I swore of Lenovo after they admitted recently they are literally locking CPU's that are put in the pcs to currently just other Lenovo pcs via some bios software thing.. So I don't think even the labtops are worth having after that Crude they started doing purely for how massively Anti consumer that is .. I mean sure labtops thats done on isn't such a big deal if they ever do it but I never support companies that do that BS in terms of hardware if I can avoid it

Some people are playing games on even smaller screens, e.g. Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck have 7 inch screens.

Naturally certain types of games become harder to play (e.g. grand strategy games with thousands on small units on the screen etc.), but on the flipside such laptops can be easily connected to e.g. any TV and play with a bigger screen that way. Like if you took your laptop with you to your summer cottage or a hotel room, you can most probably connect it to the TV and play there. Sweet! I've done that both with my 42" and 65" TVs.

I think a 15 or 16 inch laptop is a good compromise, in case you want to move it also outside your home often.

My earlier gaming laptop (ASUS G75VW) was a 17" laptop, and it was so big that I had hard time finding a laptop bag big enough to fit it (it was bigger and thicker than many other 17" "normal" laptops as it had an extra "wing" at the back of the laptop, for extra cooling). Plus, it was indeed very heavy, but that wasn't that much of a problem when carrying it in a bag...

My current gaming laptop is Lenovo Legion 7 with a 16" screen, and I feel it is just right. The screen is big enough to play comfortably on it, and it is still "small" enough that I could easily see myself using it also as my work laptop, moving it every day between my home and my workplace.

I don't even understand what that means. Locking in what way? What are they preventing me or you from doing?

If this is somehow related to swapping the CPU in and out, I guess that is irrelevant for laptops. Maybe it means something with desktop PCs, even though I have never, in my 30 years of using PCs, swapped a CPU even on my desktop PCs. If the PC has become so old that I'd like to swap the CPU, it has been time to replace the whole PC with a newer PC.

Wow, is that really a thing? Link please?

Do Chromebooks have proper mass storage (ie. SSD), or do they use some 64-128GB SD cards like some of those cheapest Windows laptops around, which also cost under 200€ or so?

What CPU do they tend to have? I presume you can't run e.g. Windows games on them, using WINE in Linux? Or do they really have x86 compatible CPUs? (After all, the guy was asking about running GOG games on the device...)

If there are not too many buts, I might actually try that, for a cheapo Linux PC... Not too interested in running ChromeOS, no privacy nor control I guess.

14 inch laptop for gaming? Wish I could help, but I wouldn't recommend playing on a laptop. Get a steamdeck if you want to go that route.

If he plans to use on-board video, he won't be playing a whole lot, will he?

especially not on that small screen

Newegg Refurbished Chromebooks

Lowest i tend to see is $49, and as high as $200.

Most chromebooks will have 8Gb-16Gb SSD internal storage, which is basically a thumbdrive. Most that i see have an SD slot, which i'm using a 64Gb sized decently priced for media and other storage.

From what i'm seeing, most of them are x86 compatible 64bit processors, though your mileage will vary. It will probably be dual core 2.6 Ghz machine, and 4Gb ram.

I've gotten it to boot with a Win7 USB stick, but it wouldn't recognize the USB ports to put a keyboard/mouse on. (Same problem with my newer machine). Linux boots just fine once you get the BIOS replaced (or do the legacy boot allowing a temporary Bios). I'm finding Slax (recompress to lzo) and Linux Mint both work VERY well on the system.

Installing WINE will work, as i have a couple Win-only apps i run. The bigger problem is accessing the BIOS to change settings like virtualization, which I've had bad luck with so can't run Virtualbox or other VM types. (I might put back on the stock BIOS and see if i can't make changes in the BIOS before changing it out again, but it's such a pain)

I don't trust ChromeOS either, plus unless they put the apk/android support you're stuck only with the browser and default extensions. You can actually install Crouton which is a Ubuntu installer that adds a full linux OS on top of ChromeOS, but you need to manually activate it. Still there's no risk to bricking your system. You just gotta remember certain key commands to access it, and be in developer mode.

But i wholeheartedly agree, it's much better than the OLPC project which they pushed back 10 years ago, as a basic system it's more than sufficient, as it's basically just a cheaply made laptop.

Some downsides might be getting the sound to work, and i've had the sound stutter if you do something wrong until you restart the app. And there's no internal clock BIOS battery, so when it boots up you'll probably have the wrong date/time at startup (Though in mint it syncs the time so that goes away quickly). And as mentioned the VM thing.

Upsides, you'll get about 4-6 hours of battery life on a charge. Compare that to 2 hours i remember getting on other full featured laptops.

Heres afew easy to find articles https://wccftech.com/lenovo-vendor-locking-ryzen-based-systems-through-amd-platform-secure-boot-in-the-client-pc-segment/ https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-vendor-locking-ryzen-based-systems-with-amd-psb/
Edit though thats not the main ones on the bios factor but its 2 other factors of Lenovo doing similar

Hi everyone,

I just want to play Empire Earth, Age of Empires 2, Knight's and Merchant's and Caesar III on GOG. But I need a new laptop because my old one died. Which laptop do you recommend? I prefer a laptop with a HDMI-portal as I used to link my laptop to my monitor, keyboard and Pioneer boxes.

I thank you guys in advance!

All the best,
Umut

What's your proposed budget look like for this laptop? Pretty much any laptop with half-decent iGPU should have no problems with any of those; anything recent really. HDMI output seems to be a bog-standard feature these days - I can't remember the last time I've seen a (non-Apple) laptop without one.

P.S. Age of Empires 2 is not on GOG.

Any fairly priced laptop today can play any gog games.
professional gaming laptop is the best without to worry about performance.
pctechtest.com/14-best-gaming-laptops

Unless you can get with/put Windows 7 on it, or the games work on Linux, i'm not sure i'd recommend any laptop. The big tech Microsoft and Apple are both pretty anti-consumer, and changes in terms of services regarding to your data on their computers...

But if you do, i don' t suggest anything costing more than $500; Unless you think you could actually use the laptop for more power.

Old thread... but when I clicked on it I saw an low rating post
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/what_14_inch_laptop_to_buy_to_play_gog_games/post22

And thought "Oh no we didn't bring that back did we?"
Glad we didn't because of that whole "I don't like your opinions I will down vote you into oblivion" and stuff.


In terms of laptop it depends on what you want to play, most old games can be played with any new standard laptop but if you want to run new AAA games like Horizon Zero Dawn you likely will need a more powerful system, like an entry level gaming laptop.