Do People Underestimate Laptops?

[Sean951]

I got my laptop in 2009 and paid a bit extra for an nVidia card. So far, it isn't thrilled with Skyrim or Shogun (min settings max unit size. I like big armies) but it has taken a beating and I take it with me pretty much everywhere. School, friends apartment, vacation. No way I could do all that with a desktop.

That said, I want desktop, I just don't have the money to spend on one if I want to get a new laptop (I do).

 

[Twilight_guy]

No, they overvalue tablets and phones, but that's a different issue.

Anyways, the main advantage of a laptop is potability. Most gamers don't need portability when gaming (usually) so this core advantage becomes moot. As a result, people don't tend to value gaming laptops as much. Does that mean that they are undervalued? I dunno, I tend to think that their perceived value does reflect their usefulness correctly, but I'm no expert on anything.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

It has lasted me three years, and it has been able to play any game apart from The Witcher 2 at acceptable levels.

[...]

Everything ran off a 512MB 4300 series ATI card.

If that's what you consider(ed) acceptable, more power to you. It served your needs well, and that's what counts. It was your computer, after all, and you were the one using it. I personally would not have been happy with something like that, but that's why I bought something else that met my needs instead. Hooray for having different options available. Yay.

Gaming on a budget, you have to make concessions.

I'm unemployed, so I'm also on a budget. I'm a programmer though, so I already need a decent computer of some sort for doing work, then throw in an affordable video card (my current one is a 6850 I got for $80; everything else in there is stuff I would need anyway). I save a bunch by waiting a while to buy games when they've been reduced in price and then also are on sale on top of that, so between sales and bundles, the average price I've paid per game in the past couple years is a little bit under $5 (but I do pay for all of them), despite the occasional exception in the $10-20 range.

Again, different people, different needs, different budgets. I wasn't criticizing you or anything but rather the exact opposite. You found something that worked for you, and that's great. I got mine around the same time (other than a new video card this year; my girlfriend gets the old one), and what you got wouldn't've worked for me, but it's nice having choices. It's something I like over consoles and why I've moved away from them. The same laptop you use for school also lets you play your games. The same computer I use for work is also a pretty nice gaming computer for less than an extra hundred bucks. Not a bad deal for either of us.

 

[smithy_2045]

It's not a matter of laptops can't play games, it's that you have to pay a massive premium for portability. A comparable desktop is considerably cheaper.