Recommendations on laptop

[Smithgregory]

Hi All,

I would like a gaming laptop for when I travel as I travel often

My preferences are 14 inch screen and higher (the bigger the screen the better for me) with a 144hz or 240hz display and either FHD or even 4K

A must have though is keyboard must be rgb

Could you give me a few recommendations, pricing isn't too fussed just give me few recommendations and why


Also is there a big difference between 144hz and 240hz??

 

[LordVile]

Hi All,

I would like a gaming laptop for when I travel as I travel often

My preferences are 14 inch screen and higher (the bigger the screen the better for me) with a 144hz or 240hz display and either FHD or even 4K

A must have though is keyboard must be rgb

Could you give me a few recommendations, pricing isn't too fussed just give me few recommendations and why


Also is there a big difference between 144hz and 240hz??

You do know that the laptop will not last more than 2 hours while gaming right?
Also why does the keyboard have to be RGB? It’s tacky as hell.

 

[not you]

Most gaming laptops nowdays are rgb
(especially the more expensive ones)

I dont think you can have 144 or 240hz and 4k

You need to pick 4k or high refresh rate
(most people prefer refresh rate i prefer resolution neither is "wrong" choice)

I highly advise to get a laptop with g-sync
Imho the most important feature of a screen (next to not being tn)

I would advise 17 inch screen
And some recommendations are razer blade pro 17 (this can be 120hz and 4k but the gpu is not powerful enough to play most games like that)

msi gt 76 titan very similar to the one i have pretty good performance amazing sound no g-sync is my only complaint

asus rog chimera 17.3 simply put the best laptop with all the best features imho best gpu best cooling amazing screen (on paper and from reviews i have no personal experience with this laptop)

Be aware all of them are very expensive and not great value for your money but more in the "best money can buy" category

The difference between 144 and 240hz you percive is different for each person
I advise against 240hz as laptop gpus are usually not powerful enough to play most games that well anyway xP

 

[gondo]

Check out sager. Choose the the base screen/video card you want then customize from there. Wicked nice high quality gaming machines. They are built using clevo platforms kind of like diy computers built from parts.

I've never had a bad experience with them.

 

[gondo]

Check out sager. Choose the the base screen/video card you want then customize from there. Wicked nice high quality gaming machines. They are built using clevo platforms kind of like diy computers built from parts.

I've never had a bad experience with them.

To add some info 144hz vs 280hz isn't a big deal. Adaptive sync is more important. Also an upgrade to a matte screen to reduce glare is good. Also with a 4k screen you can still game at 1080p to hit high frame rates.

Msi, asus, gifabyte, etc... They make some nice laptops. With sager/clevo you choose the screen size and video card you want or can afford. Often you can upgrade the screen with matte, etc... Choose your hard drive, ram, warranty, options, etc... Webcam, audio, keyboard will be top notch, rgb, and mechanical. No worries.

Xoticpc.com is the US dealer for Sager. Check out the Sager 8454 with a 4k oled screen, customizable rgb macro keyboard, geforces 2070 video, thunderbolt, and sound blaster audio. Doesn't get much better than this. Compare it to alianware for prices. Also the general design, quality, and cooling on clevos are some of the best.

 

[Smithgregory]

Seriously? Gaming laptops cant last more than 2 hours???
What's the point of buying one then?


What about a gaming laptop with 90wh battery? It still cant last more than 2 hours?

 

[not you]

You cant really game from battery anyway...

if you want good battery life look for a laptop with "optimus" its best if it has an optimus or g-sync switch

its good for youtube surfing or stuff like that and they usually last like 8-9 hours

i have tried
if you want to game from battery your perfromance will SERIOUSLY suffer for my particular laptop that can mean 1/10th compared to being plugged in and even like that its more like 1 hour gaming

just as an example my laptop can play the witcher 3 ultra 1440p higher than 60fps plugged in

from battery even league of legends cant keep steady 60 :/

 

[Smithgregory]

Thanks so much for the information and I think I'll pass on buying one from information provided, no point if battery is that bad, will just keep my desktop pc instead

 

[gondo]

If your a student travelling to school. and home on weekends a laptop is nice. Heading to friends houses or LANs for some multiplayer action, a laptop is nice. If you want something you can lie in bed with or sit on the sofa and play around again a laptop is nice. If you want to game as well then a gaming laptop is nice for the portability, not for the performance.

If your just going to sit at a desk 100% of the time then definitely go desktop route. I bought a high end laptop recently just because I wanted something portable I could bring with me occasionally. No regrets, but you do pay the price for portability. It's fun to be able to sit in bed and read emails, browse the web, and do some work, etc.... I needed windows as well for certain apps that Android and my tablet wouldn't handle.

From that point of view it's simple to determine if you want a laptop or not. Don't base your decision on battery life. When not gaming you can use the CPU video, and you can enable battery life vs performance mode to give you over 6 hours of battery. When gaming it'll automatically use the GPU and battery life will reduce which is normal.

 

[markec872]

First of all... most important 2 things that you should look first are COOLING SYSTEM and MATERIAL from which is laptop built and after those 2 things then watch components, keyboard, screen etc...

I bought ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 2 (115W rtx 2070/i7 etc...) and this bad boy was overheating rly rly much... (CPU goes up to 90 and GPU up to 80) HP/LENOVO goes even up to 95/98 for GPU) - its not a big deal because laptops are designed to withstand much higher temps then desktops but anyway, why risk it when you can simply avoid it right? (I fixed it with undervolting both GPU/CPU, repasting, cleaning from dust etc)

1. Wait for new ASUS 2020 Series of gaming notebook!!!!!! WHY?
2. Because ALL NEW models are using THERMAL GRIZZLY's Liquid metal thermal compound condoctonaut which is lovering CPU/GPU temps way to far (up to 15 degrees)

Long story short

THINGS TO WATCH (from more important to "less" important) - thats just my opinion

1. Cooling system (95% manufacturers are using low quality thermal paste because that dont wanna have big money loss during production) - ASUS is the first one that now in 2020 have rly good thermal design (mostly cuz of the liquid metal) btw HP omen used liquid metal before ASUS but it wasnt that good like ASUS did in new series...
2. Build quality
3. Components (CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD (RAID 0)/DISPLAY (Refresh rate/response time/panel type/keyboard etc...)
4. Battery life (depands from user to user... btw ASUS ROG 2020 series has rly nice 90Wh battery)

Overall, you maybe think that i am asus fanboy but man, i had way to much problems with mine ASUS ROG GL704GW especially with OVERHEATING and i dont want you to have same problems that i had... Just imagine playing games and u quickly check temps and its like 90... - u cant even focus on the game cuz laptop is overheating and u are like "omg, will something happen to him because it is so hot?"...

 

[LordVile]

Thanks so much for the information and I think I'll pass on buying one from information provided, no point if battery is that bad, will just keep my desktop pc instead

Best option for study is a thin and light (think MacBook Air) and a desktop for heavy lifting

 

[geofelt]

When you say for travel, do you mean on a long airplane flight or to have once you arrive at your destination?

Laptop coolers must of necessity be small and can not be that efficient.
Under sustained high cpu usage, the processors heat up and can throttle.
The best solution is to buy a current gen processor which will be more efficient.
You may want to bypass the very high core count options.
Also, be more modest in graphics options.

I bought a lenovo thinkpad extreme gen 2 which I am quite pleased with.
It lasts for a 6 hour flight.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/X1-Extreme-Gen-2/p/22TP2TXX1E2
It can be customized.

 

[LordVile]

When you say for travel, do you mean on a long airplane flight or to have once you arrive at your destination?

Laptop coolers must of necessity be small and can not be that efficient.
Under sustained high cpu usage, the processors heat up and can throttle.
The best solution is to buy a current gen processor which will be more efficient.
You may want to bypass the very high core count options.
Also, be more modest in graphics options.

I bought a lenovo thinkpad extreme gen 2 which I am quite pleased with.
It lasts for a 6 hour flight.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/X1-Extreme-Gen-2/p/22TP2TXX1E2
It can be customized.

New games don’t like quad cores though you’re really wanting a 6 core now and a 6 hour flight doing what?

 

[not you]

I didnt mean to discourage you
I have a laptop too xP

Its pretty good actually if you have it plugged in an msi gt titan with rtx 2080 and i9 is basically desktop level performance

I cant tell the difference between that and a full gtx 1080 ti desktop (from a performance point)

It is really freaking loud if i dont wear headpones thou
(the fans go jet engine mode because of heat in most gaming laptops :/ )

And again if its not plugged in its basically a mobile phone with big sceen
Good for youtube browsing and movies cant really play games (and this is top of the line specs from a few years back)

If you want to walk while gaming i think nintendo switch is still your best bet

If you can plug it thou imho laptop is better

 

[markec872]

Hi All,

I would like a gaming laptop for when I travel as I travel often

My preferences are 14 inch screen and higher (the bigger the screen the better for me) with a 144hz or 240hz display and either FHD or even 4K

A must have though is keyboard must be rgb

Could you give me a few recommendations, pricing isn't too fussed just give me few recommendations and why


Also is there a big difference between 144hz and 240hz??

Btw if the battery life for you is really important u have some extreme edition power banks that have up to 100W output such as -

40000 mAh laptop power bank | Mobisun: ✔ altijd en overal je laptop opladen!

✔ 40,000 mAh laptop power bank ✔ very high output (up to 94W) ✔ suitable for almost any laptop ✔ very complete ✔ incl. 28 connectors ✔ Click for more info!

www.mobisun.com

With that thing i think that u can game light to medium games for like 3-4 hours max...
There is no battery in a laptop industry that will give enough juice to laptop for 5+ hours of gaming session...

In normal scenario with that power external brick i think u can get rly decent results... Its up to u if u are ready to pay 200+ euros for one power bank
The reason why it is so expensive is bcs it has insane amout of power out (95W) its like from the 220V in house xDD

 

[not you]

Thats really nice but some laptops like mine have around 400w power requirement (just the gpu is like 200w)

And other gaming laptops that i saw are also in the 230w range
And sometimes 2x 230w :/

That power bank could work for browsing not for gaming sadly

 

[markec872]

Thats really nice but some laptops like mine have 330w power requirement (just the gpu is like 200w)

And other gaming laptops that i saw are also in the 230w range

That power bank could work for browsing not for gaming sadly

U are wrong man, thats 300+W or 230W depands for model if they are PLUGGED IN 220V in house for example, if u plug it in power bank via USB-TYPE C CHARGHING it will not allow u to use full performance mode... because battery will die in like 10-30 mins of hardcore gaming on 300W

Idk about your laptop but 99% of gaming laptops will NOT ALLOW u to use 100% of their power while not plugged in 220V (House classic plug
At least for asus laptops, u can play games in BALANCED mode while TURBO mode is locked because its not on 220V.

So for example ASUS ROG MOTHERSHIP has 200W RTX 2080MAX-P and if it is not plugged in 220V this gpu will maybe be on max 70-110W idk i am just guessing but u got the point... Same thing for CPU (No overboost etc...) so i still think that u can game for at least 3 hours without a big problem...

Also, he said that he is all the time on the move so he will defintiely not buy a desktop replacment laptop such as helios 700/msi titan etc...) that is 5-6 cm thick and over 5kg of weight xDD

 

[not you]

Well...
Yeah that actually was my point exactly
In my case that is basically no performance :/
(while not plugged in 230v here in eu xD)

What im saying is a laptop like mine on ~95w or from battery is basically dead so slow i cant play my games that way :/

I thought you recommend the external battery to play games at full performance on the go xP

And for the last part I did and yeah 5kg sounds about right xP

(also im not sure my laptop supports usb c charging in the first place :/)

 

[markec872]

Well...
Yeah that actually was my point exactly
In my case that is basically no performance :/
(while not plugged in 230v here in eu xD)

What im saying is a laptop like mine on ~95w or from battery is basically dead so slow i cant play my games that way :/

I thought you recommend the external battery to play games at full performance on the go xP

And for the last part I did and yeah 5kg sounds about right xP

(also im not sure my laptop supports usb c charging in the first place :/)

How do you mean no performance? What are your specs?
You will get at least 50-60% of max performance while on "battery" at least mine can pull it out...

Naah... Just balanced performance and he can play for a bit longer... 3 hours for sure. Especially those new 2020 ASUS models have crazy good batteries and those models are almost all 230W max... So i think 95W on the go is fine...

Yeah, my doesnt support neither... just classic usb C for data... Thats why i recommend him ASUS's new models of ROG laptops, exelent battery, usb type C charging support etc, and most important, best cooling on the market right now... I really didnt expect that they decided to waste that much money just on thermal compound... its a thousand of laptops... every laptop needs to go through machine which will apply precise dose of liquid metal etc... But yeah thumbs up for them

 

[geofelt]

New games don’t like quad cores though you’re really wanting a 6 core now and a 6 hour flight doing what?

The base processor i3-9300H is a 4 core processor with 8 threads.
One can configure stronger(at a price)
My perception is that it is quite snappy.
How good do you really need to be?
The game was civ 4 with full graphics.

 

[LordVile]

The base processor i3-9300H is a 4 core processor with 8 threads.
One can configure stronger(at a price)
My perception is that it is quite snappy.
How good do you really need to be?
The game was civ 4 with full graphics.

Civ 4 is an old game it’s from 2005, and 4 cores is 4 cores. 8 threads just improves efficiency, which is why an i3 was never better than an i5 even though it had the same amount of threads.

 

[not you]

Mine doesnt :/
Rtx 2080 but feels like a gt210 when on battery xD

Doesnt matter that much nowdays i have been playing some drakan order of the flame (1999) and that game lags no matter what xD

 

[geofelt]

Mine doesnt :/
Rtx 2080 but feels like a gt210 when on battery xD

Doesnt matter that much nowdays i have been playing some drakan order of the flame (1999) and that game lags no matter what xD

On battery, the windows default power plan will use the integrated graphics and will lower the max cpu performance.

 

[not you]

Integrated is not connected to anything on my laptop its always using the nvidia ;P

Only laptops that have optimus can use the igpu and while that is in use you can not g-sync

 

[Smithgregory]

First of all... most important 2 things that you should look first are COOLING SYSTEM and MATERIAL from which is laptop built and after those 2 things then watch components, keyboard, screen etc...

I bought ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 2 (115W rtx 2070/i7 etc...) and this bad boy was overheating rly rly much... (CPU goes up to 90 and GPU up to 80) HP/LENOVO goes even up to 95/98 for GPU) - its not a big deal because laptops are designed to withstand much higher temps then desktops but anyway, why risk it when you can simply avoid it right? (I fixed it with undervolting both GPU/CPU, repasting, cleaning from dust etc)

1. Wait for new ASUS 2020 Series of gaming notebook!!!!!! WHY?
2. Because ALL NEW models are using THERMAL GRIZZLY's Liquid metal thermal compound condoctonaut which is lovering CPU/GPU temps way to far (up to 15 degrees)

Long story short

THINGS TO WATCH (from more important to "less" important) - thats just my opinion

1. Cooling system (95% manufacturers are using low quality thermal paste because that dont wanna have big money loss during production) - ASUS is the first one that now in 2020 have rly good thermal design (mostly cuz of the liquid metal) btw HP omen used liquid metal before ASUS but it wasnt that good like ASUS did in new series...
2. Build quality
3. Components (CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD (RAID 0)/DISPLAY (Refresh rate/response time/panel type/keyboard etc...)
4. Battery life (depands from user to user... btw ASUS ROG 2020 series has rly nice 90Wh battery)

Overall, you maybe think that i am asus fanboy but man, i had way to much problems with mine ASUS ROG GL704GW especially with OVERHEATING and i dont want you to have same problems that i had... Just imagine playing games and u quickly check temps and its like 90... - u cant even focus on the game cuz laptop is overheating and u are like "omg, will something happen to him because it is so hot?"...

Hi Markec

Me myself I love asus too as my desktop is based around asus parts like motherboard and gpu, I just want a laptop that's best of the best and will get me good gaming without too much hassle I'll probably take advice and go with power bank but as we are on terms of Asus laptops which one of the new 2020 should I go for

I got my eyes on the zephyrus duo 15 and the S17 but what do u think would be best of the best for me
I really do like the zephyrus duo 15 and I see they all use the liquid metal so out of the all the new 2020 models they announced list them all for me from best to worst as I really need to know which model plus I'll buy the power bank mentioned for portability as the current laptop I own isnt suitable for gaming and its crap so I need some ting new