Anyone got recommendations for good gaming laptops? -

[Functional Animal]

I'm looking to spend some of my Trumpbux on a new gaming laptop. Does anyone have good recommendations on a brand or model for at or under roughly $800?

I'm looking for something fairly durable and reliable, hopefully to last at least a few years. I also don't want something with a model specific battery that will fuck me if it dies a couple years from now. Also want to be able to upgrade RAM and such without voiding the warranty.

I found this on sale and wondered if it was any good or if I should spend more to get a more powerful laptop.

 

[DumbDude42]

>gaming
>laptop

 

[SSF2T Old User]

>gaming on a laptop
Just get a desktop or even build a desktop PC using this guide

EDIT: Ninja'd by @DumbDude42

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

>gaming on a laptop
Just get a desktop or even build a desktop PC using this guide

EDIT: Ninja'd by @DumbDude42

It's also a fuckton cheaper and upgradable

If you want a better laptop, you have to buy one.

Frankly, I wouldn't buy a laptop for anything unless I required one.

 

[LazloChalos]

Check out the acer nitro 5 gtx 1650, best prices are usuall on amazon or best buy.

I will side with the rest and recommend you get a diy desktop system, but I also believe in actually answering the question.

 

[Shiggy Diggster]

I bought a gaming laptop a couple of years ago. It weighs ten pounds, has a two hour battery life, and regularly reaches the boiling point temperature wise and thermal throttles. I paid 1400 for it. The desktop I built for the same price this past December is far better than it in any metric. Now I have a Microsoft Surface Pro for portable computing and a desktop for gaming and the laptop has been gathering dust in the corner. I would sell it if I wasn't worried about wu flu related supply chain problems keeping me from fixing my desktop if something breaks.

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

Check out the acer nitro 5 gtx 1650, best prices are usuall on amazon or best buy.

I will side with the rest and recommend you get a diy desktop system, but I also believe in actually answering the question.

If by "answering the question", you mean "paving the way to eventual disappointment", congratulations.

You go, girl.

 

[Niggernerd]

>wanting to play games on a laptop or PC.
Who the fuck wants to type games lol

 

[murgatroid]

macbook air

 

[tehpope]

If you wanna play games in bed, you'd probably be better to just build a gaming pc and get a cheap tablet or chromebook to run Steam Link or whatever. Just make sure the device you're running Steam Link on has 5g wifi or ethernet. 2.4ghz wifi will work, but you'd be risking input lag.

If you're gonna travel a lot and want to game on the go, I'd recommend one with a Ryzen chip in it. It's gonna be a little bit cheaper, just as power as Intel's offerings, and have better battery life. like this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W4RW6Z9

 

[LazloChalos]

If by "answering the question", you mean "paving the way to eventual disappointment", congratulations.

You go, girl.

Changing someone's opinion on a forum tends to be pointless.

The idea is already in their head, in this case it is to buy a laptop. They have already rationalized that a laptop is what they need, they want suggestions on which laptop to buy and will probably disregard all of our "Laptops suck, get a desktop" advice.

Add to that the fact that they have money burning a hole in their pocket.

Since this mindset is, most likely, what we area dealing with I offered a suggestion that fits the budget and has the specs to make it appealing in case they intend to resell it. If they are happy with it great, if not they got it out of their system and have options to minimize the damage.

 

[XYZpdq]

I've been firmly on the laptop train for about twenty years, but I gave up on dreams of any sort of serious gaming a long time back.
If you're lucky maybe find one you can throw more ram in? I've got 16 gigs in mine.

 

[Sam Losco]

You won't get a decent gaming laptop for under $1000, certainly not $700. Ones that are priced that low will be riddled with problems from shitty hardware to garbage heat management.

 

[Some Manajerk]

Asus ROG laptops have always been good to me personally. You can usually find them refurbished for 6-700$, though keep a wary eye on who you're buying from if you go that route.

 

[Officer Eradicate]

I got your laptop right here

that'll be $650

 

[Disheveled Human]

$800 will cover the keyboard lighting effects and the stickers it comes with. No $800 won't even cover a good quality new laptop that is good for internet browsing and basic media functions.

 

[Stasi]

Asking people on the internet about gaming laptops is like telling them you fucked their sister and their mother. You should have known better OP.

To add my $0.02 - if thinking of getting an MSI laptop read plenty of reviews and user comments online. Maybe they improved recently but a few years ago they had a pretty bad rep for being garbage.

 

[Functional Animal]

Ok, maybe I should have Explained why I wanted a laptop in more detail.

I have a desktop, which is upgraded to be able to play games somewhat okay. Problem is that the motherboard an CPU is originally from an old pre-built HP desktop. While it was the top of the line the store sold when it was new, that had to have been 10 years ago. The fucking CPU is a dual core, and AMD A10-5700 to be specific. The GPU is a GTX 960 I got a few years ago.

I intend to upgrade it as soon as possible but it will require replacing everything but the GPU, HDD, SSD, and case. The new Ryzen I want would of course require a new cooling system and motherboard. The new motherboard being new means the old 24 GB of RAM I have is useless because it's DDR3, while the new MB would require DDR4. While it has an upgraded power supply in it already, it's only a 400W. I've priced some stuff on PCPartPicker.com and most builds are at or over $800 to get what I want.

On top of all that I share the computer with me little brother and I would like to be able to play games when he is on the desktop.

Really I what wanted was to get a laptop that is better than the current desktop but cheaper than upgrading as a stopgap until I get the money and time to do the upgrading I want to the desktop.

tl;dr I know a laptop is a shit option for gaming, but it's intended to be secondary to an eventual desktop improvement.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Don't buy a laptop with anything above a GTX xx50 for graphics, higher end parts run way too hot and they get expensive fast.

@Functional Animal Get this one and add some RAM, it supports up to 32GB and the GPU is way better. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Legion-B...y-512GB-PCIe-SSD-Storage-81SY0091US/115115224

 

[Pissmaster]

I own a gaming laptop

pls no bulli

Okay, anyway, yeah, it's an ASUS ROG, I bought it in 2017 and it has a GTX 1050 Ti. It works pretty well, and I haven't had any thermal problems. But the battery isn't great, even just for web browsing on power saver mode, I still only get a couple of hours. I tried playing Shadow of Mordor on it entirely on battery when I got it, disabled all of the battery saver crap so I could get 60FPS at medium settings, and I got all of about 40 minutes out of it. That includes loading times which really eat into the game, and everything just kinda locks up when the battery dies, which sometimes requires a hard shutdown. So you'll be tethered to your power supply the whole time.

The keyboard and trackpad are pretty good, so no complaints there. But TV out is fickle, and I've had problems with some games just straight up refusing to play audio through my TV speakers, so that's very YMMV. I also had a problem at one point where one of my hinges got cracked (my fault), so, be careful with that as they're plastic. Costco sold it along with one of their in-house extended warranties, so I was able to get it fixed for free, thankfully.

On top of all that I share the computer with me little brother and I would like to be able to play games when he is on the desktop.

Really I what wanted was to get a laptop that is better than the current desktop but cheaper than upgrading as a stopgap until I get the money and time to do the upgrading I want to the desktop.

tl;dr I know a laptop is a shit option for gaming, but it's intended to be secondary to an eventual desktop improvement.

Ultimately if you can afford it, it sounds like you'd make good use of it, but spending a grand for a stopgap solution is, well, a lot of money. Buying a gaming laptop instead of a desktop is a thing where most of the money you're spending is going towards convenience. It'll play your games as long as you're not a stickler for maxing out all your settings and high resolutions. I played through Hitman 2 2018 on mine, and I ran it at 720p medium/low settings so I could get a consistent 60fps.

But hey, I could play it while I was taking a shit, and didn't even have input lag like I would if I were playing it on GeForce Now, so, if that's worth a thousand bucks to you, go for it.