Should you buy a gaming laptop?
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| Are gaming laptops worth it 2022 |
It's a very big question, and one we're going to answer in this article. I have a love hate relationship with laptops for several reasons. I'd say that the biggest way to properly understand whether one of these is right for you is to properly assess their strengths and weaknesses and then actually see if that's going to work for your lifestyle.
Future Gaming Setup
Gaming laptops have gotten insanely good these days, to the point where you don't even need a desktop replacement laptop to indeed replace your gaming. Desktop laptops with 8 core processors, huge graphics chips and enough bandwidth for multiple displays are commonplace, all at accessible prices are at, so you're not giving up on any part of your future gaming setup if you're on team laptop. Due to the recent development in physical chip sizes, these things are always getting thinner and lighter. So you're not tied to just using this at home at a desk. You can quite literally take this out and about without really compromising. Granted, if you'd asked me about them six months ago, this wouldn't really have been particularly useful. But with things now opening up again, the prospect of mobile gaming is back, not to mention the development of Star link's Internet latency, both of which should eventually get to a fairly solid 20 milli seconds. So the dream of truly wireless PC gaming is definitely closer than ever, except for the fact that it's kind of not.
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| Are gaming laptops worth it 2022 |
Battery life When Your Playing A Games
Because while laptops do exist that will comparatively sip power, most of the big boys do actually rely on some pretty hefty batteries. They don't have very good battery life while you're playing games, and they don't deliver enough wattage to actually drive this without losing performance. So even if you can play Apex, no matter where you are, you're going to need some good old AC for uncompromised gameplay. As for the gaming experience itself, it's come on so far with notebooks in the last few years, it really is quite astounding. Even with the release of brand new 4Kconsoles, laptops can far exceed their performance levels. You've got 360 Hz panels, dual display screens, and now even quad HD laptops, so the flexibility to pick the perfect machine for your needs is well and truly there.
GPU
And because we've had the launches of both the RTX3000 series and the Radeon 5000 series of graphics, as well as the brand new CPUs from both AMD and intel, it's not really like you've got to worry about massive performance gains incoming and then you've missed out because you've bought a laptop arguably too early. Or I suppose technically it would be too late, but you get the idea. I'd say that we're unlikely to see new mobile graphics chips until probably January 2023.So while there definitely will be newer laptops coming along before then, probably with more powerful CPUs, the difference to gaming for most situations will be largely the same. If you do decide to go for a laptop GPU over a desktop one, you're not really missing out on any extra features either. You're still able to fully access AMD's FSR, and if you do decide to go for Team Green. you still get your DLSS, your ray tracing, and your shadow played with a hardware encoder built right into the graphics chip. It is, of course, absolutely fantastic that in terms of day-to day life, we're returning back to normal slowly. But in terms of PC gaming and, importantly, PC graphics cards over on the desktop side, getting hold of one is still very, very difficult. Laptops, however, for the most part, are pretty readily available. Having a quick look over at Over clockers, UK and Scan Not only shows a majority of the products are in stock and available, but they're all at pretty normal prices.
In 2021 A Gaming Laptops Offers Brilliant Value for Money.
Take this trix G15, for example. This is one £699 for the whole thing, which includes a 300 Hz display. It's in stock and you can buy it today price of the equivalent package from PC Pop Picker, and it's almost £100. And as you might have guessed, that GPU isn't in stock either. Granted, that is including a standalone display, but then again, the laptop also has a battery and a keyboard, so I guess they sort of even out. Put simply, in 2021 a gaming laptop offers brilliant value for money. But despite all of this great news, there is an absolute whopper of a catch. Laptops just aren't as powerful as their desktop equivalents. And some people might scream okay, Captain Obvious, but then again, some of you may be none the wiser. I recently tested the performance of Nvidia's latest RTX laptop GPUs with their desktop cousins, and the gap was surprisingly large. Some of this was due to a CPU bottleneck from the last generation, but even when this wasn't an issue, the FPS chasm was still very pronounced.
if you're never going to take your laptop anywhere.
For this reason, if you're never going to take your laptop anywhere and you're just going to use it at hand, then I would advise an extremely cautious approach. Because ultimately, if you're paying all of the money for portability and you're not using it, what's the point? To make matters worse, it doesn't even end there. The biggest flaw of a gaming laptop, in my eyes, is also their biggest strength. Their size. Small is great if you're going to be lugging your machine around London tube stations, but it really isn't ideal for thermals and acoustics. Their compact nature results in a very tight movement of air all around the machine. And whilst they certainly work, you're looking at 90 degrees plus on a lot of the latest high powered notebooks.
Unbearable Noise
This is not only likely to reduce the lifespan of your silicon, but much more importantly for me, it results in, at times, unbearable noise for these machines. Some are definitely better than others. I think this latest reg. Zephyrus does wonders for noise that has this little pop up keyboard that actually allows a bit more air in and does keep the noise levels down. But it's still a fair bit louder than a proper desktop PC. And if you're looking at anything that is a little bit cheaper and is still very powerful, well, that is a different story entirely. If you're looking at buying a gaming laptop, then I think you just have to accept that headphones, for the most part, really are a must to properly drown out all of the wearing sounds. If you think a PS 4 Pro is bad, you just wait. With some machines you can actually turn the power down, thus lowering the noise. But this will come at the cost of a fair wedge of FPS. Likewise, bigger laptops tend to have bigger fans and better cooling potential. But then again, if you go for such a large machine, you're giving up the thing that makes them a laptop in the first place.
Choosing a laptop in 2022
Choosing a laptop in 2022 is a little bit of a weird decision because in many ways it is a fantastic time to buy one. But fundamentally, it still doesn't change the nature of what actually they are and ultimately who they're for. If you want to create a proper gaming setup from a portable machine, then you can do some mind bending things these days. But you only should do this if you need that portability. At the end of the day, a portable machine is just that and even though it can do a fantastic job at replacing your desktop, it is still going to be a little bit louder and less powerful than even an ITX gaming rig at this exact moment of time. They are cheaper and actually available to buy, which is brilliant. But as they're significantly less upgradable, the long term price of ownership probably starts to lose out to a properly fully modular desktop solution. If you're going to use this as a laptop all the time, then it is a no brainer to pick one up. But if you're somewhat in the middle, then it does get to be a little bit more of a gray area ultimately.
What is going to be the right decision?
I can honestly say that laptops are just so much better to use now than they used to be, and I would indeed consider making the switch if I had an older PC and just mainly PC games. Ultimately, you just need to weigh up the pros and the cons of the portability. Are you going to get your money's worth out of going for something like that? Are you just completely giving up on desktop GPUs? You're willing to make the swap and you'll make it work for you? Or do you honestly think that the lack of that extra bit of performance and the extra noise is going to annoy you for years to come and you're going to wish that you had got a desktop computer? If that's you, then you know what you need to buy. But if you are looking in 2021 to pick up a gaming laptop, then actually coming from someone that's not usually a huge fan of them, i can say now is a very good time to buy indeed.
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