Solved! Which laptop to buy for gaming and photography? Here are my options. Urgent!

[axxell990]

Hello,
After few years I have finally decided to upgrade my laptop and I have found myself in a market super full of offer to the point that is confusing.
So, here I am with few options. My basic needs are gaming and fairly consistent use of photoshop and lightroom for my photography. I would like a laptop to be not too heavy (around 2.2 kg max)

My budget is around 1000£ and in the next few months I might squeeze in an extra 100/150 for some upgrades. Initially I was all in for a Zephyrus G14 with an AMD 4800h and gtx 1660 that I found for 1099 pounds. Unfortunately, Asus seem to have stock issues and no idea when the device will be available again.

These are the devices I have selected so far:

MSI GF65 Thin 15.6” Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 2060, 256 GB SSD

• Intel® Core™ i7-9750H Processor
• RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 256 GB SSD (only ddr4 they both would need upgrading very soon)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB (der 6)
• Full HD screen / 120 Hz (doesn't look like the most color accurate)
• Battery life: Up to 4 hours (very concern about this as I would like at least 5 hours at the very least)
  
  
  

• Processor	- Intel® Core™ i7-9750H Processor Hexa-core 2.7 GHz / 4.1 GHz 9 MB cache
  RAM	- 8 GB GDDR4 (2666 MHz) - 64 GB maximum installable RAM

ACER Nitro 5 AN517 17.3" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 2060, 256 GB SSD

• Intel® Core™ i7-9750H Processor
• RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 256 GB SSD ( again, to be upgraded soon and only ddr4)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB
• Full HD screen
• Battery life: Up to 7 hours
  
  
  

• Processor	- Intel® Core™ i7-9750H Processor Hexa-core 2.6 GHz / 4.5 GHz 12 MB cache
  RAM	8 GB DDR4 (2600 MHz)

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 15.6" Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7, GTX 1660 Ti, 512 GB SSD

• AMD Ryzen 7 4800H Processor
• RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB
• Full HD screen / 144 Hz
• Battery life: Up to 7 hours
  
  
  
  

• Processor	- AMD Ryzen 7 4800H Processor Quad-core 2.9 GHz / 4.2 GHz 8 MB cache
  RAM	- 16 GB DDR4 (3200 MHz) - 32 GB maximum installable RAM

  
  
  
  MSI GF75 Thin 17.3” Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, GTX 1660 Ti, 512 GB SSD
  • Intel® Core™ i7-10750H Processor
  • RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB
  • Full HD screen / 120 Hz
  • Battery life: Up to 5 hours
    
    

  • Processor	- Intel® Core™ i7-10750H Processor Hexa-core 2.6 GHz / 4.7 GHz 9 MB cache
    RAM	8 GB GDDR6 (2666 MHz)

    
    
    
    I kind of like the GF75 as it has bigger screen and very small bezels and it weights only 2.15 kg (less than most of the other laptops) and it's the only one with GDDR6 all the way. I was unsure though about durability and battery and heat management.
    
    GF65 looks great in terms of wight and acceptable for the specs(I can upgrade the laptop if needed) but I am very concerned about the poor battery.
    The A15 has great specs and battery but a poor screen, apparently.
    
    The Acer Nitro looks good on paper but it's pretty heavy and bulky for what I am looking for, maybe.
    
    As you can tell there are pros and cons for all of these devices(prices are all between 999 and 1099.
    
    Which one would you go for, for gaming and photography needs?
    
    Thank you very much for your help.
    
    
    

 

[hang-the-9]

I'd pick one of the MSI models. Acer is cheaper but their quality historically is on the lower end, ASUS has had a lot of issues with the TUF models with reliability and noise/heat. If you are worried about heat and noise, don't look at the slim and light laptops.

 

[axxell990]

I'd pick one of the MSI models. Acer is cheaper but their quality historically is on the lower end, ASUS has had a lot of issues with the TUF models with reliability and noise/heat. If you are worried about heat and noise, don't look at the slim and light laptops.

Great, thank you for your answer.

Out of the two msi gf series which one would you go for?
I am stuck in the indecision due the better graphic card (2060)100 pounds less and lower weight on the gf 65 but only 256gb, slower ram and processor compared to the gf75.

 

[Spattent]

Personally, I'd go for the MSI GF65 ..

 

[CODEM]

i suggest you to use ASUS ROG GL552VW-DH71 15-Inch Gaming Laptop
it is good for gaming as well as it may help you for editing as well, most of my friend have been using it as well as me.

 

[hang-the-9]

Great, thank you for your answer.

Out of the two msi gf series which one would you go for?
I am stuck in the indecision due the better graphic card (2060)100 pounds less and lower weight on the gf 65 but only 256gb, slower ram and processor compared to the gf75.

You can't upgrade the video card or CPU, for gaming the faster video card would be best. Size of drive is up to you, that can be upgraded later. Also the screen size is on one is 17" if you will be using the laptop screen vs a monitor the larger screen may be more appealing. For how I like things, I would get the larger screen if that screen was the one I would use. However I also would not go for a thin gaming laptop, it restricts cooling too much which usually leads to overheating, thermal throttling, louder more active fans, one of all of those.