Question Laptop recommendation: mid-range GPU, reliable build ?

[amberorbs]

Hi!
I am looking at laptops with mid range GPUs, and a solid build.
The main complaints I have found, is there are either very cheap/weak onboard GPU for the non gaming laptop, even at the $700-$800 price range, and gaming laptops start at a much higher price,
and
The nicer spec mid range 'media and workstation' devices, often known to overheat, have very weak speakers, not enough/inconveniently located ports, annoying keyboards, etc.

I have read the new Iris Xe onboard GPU has finally made the mid range, onboard GPU laptop, up to par with acceptable performance to keep up with the often 'higher specs than than needed' for CPU and RAM. Is this true?

Is there a solid build laptop with a 'real' GPU, for under $900?
Is there a solid low end gaming laptop for not much more?

I rarely play games that require much GPU juice, yet I find the common weak onboard GPUs to be such a limiting factor in performance, making ultra fast processing not so relevant. I do occasionally like to play a GPU intensive game, yet do not mind bumping down all ingame graphics settings to low/off.

I have built a desktop from components on newegg, I was very happy with it for many years, and still use it occasionally, yet still dealing with this GPU issue with laptops.
I as well had an amazing "Notebook"(aka not chromebook), that had an 18+ hour battery life, that kept its charge even when unused for days while traveling, started up fast, did everything well, and just barely pulled off a decent 720p or so video, sale for $200, best computer I have ever owned. No moving parts, silent, endless battery life, snappy performance, and easy SD memory expansion, tiny, lightweight, great keyboard... do those still exist?

I am diving into newegg and here for research, yet so much has changed, so dramatically, since I last did this kind of research 6 years ago
Thanks!

 

[JWNoctis]

Both Intel and AMD's iGPU offerings, in their latest 11th-gen Core i5/i7 mobile processors and Zen 3 Ryzen 7/9 APUs, are now roughly as powerful as Nvidia's GTX 1050 mobile GPU, their entry-level gaming offering. AMD ones had better processor performance and power efficiency, while Intel ones had better iGPU performance.

Mobile processors have now gotten so powerful that no mobile GPU in any reasonably balanced combination would be CPU-bound to any significant degree for most applications. In other words, none of these GPU are really keeping up - Not that's a useful figure of merit.

I would recommend setting a performance goal first, then pick the CPU with or without discrete GPU that would satisfy your performance goal, and only then start looking for reviews and prices of those models featuring the chips you picked.