Solved! Pluses and Minuses of a Gaming Laptop - Opinions Needed

[scstathis]

OK, here is the deal.

I have been going back and forth for years about whether to go from my custom built gaming rig to a gaming laptop. In the past I always figured no because I was in school and spent enough time at home that I figured I didn't need one. But, now that I work 40 hours I'm starting to wonder again.

So my question to the forum members is this:

What are the pluses and minuses of have a gaming laptop?


Thanks in advance...............

Scott

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Portability

 

[frozenlead]

Having lugged my notebook around quite a bit for work with CFD, I have quite a bit of experience with the pros and cons of a gaming notebook on the go.

Most of them are general "well of course", but sometimes it's difficult to balance "how heavy will this be" versus "do I really need that power to go".

In essence, I've found the 10lb NP5793 I carry with me to be very worth the trouble. It's heavy and I need to search for an outlet in 2 hours or less, but the performance and large screen let me get work done faster and more efficiently. The gaming ability of the notebook has degraded to about zero since I bought it 4 years ago; the GPU just can't keep up. Now with newer meshing algorithms my CPU is starting to show its age as well.

In hindsight, I wouldn't purchase a notebook in excess of $1500. A mid-range graphics card is good enough for CAD and 3D environment rendering, and I should have spent more on the CPU. The screen, though, is to die for and I'm glad I dropped the cash for 17" of 1920x1200. It's a much better plan to get a mid-low end notebook (depending on usage) and a high-end desktop. High end notebooks should only be considered if you seriously need the portability (Military, business, etc).

 

[de5_Roy]

pluses:
portability
mobility (not so much with desktop replacement gaming laptops)
compactness
sometimes sharp display e.g. 1080p@ 17"
recent laptop gfx chips strong enough to out-game desktop gfx cards
usually lower power consumption than a typical gaming pc

minuses:
less cpu power than desktop
dificult cooling
keyboard
usually worse quality display unless you choose one with an ips panel
inadequate battery power for gaming
(slightly) weaker gfx
almost non existent overclockability