laptop advice

Hey lains. I've got a bit of a problem. I'm heading off to college this fall, and as a graduation gift, my parents have offered to help me purchase a laptop to take with me to college. Sweet deal, right? The only issue is that I also want to play video games from my Steam library, and I know I won't have room to fit my old desktop in my dorm (plus, the desktop is kind of trash to begin with). So which gaming laptops on the market right now are good enough to run mid-high level games while also serving the purpose of being an everyday laptop? I'd prefer something that runs windows, won't sound like a jet engine while performing non-gaming tasks, and isn't flashy or stupid-looking.

>>57367 pretty important to add the budget otherwise its hard for people to recommend stuff

>>57369 Sorry I don’t want to do thirty hours of work with Linux to configure it so I can play fuarrrking GTA Vice City, I guess? Also all soyjak posters can go to hell. >>57368 probably $2,000 maximum. I’m willing to splurge for something that’s gonna be reliable and last four years but since my parents are offering to help me pay for it I don’t want to be greedy or gouge them for their kindness.

Ay, 2000$ is alot. Let's try to not reach that threshold tho. I'd say that with money like this you could forget laptop and go straight to one of those compact lil computers that can still pack a punch and be silent. Laptop market is all over the place ATM and weird place to shop for me. If you really want to get a laptop, best bet will be to look at the ratings and reviews online. Look at the most demanding game on your steam library and look at what are the recommended requirements for i and then search a computer based on those specs. >>57369 Very insightful. Back to /g/ you go

>>57372 Thanks man, much appreciated.

get a 13-14 inch ultrabook with decent integrated gpu, probably something AMD. you don't want a desktop replacement at university. you also probably don't want to playing games, instead have fun with friends and get a girl friend. also proton has great support and with steam has no problems installing anything, Linux isn't much of an issue with gaming these days.

I'll copy paste my advice from another thread: Recently I had to buy a laptop for work/travel and I had a budget of $1100 which is only slightly over yours. Now granted I probably have different requirements than you as I needed a lot of horsepower for some rather unoptimized python that would be ran in various VMs, plus I wanted a machine that could do some light gaming. I always wrote gaming laptops off as a dumb overpriced meme but with the current state of hardware I said fuarrrk it and spent some time looking at various laptop benchmarks and reviews and eventually settled on one of those generic gaymer laptops that use a generic Chinese frame and such. And wow was that a good decision. >Every part except GPU is replaceable >Able to play games like half life alyx on ultra >0 throttling even when gaming for 10+ hours >15 inch laptop that easily fits in any backpack >Easily handles several Ubuntu VMs simultaneously >Subtle, not covered in gamer rgb logos >Build quality is very high, no keyboard flex >Best trackpad I've ever seen on a non apple product To be fair it's not without its downsides. This thing is certainly thicker and heavier than your average laptop, but not by that much. Also it sounds like a jet engine when under full GPU load, but I'd rather have noise and thickness than throttling or melting my hardware. I don't know if this is what you're looking for since you seem to be focused on lightweight ultrabooks, but it works perfectly for me. I have no issue taking it with me in my backpack wherever I go

>>57380 >>57367 You can probably get a laptop with a 3070 if you really want to spend your whole budget. Go into google and type in "eluktronics 3070" or "XMG 3070", find a model and look at gaming benchmarks, decide if it's worth the price, if not then replace 3070 with 3060 or 2070 in your search query

>>57367 I don't know why one of my posts got removed, but I just want to reiterate, stay away from razer, MSI, and Alienware/Dell. You asked for my specific model and it was the eluktronics mech 15 g3. Check their site or eBay for good deals. But there's other companies besides eluktronics that rebrand tongfang laptops, it will depend on your region. If you're curious, I'd also suggest looking into the Lenovo legion lineup and the HP omen lineup, but they'll typically cost you more than a rebranded tongfang

My advice to you - two systems. One for carrying around, the other for gaming that stays at home, and run syncthing or something like that to keep their files in sync. I bought a gaming laptop for college, and regretted it quite a bit. I played video games with my roommates on their consoles most of the time. Relaxing on the couch with my friends and a controller was way more fun than playing alone on a 15" screen and my awful dorm desk. The laptop wasn't as portable as I wanted it to be, nor as powerful as it needed to be to play the games I wanted to play. So I saved up money, worked, sold it, and got a macbook air that lasted me the rest of college. It couldn't play games but it was not ridiculous to carry around. Were I you, I'd prioritize getting a small, cheap netbook, and then a less expensive gaming laptop (maybe $800-1200, given your budget) you keep at your room. With a kensington cable lock of course. Having a small, light laptop with good battery that doesn't make a lot of noise (or none, if it's fanless) is truly what you're going to want. I have an Asus E210 (about $250) and I would've adored this thing in college. It's pretty low end but more than enough for note taking, light programming, and it's incredibly portable and fanless. It chokes on Windows but runs Linux (even a heavyweight like Fedora) like a champ.

>>57406 To expand upon this - with a cheap netbook you won't worry as much about the machine you carry around and use publicly getting stolen or damaged. With something like Tailscale you can set up connectivity between the machines pretty easily, no matter where you are. And with your budget you can get a nice version of both things - a decent enough "carry" system and a powerful "home" system.

Unless you're getting a bullshit degree (ie. not STEM), you really shouldn't be gaming while going to college. There's a strong correlation between gamers and their drop-out rates. College is nothing like highschool. Take a 4+ year break from gaming until you finally get your STEM degree (preferably CE or CS), it'll be worth it in the long run. The quality of your remaining life will determined by these next years, don't throw it away. Furthermore, gaming laptops rarely last 4 years, Nvidia and non-APU AMD GPUs are built like soykaf. When you've obtained your degree and start earning an income you can then splurge on gaming desktop PCs or whatever, at least if its GPU dies you can easily replace it whereas with a laptop the whole thing becomes a brick.

>>57435 I am unfortunately one of the bullshit degree guys. I think computer science is incredibly interesting, but I'm legitimately awful at math. if it wasn't for my ability to write essays, I'd be a fish out of water. Probably going to go for an English Ed degree with a phil minor, just because teachers are always in demand and it's something I could do well.

>>57458 >but I'm legitimately awful at math Like most things in life, learning and understanding math requires discipline and consistent practice, it's not innate. >Probably going to go for an English Ed degree with a phil minor, just because teachers are always in demand and it's something I could do well. You're okay with low wages and long commutes? Regardless what you choose to do, have a look at these and see if you can handle it: http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/index.html http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/index-2.html http://www.mathsisfun.com/calculus/index.html http://www.mathsisfun.com/physics/index.html https://www.khanacademy.org/math https://www.khanacademy.org/science (can skip biology) Better use of your time than wasting it on video games.

>>57458 I did the lowest tier of math possible in highschool and still passed comp sci math classes in college, just spread them around different sems so you get more time to study. Most other comp sci students aren't geniuses.

>>57539 This is a good idea, and I will probably do some variation of this throughout my college career to keep more doors open for myself. Thanks for the advice lain :) >>57460 This is also good advice. I'll try these out and quit being a lazy fuarrrk. I am okay with low wages and long commutes, personally, but you're right that I should keep options open for myslf in case that opinion changes.

I suggest you buy a libreboot thinkpad and install OpenBSD on it.

I don't have a degree and get payed a comfortable wage working in IT. Most of us are pretty good with computers. I never applied online for my job. I walked in person during a work week, spoke with my now-coworkers, and was hired the next week.