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Laptop Replacement/Suggestions Thread: Bring out yer dead laptops!

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Posts

  • IoloIolo iolo Registered User regular
    edited March 2021
    Brody wrote: »
    If I'm looking for a laptop that can be used for gaming but doesn't look like a spaceship, would people have suggestions?

    I doubt I'm going to playing anything too crazy, maybe MHW, but I have a desktop for more strenuous tasks. Mostly just looking for something my wife can use for stuff that can't be done on a phone/a way for me to chill and play PoE or w/e in the living room.

    Thinking somewhere between 1,000~1,200 USD.

    I have a Lenovo Legion, which is pretty understated. I'm quite happy with its performance (although I use it almost exclusively plugged in so I can't speak to battery life.)

    I confirmed before buying that the keyboard red under lighting could be turned off. But I didn't understand from online pictures that the keys have a thin red highlight on their sides. It looks nice, but it is a little racy if your flavor of "not a spaceship" included passing at a glance for a work/production laptop.

    Iolo on
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  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    I guess at this point I'm considering the Legion 5, a Zephyrus g14, or the Omen 15. I think the Zephyrus might win, even though it seems throttled by heat more, but its battery seems to last longer, which might be nice.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    @V1m
    Check MSI's offerings and maybe Lenovo. I know you looked at Thinkpads but other Lenovo options may work better. You'll have to research display quality.

    Is there a chance he could get a laptop with an okay screen and you help him pick out a quality monitor to plug into it?

  • The_SpaniardThe_Spaniard It's never lupines Irvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    This new laptop seems to be getting really well reviewed as the current standout in gaming laptops: https://www.pcgamer.com/asus-rog-strix-scar-17-review/
    Does anybody know if the display supports HDR?

    A few years back I told myself I wouldn't replace my now 8 year old gaming laptop until I could get one that can comfortably handle any RTX and VR games I'd throw at it. This one seems to be checking all the boxes, but HDR has been such a game changer on my desktop that I don't want to get a laptop that doesn't also support it.

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  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Mugsley wrote: »
    @V1m
    Check MSI's offerings and maybe Lenovo. I know you looked at Thinkpads but other Lenovo options may work better. You'll have to research display quality.

    Is there a chance he could get a laptop with an okay screen and you help him pick out a quality monitor to plug into it?

    I'm actually also considering a mini pc like the Asus PN50 as a possible alternative to an actual laptop. He said a laptop because he wants to be able to put it away, not because he's going to move it around.

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    This new laptop seems to be getting really well reviewed as the current standout in gaming laptops: https://www.pcgamer.com/asus-rog-strix-scar-17-review/
    Does anybody know if the display supports HDR?

    A few years back I told myself I wouldn't replace my now 8 year old gaming laptop until I could get one that can comfortably handle any RTX and VR games I'd throw at it. This one seems to be checking all the boxes, but HDR has been such a game changer on my desktop that I don't want to get a laptop that doesn't also support it.

    Holy want, Batman.

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    Mugsley wrote: »
    @V1m
    Check MSI's offerings and maybe Lenovo. I know you looked at Thinkpads but other Lenovo options may work better. You'll have to research display quality.

    Is there a chance he could get a laptop with an okay screen and you help him pick out a quality monitor to plug into it?

    I'm actually also considering a mini pc like the Asus PN50 as a possible alternative to an actual laptop. He said a laptop because he wants to be able to put it away, not because he's going to move it around.

    As much as it pains me to recommend HP, we use their Elitedesk/Prodesk mini PCs at work in a few application instances. Granted those are on a standalone network so they have much less overhead to care about.

    They do use laptop memory and either M.2 drives or just SATA drives, but that could be an option. You could use some velcro tape to attach it to the back of a monitor to keep things compact. You'd be stuck with integrated graphics, so it may not be a true option.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Yeah a miniPC of some flavour would certainly score higher on the "user servicable parts" front, and somewhat lower on the "easy to put away" score. I'll run the idea past him next time I call him.

    As far as graphics are concerned, I'm fairly confident that the old man is not worried about getting dank frags with his new rig. Granted, people can surprise you even after all these years, but I feel like the Vega 7/8 on a Zen2 would be ample for Solitaire and TV decoding? Or is that something they're particularly inefficient at?

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    I haven't heard anything bad about their performance, but I haven't done much digging

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    edited March 2021
    It further occurs to me that if his main usecase is to be able to watch TV when his dish gets blown out of alignment again then a miniPC that can output directly to his 42" TV would beat the heck out of a 15"+ laptop screen.

    It's a decent HD LED TV so he can use it as a monitor well enough for the odd occasion he wants to actually use it as a PC eg: order stuff from amazon or whatever. A wireless keyboard that he can use from the armchair would be fine. I'll run it past him, but I think we've got a winner.

    EDIT: I'm thinking a 256Gb NVME and 2x 8Gb DDR3200 would be enough that said miniPC will be able to easily cope with whatever is wanted of it until it or my dad is EOL.

    V1m on
  • Ear3nd1lEar3nd1l Eärendil the Mariner, father of Elrond Registered User regular
    I just ordered this from Costco for my daughter. It seemed like a good deal. What do you guys think?

    https://www.costco.com/lenovo-flex-5-14"-2-in-1-touchscreen-laptop---amd-ryzen-7-4700u---1080p.product.100579313.html

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    When should I start worrying about temperature/fan speed in a laptop? It should automatically control it's heat/fan speed to stay within safe tolerances, right?

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    When should I start worrying about temperature/fan speed in a laptop? It should automatically control it's heat/fan speed to stay within safe tolerances, right?

    Yes. You basically shouldn’t have to worry about it. windows and the bios won’t let the CPU get to the point where it’ll be damaged. Laptops will run hot under load because of the limited thermal envelope but that’s by design.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • HereticAstartesHereticAstartes Registered User regular
    Just ordered a new laptop. An HP Omen 15z, 5800H & 3060. Should be a suitable desktop replacement!

  • ZavianZavian universal peace sounds better than forever war Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    finally got my new laptop! MSI GS75 Stealth-1074 17.3" 144Hz 3ms Ultra Thin and Light Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-9750H RTX2080 32GB 1TB NVMe Thunderbolt 3 Win10.
    618qmQfuKuL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

    I haven't had a decent GPU in years, so even though this is the Max Q 2080 it's still a MASSIVE upgrade for me. MSI makes a really nice laptop, I love the per key RGB lighting, though I plan to mainly use a wireless keyboard and mouse to keep my grimy fingers off it. I also got a USB powered cooling fan base for it which hopefully will at least help a bit with cooling. I'm planning on hooking it up to external monitors and just keeping it on the cooling base while using

    Zavian on
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    @Zavian I think Kyle at Bitwit did a review on this or a similar MSI laptop about 2 yrs ago. The Thunderbolt port is fantastic for monitors, so spend some money on a decent cable.

  • Lucid_SeraphLucid_Seraph TealDeer MarylandRegistered User regular
    Hey! So I had at one point an incredibly jank-ass HP that used to be someone's work laptop -- I replaced the hard drive and that was basically it. And then the screen broke.

    I am looking for suggestions!

    Now... I am considering getting some sort of laptop that can do Gaming Stuff, because once I'm fully vaccinated I plan on going on a road trip, and while I have a work laptop for one of my jobs, I would also like to have a portable computer that is a) mine and mine alone to do stuff on and b) on which I can Game.

    Said laptop doesn't need to be like, huge, chonky, or impressive; my minimum requirements are basically "Can run Warframe at like medium settings without overheating too much or being slow." Because if I'm traveling, I'm not doing a *ton* of gaming, but I like to have at least a few things to keep me occupied, if that makes sense!

    Budget: I'd like to go for less than $800. Basically blowing my stimulus check on this. I could probably do like $850 or $875 but not more than that. I would also like minimum fuss out of the box; I already built my own desktop PC and installed everything on it myself, if I want something I'm going traveling with I want it to be far less fuss.

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  • MulletudeMulletude Registered User regular
    My wife is a graphic designer and does side projects at home. She's currently using an 11 year old macbook pro.

    She really wants a new pro. We can swing it but they are $$

    She doesn't play games at all so it would purely be for work. It needs to be a laptop because due to some degenerative health issues she can't sit at her desk for long and it's easier for her to sit in bed with it.

    Any brands that are best known for reliability and durability?

    Just trying to pare down the list of things to be looking through. Want some alternatives to show her.

    She'd mainly be using Adobe Creative Cloud

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  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    MSI
    Lenovo
    Asus depending on model
    HP Omen maybe

  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    Zavian wrote: »
    finally got my new laptop! MSI GS75 Stealth-1074 17.3" 144Hz 3ms Ultra Thin and Light Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-9750H RTX2080 32GB 1TB NVMe Thunderbolt 3 Win10.
    618qmQfuKuL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

    I haven't had a decent GPU in years, so even though this is the Max Q 2080 it's still a MASSIVE upgrade for me. MSI makes a really nice laptop, I love the per key RGB lighting, though I plan to mainly use a wireless keyboard and mouse to keep my grimy fingers off it. I also got a USB powered cooling fan base for it which hopefully will at least help a bit with cooling. I'm planning on hooking it up to external monitors and just keeping it on the cooling base while using

    Hi five laptop sibling. I've got the same kind and it's a real banger. Check out that Dragon Center app which throttles your performance and fans depending on that you are doing. Also check out the battery manager to prolong life.

    I'm usually like five years behind PC gaming and that rig runs everything I've bought in steam sales really well.

    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • FremFrem Registered User regular
    edited July 2021
    There's some travel-intensive life changes in my near future, so I'm in the market for a non-massive laptop to use as my main personal machine for a few years. Getting it repaired while traveling would probably be a pain, so it'd be nice if the machine had a reputation for reliability.
    • Razer's machines get rad reviews, but apparently have huge issues with heat, swollen batteries, etc, etc.
    • The Asus Zephyrus G14 also looks rad, but the drivers are a trash fire, it has electrical issues with USB-C, and it runs really hot. Heat seems to be a huge issue with gaming laptops in general.
    • I use a MacBook Pro M1 at work and I love it and it's great... for everything but games. Native games run amazingly! There are almost no native games! If Monster Hunter and Overwatch suddenly start working really well in Parallels or CrossOver, I might consider this.
    • The Steam Deck looks like it might effectively set a baseline minimum system requirements for AAA games. If I want to run games at 720p roughly as well as that thing, what sort of laptops am I looking at?

    Frem on
  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Frem wrote: »
    There's some travel-intensive life changes in my near future, so I'm in the market for a non-massive laptop to use as my main personal machine for a few years. Getting it repaired while traveling would probably be a pain, so it'd be nice if the machine had a reputation for reliability.
    • Razer's machines get rad reviews, but apparently have huge issues with heat, swollen batteries, etc, etc.
    • The Asus Zephyrus G14 also looks rad, but the drivers are a trash fire, it has electrical issues with USB-C, and it runs really hot. Heat seems to be a huge issue with gaming laptops in general.
    • I use a MacBook Pro M1 at work and I love it and it's great... for everything but games. Native games run amazingly! There are almost no native games! If Monster Hunter and Overwatch suddenly start working really well in Parallels or CrossOver, I might consider this.
    • The Steam Deck looks like it might effectively set a baseline minimum system requirements for AAA games. If I want to run games at 720p roughly as well as that thing, what sort of laptops am I looking at?

    Asus Zephyrus laptops have electric and heat issues? That is new to me. My household has two Zephyrus 3070 machines and they are both fine.

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    We don't exactly know what the Steam Deck's GPU capabilities are, aside from it being some unspecified cut down RDNA2 GPU. Razer laptops with GPU's and the Zepheryus G14 will both outperform it by a wide margin.

    Be wary about seeing people talk about unreliability on the internet. You're only going to hear stories from people who have had problems, while the scores of people buying laptops with no issues just go about their day not talking about how good their laptops are.

    The advice here will generally be the same as it always is. Set a budget, set a target for the type of machine you want (be the primary thing screen size, weight, etc). Then buy the best one you can find under those parameters.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • Zilla360Zilla360 21st Century. |She/Her| Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered User regular
    Got a new Lenovo this afternoon. Only tested it with Shadertoy so far, going to do Unigine in a bit:

    |Ko-Fi Me! ☕😎|NH844lc.png | PSN | chi-logo-only-favicon.png(C.H.I) Ltd. |🏳️⚧️♥️
  • Zilla360Zilla360 21st Century. |She/Her| Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered User regular
  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    Frem wrote: »
    There's some travel-intensive life changes in my near future, so I'm in the market for a non-massive laptop to use as my main personal machine for a few years. Getting it repaired while traveling would probably be a pain, so it'd be nice if the machine had a reputation for reliability.
    • Razer's machines get rad reviews, but apparently have huge issues with heat, swollen batteries, etc, etc.
    • The Asus Zephyrus G14 also looks rad, but the drivers are a trash fire, it has electrical issues with USB-C, and it runs really hot. Heat seems to be a huge issue with gaming laptops in general.
    • I use a MacBook Pro M1 at work and I love it and it's great... for everything but games. Native games run amazingly! There are almost no native games! If Monster Hunter and Overwatch suddenly start working really well in Parallels or CrossOver, I might consider this.
    • The Steam Deck looks like it might effectively set a baseline minimum system requirements for AAA games. If I want to run games at 720p roughly as well as that thing, what sort of laptops am I looking at?

    I'm going to shill for MSI here and suggest you take a look at their "Stealth" line. They're powerful and incredibly light. It gets warm while gaming...but so does every laptop with that capability?

    It's got a real nice suite of controls that lets you throttle performance based on what you need to do. So like, silent for just web browsing or work or full speed ahead for gaming (you'll need headphones).

    I got mine from xoticPC and I was very happy with their service.

    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • Zilla360Zilla360 21st Century. |She/Her| Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered User regular
    I love the screen on this thing. I've never had any kind of 120Hz display before. So crispy! :)
    ko266f0n2kua.jpg
    [Insert obligatory Matrix-y screensaver here...]

    |Ko-Fi Me! ☕😎|NH844lc.png | PSN | chi-logo-only-favicon.png(C.H.I) Ltd. |🏳️⚧️♥️
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited July 2021
    yeah it's unfortunately impossible to build a gaming laptop that does not get pretty hot to the touch under load in the areas where the CPU, GPU and heat spreading pipes are inside. Some get a bit more hot, some get less, but they all get hot.

    BahamutZERO on
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  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    But it's a good thing in the winter, baby!

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    Is there any reason to think that this won't work in a non-Apple machine? I bought a 512GB "SD" Card that is actually a MicroSD with an SD card adapter to use as a media drive for my laptop. (Laptop only has non-upgradable 500GB NVME hard drive) But it sticks out annoyingly far and is vulnerable to falling out and immediately camouflaging almost perfectly on the various patterned rugs I have about the place.

    On a related note, why even have SD slots now? Lenovo could easily have fitted two MicroSD slots in the same space, dambit! It's quite hard to even find an actual SD card now; they're almost all microSDs, which are small, plus an adapter, to make them big.

    V1m on
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Does it have a eMMC instead of a formal hard drive? I haven't heard of a non-upgradable NVME.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Apparently it's soldered in or something, IDK? Maybe it is upgradable, but frankly I don't care to void the warranty on a 2 week old laptop to find out.

    Anyway, there's no need to waste NVME space on audiobooks, music and films 500GB of NVME is fine for OS, apps and games on a thin and light.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    Update: that Low Profile adapter works fine. Still sticks out a bout but only about 1/3 or 1/4 as far, so good enough for what I need. Hopefully no more £50 SD card lemminging onto the patterned rug and taking ten frantic minutes to find.

    V1m on
  • Trajan45Trajan45 Registered User regular
    My wife's laptop is starting to go. It's a Sager machine I got for her back in 2014, which was pretty reasonable at the time. For $1,200 it had a 860M GPU. Today I'd assume that's sort of like a 3060.

    Looking at new laptops is kind of a pain. She likes the 17.3 models since this is more of a mobile desktop than laptop (she has a small portable model for work). Trying to navigate models with features is really a PITA. Feels like things you need to look for have at least doubled in the last 7 years.

    1) Display
    2) Keyboard
    3) Cooling/Power
    4) GPU
    5) MUX switch
    6) Web cam switch
    7) Cost

    And I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. It seems you can't really find one with everything want. Just the display can be challenging.

    Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Did Sager make a refresh of her model?

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Trajan45 wrote: »
    My wife's laptop is starting to go. It's a Sager machine I got for her back in 2014, which was pretty reasonable at the time. For $1,200 it had a 860M GPU. Today I'd assume that's sort of like a 3060.

    Looking at new laptops is kind of a pain. She likes the 17.3 models since this is more of a mobile desktop than laptop (she has a small portable model for work). Trying to navigate models with features is really a PITA. Feels like things you need to look for have at least doubled in the last 7 years.

    1) Display
    2) Keyboard
    3) Cooling/Power
    4) GPU
    5) MUX switch
    6) Web cam switch
    7) Cost

    And I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. It seems you can't really find one with everything want. Just the display can be challenging.

    Is she playing games where fps are a factor? Even a 3060M is quite a heck of a lot more GPU than that, but they also dissipate a lot more heat and heat means whooshing.

  • Trajan45Trajan45 Registered User regular
    edited January 2022
    I know they have some models out there, though the quality doesn't seem to be the same. The closest small brand model that seems interesting is the Eluktronics Prometheus XVI. Though there are some rough patches mentioned online.

    Right now I'm looking at either an Alienware X17 refurbed or the Lenovo Legion 7. The Legion would be perfect in a 17.3, so it might take some convincing of my SO that the taller screen is pretty close. The Legion 5 comes with a 17.3 but is more plastic and seems like it may be discontinued as it's not mentioned with the other Lenovo 2022 updates.

    While I think a 3060 would be fine for her, I'm leaning towards a 3070 for a bit more power since ideally she'll be running in "quiet" or "balanced" mode 99% of the time. From what I saw in multiple reviews, that should still get her 60 FPS in most modern games with high settings and isn't 50db+ of fan whining. 3080 seems like too much overkill and some models like the X17 then need super large power bricks.

    I might just wait here if I can a couple months. While she doesn't do any CPU intensive stuff, the new Intel "big small' design might have some improvements on battery life. But then I suppose you're paying a premium since all the models are new and a 3070 might be overkill.

    EDIT: Also the Max-Q stuff makes things fun. A 3060 non-maxq can beat a 3070 maxq version.

    Trajan45 on
    Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
  • DrovekDrovek Registered User regular
    Trajan45 wrote: »
    I know they have some models out there, though the quality doesn't seem to be the same. The closest small brand model that seems interesting is the Eluktronics Prometheus XVI. Though there are some rough patches mentioned online.

    Right now I'm looking at either an Alienware X17 refurbed or the Lenovo Legion 7. The Legion would be perfect in a 17.3, so it might take some convincing of my SO that the taller screen is pretty close. The Legion 5 comes with a 17.3 but is more plastic and seems like it may be discontinued as it's not mentioned with the other Lenovo 2022 updates.

    While I think a 3060 would be fine for her, I'm leaning towards a 3070 for a bit more power since ideally she'll be running in "quiet" or "balanced" mode 99% of the time. From what I saw in multiple reviews, that should still get her 60 FPS in most modern games with high settings and isn't 50db+ of fan whining. 3080 seems like too much overkill and some models like the X17 then need super large power bricks.

    I might just wait here if I can a couple months. While she doesn't do any CPU intensive stuff, the new Intel "big small' design might have some improvements on battery life. But then I suppose you're paying a premium since all the models are new and a 3070 might be overkill.

    EDIT: Also the Max-Q stuff makes things fun. A 3060 non-maxq can beat a 3070 maxq version.

    You'd want to run these on balanced most of the time anyways, otherwise you're going to be bouncing off the thermal and/or power limit often and you'll get overall less performance.

    The one thing I can recommend is to get one with a CPU that can be undervolted/underclocked (so not an i5). It's the one thing missing on my new laptop that I miss from my old i7.

    steam_sig.png( < . . .
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    On that note, I am most pleased with the way that the Ryzen 5600U handles on my new precious. 15W max goes a long way these days.

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