Gaming on a laptop ain't so bad nowadays.

[Mai72]

It used to be that if you were going to put serious time into PC that it had to be a tower, and it had to be built by you. The gamer. Playing video games on a laptop was a no deal for many. Especially FPS. Well that's changed over the last few years.

IMO, laptops have made great strides. Many can easily handle today's games. Also, the price of a decent gaming laptop today is in the reach of most gamers. For instance, I just bought the Acer Hellos 300. For $1,050 you get a laptop with a dedicated gforce GTX 1060 6mb card. It also came with 16GB DDR 4, and a 256GB SSD. I put in a second harddrive, the 2 TB firecuda. It was very easy to put in.

 

[Tweak155]

Laptops as far as FPS have been quite capable for a while now, but recently the mobile cards (at least NVidia) have taken a huge jump in being closer to their desktop brethren.

I still think the overall package is a decent chunk behind (not shocking given the power consumption difference), but the gap is certainly narrowed.

 

[Borealis7]

i've been a PC gamer for over 20 years and i never understood the appeal of gaming on a laptop.
there are just too many cons in my opinion:

smaller screens - or do you have a 24" laptop?
weaker hardware compared to desktop counterparts - gotta save those Watts.
low bang/buck - for the same budget you can usually build a better desktop.
not upgradable - how do you upgrade the most important part fro gaming: the video card?
always plugged in - if you run out of battery very fast when you game without a power cord, just get a desktop instead.
no getting your hands dirty - i like assembling desktop systems, makes me feel like a Man.

if you're the sort of person who really can't stand not gaming when you're out of the house for a couple of days, then MAYBE a laptop can be a solution.

 

[BSim500]

Horsepower is fine for a lot of games. 2TB local storage, 16GB RAM, etc, is also fine. What consistently puts me off (and is just as true now as 10-20 years ago) is the ergonomics. No matter how much laptops improve there's just something about the sound of the same old 40-50mm low profile blower fans under load that I just cannot stand. Even at the same decibel level, the high frequency pitch / tone is far more irritating than a lower frequency whoosh / rumble of 92-120mm desktop ones.

The second issue is the keyboards. Looking at the current bunch of gaming laptops, many seem to actively despise left-handers (ie, half sized cursor keys or trackpads on the right rather than the middle), and even the ones with full sized cursor keys are often placed too close to R. Shift that feels uncomfortable / cramped in FPS games vs desktop keyboards (plus all the additional nearby keys (Ins/Home/Page Up/Del/End/Page Dn, Numpad, etc, are usually out of place). I've really tried to like them, but laptop keyboards and especially laptop blower fans are the two things I simply cannot get used to.

 

[Tweak155]

I've had gaming laptops on and off over the years, it's more of a hobby thing if you ask me. But now that we've been spoiled with all these super thin and light laptops, I want a 3lb gamer now

They make ones that are close at least in weight, but they usually have really big bezels or some other glaring flaw. I think they're really close to hitting that perfect combination though.

 

[Red Storm]

When external GPUs become more common, more powerful, and less expensive, mobile gaming will really take off. A super sleek ultrabook that can plug in an external GPU is the ideal combo. Unfortunately by the time this becomes commonplace I will probably only care for games like Starcraft and Age of Empires, which don't require beefy GPUs.

 

[Smoblikat]

Id rather have your mousepad than your laptop, laptops just frustrate me, I doubt ill ever find one that meets my very specific requirements...........requirements that almost every single desktop can meet.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I still game on my old HP whateverthehellitis from 2007. Granted, I can only run games like Titan Quest, Morrowind, FTL, and Dawn of War Dark Crusade, but I don't plan on doing any high-end gaming if I'm moving around. Besides, the thing can play TQ for hours before the battery starts getting low (played it for 3 hours straight during a flight).

 

[Oyeve]

I play on a Lenovo y700 17.3" laptop and it runs everything recent on it well. I primarily game on my homemade pc but the laptop serves me well.

 

[cmdrdredd]

What put me off for so long is the limited upgrade path. With a pc I build I can drop a new GPU in, maybe drop a new CPU in down the line that I pickup from the used market, overclocking options. Things like that were always absent or very limited for a laptop. That seems to be different now than it used to be but for the same money I can build a faster pc than what I get in a laptop even today. I also prefer mechanical keyboards and know of no laptop with mechanical keys so at that point It feels wrong to use a laptop.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I've had gaming laptops on and off over the years, it's more of a hobby thing if you ask me. But now that we've been spoiled with all these super thin and light laptops, I want a 3lb gamer now

They make ones that are close at least in weight, but they usually have really big bezels or some other glaring flaw. I think they're really close to hitting that perfect combination though.

Something like a MacBook with the specs of a top gaming laptop would be really nice I think. They are super thin and around 2lbs. Obviously it would need to be running windows for game compatibility. Something like that is probably not far off.

 

[kyrax12]

i've been a PC gamer for over 20 years and i never understood the appeal of gaming on a laptop.
there are just too many cons in my opinion:

smaller screens - or do you have a 24" laptop?
weaker hardware compared to desktop counterparts - gotta save those Watts.
low bang/buck - for the same budget you can usually build a better desktop.
not upgradable - how do you upgrade the most important part fro gaming: the video card?
always plugged in - if you run out of battery very fast when you game without a power cord, just get a desktop instead.
no getting your hands dirty - i like assembling desktop systems, makes me feel like a Man.

if you're the sort of person who really can't stand not gaming when you're out of the house for a couple of days, then MAYBE a laptop can be a solution.

Gaming Laptop satisfy the casual gamers who want to be more mobile market. For example: As a college student that is going to relocate into the dorms soon, I don't really feel it is practical to bring my entire PC and all its components into a cramped apartment-style dorm. A gaming laptop is better suited for such a person.

The Acer Helos isn't a bad deal considering a desktop is going to cost probably as much if not even more.

+Operating System
+Monitor, Keyboard, Speaker and etc.

 

[Leold1980]

I think everyone is looking for mobility and size optimization. So are the developers and one can say (with far amounth of certainty) that the future is of smaller and mobile devices. PC as we know it will not be in the future, at least in my vision.

 

[JeffMD]

I have been using a gaming laptop as my main pc for a number of months now. About twice I skipped back to the old gaming tower (its a 970gtx and is more or less a side grade, wonderful and quiet setup) and both times I quickly went back to the laptop. They each have their perks but this is my reason behind it. My room gets just adequate enough cooling from the central air and I find gaming sessions on the desktop (intel 1231v3) can leave an impact on my rooms over all temperature which can be quite uncomfortable when heading to bed right after. I can turn the AC on but that would freeze everyone else in the household. With my gaming laptop the heat output isn't enough to effect room temp.

The only negatives are fan noise is there, and I opted for a laptop with nvidia Optimus and while the HDMI is directly connected to the nvidia gtx, optimus causes a few issues like with chromes hardware acceleration. Saddly new egg lied about the laptop specs so no thunderbolt upgrades in my future, will have to be more careful when ever I get the next laptop. Otherwise been quite happy with it. The thermals and fan speeds are quite satisfactory (and plenty of power settings to curb noise and temps). And in the end I still get my big gaming experience utilizing USB hubs and hdmi out into my receiver. (I have a number of portable hard drives and am constantly plugging things in and out, I suggest getting usb hubs to reduce the strain on your laptop ports. )

 

[quikah]

Too bad this wasn't around 20 years ago when I was lugging my 20+lb CRT to LAN parties. Do people still have LAN parties?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Too bad this wasn't around 20 years ago when I was lugging my 20+lb CRT to LAN parties. Do people still have LAN parties?

I remember those days heh. I don't think it's really a thing anymore. At least I never see them advertised around like I used to. I guess because playing online is almost as lag free as a LAN there isn't a need any longer.

 

[Stuka87]

Of the few people that I have known with gaming laptops, all of them leave them on the same desk all the time. They very rarely get moved because they still have to have a mouse and keyboard to play with. Meaning they could have just gone with a desktop and been much better off.

 

[futurefields]

It makes sense because mobile performance is the priority since smartphones became standard. Most people dont want a funky desktop pc that just sits in the corner all day.

 

[Red Storm]

Of the few people that I have known with gaming laptops, all of them leave them on the same desk all the time. They very rarely get moved because they still have to have a mouse and keyboard to play with. Meaning they could have just gone with a desktop and been much better off.

Except that with my laptop, when I'm done gaming I put away the mouse and take my computer with me.

If gaming is the only thing you do, then yes get a desktop, but to me a laptop that can play games is way more useful than a desktop.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Well that's changed over the last few years.

Agreed. Used to be you could easily spec out a desktop PC that would perform better and cost less. Well, I just built your laptop in mITX desktop form on pcpartpicker. Came out to about the same.

It's a good time to be a mobile gamer.

 

[thejunglegod]

Well, gaming on a laptop ain't that bad compared to what it was a few years ago. However, it still doesn't come remotely close to gaming on a desktop IMO.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I agree about the ergonomics aspect. Although I can see where if you were always travelling a laptop would be ideal.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Yeah I'd rather game on my 27" monitor.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah I'd rather game on my 27" monitor.

For me lately it’s been my 55” 4k HDR TV.

 

[lupi]

Just bought that same laptop from Costco. I think what is making laptops good is what's hurting desktops. Unless you are trying to push into 4k resolution, advancements on the gpu front have been rather underwhelming.