I don't understand why people choose laptops

I don't want the desktop in the living room, it's large and not that aesthetically pleasing but if I had to play strictly in the spare room it wouldn't be worthwhile because I only like hanging out there when no one else is home. The ability to play in a central area of the house without setting up another piece of furniture is important to me, so my laptop is perfect even though portability in the sense of being able to actually travel isn't an issue.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

How do laptops hold up physically?

Has anyone ever gamed on one for like 4 hours a day over several years without any part failures?

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As someone who literally never owned anything else than a laptop - it holds up just fine. My games run smooth, Graphics are great and everything works as intended. About the part failures.. weeeeell, since I'm not using my laptop only for games, I usually crash my harddisc after 4,5 years regulary (might be a curse on that part? lel) But even that can be fixed easily, if not I am in the mood to a new one :p
Why I stay with a laptop? It's mobile. That's my main reason. And I'm happy with it o/

The price difference isn't that much these days.

I play on a high end laptop 1060gtx i7 16gig ram. Cost me £1100 which is typically only a couple of hundred quid more than the same spec pc. Not a vast difference. You might find the same spec cheaper with EOL parts but they typically aren't upgradable very much either.

It's lightish (2.8kg without the external DVD) it's portable I can play in any room in the house. Even in bed if im off with the flu or something. And if I so desire can hook it up to my av receiver and play 5.1 surround sound 46 inch screen and still have a full 60 fps on games.

It also draws less power than a desktop with equivalent specs which means cheaper electric bills. Which offsets the extra 200quid I paid over time.

Oh and I can take it with me when work sends me away for days at a time. Something to blast in a hotel room.

It's a no brainer.

Of the last 3 I've owned only 1 has ever developed a fault which was the motherboard and cost me £126 to get fixed which included shipping costs sending laptop back to manufacturer.

Edit they also seem to hold value better than desktops. When I got my current one. My old i5 8gig ram with GTX870 graphics was sold on eBay for £511. Almost half the price of my current one. Effectively means my current laptop cost me £600. And will probably last me 3 maybe 4 years before I replace it.

The question then becomes why would anyone limit themselves to a desktop? (Semi rhetorical)

Also not so much recently but I have been known to take my laptop to the bathroom with me when i've been waiting in a dufy finder queue for almost 2 hours and need a poop... you just know if it was in another room you would have missed the ding...

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

To the haters. I didn't ask my questions to hate on laptop users. Because laptops vs desktops isn't an 'obviously' subjective question as some people seem to think. There's a lot of logical and objective reasons for both camps. And those reasons are what I wanted to know. For example, a lot of folks started off with laptops growing up, and it became an acquired taste. That's an explaination I would have never considered had I not asked, and people not answered. And while sometimes 'sticking with something' because you grew up with it isn't always the most logical choice--I do understand it, and respect it. It's why I use an iPhone. It was my first smartphone (after a Razer), and I never gave android a chance. Now I stick with what I know best, and that's my reason. It doesn't mean I think less of other people's choices. I asked a question, because I didn't understand those choices. I have respect for everyone who answered my curiosity.

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I dont mean and didnt meant to be rude, but: Your "question" in the OP came off as pretty rude to me, hence my first comment/post here. You even called it a "rant" which isnt something you do out of curiosity most of the time, but because something irks you in a negative way (like bards not using their songs and denying me their sweet, sweet crit-buff in expert-dungeons).
I dont know wether or not english is your native language and wether or not that played a role in your choice of words - and I also dont know if this advice is welcome at all, but: If you're asking something out of curiosity, then you should try to make it sound like that - "I dont understand this (because I never owned a laptop), can someone explain me their reasons to use one? I would like to understand why!" - not coming off as if you're almost belittling people for a choice they made for themself and that has no impact on you.
At least to me your OP didnt seemed curious but had more the vibe of "OMG how can you be so stupid to pick a laptop over a desktop, I dont get it!!"

Many people travel in their line of work and use laptops for gaming. I have a friend who is a VP for a company to where he has to travel at least 3 times a week from Canada to areas of the US.

Then there are some people who just like it for convenience.

I play on both desktop and laptop. Desktop when I'm raiding with mouse + kb, and laptop with xbox 360 controller.

Why?

I love being able to plop a pillow on my back, blanket on my lap, my laptop on a cooling pad on my blanketed lap with an xbox 360 controller in hand. It is amazingly comfortable. I love doing this when doing gathering/crafting and watching twitch streams on the side with an overlay program.

And laptops are super mobile, I'm a college student so in the two hour gap in my classes I get hop on FFXIV when I'm on campus.

I just returned after being gone for quite a long time. I was playing on a Surface and it couldn't handle this game, so I was not playing anything and then tried WoW for a bit (BFA was terrible).

I just got a new gaming laptop and now I can play this again. Woohoo!

I got a laptop because I travel for work and it takes up less space than a desktop. It just makes sense for me. This computer can easily handle this game and probably most games and will be able to for at least a couple of years. I can also take it with me when I travel for work or vacation. I typically have it hooked up to monitors and a sound system- but it also has a really nice screen, so I can watch movies on it when I travel as well.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Most new laptops use SSD or NVMe hard drives, which is what dies first in most laptops. Desktops with SSD's still have delicately mounted heat sinks, and unsecured cables. The most common failure points with desktops are the cables attached to the motherboard, and the CPU heatsink being dislodged. On high end gaming systems, you also have the PCIe GPU cards being jostled out of the card slot. That is all a factor of build quality. Laptops are tightly engineered, and can take a lot more abuse now then they could even 4 years ago before SSD's were large enough to actually play games on. Thank Apple for that trend. You'd be amazed at how solid laptops are.

The most common thing broken on a laptop today is the PSU connector, and the screen because people use too small of laptop bag/backpack and someone sits/steps on it.

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I repair computers (both laptops and desktops) for a living. I have seen a failed heat sink mount 1 time in my career. As for unsecured cables, cable management is part of building a machine correctly and with today's cases it isn't even hard. Cable failure is the most vanishingly rare component failure across both desktops and laptops. PCIe GPU cards are not jostled out of the slot unless they are mounted improperly (which is difficult to do) and the machine is moved a lot (defeating the purpose of a desktop). Laptops are more "tightly engineered" only in the sense that they are made to take up less space and weigh less. They also cannot take much more of what I would consider abuse (rough handling, dropping them) than before. I see people all the time who break the hinge mounts on their machine by opening and closing the screen by the corner (please don't do that, use the middle and be gentle). At the end of the day with a laptop you have a circuit board mounted to light weight plastic, which can be surprisingly brittle.

The most common failed components across both laptops and desktops are the motherboard and power adapter / power supply. (If you're talking damaged through misuse on a laptop that would be the D/C in jack and screen) In terms of life expectancy laptops usually make it 3-5 years on average, desktops 5-7 years on average. There is of course variation to this depending on how it is used.

Again I'm totally fine with people choosing a laptop (it's their choice), but laptops are not superior to desktops in general. It's a trade off which is right for some but not others.

lmao laptops are good

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

(This rant was trigged by the FFXIV graphics are too hard on my PC forum post where someone recommended the user who can't afford a new computer to buy a laptop. They don't have money for a better PC, why would you recommend a laptop? Terrible performance/price ratio compared to a desktop).

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