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Ask HN: Advice for a Gaming Laptop

2 points by laserstrahl ↗ HN
Hi all!

Can you help me choosing a gaming laptop?

First of all I dont know buying new or used. Since I don't know which is "a good deal"

I heard some have nice mechanical keyboards. Like the XMG NEO (too expensive for my use) I found a Razer on Ebay which keys are not functioning anymore. I wanted to replace the keyboard but dunno if that's a mo-bo issue.

Budget will be 1k. Is there a site to get a laptop custom build?

I don't need a good graphics card. Maybe a good AMD CPU.

Good if I can repair it easily but I guess that won't work out?

Thanks for sugggestions.

3 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] thread
solardev
> I don't need a good graphics card.

Wait, then why are you looking for a gaming laptop? It's usually the GPU that separates them from regular laptops. What do you want in a "gaming" laptop if not the GPU? What are you going to be doing with it?

If you don't a need a dedicated GPU, small-biz laptops (Thinkpads, Latitudes, etc.) are similarly capable, usually more durable & repairable, and often have better keyboards. The screen is the one part that's sometimes different (some of them have low-res screens, but you can usually upgrade to a nicer OLED or such if you buy them new). Macbooks have OK keyboards too (not great, but better than a lot of the budget PC laptops).

If you only want to game occasionally, I'd just buy a used one of those business laptops and then subscribe to GeForce Now for $20/mo, which gets you a desktop RTX 4080 in the cloud. Then your laptop hardware doesn't matter so much; it's basically a dumb terminal with a keyboard and a screen.

JenniferJH
Unfortunately, you didn’t describe what games you like to play. And this is important, for example, I play “immersed in reality,” like The Witcher or Silent Hill 2. That is why, first of all, I recommend paying attention to such an indicator as Screen Resolution, and if in more detail, then in this article https://mountainbikeeagle.com/unleash-ultimate-gaming-what-i... you can familiarize yourself with this topic. I care about the balance between immersive graphics and smooth gameplay without interruptions or lags.