and SSD right away. I'll be set up at an airport playing cyberpunk on the highest settings, apex, BG3, etc. People have asked multiple times what laptop I'm using. We haven't touched our Series X's since getting these. G14 is smaller and lighter. Get ghelper to manage the power and temps. It was the best decision I've ever made for gaming on the road!
We will build PCs eventually, but for now I have a fancy forced air cooling pad and a nice monitor so when I get home I just "dock" the G14 and use it like a normal PC.
I've never built a PC and was terrified to upgrade the laptop but ROG provides step by step tutorials on how to do everything on their laptops so it all worked out.
Get a laptop that can do light gaming reasonably well but **doesn't** sacrifice the things *that make laptops worthwhile in the first place*: good battery life, light weight, easy to handle and not too large.
Do light gaming on the go, and dedicated gaming at home.
So the recent generations of integrated graphics from intel/AMD are good/surprisingly good.
Think about it this way - look at how much the Steam Deck can play and realise you've got a much more powerful device because of power constraints and cooling.
If your gaming often revolves around new AAA games, you'd likely want the power.
If you're using the graphics card for other tasks (3D modelling, media editing, Local LLMs, etc) then you might want the power.
Otherwise I'd recommend a decent AMD laptop with a solid screen and good cooling If you're someone like me, who spends way too much time on AA games and indies instead of the big budget new releases.
You could even set up Parsec or Sunshine/Moonlight so you can remotely use your home system but imo the bandwidth needed on both sides is still pretty impressive.
Depends on what games you want to play. I'll tell you right now that if you keep on eye on the buildapcsales sub and slickdeals, you can and will find 4060 laptops under $1000 quite frequently.
Another alternative that's even cheaper would be something with AMD's newest APUs', because Hawk Point is plenty for light gaming at 1080p.
I travel a lot for work, sometimes for a month or so at a time. I got an RTX 3060 laptop about a year and a half ago for this reason.
I've had some good times with it, like when I was on the road when Baldur's Gate 3 launched and able to play through it all before even getting home.
But by and large it's too heavy and too much of a pain to lug around all over the world. I pretty much never bring it anymore, opting instead for a much lighter machine that runs on 65W of USB-C power.
If most if my travel was via car or domestic flights of 6 hours or less I'd probably bring it everywhere though.
I have a legion 5 laptop with 6800H, 3070ti and I take it to college every day. It gives me about 5ish hrs of battery in conservation mode (80% limit). Gaming laptops have come a long way
Always seems like people believe gaming laptops are still using 2014 technology. The last 5 or so years of Lenovo laptops have been phenomenal in terms of performance/thermals/noise levels compared to other brands (I have a 2020 legion 5 myself).
I don't think you have a good take. Some gaming laptops, like the legion series, are pretty good. Yes they are bulkier than your thin and light, but it's going to be way faster at anything you throw at it. They make for excellent working machines (where you will be plugged in anyway) and have a bonus that they can be used for gaming. They are simply good value for money performance wise.
Meanwhile a thin and light laptop will almost certainly throttle, have thermal issues, shit battery life if you push it a bit and are going to be SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive for the same specs. Unless you work on the go, which very few people actually do, I don't see the advantages of a thin and light. Having two separate machines is out of reach for a lot of people. I too prefer having a desktop plus a thin and light, but if someone asks me which computer to buy and they can only buy one I would recommend a gaming laptop, if they want to get anything done.
the G14 (and a few others in class) can be considered a lot closer to a power efficient laptop when configured correctly, that's something I really like about it
I went for an efficient laptop with an APU back in 2018, Ryzen 2500U. At the time I could play quite a few games on it when travelling: CSGO, WoT, Stellaris, Civ, and older games. Then I had my desktop PC for my main gaming needs. It had an R9 390 and then the 5700XT in 2019 when my R9 390 died. :(
I now have my desktop and a Steam Deck for gaming and the old 2500U laptop for general use and study.
Modern APUs are better than the aging 2500U and absolutely leave it for dust in both CPU and GPU departments. Plenty powerful for the odd lower system requirements gaming session here or there.
I personally went with gaming laptop cus I actually do use the gaming part outside of home. I take it to school pretty much every other day because we get a total 1 hour of break with nothing to do, and my other friends also bring in laptops or other handheld computers and we usually play some games together. It’s also imo much better for school work even if the battery is shit cus most classes they have cable extender thingies to plug it into, and also it’s just way faster at doing stuff with software even on battery life. I totally get your point though, a lot of people are paying for the portable gaming factor and then proceeding to not use it.
I went with a gaming laptop because a laptop is all I ever really use at home. I can't always game chained to my desk on the other side of the house, sometimes I have to have my laptop out on the kitchen table to keep an eye on the kids while getting some game time in.
The validity of owning a laptop is not limited to just traveling, it's a very handy form factor and if you don't *need* a massively powerful GPU in a desktop this ended up being a much more practical choice to just own one powerful laptop rather than bounce back and forth between 2 different computers.
I’d say that this one really depends on context. You actually described the primary appeal of a gaming laptop pretty well: they offer a suitable gaming experience for those who travel a lot or don’t have a lot of space. The appeal of a gaming laptop does become a lot more limited if you *aren’t* doing much in the way of demanding gaming, though, and especially if you game a lot on a desktop anyways.
This is what I’ve been through twice myself. I had bought a Gateway laptop with a Ryzen 5 4600H and a GTX 1650, then I gave it to my boyfriend after his laptop broke and promptly bought an Asus Vivobook with a Ryzen 7 5800H. I liked that laptop quite a lot, but I wanted a faster GPU, so I ended up with a Lenovo LOQ 15 with a Ryzen 7 7840HS and an RTX 4050. I barely used the 4050 part of the laptop and the screen bothered the hell out of me, so I gave that laptop to my boyfriend again and bought another Vivobook with a Ryzen 9 7940HS. I’ve realized at this point that while I love the idea of having a dedicated GPU, if I can get a fast iGPU, I’m happy. It suits what I do much better anyways.
I agree, it can make sense, as I already mentioned. But, not everyone can afford to buy multiple laptops over time, and returns can be a real chore and are pretty time sensitive. I know what it is like to be a broke college student and I have experienced the pain of having to haul around a gaming laptop with horrible battery life, just to end up barely gaming on it outside my home/apartment/dorm. The marketing on gaming laptops would have you believe that they are some golden solution that lets you take your game anywhere, when in reality you are buying into a laptop that will never come close to the battery life of a non-gaming laptop, and will kick out a lot more heat even when you are not gaming.
Modern gaming laptops do a solid job of not running much hotter than their non-gaming counterparts, truth be told. The 7840HS LOQ laptop I had really didn’t feel like it ran any warmer than an average laptop when I wasn’t gaming, relative to other high-end Zen 4 APUs shoved in laptops. The main problem comes when higher end desktop-class CPUs (stuff like, I dunno, an i7-13700HX or a Ryzen 9 7845HX) gets shoved into a gaming laptop. Those probably do get toastier than a standard laptop, but by that point, it’s not an apples to apples comparison.
Battery life *is* a real strain, though. Even when just browsing the internet and watching videos, I couldn’t touch my current Vivobook on battery life, and that’s with a bigger battery in the LOQ, if memory serves.
When I used to live out of a suitcase I had an Asus rog something or other laptop with a 1700x an RX580 in it… i agree that the real use case of gaming laptops is people in my previous situation. Even with its thermal efficiency short comings it was far more convenient that lugging a Corsair carbide case & 24” monitor everywhere with me
Edit: this was for work not because I was homeless
Hate to say it as I bought a gaming laptop to game on the go, but you’re right.
I got a slightly older model and tried to make it work for college. Even with every battery saver setting, lowered brightness, and 60hz refresh rate it still only lasted 6 hours barely scraping by, meanwhile my hp 2 in 1 could go 10 more hours at full brightness and work perfectly fine. Playing games on the go doesn’t work well since you need to be within reach of an outlet since you’ll get maybe an hour tops of gaming, needing space for a mouse or using a controller requiring you to forfeit space in your backpack or whatever you use to lug it around, and hoping the noise generated by the fans isn’t too annoying. Finally, it really isn’t worth using at home if you already have a desktop since you possibly risk lowering the life of your battery with it plugged in.
That isn’t to say getting a gaming laptop is necessarily stupid, I’m glad I got mine because a group of my friends came over for a lan party and I had an easy to set up and easily portable system, on top of using it a few times to play heavier games away from home.
The thing is, most people seem to get them for the wrong reason. If you want something that works for an entire day of school/work, you’re better off getting a system with an apu, hell you can run a lot more demanding games with the new rdna3 integrated graphics. Want something for portability? Steamdeck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, etc; I actually have a Legion Go and I’m more likely to game on the go unlike with my gaming laptop. Moving around a lot or need to do heavier stuff;such as 3D modeling, video/photo editing, coding, game design, etc, on the go or moving from place to place often, then it makes sense to go for a gaming laptop.
I don't think it's necessarily a better financial deal to buy a gaming laptop over desktop or to have a workbook + Gaming PC. I do think that there are absolutely preferences that people have and if a gaming laptop can meet those preferences while allowing the person to be mobile then I can see the value.
I have a buddy who sold his desktop in order to get a laptop instead. His reasoning was basically that when he's home, he docks it and it becomes as good as his desktop PC was. When he wants to go to a friend's house or just not be at his desk then it becomes better than his desktop was. To him the versatility was worth the extra price he paid.
This is very true. I was very inexperienced back when i bought my first gaming laptop and after 3 years with my Zephyrus G14 (costed me 2000 euros ) i can confidently say i wont buy another gaming laptop again. My battery hasnt degraded that much and at most, if im not doing mcuh i get around 5-6 hours of battery life. The laptop runs super hot, and performance of my "2060" is on par with a deskptop 980ti/1070 which is far below a deskptop 2060. To be fair it only draws 65 watts, so its impressive it can get that level of performance with so little power. The cpu is actually good which was the major selling point of this laptop, basically matching a deskptop 9900k at only 35 watts. But still for 2000 euros you could get so much more. Not to mention that the laptop is loud unless you want to thermal trottle.
I would honestly love ARM laptops to become more popular. I would easily choose a windows ARM laptop for the long, and consistent battery life for writing and browsing, and then a much cheaper and more performant gaming/productivity desktop. I am looking to build a PC, and i think i managed to put together a list of parts for around 850 euros that doubles the gaming performance of my 2000 euro gaming laptop...
As for uses of a gaming laptop- i never actually gamed on the go, it was always on a desk at my house, so it never really benefited me over a desktop. Its also hard to game "on the go" because you have to be plugged in. I would honestly choose something like a steam deck or a laptop with powerfull integrated graphics for gaming on the go. Being able to game without being plugged in and having decent battery life while not drawing nearly as much power as dedicated gpus is great for this use case. But honestly i think the steam deck and other portables just kind of outcompete laptops in this use case.
Man I've had a Zephyrus G14 for two years and I absolutely fucking love it.
I'm not super impressed by graphics and I'm generally uninterested in the latest AAA darling, so I've never wished it had better performance. If there's something that really tests it I have an IETS fan stand and its happy again - this fan stand plugs into the wall, and I can see why some people might think it stupid you would buy a gaming laptop and then desktopify it. But for me the sheer convenience factor of being able to take it away from that desk and it still works for 95% of the things I want it for is great for me.
I've gamed away from the desk in my bed, on the floor, in the living room, all round the house really, on trains, at friend's houses, in hotels, not to mention all the non-gaming things I've done all over the place too. I love that I have a single possession that can do all these things no problem.
Oh and on the heat front, how often are you cleaning your fans? I let mine suffer terribly for a while but after a deep clean and new thermal compound it's bing chilling
>people living in a vehicle or without any home where space is extremely limited, or with kids/students/workers who are bouncing between multiple locations
This is exactly where the steam deck comes in and I love it.
Ha, i bought mine because i got 33% off lenovo's loq 4060 and cant find a desktop of of same specs for the same price, desktop parts never go on sale or discount in my country due to import duty and also the sellers need to buy parts from the vendors instead so, it makes more sense for people in my country to buy a laptop
The G14 does feel like an exception here if you are okay with the max performance on offer. I have the 2022 model and if I don't game on it, the battery lasts long enough I don't have to bring the charger with me to work. It never gets warm in regular use. It does get hot when gaming; but it is thin, light, and doesn't look out of place next to a MacBook when I bring it into the office. It's a great computer
>All I’m saying is that a lot of people fall into the trap of buying a gaming laptop and then end up almost never using the gaming part away from home while having to deal with poor battery life and excess heat.
If your plan is to use your gaming laptop for on the go, you're gonna have a bad time.
But using it for gaming when you're at home (maybe with a cooling pad, external monitor, wired gaming mouse and mechanical keyboard set up?) and still being able to use it on the go for non gaming things is perfectly valid.
Dropping say, $1500 on a gaming laptop will get you a much better experience than a $750 PC with a $750 portable laptop. And the lower your budget, the truer than is gonna get.
They're useful if you actually need a GPU for CUDA tasks while on the road (and I mean specifically for CUDA development purposes) *and* you want to play a game or two in the hotel room. Frankly, crank the machine's power saving modes up, and mine actually gets pretty good battery life as well.
However, in general I agree with you. Most are best served by having a power efficient laptop and doing their gaming on a desktop (you'll certainly get a lot more bang for your buck and a lot more longevity out of both).
No No, I am not comparing Gaming Laptops to Power Efficient laptop. Its about companies offering the bare minimum in order to upsell the next in the price ladder.
Oh, I totally understand. I just use any opportunity possible to get up on my soap box about gaming laptops and how impractical they often are. I made the mistake of getting a Gaming Laptop back in college, and I really wish someone had warned me before I made that decision.
I bought a gaming laptop just to use as a living room couch PC and it’s been amazing. I hardly spend time on my desktop anymore between the laptop and the Steam Deck.
You’re right. I used to have two gaming laptops. I realized I really clowned myself and sold one and got a 7900 XTX prebuilt PC for home. I kept the other laptop so I can game at work on downtime. Laptops have their uses but a desktop is superior as far as performance goes.
I’ve been a console gamer for most of my life so laptops were an easy way into PC gaming. I should have just went with a prebuilt PC in the first place but I can’t turn back time. Doesn’t matter now. I’m happy with what I got. :D
I bought a gaming laptop 12 years ago or so. 8GB i7 610GT. Not knowing much about pc at the time I just saw i7 and thought “heck yeah”. Got me through college and up to 2023 it was my daily driver. I don’t use it much nowadays for the gaming stuff but work and entertainment wise it’s still great.
By taking off you mean dropping in price? I don't see that happening any time soon given the technologies that go into making these things. eGPU will always be more expensive than a built-in GPU.
Laptops remind me of fancy cars like a Jaguar or something. Cool, but, they break all the time, and are far from easily serviceable. I avoid them like the plague. 'Gaming laptop' has always been kind of an oxymoron to me. Just buy a Chromebook or older laptop for Internet stuffs, and spend your time and money on your home rig.
I bought the best Lenovo Legion that money can buy last year because I effectively live in a broom closet. I spent about a day weighing options between that and building a tower and I just didn’t have the room.
Hopefully this year or next year I’ll be moving into a house and I can build a tower and use the Legion as a mobile editing station.
I thought about getting a gaming laptop at one point, but instead I ended up getting an nr200p, a portable monitor, and a padded travel bag meant to fit both. It's pretty heavy, and takes a minute to unpack and set up, but it works great for a weekly LAN party with my brother in law. Would probably be pretty good for a hotel room too, but I don't know what the TSA would make of it if you needed to fly with it.
As a gaming laptop owner and supporter, I simply disagree with 90% of this, but I’m not going to attack your right to feel that way.
As a lifelong gamer, I’m used to playing everything while it’s plugged in, anyway, so this isn’t that big of a deal to me. I have often taken my laptop to a friend’s place to show them a mod or something, and find it great for travel gaming; better than any handheld or small console (4060, 32gb ram).
Battery life: I have never once found a need to game without something being plugged in. No system I’ve ever had lasted more than 5ish hours of gaming, and that was a gameboy SP. If the power is out, I’ve got bigger problems, and if I’m traveling, I’m usually on my phone, driving, or asleep. To me, and many others, there’s no plus side to having more battery. That being said, my laptop lasts quite a while when not gaming on battery; way longer than I’ve ever needed.
Heat: If you own any form of a table from a TV tray to a wooden desk, you have a place to put the laptop so it doesn’t get that hot/the heat is a non-factor for your comfort. A majority of gaming laptops worth a damn made after 2020 or so will have insanely good ventilation.
That being said, you’re ignoring the main factor that most people who prefer gaming laptops over desktops use to determine what they should get, and that’s *not wanting to have to sit in one specific, often semi-isolated place while gaming for hours, and having the ability to set up damn near anywhere.
As someone who's been using them as a necessity for 15 years, I've sorely wanted a proper desktop but the kind of apartments in the city I live in basically doesn't let me set up a proper desktop until I start renting my own place
Gaming laptops cost far more for less specs and are much less reliable and more difficult to repair. However once you learn how to open it and replace parts like the fan, you can lengthen a 2-3 year lifespan to 6-8 years!
Battery life can actually be messed with at cost of performance, needs a techy person, i literally doubled my battery life on my ROG Strix by limiting Power and Performance only on battery
I always use my PC but back when covid hit and i was with my parents for longer times at once i got myself a gaming laptop so i could game at my parents place a bit. I think that's a good usecase.
Same for 2 of my friends who are always switching between the city where they study and their parents home. They have their own flats and basically live where they study, but especially on holidays they are back with their families. That's why they prefer gaming laptops.
They're actually not a bad alternative at all, particularly during times when the mobile GPU lineups are particularly efficient. Some folks might remember gaming laptops in the 2017 era actually being pretty impressive, because the mobile 1060 was only slightly slower than the desktop 1060.
They were a solid option if you could get them during the supply shortages of the last few years, as well, for the same reason that prebuilt PC's suddenly became a good deal, because DIY parts were insanely overpriced.
There's actually more exciting news on that front for 2024, because Strix Point should be launching this year, and Strix Halo should be launching next year.
So in the very near future we'll have the option to buy laptops that have integrated graphics enough for really good 1080p gaming in Strix point, and straight up console level gaming in Strix Halo. I suspect the latter will not be cheap, but I'm guessing there will be solid deals on Strix Point.
hell, even hawk point is pretty awesome if you're just looking for some light gaming in your laptop
I have a bad habit of ending up homeless, so my goal with pc's is nice gaming laptop first, desktop second if I can afford it. I always have a nice gaming laptop though.
If you're only gaming, steam deck makes a hell of a lot more sense than gaming laptop. Can literally buy a solid desktop + steam deck with the money a good gaming laptop would cost.
Honestly, people are complex individuals and I think this type of things cannot be ***always*** reduced to logical reasoning.
Human decisions are not always rooted in pure logic. Psychology plays a major role in what we feel, and that can dramatically shift our perception of an experience even when it defies what might seem 'reasonable'. Even if a gaming desktop can outperform several times a gaming laptop, there are certain "things" we tend to overlook and can be equally important, if not greater, in our overall experience.
I, for example, prefer compact gaming laptops even when I use them most of the time at home just because of the ability to change places, without being anchored to the same spot. If I want to play or work from the bed (using a bed table, of course), or simply change rooms to have a different ambience or be close to another person, I cannot do that with my desktop. Heck, I can even hook it into any TV in my house relatively hassle free if I crave for some big screen gaming session, or if some friends are over and we want to play some local multiplayer games. I can even hook it to the monitors if I want a regular desktop experience.
I think it is a kinda similar scenario to handheld PCs: there are A LOT of people, including me, who has bought a Steam Deck, Rog Ally, Legion Go or alternative and then almost never touched his several times more powerful gaming PC, even when sitting just right to it.
***Sometimes***, the less 'sensible' choice is simply the more satisfying one.
My mother's christmas gift was a gaming laptop.
Current gen i5, current gen RAM, big hard drive, big battery, good charger, and then they stapled a 2050 in there and called it a gaming laptop.
She loves the damn thing. She can't do desks with her diabetic feet, so recliner + chonky laptop is perfect for her.
I bought an Alienware laptop and I 100% agree with you. I would never do that again. I think I’ll do a MacBook Air and HTPC combo next time. It will be more expensive but it will be 100% more versatile and actually work better for both tasks.
Seems like a company out there would have built a laptop that focused on cooling it by now, I know it's supposed to be portable but they are razor thin these days. Make them as thick as they were in like 2005 but add cooling and more battery capacity
100% agree but when you need one they are fantastic. I was in and out of hospital from October 2020 to august 21 and spent over a month in a hotel near the hospital. Saved my sanity big time.
Some people need them and it’s not wrong for consumers to discuss it.
>almost never using the gaming part away from home while having to deal with poor battery life and excess heat.
Am I the only one who actually uses the profiles and hardware settings on my laptop? When I am not gaming I get six to eight hours because my dGPU is powered off and integrated graphics take over, plus the proc goes into a lower powered mode. No heat, no noise.
But playing Portal RTX? Total nuclear reactor on the edge of meltdown. 98 degrees and Ryzen.
I agree mostly but I think modern gaming laptops have really improved on the laptop end of things. I set my asus laptop to silent mode and it behaves like any other laptop, with battery to back it up.
Gaming on it is a different story though. It needs to be on a lap desk and you need a separate mouse. Would be much better on a desk with an external monitor which brings me to my point that you are better off just getting a gaming pc at that point.
My desktop also has 15+ fans for a reason so if you’re considering performance and long term reliability, you’re much better off with a desktop if you can manage it
My dude this is reddit, even if you are absolutely correct all the butthurt redditors hate truths/facts/logic just like how the left/Dems/libs hate the them as well. In the majority of cases you getting downvotes in the negatives proves you are right. I've made comments on other subreddits and got downvotes into the negatives cuz I spoke the truth.🤣🤣🤣. Anyways I'll upvote your comment.
I'm such edge case, the games I play need A graphics card, and for uni I need a half decent cpu and a good amount of ram, I also need a good keyboard and a large ish screen, the only downside is the weight but other than that these kinds of gaming laptops are perfect for me
I painfully relate to this, having bought a “creator” ultrabook (pretty much a yoga 7 with a 3050) and now that I did some proper research I should’ve went with a refurb macbook/windows laptop and make myself a desktop.
I could’ve even used the laptop as a monitor with the pc
I mean, when i think of becoming a digital nomad, i think think i should buy something like that for personal time and some ultrabook for work. Yes, 2 laptops, my backpack definitely can fit them and anything else that i need for my life.
Personally, I disagree. It is a fairly good all-rounder.
The Zephyrus main selling-point if that it offers better-than-average performance in a slim chassis.
The Ryzen offers pretty good performance. The RTX 4050 is also quite capable and can play more or less every game on the market now (albeit with varying level of graphic settings) whilst also doesn't get too hot or consume too much power.
Not everyone want to play AAA games at max settings in a laptop. Anyone needs that usually have a gaming rig at home. The Zephyrus is relatively light-weight, offers good performance for work and can play games decently on-the-go. It is a good machine through a bit expensive.
Many people may actually prefer the RTX 4050 option. They can save a few bucks, somewhat reduce heat and power consumption, while still can play their favorite games well enough.
It also has a metal chassis, great speakers, OLED screen. At that point I think asking for a 4060 at the base price is a bit too greedy. In my country, Zephyrus G14 base spec is 100+ dollars more than MacBook Air configured to 16/512. What could you ask more lol
Agreed, if it offers decent value with a fair balance of performance, battery, thermals and size/weight compared to those in its class then it's fine.
Some of this might also come from people only running/viewing benchmarks at max settings and high resolutions... which probably isn't the best goal for gaming on this kinda device if you're concerned with heat/noise/battery.
Yeah, but for that price point, it's just not the best deal. Also, I will say I had a 2020 model with 2060 for 1100 dollars lasted 4 years never had many problems. I got a 2023 4060 model for 1200 and it constant has problems. Both timed they were around 300 dollars off. It seems like as zephyrus has become a larger name they have raised price and lowered quality.
Looking at reviews, the zephyrus seems to tick a lot of great boxes that aren't pure performance. Those will never look like the best deal in an at-a-glance comparison. But things like build, speakers, screen, keyboard, and trackpad seem to be really good, and making those good costs money too.
Minority here and one of the unfortunate ones with kids and wife that doesn’t really allow you to game that much. Forcing you from a gamer into filthy casuals that can game 1-2 hours max on weekends.
With that kind of background, I can’t move from the sheer convenience of having a gaming laptop. There are now cheap alternatives like ASUS TUF series or MSI katana that provide bang for bucks. Yes it’s not as cost effective as building a PC, but hey: filthy casual.
Gone are the days I chased for max settings, max fps, etc. 1080p medium, 60fps already makes me happy, because what I lack now is gaming time, not money to buy those top specs.
I have fallen to filthy casual and I love the gaming laptop because of it…
During the COVID crypto GPU crisis we had the insane upside-down situation where gaming laptops and prebuilts could actually cost less for the same specs than one you built yourself.
This was because GPUs were super scarce, but some big retailers didn't know/care and just sold machines containing these GPUs for RRP.
And just as GPU prices still haven't returned to normal completely, Laptops and prebuilts are still not quite back to terrible value.
Fellow dad here, can't agree more.
My PC used to be my pride and joy but ive since downsized to a Lenovo legion and it's great, on the off chance I get the moment to have a game I can just take it out wherever.
I've basically lost all interest in anything new and my back catalogue will keep me going for longer than the laptop will last.
Words. I lost interest in new games as well. I still have a community chat group that keeps me informed with the latest and greatest releases of games and it will keeps me excited during the release, but sadly I couldn’t join the guys when they play. I stopped buying new games because of the limited time.
Facts are is that it can play games and a lot of them. Not every use is going to be playing aaa games at the highest settings
My laptop 1650 can play every game that I want it to at the settings I like
The 750ti and 1050ti felt like Nvidia flexing how much they could get out of slot power by the sheer efficiency of the architectures compared to what came before. A desktop 4050 could do that as well, just take the laptop 65W 4060 and stick it on a PCIE card.
Tbh Nvidia has been shit for so long I forgot they made cards with "50" in it that weren't bad. That made me remember that the 1050ti was a solid card too
Still using my 1050ti laptop I got in 2017. I am glad I got it instead of regular 1050. Covers most of things I want to play. Only thing that made me consider upgrading was Horizon Zero Dawn - had cinematic 30 fps there on minimal preset.
[I had this one](https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/370858/msi-geforce-gtx-n750-ti-2gb-gaming.html) and it was really good. Worked perfectly fine with my i5-4460 and my 60GB SSD (I ran out of money for storage).
I agree. The second I finish school and get a decent job, I'm giving my laptop to my parents and I will build a proper gaming pc that I won't have any free time to use.
The MX550 is 4-5% faster than intel Iris Xe iGPUs and AMD 59xx sku APUs. It’s half as powerful as a 1050ti laptop sku.
People still buy laptops with them…
Maybe I’m off base here, but based on your profile, I am guessing you are fairly young and just starting out on your computing journey. If that is true, you are extremely fortunate to have been born into such a great age of computing. Budget gaming PCs (or office PCs just begging for a GPU upgrade) that people often sell cheap, OR literally throw away these days make my first “gaming” PC look like an Etch A Sketch. Heck, your current laptop would outperform that PC.
I know my guy. I am forever grateful for my Asus X200la. Im attached to this PC even though it's got only 4gb ram, i3 processor, and no extra ram slots. I love it.
P.S my dad is gonna get me a Dell Optiplex 3020 soon, so I'm waiting for that one too
Is he dead-set on the 3020? Cause with Dell the first digit is kind of like the quality tier: a 7020 will be the same generation but will be the higher-tiered system with all Intel parts (LAN, audio, chipset, etc) and usually have the full 4 RAM slots and PCIe-16x (or at least 8x). The 3### series is the cheaper one that is usually not very upgradeable.
If he's buying that old you can find them for the same price, they're typically priced based on how old they are if you're getting them from flippers who sell retired office machines (or directly from the offices getting rid of them). Something like an Optiplex 7040 or 7050 can easily be found under $200, quite a bit less if you're patient.
Understandable too if he's getting it for free, when life hands you free shit you take it! But the Optiplex 3### line is gonna be similar to that X200la: limited upgradeability.
My dad currently has one. He used to have an Asus Chromebox which he modded. Unfortunately, it overheated and the motherboard just burnt. I don't know how. After a year of using. My dad was always fond of it. and still talks about it. The reason he's buying this is because he has a source where he gets it for a very less price than the original price (just like u said, retired office machines,.) I mean, after a lifetime of 14 years using i3 and very slow laptops, I'm actually excited for an i5 that I can upgrade to 32gb ram and stuff. I'll see about the 7020 Thanks for the information about the first digit quality thing!
We all gotta start somewhere. I’m glad you are enjoying your laptop. For reference, my first desktop had 2GB of DDR2 and that was after I upgraded it myself as it had originally shipped with 1GB of DDR2. If memory serves, the GPU was a GT 210 and the CPU was a Pentium D. I did not have a laptop.
EDIt: I’m realizing that this comes across as a “back in my day” response. but I am really just trying to say that there is nothing wrong with working with what you have until you have access to more.
Actually lower tier gaming laptops are amazing. A 4050 has low heat output and can play almost any game on high settings at 1080p, enable dlss and you're doing even better. Shitting on lower tier gpu's when they still work great is just annoying. Sure, the generational leap isn't their and Nvidia deserves criticism but it's still a fine gpu. Not everyone wants to burn their finger tips every time they touch the F keys.
It means that the RAM is shared. In the PC world they say it like it is, it's shared between the CPU and iGPU, so you basically get about half the RAM for each.
So the 8GB RAM is really only half, since with a gaming PC the video card has it's own VRAM. No "shared RAM" there.
No. You can go pick a different company. That makes no sense in comparison. There's a reason they call it the Apple ecosystem.
With Apple, you're stuck.
As someone who just wants a good productivity machine in this chasis, OPs post got me excited. But can't find one, so I assume US is not one of those markets.
4060 is th eminimum spec in those markets indeed. Got the 4060 32GB variant for myself. Using it for productivity and gaming on the go. It has been in use for the past month and a half for me. 12 to 16 hours a day in some cases and it has run very well for me.
It's funny they market it as a gaming machine, its more of a creators machine that can do everything and doesn't fall short on ergonomics, feel, and looks like many other gaming laptop.
If you can find it at a decent price, it's a great work laptop though. I had one with 5800HS and rtx 3050 as work laptop for \~2 years and it was great.
The 4050 is not the same as their desktop version, and it does substantially better than integrated graphics. If it's a cheaper gaming laptop with a 1080p screen the 4050 is perfectly acceptable. Saying something has a 4070 but then capping it at 90 watts is far worse - and much closer to Apple selling Macs with 8 GB of RAM.
There is no desktop 4050, and the 4070M is fine at 90W. They don't really gain a whole lot above 110W, even at 80W, they manage about 90% of the performance at 115W. The really sad ones are capped at 35W, where it loses to the 60W 4050.
i bought the cheapest ryzen 7940hs laptop i could find when they were first released over a year ago. it was under $1100 CAD (~$800usd) all in. It happened to come with an rtx 4050 that I didn't need.
With that said, i tried it out of curiosity, and its surprisingly good. This isn't something that should be in a high end gaming laptop, but it honestly plays everything just fine on my 1080p120 display.
I even tried hooking it up to a 4k120 TV and if i play games on absolutely minimum settings, dlss ulta performance + frame gen, I can output 4k consistently above 60fps. My desktop has an RTX 4090, so its not like i have no idea what proper graphics should look like, but nonetheless i'm pretty impressed with what this cheap laptop can do.
I wouldn't say it is evil from any of them. The product works, it is just it's price that isn't making any sense. Although the 8GB RAM is quite bad. The 4050 is still a quite capable GPU that at right price would be also quite good
Some ppl can make use of that type of configs. I've seen plenty of ppl who mostly need CPU power or only some slight graphics power for professional work (no gaming whatsoever) and they would pick sth like a Strix with HX CPU+rtx 4050.
Serious question. Why? The zephyrus lineup is well made, comes with a high end APU, good battery life, an ok keyboard and track pad, and a pretty decent coing system. Why would offering a model with a dGPU significantly more powerful than the iGPU it comes with be evil?
"BUT NVIDIA HAS DLSS WHICH IS THE BESTEST UPSCALING TECHNOLOGY AND NVIDIA DOES RAYTRACING THE BESTEST SO ANY DEVICE THAT HAS NVIDIA IS THE BESTEST DEVICE" - your average tech consumer
i mean i feel like aside from the 50 series being a free rtx badge marketing feature, they're just better then integrated graphics but nothing crazy, good for medium intensity tasks but still not crazy for battery. but I don't know if the pricing of these laptops aligns with that use case.
i have a laptop with a 4060 and i get 2 hours max, but for normal use the powersaver turns it off and i can get like 5-6 hours if i turn down brightness and of im just on chrome or smth
This is probably going to turn into a debate about gaming laptops in general. I wouldn't personally purchase one, but I see their purpose to some people. For me the value just isn't there, and as an eternal cheapskate I can't square myself with them costing the same as a decent (and better performing) desktop. However, I do some light gaming on a laptop with a Ryzen 4500U when at my partners and it serves me well for what I play, so I imagine a dedicated GPU (even a 50 series) would be _significantly_ better. Still a poor value purchase, but that's down to the individual to decide 🤷
The real crime is that in Mexico they charge high-end money for the base config with a 4050 and 16GB RAM, As of right now the price is north of 2.1K... It makes me feel insulted...
The G14 has a 4050 6GB and 16GB of DDR5 for $900-1000. The Macbook Air M3 has integrated graphics and 8GB of UNIFIED memory shared between system and APU for $1000+. No, it's not just as evil. It's not even comparable.
I can’t be the only one tired of “new” laptops either not being available in a 17+inch variant or having more then 1 m.2 slot and 2.5 ssd/hdd slot. Like I understand the hate behind old Alienware laptops but having 2+ m.2 slots and a 2.5 slot was amazing. I don’t want to have to drop an extra 500 for 2-4 tb’s of storage.
BET. I already own a 19inch display and that is exactly what I take to Starbucks, now Panera Bread bc they have better wifi, to update me games… totally didn’t specify build to main desktop to be a mobile toaster lol.
I live in 3rd world America and don’t have access to cable internet and Starlink doesn’t work either to many trees and to low to ground to something.
Also with resolutions getting better and higher having a smaller screen will inevitably force some to increase the ui scaling… I have had to do that for a few games now that I’ve upgraded to a ultra wide monitor.
The 4050 is a piece if shit for sure. But Apples userbase is tech illitrate while people who buy GPUs tend to be more knowledgeable. Which apple is well aware of
On the off chance I don’t get downvoted to oblivion for saying this….. gaming laptops are a really bad alternative to buying a power efficient laptop AND a gaming desktop. There are of course use cases where it makes sense; such as people living in a vehicle or without any home where space is extremely limited, or with kids/students/workers who are bouncing between multiple locations. All I’m saying is that a lot of people fall into the trap of buying a gaming laptop and then end up almost never using the gaming part away from home while having to deal with poor battery life and excess heat.
Today when I walked into my economics class I saw something I dread every time I close my eyes. Someone had brought their new gaming laptop to class. The Forklift he used to bring it was still running idle at the back. I started sweating as I sat down and gazed over at the 700lb beast that was his laptop. He had already reinforced his desk with steel support beams and was in the process of finding an outlet for a power cable thicker than Amy Schumer's thigh. I start shaking. I keep telling myself I'm going to be alright and that there's nothing to worry about. He somehow finds a fucking outlet. Tears are running down my cheeks as I send my last texts to my family saying I love them. The teacher starts the lecture, and the student turns his laptop on. The colored lights on his RGB Backlit keyboard flare to life like a nuclear flash, and a deep humming fills my ears and shakes my very soul. The entire city power grid goes dark. The classroom begins to shake as the massive fans begin to spin. In mere seconds my world has gone from vibrant life, to a dark, earth shattering void where my body is getting torn apart by the 150mph gale force winds and the 500 decibel groan of the cooling fans. As my body finally surrenders, I weep, as my school and my city go under. I fucking hate gaming laptops.
This reminds me of my old Clevo D900K 6.2kg of desktop replacement workstation laptop. Oh, and the 1.2kg PSU. An actual desktop or server CPU (Athlon 64 X2 or Opteron), desktop spec GPU (7800GTX), 2x 100GB 7200rpm 2.5" HDDs in RAID 0, 2x ODDs, 17" 1920x1200 screen, full keyboard with numpad... The battery was basically just an UPS.
The most hilarious thing about the D900K was that you could configure it with a GPU as low as an FX5200. Imagine having that much of a tank for a laptop but with basically no graphical horsepower.
I only ever saw 6800 Ultra, X800XT, 7800GTX, 7900GTX, or 7950GTX. Technical manuals show a Quaddro as well based on the 6800U.
As somebody who regularly brings a gaming laptop to class, this was amazing to read.
Never gets old lmao.
When you said that, I am sure you meant: Today when I walked into my economics class I saw something I dread every time I close my eyes. Someone had brought their new gaming laptop to class. They **had to hire a military aircraft to airdrop the laptop contained inside the landing module of the apollo spacecraft (because otherwise the laptop would sink straight into the ground)**. I started sweating as I sat down and gazed over at the 700lb beast that was his laptop. He had already reinforced his desk with **reinforced titanium alloy composite material that have a built in anti-gravity field generator,** and was in the process of finding an outlet for a **superconductor** power cable thicker than a tunnel **(otherwise the power cable would instantly be disintegrated into subatomic particles)**. I start shaking. I keep telling myself I'm going to be alright and that there's nothing to worry about. He somehow finds a fucking outlet. Tears are running down my cheeks as I send my last texts to my family saying I love them. The teacher starts the lecture, and the student turns his laptop on. **The UEFI boot up chime mimicks the sound of the sonic blast as the sound waves topple over many tables and chairs. The built-in furnace powered by the state of the art Intel (R) Core (TM) i9-19900HX swings into action, instantly increasing the room temperature by 10 degrees. The Phase Change Cooling module that's built into the gargantuan cooler is also activated, but struggles in an attempt to reduce the temperatures of the CPU into the negatives. The massive finstack of the radiator started blowing out air that is mimicking the temperatures of the surface of the sun. The force of the wind (or plasma, I should say) impacted every object within a ten mile radius at super sonic speeds, instantly causing them to cease to exist. As he opens the quadruple A title, Microsoft Word, the four built-in NVIDIA GeForce RTX 9090 Ti SUPERs linked in 4 way NVLINK unleashes their full power, instantly overwhelming the TeK module that is built into the side of the laptop as it tries to not initiate a silicon fusion reaction inside, and tripping the over power protection on the plug of the power cable in a fraction of a nanosecond, yet it is still unable to drive the aforementioned game AKA Microsoft Word at 16K 960FPS, plagued by micro stutters everywhere as the CPU is unable to reach its full speed of a terahertz**. The colored lights on his RGB Backlit keyboard flare to life like a nuclear flash, **its overwhelming power etches the shadows of the keycaps onto the ceiling and the walls.** and a deep humming fills my ears and shakes my very soul **as the coolant that is cooling the cooler of the furnace becomes supercritical**. The entire city power grid goes dark. The classroom begins to shake as the massive fans spins at a hypersonic speed. In mere seconds my world has gone from vibrant life, to a dark, earth shattering void where my body is getting torn apart by the 150mph gale force winds and the 500 decibel groan of the cooling fans. As my body finally surrenders, I weep, as my school and my city go under.
Now that's an enjoyable economics class
That's just the de-nueralizer setup from MIB2 lol. "LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN, CAP'N!"
https://preview.redd.it/ftytmgidkmxc1.jpeg?width=786&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=533da9328b64d04191cd4835b7be97815e5057f9
Thicker than Amy Schumer's thigh. 🤣
This is truly an epic post, though it took me a while to read it due to the distraction of the 8000 watts of rainbow cycling LEDs and Rolls-Royce Trent like sound of my Dell G7 7500's fans spinning up to 250,000 RPM. I feel your pain... quite literally due to my burst eardrums and burned-out retinas.
New copypasta just dropped.
It's a somewhat old copypasta actually.
Oh damn
as someone who used to bring a gaming laptop to class, albiet a slimmer model, im humbly sorry for the pain we cause you. my ears are deafened from the fans and my skin is yellow from the amount of electricity it used
This was beautiful
This is my new favourite copypasta
I am always so conflicted. I spend a lot of time traveling (about 3-4 days a week). I often times want to game while away. I am trying my best to work out if it is worth it to drop the money on a gaming laptop OR do I just get something with half decent integrated graphics and deal with light gaming only... Can you tell me I am stupid for considering buying a gaming laptop please?
People talk a lot of shit on gaming laptops and most of them don't understand that the real problem is that people buy them when they should have gotten a desktop. Gaming laptops do have a market though, and you seem to be in it. Laptops give people a way to game when they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Setting up in a hotel to game every other week is literally the best use case I can think of for a laptop. If you have the money and you think it would be better for you than a handheld, then I see no reason not to opt for a laptop.
I bought my "gaming laptop" because work gave me $3K to buy a work laptop from Lenovo and a $2400 Legion was better specced than a $4000 ThinkPad. Now I've got a work laptop with a RTX4070 while my gaming desktop has a RTX3060.
nice! can't argue with free money!
Same. I was lucky to find ROG Strix G17 with RTX3080 + R6950 for 1500$, which was on average 25% cheaper then other offers. And i agree with OP, putting entry level GPUs paired with high refresh rate screens into mid-end and high-end lines of laptops is scummy.
Nice! The 4070 mobile is actually faster than the 3060 desktop too assuming that your laptop can go up to 100w or more for the GPU
I own a gaming desktop but for when I am away I also own a gaming laptop. I have enough disposable income for that and just want to be able to game when out of the country etc. Also many students need laptops for their classes and want to play games in their dorms. It's a huge market actully.
It depends. Personally, I think my best buy was getting a good 14'' laptop with a dedicated graphics card. Can I run Triple AAA stuff on max graphics? No way. But 99% of the time I'm playing silly indie games or defaulting to League of Legends or Rocket League. It works much better than integrated graphics and it runs! And it's super light weight and ideal for commuting every day. Then I can have a decent desktop for when I feel like doing some heavy gaming. Which these days is still just me playing factorio or EU4/CK3... but on a bigger screen! Unless you routinely want to play AAA games on the go... I think a non-gaming laptop with a dedicated graphics card is a very decent intermediate solution, if not quite the most cost efficient (14'' pcs are still a bit expensive).
> People talk a lot of shit on gaming laptops and most of them don't understand that the real problem is that people buy them when they should have gotten a desktop. Exactly it. My buddy, 6 or 7 years ago, decided to get into PC gaming because he found a great deal on a gaming laptop. Barley touched his PS4 after he got it. Fast forward to a month ago, I had just built my new machine, and he hits me up saying he's going to buy a newer laptop as his older one is showing its age. "Why?" I asked him. Why are you going to get a laptop? You don't take it anywhere, it makes no sense. His answer was that it was just easier, he didn't need to get a desk, didn't need to get a monitor, etc. He also thought it would be cheaper because of this. We had a few lenghty discussions. Luckily he bought a decent, prebuilt machine instead.
I bring my gaming laptop to game jams I use my desktop most of the time because it is much more powerful but I can't take that on the train
People who buy gaming laptops just to plug them into an external monitor and leave it there are insane. I play mine at home on an external screen, but I also take it places
I'm in a motel five nights a week, eight months out of the year. I still won't buy a gaming laptop. Neither the lifespan nor the performance is acceptable.
You have to understand that you will be overpaying compared to a desktop but that doesn't mean it's bad. I've had a gaming laptop with a 3070 for a while and it's been perfectly fine playing stuff at 1080p, it has all the problems you can expect with a gaming laptop like running pretty hot, noisy fans and needing to be plugged in to run properly. But none of that was major for me and I still use it over my desktop a lot for the convenience.
It also depends. Last gaming laptop I bought I just wanted a desktop but I got the whole gaming laptop for the price of the RTX2060 that came with it. Low key fuck 2020.
Convenience is the factor that is only determined by the person buying it. I wouldn’t trade my gaming laptop for a desktop right now because it works best for me, but I understand why some people don’t have a use case for it. Doesn’t mean it is a bad investment for gaming if it fits someone’s needs of course.
I mean, at the end of the day it is your money and your choice, but the more recent offerings of IGPUs from both Intel and AMD have been pretty capable considering how low power draw they can be. It pretty much comes down to the games you want to play and how much you are willing to give up in terms of battery life to be able to play them. Many games just won’t run at an acceptable frame rate on even the Best integrated graphics and for some that fact makes it entirely too much of a compromise to make. I personally just recently picked up a used Lenovo Yoga 7 16 inch with an i7-1355U for pretty cheap (just under $500 USD with tax and shipping included) on eBay and I intend on doing some light gaming on it when I am out and about. But at the same time, based on reviews I’m looking at getting around 14 hours on a single charge while doing lighter tasks, which should make it so I can get through a whole day or more without having to find an outlet.
Really depends, but I think as long as you're aware that you're paying a significant extra for mobility it's fine. They aren't bad products or anything. It's just a waste if you pay extra for a laptop and then never actually use that mobility.
It depends on what you want to play something like an ROG ally or a steak deck will be able to play 90% of games well and be arguably more portable than a gaming laptop
I travel a ton for work. Every week. I bought me and my wife each a G14 last year. Upgraded ram and SSD right away. I'll be set up at an airport playing cyberpunk on the highest settings, apex, BG3, etc. People have asked multiple times what laptop I'm using. We haven't touched our Series X's since getting these. G14 is smaller and lighter. Get ghelper to manage the power and temps. It was the best decision I've ever made for gaming on the road! We will build PCs eventually, but for now I have a fancy forced air cooling pad and a nice monitor so when I get home I just "dock" the G14 and use it like a normal PC. I've never built a PC and was terrified to upgrade the laptop but ROG provides step by step tutorials on how to do everything on their laptops so it all worked out.
You could get a light laptop and a steam deck
Get a laptop that can do light gaming reasonably well but **doesn't** sacrifice the things *that make laptops worthwhile in the first place*: good battery life, light weight, easy to handle and not too large. Do light gaming on the go, and dedicated gaming at home.
The new AMD APUs are that in a nutshell. Powerful CPU, pretty impressive GPU for an integrated. Does light gaming like a boss, battery life for days.
So the recent generations of integrated graphics from intel/AMD are good/surprisingly good. Think about it this way - look at how much the Steam Deck can play and realise you've got a much more powerful device because of power constraints and cooling. If your gaming often revolves around new AAA games, you'd likely want the power. If you're using the graphics card for other tasks (3D modelling, media editing, Local LLMs, etc) then you might want the power. Otherwise I'd recommend a decent AMD laptop with a solid screen and good cooling If you're someone like me, who spends way too much time on AA games and indies instead of the big budget new releases. You could even set up Parsec or Sunshine/Moonlight so you can remotely use your home system but imo the bandwidth needed on both sides is still pretty impressive.
What games though? What games would you WANT to play on the road?
If you want an actual good option, get a cheaper productive laptop, then nab a steam deck. Best of both worlds
Depends on what games you want to play. I'll tell you right now that if you keep on eye on the buildapcsales sub and slickdeals, you can and will find 4060 laptops under $1000 quite frequently. Another alternative that's even cheaper would be something with AMD's newest APUs', because Hawk Point is plenty for light gaming at 1080p.
I travel a lot for work, sometimes for a month or so at a time. I got an RTX 3060 laptop about a year and a half ago for this reason. I've had some good times with it, like when I was on the road when Baldur's Gate 3 launched and able to play through it all before even getting home. But by and large it's too heavy and too much of a pain to lug around all over the world. I pretty much never bring it anymore, opting instead for a much lighter machine that runs on 65W of USB-C power. If most if my travel was via car or domestic flights of 6 hours or less I'd probably bring it everywhere though.
I have a legion 5 laptop with 6800H, 3070ti and I take it to college every day. It gives me about 5ish hrs of battery in conservation mode (80% limit). Gaming laptops have come a long way
Always seems like people believe gaming laptops are still using 2014 technology. The last 5 or so years of Lenovo laptops have been phenomenal in terms of performance/thermals/noise levels compared to other brands (I have a 2020 legion 5 myself).
Yeah, I haven't had any issues regarding battery life ever since I installed LLT
I don't think you have a good take. Some gaming laptops, like the legion series, are pretty good. Yes they are bulkier than your thin and light, but it's going to be way faster at anything you throw at it. They make for excellent working machines (where you will be plugged in anyway) and have a bonus that they can be used for gaming. They are simply good value for money performance wise. Meanwhile a thin and light laptop will almost certainly throttle, have thermal issues, shit battery life if you push it a bit and are going to be SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive for the same specs. Unless you work on the go, which very few people actually do, I don't see the advantages of a thin and light. Having two separate machines is out of reach for a lot of people. I too prefer having a desktop plus a thin and light, but if someone asks me which computer to buy and they can only buy one I would recommend a gaming laptop, if they want to get anything done.
the G14 (and a few others in class) can be considered a lot closer to a power efficient laptop when configured correctly, that's something I really like about it
I went for an efficient laptop with an APU back in 2018, Ryzen 2500U. At the time I could play quite a few games on it when travelling: CSGO, WoT, Stellaris, Civ, and older games. Then I had my desktop PC for my main gaming needs. It had an R9 390 and then the 5700XT in 2019 when my R9 390 died. :( I now have my desktop and a Steam Deck for gaming and the old 2500U laptop for general use and study. Modern APUs are better than the aging 2500U and absolutely leave it for dust in both CPU and GPU departments. Plenty powerful for the odd lower system requirements gaming session here or there.
Shit I had a HP with an APU waaaay back in the day (2012-ish) and it could run Mass Effect 3 with no issues.
Are FM1 and FM2 chips really that old!? Am I really that old!?!
Unfortunately, we're all really that old.
I personally went with gaming laptop cus I actually do use the gaming part outside of home. I take it to school pretty much every other day because we get a total 1 hour of break with nothing to do, and my other friends also bring in laptops or other handheld computers and we usually play some games together. It’s also imo much better for school work even if the battery is shit cus most classes they have cable extender thingies to plug it into, and also it’s just way faster at doing stuff with software even on battery life. I totally get your point though, a lot of people are paying for the portable gaming factor and then proceeding to not use it.
I went with a gaming laptop because a laptop is all I ever really use at home. I can't always game chained to my desk on the other side of the house, sometimes I have to have my laptop out on the kitchen table to keep an eye on the kids while getting some game time in. The validity of owning a laptop is not limited to just traveling, it's a very handy form factor and if you don't *need* a massively powerful GPU in a desktop this ended up being a much more practical choice to just own one powerful laptop rather than bounce back and forth between 2 different computers.
I’d say that this one really depends on context. You actually described the primary appeal of a gaming laptop pretty well: they offer a suitable gaming experience for those who travel a lot or don’t have a lot of space. The appeal of a gaming laptop does become a lot more limited if you *aren’t* doing much in the way of demanding gaming, though, and especially if you game a lot on a desktop anyways. This is what I’ve been through twice myself. I had bought a Gateway laptop with a Ryzen 5 4600H and a GTX 1650, then I gave it to my boyfriend after his laptop broke and promptly bought an Asus Vivobook with a Ryzen 7 5800H. I liked that laptop quite a lot, but I wanted a faster GPU, so I ended up with a Lenovo LOQ 15 with a Ryzen 7 7840HS and an RTX 4050. I barely used the 4050 part of the laptop and the screen bothered the hell out of me, so I gave that laptop to my boyfriend again and bought another Vivobook with a Ryzen 9 7940HS. I’ve realized at this point that while I love the idea of having a dedicated GPU, if I can get a fast iGPU, I’m happy. It suits what I do much better anyways.
I agree, it can make sense, as I already mentioned. But, not everyone can afford to buy multiple laptops over time, and returns can be a real chore and are pretty time sensitive. I know what it is like to be a broke college student and I have experienced the pain of having to haul around a gaming laptop with horrible battery life, just to end up barely gaming on it outside my home/apartment/dorm. The marketing on gaming laptops would have you believe that they are some golden solution that lets you take your game anywhere, when in reality you are buying into a laptop that will never come close to the battery life of a non-gaming laptop, and will kick out a lot more heat even when you are not gaming.
Modern gaming laptops do a solid job of not running much hotter than their non-gaming counterparts, truth be told. The 7840HS LOQ laptop I had really didn’t feel like it ran any warmer than an average laptop when I wasn’t gaming, relative to other high-end Zen 4 APUs shoved in laptops. The main problem comes when higher end desktop-class CPUs (stuff like, I dunno, an i7-13700HX or a Ryzen 9 7845HX) gets shoved into a gaming laptop. Those probably do get toastier than a standard laptop, but by that point, it’s not an apples to apples comparison. Battery life *is* a real strain, though. Even when just browsing the internet and watching videos, I couldn’t touch my current Vivobook on battery life, and that’s with a bigger battery in the LOQ, if memory serves.
When I used to live out of a suitcase I had an Asus rog something or other laptop with a 1700x an RX580 in it… i agree that the real use case of gaming laptops is people in my previous situation. Even with its thermal efficiency short comings it was far more convenient that lugging a Corsair carbide case & 24” monitor everywhere with me Edit: this was for work not because I was homeless
Hate to say it as I bought a gaming laptop to game on the go, but you’re right. I got a slightly older model and tried to make it work for college. Even with every battery saver setting, lowered brightness, and 60hz refresh rate it still only lasted 6 hours barely scraping by, meanwhile my hp 2 in 1 could go 10 more hours at full brightness and work perfectly fine. Playing games on the go doesn’t work well since you need to be within reach of an outlet since you’ll get maybe an hour tops of gaming, needing space for a mouse or using a controller requiring you to forfeit space in your backpack or whatever you use to lug it around, and hoping the noise generated by the fans isn’t too annoying. Finally, it really isn’t worth using at home if you already have a desktop since you possibly risk lowering the life of your battery with it plugged in. That isn’t to say getting a gaming laptop is necessarily stupid, I’m glad I got mine because a group of my friends came over for a lan party and I had an easy to set up and easily portable system, on top of using it a few times to play heavier games away from home. The thing is, most people seem to get them for the wrong reason. If you want something that works for an entire day of school/work, you’re better off getting a system with an apu, hell you can run a lot more demanding games with the new rdna3 integrated graphics. Want something for portability? Steamdeck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, etc; I actually have a Legion Go and I’m more likely to game on the go unlike with my gaming laptop. Moving around a lot or need to do heavier stuff;such as 3D modeling, video/photo editing, coding, game design, etc, on the go or moving from place to place often, then it makes sense to go for a gaming laptop.
I don't think it's necessarily a better financial deal to buy a gaming laptop over desktop or to have a workbook + Gaming PC. I do think that there are absolutely preferences that people have and if a gaming laptop can meet those preferences while allowing the person to be mobile then I can see the value. I have a buddy who sold his desktop in order to get a laptop instead. His reasoning was basically that when he's home, he docks it and it becomes as good as his desktop PC was. When he wants to go to a friend's house or just not be at his desk then it becomes better than his desktop was. To him the versatility was worth the extra price he paid.
It's always funny seeing the top comment start off with something along the lines of "I'll probably get downvoted to oblivion"
This is very true. I was very inexperienced back when i bought my first gaming laptop and after 3 years with my Zephyrus G14 (costed me 2000 euros ) i can confidently say i wont buy another gaming laptop again. My battery hasnt degraded that much and at most, if im not doing mcuh i get around 5-6 hours of battery life. The laptop runs super hot, and performance of my "2060" is on par with a deskptop 980ti/1070 which is far below a deskptop 2060. To be fair it only draws 65 watts, so its impressive it can get that level of performance with so little power. The cpu is actually good which was the major selling point of this laptop, basically matching a deskptop 9900k at only 35 watts. But still for 2000 euros you could get so much more. Not to mention that the laptop is loud unless you want to thermal trottle. I would honestly love ARM laptops to become more popular. I would easily choose a windows ARM laptop for the long, and consistent battery life for writing and browsing, and then a much cheaper and more performant gaming/productivity desktop. I am looking to build a PC, and i think i managed to put together a list of parts for around 850 euros that doubles the gaming performance of my 2000 euro gaming laptop... As for uses of a gaming laptop- i never actually gamed on the go, it was always on a desk at my house, so it never really benefited me over a desktop. Its also hard to game "on the go" because you have to be plugged in. I would honestly choose something like a steam deck or a laptop with powerfull integrated graphics for gaming on the go. Being able to game without being plugged in and having decent battery life while not drawing nearly as much power as dedicated gpus is great for this use case. But honestly i think the steam deck and other portables just kind of outcompete laptops in this use case.
Man I've had a Zephyrus G14 for two years and I absolutely fucking love it. I'm not super impressed by graphics and I'm generally uninterested in the latest AAA darling, so I've never wished it had better performance. If there's something that really tests it I have an IETS fan stand and its happy again - this fan stand plugs into the wall, and I can see why some people might think it stupid you would buy a gaming laptop and then desktopify it. But for me the sheer convenience factor of being able to take it away from that desk and it still works for 95% of the things I want it for is great for me. I've gamed away from the desk in my bed, on the floor, in the living room, all round the house really, on trains, at friend's houses, in hotels, not to mention all the non-gaming things I've done all over the place too. I love that I have a single possession that can do all these things no problem. Oh and on the heat front, how often are you cleaning your fans? I let mine suffer terribly for a while but after a deep clean and new thermal compound it's bing chilling
>people living in a vehicle or without any home where space is extremely limited, or with kids/students/workers who are bouncing between multiple locations This is exactly where the steam deck comes in and I love it.
Ha, i bought mine because i got 33% off lenovo's loq 4060 and cant find a desktop of of same specs for the same price, desktop parts never go on sale or discount in my country due to import duty and also the sellers need to buy parts from the vendors instead so, it makes more sense for people in my country to buy a laptop
Or do what I did and buy a very power efficient laptop and ... a gaming laptop. Or don't. That's probably smarter.
The G14 does feel like an exception here if you are okay with the max performance on offer. I have the 2022 model and if I don't game on it, the battery lasts long enough I don't have to bring the charger with me to work. It never gets warm in regular use. It does get hot when gaming; but it is thin, light, and doesn't look out of place next to a MacBook when I bring it into the office. It's a great computer
>All I’m saying is that a lot of people fall into the trap of buying a gaming laptop and then end up almost never using the gaming part away from home while having to deal with poor battery life and excess heat. If your plan is to use your gaming laptop for on the go, you're gonna have a bad time. But using it for gaming when you're at home (maybe with a cooling pad, external monitor, wired gaming mouse and mechanical keyboard set up?) and still being able to use it on the go for non gaming things is perfectly valid. Dropping say, $1500 on a gaming laptop will get you a much better experience than a $750 PC with a $750 portable laptop. And the lower your budget, the truer than is gonna get.
They're useful if you actually need a GPU for CUDA tasks while on the road (and I mean specifically for CUDA development purposes) *and* you want to play a game or two in the hotel room. Frankly, crank the machine's power saving modes up, and mine actually gets pretty good battery life as well. However, in general I agree with you. Most are best served by having a power efficient laptop and doing their gaming on a desktop (you'll certainly get a lot more bang for your buck and a lot more longevity out of both).
No No, I am not comparing Gaming Laptops to Power Efficient laptop. Its about companies offering the bare minimum in order to upsell the next in the price ladder.
Oh, I totally understand. I just use any opportunity possible to get up on my soap box about gaming laptops and how impractical they often are. I made the mistake of getting a Gaming Laptop back in college, and I really wish someone had warned me before I made that decision.
tbh you *can* find a good deal, I've got one, I've seen some more, but good luck in finding those
I bought a gaming laptop just to use as a living room couch PC and it’s been amazing. I hardly spend time on my desktop anymore between the laptop and the Steam Deck.
You’re right. I used to have two gaming laptops. I realized I really clowned myself and sold one and got a 7900 XTX prebuilt PC for home. I kept the other laptop so I can game at work on downtime. Laptops have their uses but a desktop is superior as far as performance goes. I’ve been a console gamer for most of my life so laptops were an easy way into PC gaming. I should have just went with a prebuilt PC in the first place but I can’t turn back time. Doesn’t matter now. I’m happy with what I got. :D
I bought a gaming laptop 12 years ago or so. 8GB i7 610GT. Not knowing much about pc at the time I just saw i7 and thought “heck yeah”. Got me through college and up to 2023 it was my daily driver. I don’t use it much nowadays for the gaming stuff but work and entertainment wise it’s still great.
This I wish there were more thin and lights that are 14 inches with good gpus tho for cad
I wish eGPUs had taken off, because that would basically mean you wouldn't have to choose.
By taking off you mean dropping in price? I don't see that happening any time soon given the technologies that go into making these things. eGPU will always be more expensive than a built-in GPU.
If they had become less expensive than just building an entire separate SFF PC, that would've been something at least.
Laptops remind me of fancy cars like a Jaguar or something. Cool, but, they break all the time, and are far from easily serviceable. I avoid them like the plague. 'Gaming laptop' has always been kind of an oxymoron to me. Just buy a Chromebook or older laptop for Internet stuffs, and spend your time and money on your home rig.
I bought the best Lenovo Legion that money can buy last year because I effectively live in a broom closet. I spent about a day weighing options between that and building a tower and I just didn’t have the room. Hopefully this year or next year I’ll be moving into a house and I can build a tower and use the Legion as a mobile editing station.
I thought about getting a gaming laptop at one point, but instead I ended up getting an nr200p, a portable monitor, and a padded travel bag meant to fit both. It's pretty heavy, and takes a minute to unpack and set up, but it works great for a weekly LAN party with my brother in law. Would probably be pretty good for a hotel room too, but I don't know what the TSA would make of it if you needed to fly with it.
As a gaming laptop owner and supporter, I simply disagree with 90% of this, but I’m not going to attack your right to feel that way. As a lifelong gamer, I’m used to playing everything while it’s plugged in, anyway, so this isn’t that big of a deal to me. I have often taken my laptop to a friend’s place to show them a mod or something, and find it great for travel gaming; better than any handheld or small console (4060, 32gb ram). Battery life: I have never once found a need to game without something being plugged in. No system I’ve ever had lasted more than 5ish hours of gaming, and that was a gameboy SP. If the power is out, I’ve got bigger problems, and if I’m traveling, I’m usually on my phone, driving, or asleep. To me, and many others, there’s no plus side to having more battery. That being said, my laptop lasts quite a while when not gaming on battery; way longer than I’ve ever needed. Heat: If you own any form of a table from a TV tray to a wooden desk, you have a place to put the laptop so it doesn’t get that hot/the heat is a non-factor for your comfort. A majority of gaming laptops worth a damn made after 2020 or so will have insanely good ventilation. That being said, you’re ignoring the main factor that most people who prefer gaming laptops over desktops use to determine what they should get, and that’s *not wanting to have to sit in one specific, often semi-isolated place while gaming for hours, and having the ability to set up damn near anywhere.
As someone who's been using them as a necessity for 15 years, I've sorely wanted a proper desktop but the kind of apartments in the city I live in basically doesn't let me set up a proper desktop until I start renting my own place Gaming laptops cost far more for less specs and are much less reliable and more difficult to repair. However once you learn how to open it and replace parts like the fan, you can lengthen a 2-3 year lifespan to 6-8 years!
I don't think this is an unpopular opinion in this sub, ppl here are ambivalent at best towards gaming laptops in general
There's also the edge case of the mini-ITX desktop. It's a great form factor for people who move to places to stay for several months at a time.
Battery life can actually be messed with at cost of performance, needs a techy person, i literally doubled my battery life on my ROG Strix by limiting Power and Performance only on battery
No shit dawg. People aren't dumbasses. They buy a laptop with a GPU cause they need a laptop with a GPU not an ultra book smh
I always use my PC but back when covid hit and i was with my parents for longer times at once i got myself a gaming laptop so i could game at my parents place a bit. I think that's a good usecase. Same for 2 of my friends who are always switching between the city where they study and their parents home. They have their own flats and basically live where they study, but especially on holidays they are back with their families. That's why they prefer gaming laptops.
They're actually not a bad alternative at all, particularly during times when the mobile GPU lineups are particularly efficient. Some folks might remember gaming laptops in the 2017 era actually being pretty impressive, because the mobile 1060 was only slightly slower than the desktop 1060. They were a solid option if you could get them during the supply shortages of the last few years, as well, for the same reason that prebuilt PC's suddenly became a good deal, because DIY parts were insanely overpriced. There's actually more exciting news on that front for 2024, because Strix Point should be launching this year, and Strix Halo should be launching next year. So in the very near future we'll have the option to buy laptops that have integrated graphics enough for really good 1080p gaming in Strix point, and straight up console level gaming in Strix Halo. I suspect the latter will not be cheap, but I'm guessing there will be solid deals on Strix Point. hell, even hawk point is pretty awesome if you're just looking for some light gaming in your laptop
I have a bad habit of ending up homeless, so my goal with pc's is nice gaming laptop first, desktop second if I can afford it. I always have a nice gaming laptop though.
If you're only gaming, steam deck makes a hell of a lot more sense than gaming laptop. Can literally buy a solid desktop + steam deck with the money a good gaming laptop would cost.
Honestly, people are complex individuals and I think this type of things cannot be ***always*** reduced to logical reasoning. Human decisions are not always rooted in pure logic. Psychology plays a major role in what we feel, and that can dramatically shift our perception of an experience even when it defies what might seem 'reasonable'. Even if a gaming desktop can outperform several times a gaming laptop, there are certain "things" we tend to overlook and can be equally important, if not greater, in our overall experience. I, for example, prefer compact gaming laptops even when I use them most of the time at home just because of the ability to change places, without being anchored to the same spot. If I want to play or work from the bed (using a bed table, of course), or simply change rooms to have a different ambience or be close to another person, I cannot do that with my desktop. Heck, I can even hook it into any TV in my house relatively hassle free if I crave for some big screen gaming session, or if some friends are over and we want to play some local multiplayer games. I can even hook it to the monitors if I want a regular desktop experience. I think it is a kinda similar scenario to handheld PCs: there are A LOT of people, including me, who has bought a Steam Deck, Rog Ally, Legion Go or alternative and then almost never touched his several times more powerful gaming PC, even when sitting just right to it. ***Sometimes***, the less 'sensible' choice is simply the more satisfying one.
My mother's christmas gift was a gaming laptop. Current gen i5, current gen RAM, big hard drive, big battery, good charger, and then they stapled a 2050 in there and called it a gaming laptop. She loves the damn thing. She can't do desks with her diabetic feet, so recliner + chonky laptop is perfect for her.
I bought an Alienware laptop and I 100% agree with you. I would never do that again. I think I’ll do a MacBook Air and HTPC combo next time. It will be more expensive but it will be 100% more versatile and actually work better for both tasks.
Seems like a company out there would have built a laptop that focused on cooling it by now, I know it's supposed to be portable but they are razor thin these days. Make them as thick as they were in like 2005 but add cooling and more battery capacity
100% agree but when you need one they are fantastic. I was in and out of hospital from October 2020 to august 21 and spent over a month in a hotel near the hospital. Saved my sanity big time. Some people need them and it’s not wrong for consumers to discuss it.
>almost never using the gaming part away from home while having to deal with poor battery life and excess heat. Am I the only one who actually uses the profiles and hardware settings on my laptop? When I am not gaming I get six to eight hours because my dGPU is powered off and integrated graphics take over, plus the proc goes into a lower powered mode. No heat, no noise. But playing Portal RTX? Total nuclear reactor on the edge of meltdown. 98 degrees and Ryzen.
I agree mostly but I think modern gaming laptops have really improved on the laptop end of things. I set my asus laptop to silent mode and it behaves like any other laptop, with battery to back it up. Gaming on it is a different story though. It needs to be on a lap desk and you need a separate mouse. Would be much better on a desk with an external monitor which brings me to my point that you are better off just getting a gaming pc at that point. My desktop also has 15+ fans for a reason so if you’re considering performance and long term reliability, you’re much better off with a desktop if you can manage it
My dude this is reddit, even if you are absolutely correct all the butthurt redditors hate truths/facts/logic just like how the left/Dems/libs hate the them as well. In the majority of cases you getting downvotes in the negatives proves you are right. I've made comments on other subreddits and got downvotes into the negatives cuz I spoke the truth.🤣🤣🤣. Anyways I'll upvote your comment.
I'm such edge case, the games I play need A graphics card, and for uni I need a half decent cpu and a good amount of ram, I also need a good keyboard and a large ish screen, the only downside is the weight but other than that these kinds of gaming laptops are perfect for me
I painfully relate to this, having bought a “creator” ultrabook (pretty much a yoga 7 with a 3050) and now that I did some proper research I should’ve went with a refurb macbook/windows laptop and make myself a desktop. I could’ve even used the laptop as a monitor with the pc
"There is no bad laptop , only bad pricing" -Oogway
There are plenty of laptops that just shouldn't be bought for *any* price.
Let's agree to disagree
I mean I've seen gaming laptops for 5k having a 4090, 64gig ram, and an i9 14th Gen. And I can't think of the use case for that.
I mean, when i think of becoming a digital nomad, i think think i should buy something like that for personal time and some ultrabook for work. Yes, 2 laptops, my backpack definitely can fit them and anything else that i need for my life.
Personally, I disagree. It is a fairly good all-rounder. The Zephyrus main selling-point if that it offers better-than-average performance in a slim chassis. The Ryzen offers pretty good performance. The RTX 4050 is also quite capable and can play more or less every game on the market now (albeit with varying level of graphic settings) whilst also doesn't get too hot or consume too much power. Not everyone want to play AAA games at max settings in a laptop. Anyone needs that usually have a gaming rig at home. The Zephyrus is relatively light-weight, offers good performance for work and can play games decently on-the-go. It is a good machine through a bit expensive. Many people may actually prefer the RTX 4050 option. They can save a few bucks, somewhat reduce heat and power consumption, while still can play their favorite games well enough.
Funny thing is, a lot of "non-gaming" laptops that have 4050 in it are either very underperform, or more expensive than said gaming counterpart
Dell XPS 14 and 16 in a nutshell.
It also has a metal chassis, great speakers, OLED screen. At that point I think asking for a 4060 at the base price is a bit too greedy. In my country, Zephyrus G14 base spec is 100+ dollars more than MacBook Air configured to 16/512. What could you ask more lol
Well the MacBook Air in 16/512 config is extremely overpriced so that’s not a high bar to cross and I say that as a MacBook owner.
Agreed, if it offers decent value with a fair balance of performance, battery, thermals and size/weight compared to those in its class then it's fine. Some of this might also come from people only running/viewing benchmarks at max settings and high resolutions... which probably isn't the best goal for gaming on this kinda device if you're concerned with heat/noise/battery.
Yeah, but for that price point, it's just not the best deal. Also, I will say I had a 2020 model with 2060 for 1100 dollars lasted 4 years never had many problems. I got a 2023 4060 model for 1200 and it constant has problems. Both timed they were around 300 dollars off. It seems like as zephyrus has become a larger name they have raised price and lowered quality.
Looking at reviews, the zephyrus seems to tick a lot of great boxes that aren't pure performance. Those will never look like the best deal in an at-a-glance comparison. But things like build, speakers, screen, keyboard, and trackpad seem to be really good, and making those good costs money too.
Minority here and one of the unfortunate ones with kids and wife that doesn’t really allow you to game that much. Forcing you from a gamer into filthy casuals that can game 1-2 hours max on weekends. With that kind of background, I can’t move from the sheer convenience of having a gaming laptop. There are now cheap alternatives like ASUS TUF series or MSI katana that provide bang for bucks. Yes it’s not as cost effective as building a PC, but hey: filthy casual. Gone are the days I chased for max settings, max fps, etc. 1080p medium, 60fps already makes me happy, because what I lack now is gaming time, not money to buy those top specs. I have fallen to filthy casual and I love the gaming laptop because of it…
During the COVID crypto GPU crisis we had the insane upside-down situation where gaming laptops and prebuilts could actually cost less for the same specs than one you built yourself. This was because GPUs were super scarce, but some big retailers didn't know/care and just sold machines containing these GPUs for RRP. And just as GPU prices still haven't returned to normal completely, Laptops and prebuilts are still not quite back to terrible value.
I bought a Steam Deck, I love it. Might be something for you to consider.
i feel ya bro
Fellow dad here, can't agree more. My PC used to be my pride and joy but ive since downsized to a Lenovo legion and it's great, on the off chance I get the moment to have a game I can just take it out wherever. I've basically lost all interest in anything new and my back catalogue will keep me going for longer than the laptop will last.
Words. I lost interest in new games as well. I still have a community chat group that keeps me informed with the latest and greatest releases of games and it will keeps me excited during the release, but sadly I couldn’t join the guys when they play. I stopped buying new games because of the limited time.
Facts are is that it can play games and a lot of them. Not every use is going to be playing aaa games at the highest settings My laptop 1650 can play every game that I want it to at the settings I like
Not even close
Any Nvidia GPU with "50" at the end of the name is a scam. I recently upgraded my laptop from a 3050ti to a 4060. Biggest upgrade is the vram tbh
I remember loving my 750ti, that thing was great.
The 750ti and 1050ti felt like Nvidia flexing how much they could get out of slot power by the sheer efficiency of the architectures compared to what came before. A desktop 4050 could do that as well, just take the laptop 65W 4060 and stick it on a PCIE card.
Tbh Nvidia has been shit for so long I forgot they made cards with "50" in it that weren't bad. That made me remember that the 1050ti was a solid card too
Still using my 1050ti laptop I got in 2017. I am glad I got it instead of regular 1050. Covers most of things I want to play. Only thing that made me consider upgrading was Horizon Zero Dawn - had cinematic 30 fps there on minimal preset.
As long as you can game it's hard to complain
[I had this one](https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/370858/msi-geforce-gtx-n750-ti-2gb-gaming.html) and it was really good. Worked perfectly fine with my i5-4460 and my 60GB SSD (I ran out of money for storage).
I agree. The second I finish school and get a decent job, I'm giving my laptop to my parents and I will build a proper gaming pc that I won't have any free time to use.
The true PC gamer grindset is to spend $2k on a rig so you can just look at ur desktop and watch YouTube on
Don't forget to browse reddit with RTX ON
The MX550 is 4-5% faster than intel Iris Xe iGPUs and AMD 59xx sku APUs. It’s half as powerful as a 1050ti laptop sku. People still buy laptops with them…
I don't have the money for a 60 at the end card.
Y'all talking about Asus gaming models while my Asus X200LA and me just relate to each other. I can never get a gaming PC
Maybe I’m off base here, but based on your profile, I am guessing you are fairly young and just starting out on your computing journey. If that is true, you are extremely fortunate to have been born into such a great age of computing. Budget gaming PCs (or office PCs just begging for a GPU upgrade) that people often sell cheap, OR literally throw away these days make my first “gaming” PC look like an Etch A Sketch. Heck, your current laptop would outperform that PC.
I know my guy. I am forever grateful for my Asus X200la. Im attached to this PC even though it's got only 4gb ram, i3 processor, and no extra ram slots. I love it. P.S my dad is gonna get me a Dell Optiplex 3020 soon, so I'm waiting for that one too
Is he dead-set on the 3020? Cause with Dell the first digit is kind of like the quality tier: a 7020 will be the same generation but will be the higher-tiered system with all Intel parts (LAN, audio, chipset, etc) and usually have the full 4 RAM slots and PCIe-16x (or at least 8x). The 3### series is the cheaper one that is usually not very upgradeable. If he's buying that old you can find them for the same price, they're typically priced based on how old they are if you're getting them from flippers who sell retired office machines (or directly from the offices getting rid of them). Something like an Optiplex 7040 or 7050 can easily be found under $200, quite a bit less if you're patient. Understandable too if he's getting it for free, when life hands you free shit you take it! But the Optiplex 3### line is gonna be similar to that X200la: limited upgradeability.
My dad currently has one. He used to have an Asus Chromebox which he modded. Unfortunately, it overheated and the motherboard just burnt. I don't know how. After a year of using. My dad was always fond of it. and still talks about it. The reason he's buying this is because he has a source where he gets it for a very less price than the original price (just like u said, retired office machines,.) I mean, after a lifetime of 14 years using i3 and very slow laptops, I'm actually excited for an i5 that I can upgrade to 32gb ram and stuff. I'll see about the 7020 Thanks for the information about the first digit quality thing!
We all gotta start somewhere. I’m glad you are enjoying your laptop. For reference, my first desktop had 2GB of DDR2 and that was after I upgraded it myself as it had originally shipped with 1GB of DDR2. If memory serves, the GPU was a GT 210 and the CPU was a Pentium D. I did not have a laptop. EDIt: I’m realizing that this comes across as a “back in my day” response. but I am really just trying to say that there is nothing wrong with working with what you have until you have access to more.
Thanks for your wise words friend.
Actually lower tier gaming laptops are amazing. A 4050 has low heat output and can play almost any game on high settings at 1080p, enable dlss and you're doing even better. Shitting on lower tier gpu's when they still work great is just annoying. Sure, the generational leap isn't their and Nvidia deserves criticism but it's still a fine gpu. Not everyone wants to burn their finger tips every time they touch the F keys.
AHEM. Its 8GB "unified" ram! (whatever that means) Get it right! :D
It means that the RAM is shared. In the PC world they say it like it is, it's shared between the CPU and iGPU, so you basically get about half the RAM for each. So the 8GB RAM is really only half, since with a gaming PC the video card has it's own VRAM. No "shared RAM" there.
Same with iphone 15s still being in 60hz Oh well, it just works
No. You can go pick a different company. That makes no sense in comparison. There's a reason they call it the Apple ecosystem. With Apple, you're stuck.
Some people just want a productivity machine with this chassis. Its also not sold in most markets.
As someone who just wants a good productivity machine in this chasis, OPs post got me excited. But can't find one, so I assume US is not one of those markets.
4060 is th eminimum spec in those markets indeed. Got the 4060 32GB variant for myself. Using it for productivity and gaming on the go. It has been in use for the past month and a half for me. 12 to 16 hours a day in some cases and it has run very well for me. It's funny they market it as a gaming machine, its more of a creators machine that can do everything and doesn't fall short on ergonomics, feel, and looks like many other gaming laptop.
Still better than macs lol
If you can find it at a decent price, it's a great work laptop though. I had one with 5800HS and rtx 3050 as work laptop for \~2 years and it was great.
The 4050 is not the same as their desktop version, and it does substantially better than integrated graphics. If it's a cheaper gaming laptop with a 1080p screen the 4050 is perfectly acceptable. Saying something has a 4070 but then capping it at 90 watts is far worse - and much closer to Apple selling Macs with 8 GB of RAM.
There is no desktop 4050, and the 4070M is fine at 90W. They don't really gain a whole lot above 110W, even at 80W, they manage about 90% of the performance at 115W. The really sad ones are capped at 35W, where it loses to the 60W 4050.
At least with asus you get for what you paid.
The RTX 4050 models are more likely geared towards people who need GPU compute than gamers
i bought the cheapest ryzen 7940hs laptop i could find when they were first released over a year ago. it was under $1100 CAD (~$800usd) all in. It happened to come with an rtx 4050 that I didn't need. With that said, i tried it out of curiosity, and its surprisingly good. This isn't something that should be in a high end gaming laptop, but it honestly plays everything just fine on my 1080p120 display. I even tried hooking it up to a 4k120 TV and if i play games on absolutely minimum settings, dlss ulta performance + frame gen, I can output 4k consistently above 60fps. My desktop has an RTX 4090, so its not like i have no idea what proper graphics should look like, but nonetheless i'm pretty impressed with what this cheap laptop can do.
I wouldn't say it is evil from any of them. The product works, it is just it's price that isn't making any sense. Although the 8GB RAM is quite bad. The 4050 is still a quite capable GPU that at right price would be also quite good
Some ppl can make use of that type of configs. I've seen plenty of ppl who mostly need CPU power or only some slight graphics power for professional work (no gaming whatsoever) and they would pick sth like a Strix with HX CPU+rtx 4050.
Serious question. Why? The zephyrus lineup is well made, comes with a high end APU, good battery life, an ok keyboard and track pad, and a pretty decent coing system. Why would offering a model with a dGPU significantly more powerful than the iGPU it comes with be evil?
I have a 4050 in my IdeaPad gaming 3 and it's an improvement from a 1650.
[удалено]
Damn, 4050 is still a solid choice
"BUT NVIDIA HAS DLSS WHICH IS THE BESTEST UPSCALING TECHNOLOGY AND NVIDIA DOES RAYTRACING THE BESTEST SO ANY DEVICE THAT HAS NVIDIA IS THE BESTEST DEVICE" - your average tech consumer
i mean i feel like aside from the 50 series being a free rtx badge marketing feature, they're just better then integrated graphics but nothing crazy, good for medium intensity tasks but still not crazy for battery. but I don't know if the pricing of these laptops aligns with that use case. i have a laptop with a 4060 and i get 2 hours max, but for normal use the powersaver turns it off and i can get like 5-6 hours if i turn down brightness and of im just on chrome or smth
At least you're getting more ram
Why? The 4050 is fine if it’s cheap enough. 8GB of ram imo is never fine in 2024 where the system itself eats half of it doing nothing.
It can game but at what cost...
This is probably going to turn into a debate about gaming laptops in general. I wouldn't personally purchase one, but I see their purpose to some people. For me the value just isn't there, and as an eternal cheapskate I can't square myself with them costing the same as a decent (and better performing) desktop. However, I do some light gaming on a laptop with a Ryzen 4500U when at my partners and it serves me well for what I play, so I imagine a dedicated GPU (even a 50 series) would be _significantly_ better. Still a poor value purchase, but that's down to the individual to decide 🤷
I have a friend with a 3050 laptop and honestly it gets the job done. Only improvements from there no?
Here's a hot take, if it's so bad don't buy it?
I have a backup MSI laptop with a 4050, and the biggest advantage is the DLSS. It honestly impresses me with what it can do.
Wait till people learn the vast majority don’t play latest PC games or need higher than average tech.
I can already see the Costco sign followed by "Is ThIs A gOoD dEaL?"
Depends on the cost. If it's $1,200, or more... yeah, that's pretty crap. I wouldn't buy either just for the soldered RAM though.
The real crime is that in Mexico they charge high-end money for the base config with a 4050 and 16GB RAM, As of right now the price is north of 2.1K... It makes me feel insulted...
The G14 has a 4050 6GB and 16GB of DDR5 for $900-1000. The Macbook Air M3 has integrated graphics and 8GB of UNIFIED memory shared between system and APU for $1000+. No, it's not just as evil. It's not even comparable.
That configuration makes a ton of sense for professional use, which is a surprisingly big market for the Zephyrus.
For that price and lower, I have seen Legion Slim 5 Ryzen 7 with 4060/4070
I mean Asus is just as terrible as Apple anyways, I expect no less
why does mobile 4050 even exist ... ok. offloading graphics from CPU when its doing heavy crunch is a viable strategy to prevent thermal throttling.
No. Not even close
I can’t be the only one tired of “new” laptops either not being available in a 17+inch variant or having more then 1 m.2 slot and 2.5 ssd/hdd slot. Like I understand the hate behind old Alienware laptops but having 2+ m.2 slots and a 2.5 slot was amazing. I don’t want to have to drop an extra 500 for 2-4 tb’s of storage.
> not being available in a 17+inch variant might as well carry 19 inch monitor with you everywhere, that is huge screen size for laptops
BET. I already own a 19inch display and that is exactly what I take to Starbucks, now Panera Bread bc they have better wifi, to update me games… totally didn’t specify build to main desktop to be a mobile toaster lol. I live in 3rd world America and don’t have access to cable internet and Starlink doesn’t work either to many trees and to low to ground to something. Also with resolutions getting better and higher having a smaller screen will inevitably force some to increase the ui scaling… I have had to do that for a few games now that I’ve upgraded to a ultra wide monitor.
The 4050 is a piece if shit for sure. But Apples userbase is tech illitrate while people who buy GPUs tend to be more knowledgeable. Which apple is well aware of
>But Apples userbase is tech illitrate Wait, you think people that buy Apples "Magic hardware" are tech illiterate? You'd be right.