New do-it-all laptop

[Bleachcz]

Hi everyone.

 

I need some advice as I'm going to get myself my first gaming laptop. I decided to ditch my Gaming PC (i5 7600K, RX Vega64, all watercooled) and my old laptop (XPS 13 9343 - which died) and get one do-it-all system.

 

What i do on my PC:

Quite a bit of Excel, IBM SPSS and bit of R coding. (I'm economics student)

Games (90% Guild Wars 2, 5% LoL, 5% DA:I, Borderlands, Witcher 3, etc.)

I travel quite a bit (I'm from Czech Republic, so mainly trains or a car all over Europe), when the situation allows it. But I don't need my laptop everywhere (I can handle all conversations on my phone, I need laptop only for gaming, which I usually only do when I'm at home or for school + getting some work done on the bus/train + some movie/netflix watching).

 

The core takeaway is that I play pretty much only one game, pretty much only at home. So ideal scenario for gaming PC at home + laptop for traveling.

Thing is, with laptops being the powerhouses they are, it's cheaper to get a gaming laptop, that can do it all. Plus having only one system to worry about sounds very nice.

 

At home, I'll dock my laptop and use full size peripherals (keyboard, mouse, DAC+AMP, 32" 1440p main + 24" 1200p in pivot) and it will be on a cooling pad.

 

Now to the laptops.

- I've set my budget to about 1600 USD max. (I'm planning to get a laptop shipped from the US)

- 15,6" inch is the absolute maximum. (I can still fit it in my backpack and take it with me)

- I need it to handle GW2 fully cranked with DX12 mod at 1440p (game is mainly CPU bound, but for 1440p, you'll need a decent graphics card as well)

- From time to time I would like to play some AAA games at decent framerates on High/Medium presets in 1440p.

- Noise isn't such a big issue

- I care only for battery life in idle pretty much (excel, coding, netflix, web browsing) - 5 hours of battery life are enough.

 

Those are my main requirements. Based on these I've selected two main candidates.

1) ASUS Zephyrus G14 (2021)

2) Dell Alienware m15 R4

(3)) The ideal candidate would be something like the ROG Flow x13, but with RTX3060 in the dock, a cheaper version. (I would pay a premium for a solution like this - but not 3k USD). I have even thought of getting a 2in1 + thunderbolt GPU dock, but that would be hugely CPU bound I'm afraid. 2in1 would be perfect for school, but I'm forced to make tradeoffs (and between 2in1 vs normal laptop and 1650 vs 3060, I take the normal laptop with 3060 everytime).

 

It's such a shame that ryzen laptops don't have thunderbolt (you cannot get a GPU enclosure with any other interface).

And now I'm split between the Alienware and the Zephyrus.

Alienware will be faster because it has better cooling and the 3060 will be able to consume 115W, it's a nicer design and I do like the 3 m.2 slots. It is bigger and heavier, but for the extrta performance... It's a sacrifice I'm inclined to make.

The Zephyrus has better batttery life, and it's more portable, but the cooling and maximum 80W 3060 leave some performance on the table. Also, the design isn't as nice as the Alienware.

Alienware has a plus for me, that it also has a better keyboard for when I'm traveling and it has a webcam (which I tend to use quite a bit recently)

 

Can anyone help me with the decision? Does anyone have any thoughts?

 

P.S.: I'm sorry for any gramatical errors, not a native speaker.  (+ Typing errors just happen, I'm sorry for them as well.)

[Wh0_Am_1]

Now if the ASUS TUF A15 had already released with the 30 series I would recommend that (while you can get it with the 3070 in the UK it is currently outside your budget) because while it does not have the better keyboard, it sports the best of both worlds (though the cooling isn't quite the best and only has 2 m.2 ports). At the moment I would recommend the Zephyrus, if you are willing to wait I recommend the TUF A15. Because even though the Dell will be better at gaming (and has a webcam) the Zephyrus will be more flexible in use due to the longer battery life, faster CPU, and more portable build.

[Wh0_Am_1]

-snip- 

[Bleachcz]

Yeah, the sound of reason is calling for the Zephyrus.

Yet my heart looks at the Alienware and says wow. The plus point of the Alienware is that it will hold its value much better, if I decide to get a newer solutioon 2-3 years down the line.

 

But yeah, the head calls for the Zephyrus. I'll probably buy one of them (probably the Zephyrus) this week, so I don't really have much time to wait (atm. I have no laptop and am stuck with my desktop only, which is kinda inconvinient).