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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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I think where the issue lies is when people buy a gaming laptop, but then they use it like a desktop and complain about the drawbacks. They have it plugged in all the time. It's sitting on a desk and it never moves from that location. If you bought a system and you never actually utilize it's strengths, it's like if I buy a full desktop PC setup to lug around and play in a coffee shop. That doesn't make much sense. (Although I bet someone out there has done it.)
I think the rest is just people who lack theory of mind. They think that the only valid situation is their own, and they don't understand that other people might have different needs or think differently than they do. If this kind of person does all their gaming on a desktop PC, they only see the drawbacks of a laptop and don't understand why someone else might be using it for it's strengths. It's like when I see people who complain about the Steam Deck or other PC gaming handhelds. All they see is low power, small screen, lower resolution than their desktop, and they don't understand that someone might want it to play it on the bus. It's not a need they personally have, so they can't wrap their head around the idea that someone else might have that need.
but if you need portability and need to play games locally they can do the job
if you have fast internet, and capable host pc with upload 30-50+mb/s you can stream/remote play to a crapbook at a fraction of the cost
The main problem with gaming notebooks is cost, heating and the fact that they don't age aswell compare to proper gaming desktops considering the price.
That was exactly the driving factor behind my choice of laptop. Powerful monster of a desktop at home, low-powered ThinkPad with no dedicated GPU for lugging around. I don't need the laptop to play games. I need it to do work. A gaming laptop would be bigger, heavier, and have worse battery life.
Then I got a Steam Deck to fill the gaps. A little gaming while sitting on the couch, before bed, during downtime at work. It doesn't matter to me that it struggles on the latest, most demanding AAA titles, because I'll prefer to play those on my desktop anyway. The Deck is for finally playing through those JRPGs I've had sitting in my library for the past 8 years. If I really want to play a demanding game on it, I'll just stream it from my desktop.
Really what makes a machine "good" depends on the person. For some the only metric that matters is performance. For others, portability or battery life are valuable to them. Someone might look at my ThinkPad and say it's "bad" because it can barely maintain 50 fps on Doom 2016 at 720p, medium settings, but I'm not using it for that. I'm on the Internet, making spreadsheets and text documents and doing pixel art. I'm reviewing a Trello board in my living room from the couch while it sits on the coffee table next to a cup of coffee. For that, it's more than sufficient.
However, a Laptop GPU will have less performance than the desktop version of that same GPU, and you will pay way more for comparatively less performance.
So what it really comes down to is:
"Is the benefit of portability worth the decrease in performance and the increase in price for you?"
but when its plugged in? jeez i'm suprised a 4060 laptop outperforms my 3060 desktop so well
(and also 3 month gamepass ultimate)
They are very expensive for the performance you get.
5090 based laptops cost over $4000 but offer about 50% of the desktop 5090 performance. Closer to desktop 5070 pc build worth $1500.
But you will get some level of portability and amazing energy efficiency.
I would love to have one if money was not a factor. I would prefer a 5090 based laptop over a steam deck. But money is a factor for me so I prefer a cheaper, faster and with a huge screen desktop PC with multiple nvme + ssd drives. Something that I can also upgrade instead of replacing.
There are instances where a gaming laptop might not be the best choice in all possible measurements. But are we talking laptops or golden hammers?
Great, so what's the downside? There are quite few ones.
Laptop GPUs are generally more expensive cards than desktop GPUs of the same series. And even though that's the case, they will never be as performant as the desktop version of the same series. Not only is there a higher chance of overheating (and throttling) due to limited space, they also perform worse because of the difference in architecture.
These powerful components can create a lot of weight and, depending on how you plan to use the device, can hurt portability. Portability is further hurt by the fact that you may have to carry external keyboard and mouse, in order to properly game outside the home.
Due to prioritizing performance above power efficiency, many gaming laptops have almost embarrassing battery life. Expect to get anywhere from as high as 3 to as low as 1 hour of battery life when fully charged.
Because overheating is a common problem (limited space, limited airflow) you may have to take actions to reduce throttling. In practice, this means buying accessories like cooling pads. So not only are you spending more and getting worse performance than desktop version of the build, you may have to spend even more to improve performance.
From the same price range, you can get a very thin and lightweight laptops that have up to 20 hours of battery life.