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Post by Vandelay on Jul 12, 2022 9:14:01 GMT
Have been toying with the idea of getting a laptop recently. Normally desktop bound all the way, but was wanting to get into doing a bit more writing, mostly blogging and maybe try to do some creative writing. After a day of work at the computer, I don't often feel like sitting there to do writing, so a laptop might give me more incentive.
Obviously, it doesn't need to be particularly powerful for that and I'm still likely to use my main PC for most gaming, but having a dedicated GPU for some light gaming would be welcome, so it probably would be something labeled as for gaming.
Good battery life would be good too. Something like 5+ hours in the real world, although have no idea if that is actually realistic in a "gaming" laptop
Looking at sub-£1000. Ideally £600-800 or so, but if it goes up to £1000 for what I want than that is fine. Been looking at the Prime Day deals and seems to be a few options, but not sure what brands are going to be offering good build quality, good battery and reasonable performance. A friend very much likes his Razer laptop, but bit too pricey for what I'm looking to get.
Any recommendations from anyone?
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mrharvest
New Member
Registered 18 years ago Posts 5,718
Posts: 373
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Post by mrharvest on Jul 12, 2022 11:47:46 GMT
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Post by Vandelay on Jul 12, 2022 12:34:12 GMT
Thanks. That does look tasty, but definitely above what I would like to pay. Currently thinking this one might be possible - www.ebuyer.com/1415915-asus-tuf-gaming-f15-fx506hm-gaming-laptop-inte-core-i7-11800h-2-3ghz-16gb-fx506hm-hn004wThe looks are... a choice, but spec-wise it looks to tick the boxes. Only found a review of a slightly weaker model, but was quite positive. Battery was a downside, but the reviewed model had 48wh battery instead of this 90wh one. Edit - checked a few more reviews and all pretty positive. Only thing mentioned is the screen, but I think that is likely going to be common at this price point. Went ahead and ordered it. |
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Post by Vandelay on Jul 15, 2022 9:58:22 GMT
Just to update, received the laptop on Wednesday and so far so good. The looks are actually not as bad as I thought when looking at pictures online, although it is a bit bulkier than I was thinking it would be.
Not pushed it too much, but played a little Crusader Kings 3 and it is more than up to the job. I can't see myself playing FPS games on it and probably not much TPS when I have my desktop, so should be more than adequate for the types of things I'll be using it for.
General Windows use is nice and snappy too.
Some complaints I saw in reviews mentioned the poor display. Seems perfectly fine to me though. May not be best around, but I can't imagine people complaining about it for normal everyday use, unless you are a graphic designer (in which case, you probably aren't going to be using a laptop screen much anyway).
My only real complaint so far is the battery. I have no idea if it is normal for a gaming laptop, but using the dedicated GPU unplugged just drains it rapidly. I could probably just scrape through to an hour or so of CK3 on battery, with brightness turned down quite a bit. General desktop use seems not much better with probably about two and half hours of regular use, as an estimate. I left it idling for a while unplugged and from 80% charge it last around four hours.
Pretty certain I saw a couple of reviews mentioning being able to Netflix for 8 hours, so not sure if there is something wrong with the battery I have or if there are some settings I should adjust to get more out of it. I initially wondered if maybe I had received the smaller battery, as the times I was getting are around half what I was expecting, but the box says 90wh and a third party battery monitoring tool also says it is 90wh.
As I say, first gaming laptop, so I don't know if this is normal. Perhaps my expectations of being able to game off the battery for 3 hours were unrealistic and these things are just designed to be plugged in most of the time. Bit of a shame, but I can probably live with that.
Besides that, seems like a pretty great laptop so far.
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mrharvest
New Member
Registered 18 years ago Posts 5,718
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Post by mrharvest on Jul 15, 2022 10:36:28 GMT
Short battery life is very common in gaming laptops. 2-3 hours unplugged is not unexpected. Check out their own recommendations www.asus.com/me-en/support/FAQ/1043914/ especially about using the tool to see which applications are using a lot of battery. If you want better duration just turn off the dedicated GPU when unplugged / cap CPU speed to 80%. |
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Post by Vandelay on Jul 15, 2022 10:53:15 GMT
I've changed the Nvidia settings to favour the iGPU and I can just set it to use the GPU on a per game basis. Even plugged in, doesn't seem much point in drawing all that power if all I'm playing is some 2D pixel art game.
Will take a look at that link and see if there are some settings I'm missing.
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malek86
Junior Member
Pomegranate Deseeder
Posts: 3,247
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Post by malek86 on Dec 1, 2022 10:15:13 GMT
I'm not sure, but I think in recent games even the Steam Deck might actually better than my laptop. It's quite a bit less powerful, but also isn't hampered by a mere 8GBs of RAM.
I've played some Darktide just now, and even though I can reach a stable 30fps at 1080p with FSR (obviously, as the Ryzen 5500U and GTX 1650 should be a cut above the Steam Deck APU), it didn't feel very smooth at all.
Now I wish I had gone for the 16GB model (it wasn't available at the time), or at least for a memory upgradeable laptop. Live and learn, I guess. At least it works quite well in last-gen games, and also modern F2P ones, which tend to have lower requirements.
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