Thanks much appreciated.
Basically I'm trying to pick a gaming laptop but there are so many options and the reviews seem to be a bit all over the place (for the same laptop) at times.
Also, I'll explain why I want a laptop as opposed to desktop first since I know someone will mention that. Essentially we have our home office (where I work and where my shit but still gaming-capable desktop is). My girlfriend also works in that same home office so ideally I want to switch to a laptop (my plan would be to sell the parts from my PC to partially recoup the cost of the laptop) that I can use for my work in the home office (the work side is just connecting to a remote desktop so nothing intensive) and then unplug my laptop from my monitors and take it into the lounge, plug it into our TV (4K but I'd be happy running at 1080p or 1440p medium settings) and play some games.
CPU: I'm under the impression that Ryzen has the better battery life but Intel has the better performance. I'm not sure how often I would use it unplugged so I'm not wedded to either CPU "team" although from pricing, Ryzen seems to be consistently cheaper.
GPU: Looking at a bunch of JarrodsTech videos it looks like I'd be good with a decently-juiced RTX 3060 Mobile (for reference my desktop has a 1650 so anything is a major step up)
RAM: Ideally at least 16GB but I would upgrade it anyway so a must would be having both slots upgradeable
Storage: nVME SSD of course. 512GB would probably be fine as long as there's space for an extra SSD under the hood.
Display: High refresh rate is a must (144Hz) and I would of course like decent response time and color gamut but I guess it all depends on price.
Other things:
-One thing I really do want is for it to be light and not get crazy hot. I can tolerate loud fans since I'd probably wear headphones but I cannot stand laptops that get extremely hot.
-If we're assuming Ryzen, I'm happy to go with a 5800-something, the new 6000 series seems pointless if I don't need the integrated graphics.
-I'd like to avoid a gaming laptop that visually screams "gaming laptop!" so I have no interest in crazy RGB and I also would prefer not to have multi-colored WSAD keys especially since I'm left-handed so I don't use them.
Price: I don't want to spend an absolute fortune. I've set my budget at 150,000 yen (I'm in Japan). I can go maybe 10,000 yen higher if it's an irresistible deal.
Of course there's that notion with laptops that you should buy the "absolute best at the time" so that it lasts since most of it is not upgradeable but I just don't feel the need to spend that sort of money.
So in a nutshell I'm looking for:
- the best possible laptop (I guess upper-budget) I can find for around 150,000 yen striking a balance between the considerations mentioned above.
Extra tidbit: Another thought I had was....
maybe I'd be better off buying a Steam Deck and making some upgrades to my current (AM4-based PC)?
I calculated that for the same 150,000 yen I could buy:
1) the base Steam Deck (59,000 yen, emmc storage only)
2) an 2230 ssd for it (16,000 yen for 512gb)
3) a 6600 XT (for like 30,000 yen used)
4) a 5800X3D (for about 45,000 yen)
which miraculously comes to exactly 150,000 yen
Laptops I've seen for around 150,000 (give or take) that seemed good:
IdeaPad Gaming 370i Core i5 12500H・16GB RAM・512GB SSD・RTX 3060
¥139,700
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Dell G15 Ryzen 7 6800H・16GB RAM・512GB SSD・RTX 3060
¥158,980
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Legion 570i Core i7 12700H・16GB RAM 1TB SSD・RTX 3060
¥174,790
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kakaku.com
There are also some cheaper ASUS TUF machines but I was under the impression they're not very good build quality. Only concern I have about Lenovo ones is that they seem to be extremely heavy..
Fucking hell it's difficult to choose a laptop and I thought I was a least decent with PC parts.