Not saying there aren't such people out there, but perhaps you're a bit biased to see people with such biases. I have gamed both on laptops and desktops for equally long periods in my life and I believe I have an objective view on things (and an electrical engineer's degree, extensive experience with computer hardware bla, bla... ). I would still recommend a desktop, though I'd go for a mesh case mini-ITX build these days, not a full tower.

Desktops are easier to upgrade and maintain and, because of better thermals, much less prone to failures than (gaming) laptops. They're also generally quieter, which for some people matters a lot after their first experience with hearing a typical gaming laptop running at full load.

If you need to be on the go or have little office space though, you don't have much choice anyway. And I don't think anyone's saying gaming laptops are pure crap, because then nobody would be making them and nobody would be buying them, but you have to look at what they actually are from an engineering standpoint: a compromise, pushed to the very limit of its capabilities, to ensure the best possible performance in a tight, portable, package.

Perhaps in an age where gaming laptops are not built they way the are today, they will become the norm, but I honestly don't see that happening in the near future. Maybe Intel will have something to say with their new big-little CPU line, who knows.

But in all honesty, I could not care less how things will turn out in the future and it plays no role in my line of thought.

But do you *really* need a DVD drive in the first place? None of my own computers have one, and I'm doing just fine.

Nope I dont use one often, this is why I have an external, but neither do desktops, so for me it isnt an advantage of desktops ;)

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. I plan to use an external mouse. I don't like playing with a trackpad. The noise that the fans will make during heavy use does not bother me, maybe my wife will...?
I mainly want to buy a laptop because it seems so much more practical to me. When I want to play games, I put it at the table with an external mouse, this can be done in the living room, the kitchen or outside. In the evening if I want to hang out on the couch, watch Netflix, do some browsing, ... this is also perfect with this laptop. Every weekend I am at a campsite in my caravan, where I can also play perfectly and because there is no wifi or mobile data available there, gog games are perfect.
Since this laptop is going to be used intensively, and I still want it to last at least 5 years, I want the build quality to be very good. What I also worry about is the quality of the hinge. I know when cables are often crimped that they will break over time. I am probably a little over-concerned, but I can only spend this amount of money once and so better spend it well.

To me that has never really been The Thing for laptop gaming, so that I can play... lying down? That sounds more like tablet or smartphone gaming to me, a bit like that "gaming on a crowded bus or at the airport while waiting for your flight to arrive" which I mentioned earlier.

To me the thing about laptop gaming is to be able to easily pack and move my "gaming station" to some other place, in order to play there. Usually that other place is either another room at my home, or somewhere outside my home. But, 90% of the time I will not take the laptop out, at least for gaming, unless there is some kind of desk or other flat surface there. And since there is, usually there is enough room for an external (wireless) mouse, and even a keyboard if needed

Attached are two photos which show quite well what "laptop gaming" means to me (ie. why a laptop, and not a desktop). The "abroad" photo is from rural Thailand many many years ago (that is the same laptop where I am now writing this message), and the other photo is several years ago from my living room. In both cases I have a flat surface, a "desk", in use, which allows the usage of an external (wireless) mouse.

That said, laptop gaming on the sofa with the laptop on your lap is still doable, if it needs to be. Just keep the wireless mouse on some firm pillow or the sofa armrest next to you. For instance IKEA sells those kind of "laptop surfaces" which you keep on your lap between the laptop and your lap, the lower side being soft for your legs and the upper part being hard and flat for the laptop, and possibly a mouse beside it:

https://www.ikea.com/fi/fi/p/byllan-sylitaso-ebbarp-musta-valkoinen-70403512/

Well, that (the bolded part) is exactly the problem. The plastic partly insulates the heat, keeping it inside the laptop, whereas e.g. the aluminum or magnesium alloy body would radiate part of the heat out of the laptop, kind of acting as a big extra heatsink.

It is a similar idea like why the Flirc aluminum case cools the Raspberry Pi 4 down so well passively, without any use of a fan. The heat from the CPUs and other hotter chips is moved to the whole aluminum case, from where it radiates away. It cools the system down even better than some active (fan) cooling solutions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkLr08K0c1E#t=300

My daughter uses an Asus ROG intensively and everywhere for about 3 years now and really loves it. We upgraded ram, but that was everything we did. No problems so far. For intensive FPS she uses a cooling system underneath which is quite nice.

I for myself use an Asus TUF now and had an MSI GE before. The Asus, although plastic, seems sturdier than the MSI (mostly Aluminium). Playing mainly strategy games and using it for work and 3D design.

You exactly named the advantages I would never want to miss anymore, although I still have an older Desktop with 4K screen for work with many windows open, but not for playing anymore.

And while not playing but surfing or watching videos you can use even a gaming Laptop for several hours without power.

I second this.

I have been gaming on a laptop since before the turn of the millennium with no adverse effects, except cost per graphical extravagance. YMMD.

(One advantage is that a power failure is no longer as precipitous; I can shut down the laptop gracefully. I also suspect that the battery is cleaning the mains power. I am less sure if this will not damage the battery. :/)


I bought a mid-range laptop about a year ago and it can play pretty much every game available on Gog at Full HD (1080 lines of 1920 pixels resolution) with an nVidia 1050Ti and 8MB RAM.

For the same price I might have bought a desktop with the next better CPU model, a better GPU (say nVidia 1070), 16GB RAM, and a RAID array of mechanical drives or a couple of solid state drives. (I have a small solid state drive for the OS integrated with a 1TB mechanical drive for all applications, games, and data.)


Again, this is good advice and close to my configuration.

I have the laptop on a cooling stand cantilevered over (the foot of) the bed on a hospital table next to the tv, which is perched on a set of drawers at our feet. All the USB devices are laid out around the laptop, and the cables are tied together to keep them from tangling. The room is as quiet, dark and cool as we can make it.

I do not use the integrated keyboard, but instead a bluetooth external wireless model, together with a trackball (not a mouse, since I am supine whilst I play and a mouse requires a flat, stable surface from which to map the screen movements, and even a mousepad is awkward to use since it must be moved every time one lies down and then also when egressing from the bed; a trackball is designed like an upside-down mouse, so the hand moves but the trackball base does not) and the display is HDMI-cabled to a large (60Hz) smart television at the foot of the bed.


This is important.
The laptop sits closed, preventing wear on and dust accumulating between the keys (though the peripheral plugs and the fans all cop a lot.)
I recycled the external keyboard, trackball, and headphones purchased for the previous laptop, and kept my array of external storage devices.

(The older one was replaced because it was made in 2006 and if it failed we would lose the really important stuff on it.)


The old Compaq Presario was still working well, though the battery had only seconds of charge (and had been so for more than a decade), so it was always plugged in. (This is what I expect is the Achilles' heel of the old machine, a single point of catastrophic failure.)

Based on this excellent record, I bought a Hewlett-Packard (since they merged with Compaq and deprecated that specific brand). (Yes, I am aware of the sophomore jinx and the regression to the mean that reduces the probability of any new laptop working as well as the last one.)

Holy '90s memory, Batman! =P

:)

The first computer I ever used (at school) had two models, one had 4kB and the other 1kB.

As you noted, I should have correctly identified the storage capacity in Gigabytes (Back to the Future!)

Thanks for the correction.

My desktop is aging and I'm due for a new one, which is around 9 years old...and has been upgraded a bunch of times.

I do have an older Acer Nitro laptop, but...I might leave that for another post. I mostly run older stuff on it now; especially since buying the SC15.

My current main gaming rig is actually a SC15 gaming laptop, which I've had for 2 years.

EVGA SC15 gaming laptop:
OS - Windows 10 x64
CPU - Intel i7 7700 HQ
GPU - NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
1st DRIVE - 256 GB SSD
2nd DRIVE - 1TB HDD
RAM - 16 GB RAM
BUILT-IN MONITOR - 15.6'' inch 120hz monitor with G-SYNC
MONITOR VIA MINI-DISPLAYPORT - 1080p 244hz 25'' Viewsonic Monitor XG2560 with G-SYNC
OTHER - Thunderbolt 3 port, some USB 3.0 ports, USB 3.1, Mini-Displayport, HDMI port, etc etc.

Performance on most games - 1080p @ 60fps or better @ settings of Medium to High or better.

Exceptions to above statement - higher end and/or poorly optimized games such as AC: Odyssey, GR: Breakpoint, A Plague's Tale: Innocence, Metro Exodus are often in 40-60fps range.

Heat - Anywhere up to 85 degrees mostly. Games like MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries can get in the 85 degree range for me.

Other stuff - I use an app called ThrottleStop for Intel stuff to under-volt CPU when need be; and also use MSI Afterburner to monitor the system & game performance.

Pretty much everything has been said on here but I'll offer my two cents as well:

While gaming laptops and even high-end regular laptops may be able to suffice as a temporary gaming solution, I'd recommend not migrating to a laptop as your primary platform. Ideally, having a decent laptop in addition to a solid gaming rig would be the best option.

For me, I have my rig (though it hasn't been performing real well lately and I'm a tad worried given its age) and I have a laptop that, at the time, was a $1k laptop. Nowadays, its performance has massively deteriorated to the point where even Morrowind and Oblivion have lower framerates than they should. However, it still suffices for on-the-go entertainment or a temporary solution in the rare case where I have to wait for a certain replacement part to arrive for my rig.

Now, mind you, until 2013, I did all of my gaming on my very first laptop (well, first one that I purchased myself), a Toshiba Satellite that I got around 2010. It barely ran anything but it taught me that having constant 60 FPS is more of a luxury than a necessity if you're serious about enjoying games. Fortunately, my rig still runs most modern games on high or ultra pretty well, but still, that won't last forever with the rapid march of PC tech.

So basically, to summarize, you can certainly do well with a laptop if you want a temporary solution or on-the-go entertainment but to this day, using a specialized gaming PC is the best option for PC gaming. It will, almost certainly, remain so forever. If you have the money to get a decent laptop in addition to your current rig (and upgrade parts, if need be), go for it, but you'll get far more gaming value for your money if you just invest in at least a mid-range gaming PC, as demonstrated in this video. At the end of the day, it's entirely your decision and if you'd prefer a laptop over a stationary PC, that's up to you. However, you will definitely get greater value and performance out of a dedicated gaming rig if nothing else, by virtue of the fact that PCs tend to last longer than regularly-used laptops.

Hello Matewis,

It is funny that you mentioned it. I am using a laptop for both work and entertainment and sincc we have generally speaking quite high ambient temperatures throughout the whole year, mine is permanently resting on a powered cooling pad (base), connetcted with external input devices, and when not in use always covered with a cloth that I am fold to protect the laptop's screen, as well.
I do not know, but I prefer to keep it in a really good condition, but people told I am overly cautious about it...

And regarding the opening post, I agree with you, Matewis, gaming on a laptop is absolutely doable. You just need to set your priorities straight.

Kind regards,
foxgog

[Edit:]

P.S.: After reading some of the other responses, I would like to add a little bit of my own reasons and experiences:

First, I switched from a desktop computer to laptop because of mobility, since my job did depend on a huge amount of travels and usually by airplane!
Second, if you are not necessarily in need of super high-end graphics laptops can be reasonable option not only because of mobility but even more so because of their compact size and considerable lower power consumption!

And last, upgrade options are limited, that is true. But my experience with a desktop computer was, that by the time I really wanted or actually needed to upgrade, the whole infrastructure (or operating systems) had changed so much that I basically had to buy a new computer anyway -- just like with the upgrade to a newer laptop. And by that time I had already my worth out of the laptop's investment prize. Speaking of prize, it was in my case significantly lower than of my former desktop almost two decades ago.
Regarding long-livety of laptops, I used my last one for almost 15 years, more than any of my desktop computers in the past!

Like others said before, contemplate on your requirements and target applications to separate needs from things nice-to-have and procure a matching solution.
After my experience with my last laptop, I moved away from my former hard-requirements of the availability of an internal DVD-drive and of a dedicated graphics card in a laptop, making my current laptop both slimmer/lighter and still more potent than all former devices I had used or worked on.

Kind regards,
foxgog

My external devices include a monitor and keyboard, so the cloth is there even when in use. It's mostly for dust, because it's incredibly dusty over here and I fear the heat sinks clogging up with the dust followed by the laptop overheating. Which is what happened to my previous laptop :P