Budget gaming laptop or Handheld PC

[Jay-T]

Hey guys, I'm new to the forum but am looking for some advice on what is a better option.

 

So budget is a pretty big player on this as I'm not very flush with cash at present, but I'm looking to get a device to play games on when I'm not at home. I currently have an M1 MacBook Pro that I mostly use for work (I'm a DJ so the fact it just works is great for me) I want to get either a budget gaming laptop or a gaming handheld like the Legion Go, ROG Ally or possibly the MSI Claw. But I'm not really sure what I should do, obviously the steamdeck is another option, but I think I'd prefer a windows system, unless I can be told a few solid reason to go for that instead.

 

So, yeah, just looking for pros, cons and basic advice on what would be the best option for me seeing as my budget would be about £800 max and want to be able to play BG3, Football Manager 23, possibly COD maybe Helldivers and a bunch of other, less demanding games.

 

Thaaanks

Edited March 11 by Jay-T
Added more info on games wanting to play

[DreamCat04]

15 minutes ago, Jay-T said:

Hey guys, I'm new to the forum but am looking for some advice on what is a better option.

 

So budget is a pretty big player on this as I'm not very flush with cash at present, but I'm looking to get a device to play games on when I'm not at home. I currently have an M1 MacBook Pro that I mostly use for work (I'm a DJ so the fact it just works is great for me) I want to get either a budget gaming laptop or a gaming handheld like the Legion Go, ROG Ally or possibly the MSI Claw. But I'm not really sure what I should do, obviously the steamdeck is another option, but I think I'd prefer a windows system, unless I can be told a few solid reason to go for that instead.

 

So, yeah, just looking for pros, cons and basic advice on what would be the best option for me seeing as my budget would be about £800 max and want to be able to play BG3, possibly COD and a bunch of other, less demanding games.

 

Thaaanks

I have the ROG Ally and it's a very good handheld. It's fairly light, it's got a lot of performance but the battery life is meh. You only get around 100 minutes in the default 15W power profile and around 50 min in the 25W Turbo profile. The Claw is apparently worse than the Legion Go and the ROG Ally, but it has a bigger battery. You can look at my review under the Member Reviews section if you'd like to know more about the Ally and my experience with it over the past month. It is expensive and I wouldn't recommend getting the Z1 non extreme version as it's not much cheaper but has only 6 cores and only 8 CU while the Z1 extreme has 8 cores and 12 CU while being around 100$ more expensive

Edited March 11 by DreamCat04

[Jay-T]

19 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

I have the ROG Ally and it's a very good handheld. It's fairly light, it's got a lot of performance but the battery life is meh. You only get around 100 minutes in the default 15W power profile and around 50 min in the 25W Turbo profile. The Claw is apparently worse than the Legion Go and the ROG Ally, but it has a bigger battery. You can look at my review under the Member Reviews section if you'd like to know more about the Ally and my experience with it over the past month. It is expensive and I wouldn't recommend getting the Z1 non extreme version as it's not much cheaper but has only 6 cores and only 8 CU while the Z1 extreme has 8 cores and 12 CU while being around 100$ more expensive

Battery life isn't a massive deal to me anyway, when travelling I'm usually driving so it's not like I'd get to use it in a car for a long journey, a lot of usage would be at my day job, where I sit next to a plug anyway, or on family holidays where I would also be able to be near a plug

[DreamCat04]

14 minutes ago, Jay-T said:

Battery life isn't a massive deal to me anyway, when travelling I'm usually driving so it's not like I'd get to use it in a car for a long journey, a lot of usage would be at my day job, where I sit next to a plug anyway, or on family holidays where I would also be able to be near a plug

If battery life is not a concern, you're gonna have a good time with the Ally. Gaming laptops with dedicated GPUs usually limit their GPU and CPU pretty hard when on battery to not make it overheat and explode. Plus the Ally's footprint is much smaller if that's a concern for you. A gaming laptop of the same price of the Ally will beat it in terms of performance, but if you like playing on controller, you'll like the Ally. I haven't experienced any other handhelds as the Ally was my first handheld I've daily driven since the Nintendo DS that I used very frequently up until 2017 or so

[ki8aras]

38 minutes ago, Jay-T said:

Battery life isn't a massive deal to me anyway, when travelling I'm usually driving so it's not like I'd get to use it in a car for a long journey, a lot of usage would be at my day job, where I sit next to a plug anyway, or on family holidays where I would also be able to be near a plug

another popular option is the steam deck oled ,granted with less performance than the ally, but also cheaper and with better support for accessories and software (not to mention the screen which is miles ahead)

be careful though! once you go oled, going back isn't easy

[Jay-T]

5 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

another popular option is the steam deck oled ,granted with less performance than the ally, but also cheaper and with better support for accessories and software (not to mention the screen which is miles ahead)

be careful though! once you go oled, going back isn't easy

I wasn't sure on the steam deck as I know it runs Linux, so I'm not sure how many games will run on it, but this is mostly due to my own lack of knowledge. 

 

Also I have an Xbox at home, so already have game pass and I assume that game pass works with the PC handhelds and wouldn't work with the steam deck. But if I'm wrong then I'm happy to be better informed

[DreamCat04]

5 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

once you go oled, going back isn't easy

I see your point here. I also prefer watching movies on my phone now that has a 6" (around that) AMOLED screen vs my 24" monitor wiht a TN panel. It's such a big difference, however the screen of the Ally is quite good for the fact that it's "only" IPS. I've heard that BG3 doesn't run that well on the Steam Deck