My mom likes to play No Man’s Sky and Valheim, but her Asus TUF started freezing on games. RMA found no problems and sent it back to her but it still happens. I ordered a Legion for her but now I see these posts about all Nvidia 40-series laptops freezing up. What’s a gaming mom supposed to do?
Repost my comment why gaming laptop is a scam(can’t copy comment link cause the link failed for me):
gaming laptops are pretty much scam anyway, as person “once” fall for such scam.
for portable gaming during travel, your best choice is consoles. So switch, steamdeck, heck, even PS4 slim is better than gaming laptop.(hopefully PS5 pro/slim is made into form for easier box/travel format.)
Gaming laptops aren’t a scam, they fill a niche. For people like me they are the best option available. I travel frequently and then stay there for usually a few months before having to travel again. So a desktop doesn’t work for me at all. I need a decent computer for work. Most business laptop that fill my needs are also on the heavier side. The ones that are portable usually have integraded gpu’s, which just doesn’t work for me. So the step from business laptop that fills my needs to gaming laptop is minimal.
All of the drawbacks of a gaming laptop are barely affecting me. And while this seems like an edgecase, there are a lot more people who have needs that a gaming laptop fulfills and can’t be met by other devices.
I completely agree with this take.
I have my gaming desktop, gaming laptop, and Steam deck.
My gaming desktop is my strong preference. It’s powerful, I built it myself, and it can handle basically everything I can throw at it.
My gaming laptop is really nice for travel, where I can’t bring my desktop. I was working at a job that was like 30% travel, lots of flying. It was nice to have in the hotel to get some gaming in.
On shorter/busier work trips though, I’d usually opt for just taking my iPad and Steam Deck. It’s a bit more limited in terms of what’s available, but the Steam Deck is a super capable machine. The Steam Deck also didn’t exist when I started traveling originally.
A gaming laptop is essential for me, as I work at home and don’t want to be at my desk 14+ hours a day. I can get away from it and game on the sofa if I really want to.
Exactly. It’s a niche, but it’s a legitimate niche. I needed a “portable desktop” that could run games as well as Solidworks simulations, and a gaming laptop was perfect for me.
It’s a Samsung Series 7 Gamer, and it’s lasted me 11 years so far (yes, you read that right). If I could go back and do anything differently, I would unplug the battery to preserve it for the rare instances when I actually needed it.
Same here. In fact, I bought my Legion (which btw I feel like it was a good choice on OPs part because I believe Lenovo’s laptops tend to have better cooling engineering in general, for whatever laptop category, compared to other brands) to serve first as a work laptop, and then some gaming on the side, which I’m not too picky about because I don’t really play on PC that often anyway. My reasoning for that is that the business laptops I had been looking before going with the Legion were frankly overpriced crap with limited expandability, shoddy components and build, and full of built-in bloatware pre-installed. I find that gaming laptops tend to have higher quality components and slightly better expandability, so it was a win all around.
I’ve been happy with my gaming laptops. I used to be like 80% travel for my job, so portable gaming was essential.
I still use a gaming laptop as my primary desktop, because it’s physically small, (relatively) quiet, and I don’t need to keep a honking big UPS to give me 20 minutes of time to save work and shut down. The battery’s not great, but it’s more than enough to get me through power interruptions, or to move the machine between power outlets.
Before Steam deck these were non options if you cared about pc specific games, now that is obviously the golden option!