Discussions

It's amazing how far notebooks and gaming have come along in a decade. 

Ten years ago they were awkwardly utilitarian at best, barely holding a candle to the performance of desktop PCs.  Nowadays the lines have blurred considerably: You can buy a rig with a large HD display, dual video cards and multi-core processors to go.  The way we use gaming laptops socially has also taken a paradigm shift: They were once the ideal computer to take to a LAN party ... but when was the last time you had no option but to drive to a buddy's house and string together an IPX network to get your multi-player on?  Advances in software and internet connectivity have also changed how and where we game with our friends, so with the advent of MMO's and services like Microsoft's LIVE perhaps gaming notebooks do less traveling these days.  Nevertheless, they've retained luxury status for their versatility and the ideas shared in this community is a testament that they can only get better.

Despite the blazing speed of top gaming notebooks, PCs clearly still have the edge.  This isn't going to change any time soon: you can simply get more cooling and parts into a cavernous chassis to push more polygons.  While a business or casual user may not care much about the difference a discerning gamer most certainly will for two big reasons: 

(1) More bang for buck. Money put towards the slightest boost in performance can    determine whether or not the game will churn like Amy Winehouse on cotton candy (look it up) or look like a motion picture.

(2) Future-proofing.  Gamers go through computers faster than most consumers due to our insatiable appetite for that speed, so buying a desktop can save us some money by user-swapping video and processor components out in-between major upgrades.  Like many of you at WePC I've also voiced my ideas to see more user-swappable components in gaming notebooks, but we're not quite there yet.  Maybe in ten years.  Maybe next year.  Its up to you to use those thumbs up buttons and decide.

No matter what the future brings I suspect that we'll always pay more for portability as cramming all that goodness into a small sturdy clamshell.  If money was not a consideration it seems to boil down to user preference: Does the convenience of being able to game half naked with one eye open on your sofa outweigh being tied to a more-bang-for-your-buck desk rig?  Maybe you just can't help your gadgetphelia and the allure of a slick notebook does you in. Confess or repent!

Which do you prefer to use, and why?