Looking to buy a Lightweight Gaming Laptop

[rsy]

Hi! So I'm looking to buy a new high performance gaming laptop that I'll be using while I travel and such to play games on. I'm thinking of a machine that packs in like a 2080 maxQ and the latest i7s but still weighs not more than 6ish pounds. The one that I have on my mind rn is msi gs65 but I'm open to other suggestions

Also I wanted to see if anybody has used xoticpc or some other website to customize their machine and had a good experience.

[Horsemen]

dell xps

[harcha]

a new high performance gaming laptop

feeling like a beta tester, i see?

[gamevideo113]

Personally i think i prefer the MSI, but the competition is really up there. I like the new alienware m15 a lot too. You just need to find the balance between your gaming and productivity needs and pick the right hardware for it. And of course, the laptop also needs to look badass

[Dolan]

>lightweight
>gaming
>laptop

Why can't I hold all these implications.

Nothing that requires gaming power is lightweight. If it's lightweight, you can be sure it doesn't have much power for gaming. Especially in laptops. But I guess it depends on what kind of games you're planning on playing.
There are some Razer laptops that meet these reqs, but they also come with a hefty pricetag. You pay a premium for both thinness and gaming power all in one unit. Most other gaming laptops are typically uuuge. That's why Razers are so pricey, because there's a lot of research and custom parts that go into it.

https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/razer-blade

Starts from 1599 bucks, can go up to 3000 or more, depending on options.
But recently I've heard complaints that these lightweight Razer laptops get superhot, their power brick can reach 80 degrees or more, lol. Not sure if it's true or people trollin. It makes sense to assume, though, that if you cram high-powered components in small cases, something is going to give: either cooling will not be enough or you'll have to throttle its CPU/GPU to make sure it doesn't start a house fire. I think most gaming laptops go for a compromise between the two, ie they allow temperatures to go pretty high and then start throttling once shit gets close to a critical threshold.

So, you need to be aware that you're buying a compromise between portability and gaming power. And some cheaper ones might literally get burnt in just a year or two, because there wasn't much quality testing behind their build.

[Riotcoke]

Yeah Dolan is right here, basically if you want a lightweight laptop that is powerful you're going to have to concede that it's going to throttle like hell when you actually get to do anything gaming related on it. Honestly I'd get an XPS 15 that has the 1050 or 1060 as it can do some decent levels of gaming but also looks like a normal laptop

[rsy]

I'm just talking about a balance between high performance and weight. Looking at this article the options it seems for a lightweight machine that packs an rtx 2080 are the msi gs75, acer triton, the Dell and the alienware. I'm gonna do a bit more research on them.
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/best ... ng-laptops

And yeah I've heard that about the Razer blade but it doesn't mean it's gonna be a common thing in all laptops. In fact I've even heard that on some heavy games, the Blade's battery drains even while plugged in. So yeah the blade isn't what I'm looking for

[Riotcoke]

There's basically no point buying a gtx 2080 laptop , youll end up getting shit performance due to it throttling

[harcha]

considering how many modern devices get weird issues be it premature hardware failures, software glitches or quality issues, i would suggest to start solving this problem as follows:
1) see what brands are decently priced and offer support in your area (for example in eastern europe you only have decent support for lenovo and dell, thinkpads being the expensive option)
2) consider what kind of games ur gonna play. choose power appropriately.
3) dont skip on creature comforts, modern laptops arent really upgradable. touchscreens are nice. usb ports will be necessary. dont buy a laptop with shit trackpad. make sure to check how the speakers sound like

just a cautionary story:
my gf wanted to get a portable workstation class pc for design studies 3.5 years ago... her choices were razer or xps. razers are not rly available in eastern europe so she got a xps 9550 with all the features. payed extra for 3rd year of warranty (2years mandated for all electronics in europe).
laptop she got suffered screen flickering issues, it sometimes went black. also sometimes the brightness would flicker. this turned out to be 2 issues:
1) it seemed like the intel hd driver was not cooperating with nvidia driver or smth like that.
2) bios problem where backlight would flicker.
- turns out both are common among 9550 users
returned this laptop, got a replacement. same problem.
returned laptop, they replaced the screen. backlight flicker was still there but lesser.
eventually (1 month later) nvidia fixed their drivers and dell eventually fixed their bios.
new problem appeared: laptop would randomly turn on whilst in backpack (damaging the battery due to heat). turns out to be a popular problem among xps 9550/9560 users (9560 is a later gen xps). the sleep state was bugging out and waking up the computer. after extensive troubleshooting just decided to hibernate the computer instead, after all its got an ssd.
1 year goes by - the touchscreen starts coming unglued. maybe from all the thermal cycles it suffered from booting inside a backpack. (it gets so hot that its painful to touch). send to warranty repair, they glue it shut.
another year goes by - bracket inside charging port comes out (thats what you get when the laptop is powerful and constantly being plugged in/out). so the 2 contacts could easily touch and short themselves out. the shop gives 1 month lead time. in the middle of exam season. so fortunately it supported usb-c charging so she bought a dell usb-c dock.
few months before warranty the bottom cover and hinge on one side starts becoming undone. send to shop, turns out screw came loose and glue undone, so they re-screw and reglue the thing. at this point its working well.
in the end:
laptop is working well (other than the sleep state which is still unfunctional, dell didnt bother to fix it)
battery replacement was required after 2 years of usage as it had shrunk down from 4 hours to 1 hour.

morale:
- dont be a beta tester (avoid 1st gen products)
- dont spend ur last money on a very expensive thing because there will be some maintenance required
- buy stuff that u can get serviced (gf basically received 2400€+500€+30€ in value from warranty)

[gamevideo113]

The Razer Blade seems like a reasonably light option.

[evilcheadar]

Instead of lightweight, how about get strong

[Dolan]

I'm just talking about a balance between high performance and weight. Looking at this article the options it seems for a lightweight machine that packs an rtx 2080 are the msi gs75, acer triton, the Dell and the alienware. I'm gonna do a bit more research on them.
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/best ... ng-laptops

And yeah I've heard that about the Razer blade but it doesn't mean it's gonna be a common thing in all laptops. In fact I've even heard that on some heavy games, the Blade's battery drains even while plugged in. So yeah the blade isn't what I'm looking for

Oh, but not all laptops of the same model will have the same issues. Some do, some don't. Also the problem with keeping a charge while gaming is not specific to the Blades only, even high-end laptops like Microsoft Surface Book 2 had this issue, according to a friend of mine.

Do you think MSI or some other generic OEM has better engineers than Microsoft or Razer? Or they have better labs for testing? Nope, they don't. But they don't make their machines as light and well-designed like Microsoft or Razer, they put a lot more plastic and low-grade materials in them, because they want to compete on price and internals, rather than design and build quality.

That's why I don't like laptops anymore, I think they're too limiting. And whatever you pick, it's going to be a compromise. Like the most powerful gaming laptops are not gonna be lightweight by any means. They're gonna look like those Alienware plastic spaceships.

[rsy]

The Razer Blade seems like a reasonably light option.

Yeah honestly Blade is the sexiest laptop I've seen so far that I could play high end games with ultra settings on. And that matters to me big time cuz I'm going to sit in coffee shops frequently with my laptop out and I don't wanna look like a nerd carrying an 8 pound laptop. The only problem that scares me is the battery thing where it seems to discharge even while plugged in, idk tho I need to do a bit more research into it if what dollen's saying is true.

@harcha thx for the advice bud! I'll keep it in mind.

@Riotcoke I get u but I think with undervolting, cooling pads and an xotic pc upgrade with their overclocking software and thermal compound, I think thermal throttling won't be as much an issue. https://xoticpc.com/products/msi-gs75-stealth-202

[spanky4ever]

The most expensive PC I have purchased to date, was an i7, quadcore Asus with OP specs. Turns out it was also the worst pc I have ever owned. It was pretty heavy too, and not super portable. I thought, that I needed a top of the shelf laptop because I was hoping it would last a few years before it was outdated. i7 processor and quad-core surely are still IT, but this pc gave me nothing but trouble, tons of reparations, and still did not perform. I tossed it out 2 years ago, good riddance
After that experience, I will never, ever buy another laptop for the purpose of gaming.

I'm strictly desktop, and if there is something wrong with the hardware, its easy to fix/replace the part.

In my experience, gaming and laptop are mutual excluding themself.