Help me choose between laptop or a pc.

[Zhaxye]

So, I've been thinking about getting a computer after awhile, and I face 2 choices. Build a PC, or buy a laptop.

 

I'm a student, and my school does give me some —not tons, but some— work that requires a computer, the tasks aren't exactly hard nor difficult, simple tasks like making a powerpoint, word, checking few documents related to school, and probably researching would be easier on a computer than on a phone.

 

I also game. BUT, I don't game as intensively as an average gamer do. If other gamers are very critical about their 60fps minimum, high-setting minimum, or GTX1660 as a must, I'm not that part of demographic. I game casually, I play CS:GO, OW, R6 Siege, DirtRally, and maybe a bit of Tomb Raider. I'm not very critical about 60, 90, 120fps, I think a playable 50+ fps is fine. As for graphic (as I suspect from Rise Of Tomb Raider), a 1080 medium setting is more than fine to me. I don't need 60fps at high setting, 50+ fps at medium setting in 1080p is more than what it takes to make me happy. No, I don't game for 6 hours straight, maybe 2-3 hours at most. Also, I play for fun, I don't care about 1ms difference, nor 300fps in csgo. I play casually because 1) I play in my downtime and just for fun, 2) I'm not good at games in the first place, so I never play them very seriously. I'm just one of those guy  in cs:go who rank nova at most, and play only on 4 days in a week, for less than 6 hours of online time in 7 days.

 

Okay, I've explain about my school work and gaming, now, into some other circumstance.

 

First, I travel quite a lot, almost every week I would have to go outside the city, and stay for a couple of days or more. But, my school work isn't very intensive that I need to have access to a computer 24/7. I can do work from a PC, but it would be much more convinient to be able to get work done via laptop. It would also be nice to be able to play games at a decent setting with a playable frame rate. I know a PC would offer crazy performance that is nice but I won't need (just want a little) because my skill is less than what a gaming PC could give. Having a gaming laptop is ok, but it would weight my backpack a little bit, and the battery life won't be enough for a full-day use off the charge.

 

My budget is about $1,000-$1,200 and I don't have the luxury to buy a $300 laptop and build a $700 PC. I just need one device, and just that. Also keep in mind, that the prices of laptops and PC components here in my place is quite unstable, so something might be more expensive here, than in US or EU.

 

Just in case if you want to know what I want in a PC/Laptop, here are a couple of them:

1) Decent screen. Whether it's a computer monitor or a laptop display, I would like to have something that can display around 300 nits minimum, and covers 75% sRGB (70% sRGB absolute minimum). 120Hz I don't need, and I don't need a very fast response time.

 

2) Peripherals:

If it's a laptop, it should have a decent keyboard, trackpad, and a decent speaker. If it's a PC I would like to invest on cheaper mechanical keyboard, entry-level gaming mouse, and a pair of decent speakers that will do just fine to watch movie and Youtube.

 

That's all I have to say, if you want more specific requitement, just ask in the comment, if you have any suggestion, let me hear it. Thanks for passing by :)

[Jaiden051]

I would suggest getting a laptop because you can just plug in a laptop into a monitor and it becomes a PC and also because a laptop is more portable

[Zhaxye]

Just now, Jaiden051 said:

I would suggest getting a laptop because you can just plug in a laptop into a monitor and it becomes a PC and also because a laptop is more portable

I've been thinking to do exactly that, but, would a MX150 on an ultrabook be enough to handle a bit of gaming? I've been looking at Asus' ultrabook lineup with MX150's. But if they're not capable (whether thermally or performance-considered), should I take the ones with a 1050 or 1650? I'm not sure =/

 

The laptops I've considered are the Asus Zenbook 13s, UX433, and Zenbook 15 UX533. As for gaming laptops, the ones in my mind are Asus TUF, Legion Y540, and Nitro 5. The TUF doesn't have good screen, the Legion is more expensive, and the Nitro doesn't have the best display either. And these gaming laptops have big adapters that I have to carry. So, if you have a suggestion, let me know. I live in Indonesia, and my budget is max 20M rupiahs ($1400), but as I said, laptop prices here are more expensive, so, it's not easy to look for a decent deal.

[ShadyBeings]

I've only had bad experience with gaming laptops and haven't touched them since I had my Alienware in like 2012. Currently the difference in price/performance is so vast that I would definitely recommend building a PC if you are okay with either carrying your PC or not having it at times

[AndreiArgeanu]

It really depends in a lot of ways. A gaming PC would be ideal, especially for gaming but also in the future you can still upgrade it to continue using, while a laptop you're stuck with the cpu and gpu you buy.

 

Now in your scenario a laptop would be most likely ideal as you can carry it everywhere. Now, under that budget you can probably get a laptop with an mx150 or mx250 and still have some money left over, and usually with a laptop with such graphics you also tend to still have quite a long battery life but, while it can run most games like Rainbow Six and CS GO perfectly fine, shadow of the tomb raider will only be playable at 720p lowest settings so keep that in mind. If you need a laptop that has long battery life then go for on with an mx150 or mx250, prefferably the 250 as it is a little more powerful.

 

The 2nd solution would be going for a gaming laptop. For specs try to look for an intel processors, must be 8th gen or newer, as sadly ryzen isn't having that much success on laptops. In the budget you can get for around 1000$ a laptop with a gtx 1650 and an i5 9300H. The gpu alone yields much more faster speeds than the mx250 and it will give you playable framerates at atleast medium in most games made today compared to the mx250 which struggles. Now the downside is that you are losing a bit of the portability of a laptop with a gpu such as the mx250 as the gtx 1650 and i5 require much more cooling therefore you will be getting a beefier and heavier laptop overall. Also, the components are quite powerhungry so don't expect excellent battery life, we're speaking like 3-4 hours (while not gaming) sometimes even less. And also obviously it costs more, so you will end up with less money left in your pocket

 

The 3rd and last solution is a PC as I therefore mentioned for the money you can get something even more powerful, but also future proof, so if a part like the gpu get obsolete you can easily put a new one in. Now there could be a solution to the big and clunky computer and that is making a small form factor system which fits in your backpack, similar to the one that linus made. The disadvantages to that are, you basically can't use it without a power cord, usually higher costs than a normal tower, tedious process to assemble it and also you would always need a monitor to connect it to. The advantage though, is that later down the line when you finish school you can get a bigger case and upgrade it with what it needs most, like better cooling, better gpu etc, as in the small form factors for example that linus made you could only fit so much hardware and cooling there, also you get much more performance for the money.