Is there a hidden drawback to gaming laptops?
October 6, 2020 9:53 PM   Subscribe

I'm looking at laptops and not particularly interested in a gaming laptop, but it seems like the gaming laptops have much better specs (CPU, RAM, storage) per dollar than the non-gaming ultrabooks. Other than the obvious bulk/weight difference are there any other disadvantages I'm missing?

Looking for a laptop for a physics grad student that will last a long time have lots of RAM for multitasking and good storage space. Might be running some CPU-heavy stuff. Also will be main "life" computer used for internet and Netflix and stuff like that. Gaming laptops look like the best deal. The Acer gaming laptops seem to offer much more power for the money than the best-recommended Dell and Lenovo non-gaming laptops. Any reason not to pick the gaming laptop?
posted by straight to Computers & Internet (21 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: I'm trying to find something under $1000 and would welcome other recommendations beyond my specific question.
posted by straight at 9:58 PM on October 6, 2020


1. You gloss over the first drawback (bulk/weight). That's a huge drawback IMO, but if it's not a drawback to you then you should probably just get a desktop/tower PC. You'll get more for your money.

2. You may not care about this, in which case fair enough, but the reality is: most adults are going to think you have a very ugly laptop if you get a gaming laptop.

3. By "CPU-heavy" are you referring to the possibility of running physics simulation/analysis code? If so, you may want to ask around to see if the code you'll be working with even runs on Windows, and whether there's a critical mass of Windows users in the department to help you if you get stuck. There were essentially zero Windows users among both grad students and faculty in my physics department ten years ago, and I can't imagine that number has gone up since then. Bear in mind that it can be trickier to get Linux running on a gaming laptop than something more vanilla.
posted by caek at 10:17 PM on October 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Gaming laptops are often built to be stationary, so the battery life isn't too good either - all that power pulls on the battery.

And yeah, looks. Mind you, I'm writing this from a new Lenovo Legion which looks much less like something from World of Warcraft, including the (optional!) keyboard backlight being white. I've only had it for a few days, but apart from a strange PageUp/PageDown setup (needs function key), it's amazingly comfortable with a good Lenovo keyboard.

(Mind you, I'm a hardcore laptop stan - I haven't had a desktop since 1995 and I physically find full-size keyboards tiring.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:33 PM on October 6, 2020


Another drawback is short battery life. Also, they tend to run hot since they do have higher end GPUs and CPUs.


I'd suggest you get cloud-savvy, and plan on doing your heavy graduate-level physics work on departmental super-computer, or one at some place like CERN, NOAA, Oak Ridge or SLAC. If your school has no computing resources to offer, get yourself an AWS account and use the free tier machines. Then, I'd recommend a Lenovo Thinkpad; love my X1 Carbon, but it was slightly over $1k.
posted by at at 10:36 PM on October 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


Many of the cheap gaming laptops also have bad screens compared to a ultrabook at the same price. They're not going to be color accurate, and many are dimmer than what you'd expect.

I have a Dell gaming laptop from a few years back. It has a 250 nits screen. I always have it at full brightness, but using it in a bright room in the middle of the day gives me a headache since it's so much dimmer. Outdoors would be completely impossible.
posted by meowzilla at 11:55 PM on October 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I don't have much hands-on experience with them, but a lot of the gaming laptops I've seen look to be built of just the cheapest, creakiest, most fragile looking plastic, because they're not designed to be moved around very often.

I did a computational science PhD, and anything that really required a lot of computing power was run on the high-end workstations in the lab, or (more typically) on clusters / supercomputers. I would focus on getting a computer that is pleasant to use day-to-day, rather than worrying about ultimate specs.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:10 AM on October 7, 2020


If you only need gobs of ram/cpu/gpu occasionally for physics simulations or something, you could look into periodically renting extremely beefy machines on amazon aws/azure/google cloud. Would be more complicated logistically.
posted by TheAdamist at 2:56 AM on October 7, 2020


Nthing that the drawbacks are reduced portability and battery life, lower build quality than same-price nongamery laptops and so lower longevity, and screens biased towards high refresh rates rather than color accuracy, viewing angles, or brightness. I've been looking around and there are plenty of models that don't look like laptop versions of a Civic Type R; more like normal laptops with a red stripe or something like that.

If she doesn't need gpu compute, you might look also at the 15 inch hp envy x360s, which you can get with current-gen amd apus. We just ordered biscotti a 6-core, 16GB ram, 512gb ssd for ~$800. They have 8-core, 16GB, 512GB for $1k. Have number pads if she needs/wants that. Apparently these are enough of a pain in the ass to work in that you want to just order what you want from HP rather than buy it yourself.

As it happens, lenovo has a sale on their intel legion5i's, presumably because they can't keep the amd versions of the legion 5 in stock or get enough chips to keep them in stock. I just ordered a 6-core intel version, 16GB ram, 1tb ssd, 500nit 240hz display, 2060 not-max-q for $1200 which is more than I wanted to spend but shiny. Sorry!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:00 AM on October 7, 2020


point of comparison:

biscotti's using a ~5 year old xps 13. The hardware would be fine except 3 or 4 years ago I dropped the thing on its power jack and maybe slightly bent it, so it's having occasional problems charging. Hence the replacement.

I'm using a ~3 year old Dell equivalent-to-G3 in the sort of stealth-light-gaming world I suspect you're looking in. i5 and 1050ti. In three years the keyboard fucked up, which I could fix by going deep into its guts to unplug it and plug it back in because it turns out not to be easily replaceable. The power jack is a bit squiffy, which would be fine except Dell does this bullshit where if it detects a non-dell power jack (which it does unless you jam it in in a particular way) it refuses to charge, and the power cable's outer jacket is splitting. The bottom hangs halfway off because I dared to open it up twice.

It's bigger enough than a "standard" 15" laptop that I just bought a 17" laptop bag. Which doesn't really matter if you expect to use a separate laptop bag, but it would be hard to fit in a backpack if that's how she rolls. I'm also a little reluctant to take it to work for fear of bending the bottom hold-its-guts-in plate now that it hangs open some, so thank covid I don't gotta.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:12 AM on October 7, 2020


Just as a non-scientific data-point (I.T. person who's been doing this for 20+ years) I feel like gaming laptops fail more often then 'regular' ones. I'm not sure if that's because of the thermal loads they're subjected to, or because they're slightly more niche and don't get quite the same level of engineering put into them.

If I owned one, I'd be sure to open off the bottom plate (usually pretty easy-- a guide to upgrading the RAM or hard drive would show you how) every 6 months and blow off the dust/gunk from the fans and heatsinks.

Also be aware that even if you had a desktop and laptop with the exact same chip and gpu-- the thermal limits will likely be hit on the laptop-- so you might get equal performance to that of a desktop for.. 10 minutes until the heat built up and then the cpu/gpu would automatically throttle back to match what heat can be shed. So if you're doing CPU intensive tasks for long periods, e.g. your physics simulations, they will likely run slower then the same in a desktop case.
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:33 AM on October 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


I have a Razer Blade 2017. It's an excellent machine with no significant tradeoffs. Great screen, great keyboard, all the electronics work right. It's not even unreasonably heavy or ugly for a laptop. However it was not cheap; a new Razer Blade 15 costs $1500-$2000.

However there's one drawback: fan noise. Damn thing sounds like a jet engine when it's running the graphics hard. I mean, so loud you can't have a phone call in the same room with it. Really have to use headphones to hear the game sound. It is terrible. The problem is it has a desktop GPU with a huge amount of heat. Laptops designed around laptop GPUs are much better.

The one good thing in the Razer Blade and, I imagine, most gaming laptops is the GPU is not always running. In fact it stays fully powered off most of the time when doing ordinary stuff like web browsing. And then the machine is quiet or silent.
posted by Nelson at 7:08 AM on October 7, 2020


Apart from the noise and weight, they physically don't fit in any kind of laptop carrier that doesn't scream GAMERRRZZZZZZZZZZZ to everyone around. So either you put your back out lugging it about in an even bigger case, or you don't mind effectively having a "please steal me" sign go everywhere with you.

You can make really pretty patterns with the built-in RGB keyboard LEDs, though ...
posted by scruss at 7:56 AM on October 7, 2020


I've been using an Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 as a business machine for 2 years now & it's been great for me - sturdy & attractive aluminum chassis, dual fans that are pretty quiet, lots of RAM, nice 17.3" display for really big spreadsheets. Keyboard is marvellously large & has just the right amount of clickiness, plus it's got a number pad. Battery life is still good. That being said: it's big and heavy af. Also there's a large glowing red eye on the lid that I, as a plump grey-haired old lady, can pull off with a baleful look that dares anyone to comment, but on someone younger might be construed as a bit unprofessional. (One could always put a sticker on it I suppose but I enjoy giving baleful looks.)
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 8:42 AM on October 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


For my grad work which was computationally intensive, I got a refurbed hardcore CAD-desktop for pretty cheap, set it up in the corner of my home and used a desktop sharing product (RemotePC) to login and run my models. I have a 2016 Surface Book that I wrote my dissertation on and used to access the hardcore computer.

It worked out quite well, as I could also leave models to run over night pretty easily, without tying up my main computer and could easily travel. I'd recommend this or otherwise remoting into a department or other computer.

(I did take a look at the AWS options, but this direction was way cheaper.)
posted by chiefthe at 2:35 PM on October 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: GCU, are you recommending the Lenovo Legion as having fewer drawbacks (less heavy? less hot? more reliable? less ostentatious? more versatile screen?) than other gaming laptops?
posted by straight at 7:17 PM on October 7, 2020


Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the answers and advice. I think I was not so much thinking a supercomputer would be needed but that higher-spec processors, RAM, storage, etc. would keep the computer feeling new and powerful for longer in its life cycle, and that gaming computers were the most affordable way to get that.

I don't think weight would be an issue, but bulk might be, and heat and less-reliability certainly are.
posted by straight at 7:22 PM on October 7, 2020


Response by poster: Oh, and fan noise. I hadn't thought about that at all.
posted by straight at 7:34 PM on October 7, 2020


GCU, are you recommending the Lenovo Legion as having fewer drawbacks (less heavy? less hot? more reliable? less ostentatious? more versatile screen?) than other gaming laptops?

Nope. It's gotten good reviews, but I've never held one and it's a new model so nobody really knows about reliability. The intel versions like I ordered will probably run way hotter than the amd versions they can't keep in stock, hence them being on deep sale. It was just a good sale while it was active -- a fancied-up sku for $1200 instead of $1700.

For her purposes, unless she wants gpu compute I'd recommend looking at businessy laptops with a 4700U, which is enough mobile cpu for anyone. There are lots of models with those, but lots of them are sold out right now because AMD and TSMC can't make enough chips.

The core problem with light-gaming laptops is that you're going to be spending, I dunno, like $200 on a gpu she doesn't need or necessarily want, and that $200 is gonna come out of *something* compared to a similarly priced nongaming one. I wonder if you're seeing what you are because there are lots of recommendations for laptops with very low power chips, because even a 15W 2-core chip is enough officey stuff and browsing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:30 PM on October 7, 2020


I bought an Acer Predator Helios 300 in December 2019 because I had the same thoughts you did and was going back to school + hadn't had a nice computer in a very long time. What I learned is that there is a real tradeoff as far as battery life (this can be mitigated), heat and fan noise (this can also be mitigated in various ways). These are high power parts packed into a small space. I sent my laptop in for repair to replace a GPU fan that I think was off and making a weird noise. It's better now.

Anyway, I had to do a lot of tweaking that I really just learned to do these past two weeks. So you can certainly mitigate the heat/noise issues. But downsides of a "gaming laptop" are probably going to be lower durability, lower battery life (sometimes a lot) and the heat/fans.

Initially I fixed this by turning off my CPU turbo and that fixed it PERFECTLY but since then I've learned about undervolting and reducing max turbo boost to keep the heat/noise more in line. It's actually really not that hard and not a dangerous thing to be tweaking. Now my laptop is really quiet and runs games at 1440p 165hz which is REAL GUD for me.

I have a lot more thoughts, but overall now that I have a good external monitor and laptop stand cooler plus my tweaks, I'm really happy. Before I sent it in to get a new GPU fan? I hated it because it was loud and that was all I could focus on. I think a non-gaming laptop will come out of the box a lot more user friendly while something like an Acer Predator Helios 300 will require some tweaking and investigation. Feel free to message me if you want to talk about it or do end up getting one and need help on tweaking it.

And to be clear, before I tweaked it, I would get 90C playing Hades at 1440p and now I'm not even breaking 50-60C and doing regular tasks I'm in the 30s where before it was even then 60-70C and fans were going nuts. None of it was hard, but I did have to read some guides and investigate what was up.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:46 AM on October 8, 2020


If battery life is a real concern, I do want to say that you can make it so the CPU/GPU/Wireless throttles way down on battery and that will extend the life between charges incredibly. Out of the box, it might try to run like it's still capable of big gaming on battery but that isn't a thing you should do.

Mine basically now triples in gaming power if it's plugged in (which it usually is) because anything I'm doing on battery power is like browsing the internet, maybe watching a video or playing a not intensive game. It automatically switches between profiles for me using ThrottleStop (a program you would definitely want to get, it's free) after I set that up.

I'm happy I got this laptop now if that's not clear.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:07 AM on October 8, 2020


I've only been working on my Legion a few days, but the only drawback I've seen thus far is the webcam at the bottom. I can't hear the fan even when I was working the drive intensely copying my stuff, the display is bright and sharp, and the build quality is solid, so if weight isn't an issue I wouldn't count them out. (And yes, it's an Intel i5 Legion.) It's about 3cm narrower and 1 cm deeper than my previous consumer-grade 15-inch Ideapad bought in 2012, and thinner too.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:03 PM on October 8, 2020


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