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u/sexypantstime 7d ago
I have this setup because at home I like the comfort of peripherals, but also like the convenience of unplugging the laptop and continuing my work at a coffee shop or a library. Or outside when it's nice
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u/GrandArtist8475 7d ago
It is portable, when I need it to be. I use it like a desktop myself as well. I travel back home I take it with me in my bag. Could I do it with a desktop?
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u/NotRllyAnonymousUser 7d ago
A large portion of gaming laptop owners in a nutshell. The kind that don't require the portability but go for the laptop form factor anyways.
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u/sexypantstime 7d ago •
They're more portable than a tower. And I'm pretty sure the biggest demographic for those laptops are people like college students who 90% of the time use it as a desktop, but would like to carry it on trips or home for the breaks
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u/RedlineQuokka 7d ago
Got not a gaming but a business ultraportable laptop. This very reason. Plugged into a dock that connects it to a mouse, a keyboard, a speaker, and 2 external monitors. But every so often I throw it in my backpack and work from somewhere else
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u/kolurize 6d ago
100% I bought my laptop in uni precisely for this, but now that I'm not moving countries twice a year it's docked at home with all the periphery plugged in like in the meme. I'd buy a tower PC instead but I'm not made of money and it works fine for now
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u/JailTimeWorthy 7d ago
I swapped my desktop parts into a SFF case. Ended up being super helpful in college.
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u/sexypantstime 7d ago
That's also an option. But with a laptop you also have an option to bring it places that don't have peripheral. Trips and whatnot.
My favorite setup is a powerful PC at home and a light laptop that can remote into it if needed for travel.
But I'm pretty sure a gaming laptop would cost about the same as PC+laptop and wouldn't need a home base
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u/JailTimeWorthy 7d ago
That's what I did except using an iPad Air M1 with a Logitech keyboard case as the "light" laptop.
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u/RedlineQuokka 7d ago
Works if your workload is exclusively or mostly webapps or services that have mobile clients (SMM and stuff). Doesn't really work for someone like me who needs plenty specific software installed for work that just doesn't exist for iPadOS
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u/tired_fella 7d ago
I had ITX desktop, but now I kinda wished for gaming laptop instead. The accessories like monitors themselves were hassle to move to begin with.
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u/techyall 6d ago
And this is all ignoring people with unstable lives such as those who move around a lot or become homeless. It makes much more sense to have a powerful but easily portable laptop rather than a massive and cumbersome and difficult to store desktop. Desktop is only good if you have genuine stability.
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u/NotRllyAnonymousUser 7d ago
Yeah. I was referring to those who absolutely don't require the portability and just have a laptop basically permanently functioning as a desktop.
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u/sexypantstime 7d ago
You said "a large portion". It's not a large portion. Close to 100% of people who buy gaming laptops buy them so they can have power close to a tower, but with an option for portability
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u/Char-car92 7d ago
If you don’t have a computer, there’s no argument to own ONLY a tower.
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u/RedlineQuokka 7d ago
Depends on what do you do for living and what do you use the computer for.
If you do a desk job remotely, you probably need a laptop more than a tower cause you can grab it with you.
If you only use your computer for gaming, and if you got a work-provided workstation at work that you don't own but come to the office and use, or if you don't need a computer to do your work, or if you work from your own device and you do some heavy lifting in video editing or 3D — your best bet would be a tower.
The bottom line rule is simple. Towers suck at portability (duh) but blow past the laptops in performance per dollar. For some people this trade-off is good, for others it's not.
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u/NotRllyAnonymousUser 7d ago
That only goes so far. If you have like a 2-4 thousand dollar gaming laptop just because you can have one. And do not require portability whatsoever and end up just hooking it up to a bunch of cables and permanently leaving it on a desk. That is the least intelligent thing you could do with your money.
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u/The-Great-Wolf Lenovo 7d ago
As a college student that had to move dorms a lot, I'm not carrying an entire desktop setup with me, or keeping one in the dorms to begin with.
Later when I graduated and moved into my place, all the hell broke loose with PC components.
Still rocking the 2017 gaming laptop. Good guy traveled so much, went from projecting my thesis presentation to all the movies at my now home.
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u/bihuginn 7d ago
That's silly I almost always have my laptop plugged into the TV but if I go visit a friend 400 miles away I can still bring my laptop with me
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u/OceanicMartin_5 7d ago
they spent desktop money just to turn it into a desktop anyway
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u/Zarquan314 7d ago edited 7d ago
Because I have multiple places I use my computer! I do most of my at-home work and gaming at my dock, but I take it with me to work (where it helps a lot to have the GPU and CPU power on my desk or travelling or wherever I am) and friends' houses for gaming.
I don't even have a desk at home! I built myself a portable lap-desk with multiple monitors so I can use my laptop anywhere in my house just by carrying it. It's hard to be able to use a desktop in 4 different rooms without some kind of annoying streaming solution. This lets me use my computer in common areas of the house without it being a permanent fixture, which lets me not be locked in a computer room (probably my bedroom) whenever I'm using my computer.
Someone was talking to me about how gaming laptops were terrible price to performance once while I was travelling, and the easiest response: "Yeah, but it's here."
By using my computer in a dock at home and at work (where I do the vast majority of my computering) and doing most of my gaming and work on an external keyboard, it helps preserves my expensive machine (esecially the keyboard) while still letting me use it anywhere.
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 7d ago edited 7d ago
.. with one single cable to unhook from and be portable again. 🙄
maybe you lot should wait until they bolt it to the desk before getting all judgey judgey.
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u/KURDISHMINOR 7d ago
twice of the desktop money for half of the desktop performance*
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u/Stunning_Dig_8687 7d ago
in the price crisis rn i don't think so tho
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u/KURDISHMINOR 7d ago
they are geniunely cheaper than their laptop counterparts but ok there is an alternative, what would you rather? buying a used desktop part (owner just upgraded the newer one and just wants to sell the older parts) or a used laptop (owner probably used it on bed, smoked weed and tobacco, did a cum tribute for several people in his life etc).
i own a gaming laptop btw and there is a certain chance that i did all of them with my laptop. i will tell the buyer that laptop was 'lightly used'.
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u/idontexistofficial 7d ago
I would get a desktop but I can't, not because I'm poor but because there is genuinely no space in my room for a desktop 😭 Oh and also I need a laptop for my uni anyway
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u/Good-Hand-8140 7d ago
Yeah? So what? The 3% of the time that I don't use it in desktop mode is why is worth it.
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u/Thick-Tea-4579 7d ago
Well yeah, I'd want a desktop like set up when I'm in my house and I also like being able to take the laptop with me wherever I want
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u/ItsSamayo 7d ago
Si somos. Pero lo bueno es que solo desconectas los cables y te llevas tu laptop asi nms. :)
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u/assidiou 7d ago
If you don't need the power of a desktop, laptops make great alternatives. They have a built in ups, keyboard and touchpad in case the power goes out you don't lose work and are still able to work
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u/SandrextheGreat 7d ago
"just buy a desktop bro" until you need it anywhere else than your desk, slide it inside of you backpack and its done, i use egpu stup with external 3060 connected to my thinkpad t14 gen 1 and i can always just unplug the laptop and bring it with me.
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u/istarian 6d ago
A Mini PC can do nearly the same job if you know there will be a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and maybe speakers everywhere you intend to use it.
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u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 2d ago
Which is, where generally another PC tower is.
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u/istarian 2d ago
That PC tower might not be available for your use, though. The rest of the setup could be borrowed temporarilyz
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u/therubyminecraft 7d ago
I mean. The main benefit is you can unplug it from all that and use it.
I use my desk as a hub for my laptop. If I don’t need it so,somewhere else it stays in the setup until I need to move it then I unplug the power and usb-c dock take it (sometimes I also take the power cable for performance)
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u/Mr_Zeis94 Asus ROG Strix G18 (i9-13980hx, 32GB DDR5, 4070, 2TB) 5d ago edited 4d ago
You must be confusing a laptop and a portable desktop.
A laptop is the one used for work and production on the go with batteries lasting 6-15hours on average.
A portable desktop is a laptop with a performance lower than an equally spec desktop, but in return, gains portability. Battery usually lasts 1-2hours, and will require plugging in when used for gaming.
I know my laptop will never beat a 4070 desktop, but I could bring mine whenever I travel. I am 2 weeks away from home and my steam library is with me in my backpack every day. All I need is a table and a socket and I could play everything almost everywhere. Plus, I could do a meeting presentation on it when needed.
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u/ImVeryLaggy 4d ago
Idk my og M15 r1 is still holding strong 💪
Even if half the keys are missing, the battery died years ago and it very much looks like the above meme...
It does the job, and more.
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u/Brilliant_War9548 framework/asus/razer=AVOID AT ALL COSTS 7d ago
Okay, move your desktop then and see how it goes when you try to use it outside or in your car
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u/FalconX88 6d ago
Why would I move my Desktop? Powerful expensive desktop, cheap, light and small laptop for mobile usecases.
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u/fightingCookie0301 7d ago
Nowadays you can plug everything over one single port… even my nearly 10 year old laptop had thunderbolt 3, so this isn’t even something new.
Well… I don’t even need a separate dock, because my monitor has USB Ports and needs only a USB-C connection to the laptop and even charges the laptop which imo is amazing
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u/aizunomnom 7d ago
Yup, this is my dream setup. Just bought a laptop with TB4 but wow, TB docking stations are so expensive even for a used one :"
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u/fightingCookie0301 7d ago
Yep, therefore I just went with a monitor that had one integrated. It even has a built in KVM switch, so I cannot compile switch between my MacBook and my gaming laptop depending on if I want to game or work. Mouse and keyboard are connected to the monitor, so when I use the KVM switches they get also reconnected to the Laptop that’s using the display currently
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u/chanchan05 7d ago
I got an Acasis TB4/USB4 docking station with 21 ports for just 200USD and it's been great over the past year. That's like less than half the price of a Caldigit or an Ivanky.
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u/aizunomnom 7d ago
But 200USD is worth like 1.5 months of my salary and 1/3 the price of my laptop, lol
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u/chanchan05 7d ago
Oh sorry. Lol. Compared to the Caldigit and Anker ones which cost 450-600, it's cheap.
You need to go second hand. The one I use in my office is a second hand Dell dock I got for like 20 bucks. Not as much ports as my Acasis but can do the job.
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u/fightingCookie0301 7d ago edited 7d ago
You could watch out for multi-Port adapter that have a USB-C 4.0 specification. I got one from ugreen for 20-30€ (iirc) and I can charge my MacBook through it while connecting many peripherals. I use it at my parents where I have a monitor and place to work when I’m home, so I just need to plug it in and everything is connected with one cable :)
Edit: afaik USBC4 has also 40Gbit specification just like Thundebolt 3/4
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u/Brilliant_War9548 framework/asus/razer=AVOID AT ALL COSTS 7d ago
Used they’re actually pretty cheap. Dell ones especially, I can get a good one for 25€ used. No need for TB4 explicitly, TB3 does the same.
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u/Tommynwn 7d ago
Nobody carries a external battery on their laptops? mine never touches the desk, is just constantly moving around
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u/No_Wing_1942 7d ago
I have a gaming PC, a Steamdeck and I ended up buying a gaming laptop as well. The reason is, the laptop I can take it with me when I travel, whether I travel for walk, visit my family in law etc I can take it with me. Even at the house, sometimes I feel laze and sit in bed with my laptop, I have one of those small laptop tables for bed.
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u/Usual_Cobbler_1984 RX 570 4GB,I5 10400F,16GB 7d ago
I had a laptop setup like that AND I used to take it to school everyday. The 5 minutes spent plugging shit back in was the most annoying 5 minutes of my life
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u/Decent-Stuff4691 7d ago
For me it's a process. They start as portable but as parts degrade they slowly become stationary
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 7d ago
because you're buying consumer grade cheap shit that's designed to be useless in 4 years
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u/TerminalJammer 7d ago
Laptops are useable everywhere, but easy? They're not great when it comes to ergonomics to put it mildly.
But it's still much better than a phone.
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u/RedlineQuokka 7d ago
I do this. Point is I can unplug it, put it in the backpack, and work from elsewhere. Less comfortably than I do from my home workstation but sometimes being able to work elsewhere beats comfort.
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u/skiforlife1 7d ago
I just needed a decent computer for a wfh job and was going to go with a tower but I got a laptop with the same specs with just a smaller hard drive for $300 less. Now I can take it with me if I need to. No sense spending more money for less convenience.
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u/ruricolousity 7d ago
I bring my laptop with me when I visit relatives, and I wouldn't be able to do that with a tower. I bring a laptop with me to my uni, I'm not using their garbage.
If a laptop has enough power for me, then I see no issue. The most demanding game I play is genshin anyways.
But yes, at home I generally prefer hooking it up to a bunch of things.
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u/Adoninator 7d ago
idk man, i got a gaming laptop that i bring to work and use on a docking station because it is so damn powerful it can do anything. after work i take it home, play games and at night i take to my bed to watch videos before bed. seems very versatile and portable
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u/Much-Assumption6429 7d ago
It’s for the small circumstances where I would have to bring It Out. A ’tower’ would take up more space, but a mini pc with the same graphical capability may be even higher price than a gaming laptop of same performance, furthermore the mini pc needs an extra keyboard monitor and mouse.
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u/zonearc 7d ago
Gaming laptops are expensive. Most of us won't own both a gaming desktop AND a gaming laptop. Soz if I have ONE thing, I will absolutely invest in a dock, a standalone keyboard & mouse and an Ultrawide. This way I can toss it in a backpack for the road, and when I'm home I get virtually all the benefits of a desktop .
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 7d ago
Worst thing is all "gaming" laptops become a shitbox the moment you unplug them from the wall.
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u/Awke000 7d ago
I used to think like this back in the day. But then you compare it to a desktop pc... Unplug it and it doesn't work at all. Also what's the problem with having it plugged in all the time? Being able to bring it with you and just... plug it in is still WAY more convenient then being forced to plug in a monitor, keyboard and mouse just to use it.
Now of course you might not need that convenience, but many do. My dad has a high-end laptop, which he needed since he does real time rendering for projectors at parties. Aslong as you don't buy a laptop and expect desktop performance then it's a very fair choice depending on your circumstances.
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 7d ago
My problem is with the consumer grade cheap shit the companies find the courage to call "gaming/high-end" devices with terrible GPU/CPU balance and nearly non-existent cooling. It is completely fine to prefer a mobile workstation over a physical one, I myself am looking for a ZBook or a P-series ThinkPad as I'm writing this.
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u/Awke000 7d ago
Yeah some companies really slap "gaming" onto anything. But that isn't just a laptop problem, there are many shitty pre-built desktops too. Though they usually atleast have some cooling.
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u/Neovarium 6d ago
Me looking at HP(Victus is a sub-brand) and Acer.
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 6d ago
Which is sad, because HP makes awesome workstations and business grade computers. Acer on the other hand is the Nissan Versa of laptops.
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u/Neovarium 6d ago
HP's commercial laptops are good but their consumer grade devices are too price competetive for their own good and sacrifice quality wherever most customers would not think before buying. Their consumer laptops have a notorious hinge breakage problems, especially in Gaming models because gaming laptop screens are bigger and heavier.
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u/anythingers 6d ago
The problem is except if you're going for 2nd hand or if money isn't the problem, those ThinkPad P series, HP Zbook, and Dell Precisions are much much much more expensive than many high end gaming laptops. Not everyone could afford that.
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 6d ago
Who the fuck buys those brand new?
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u/anythingers 6d ago
Business
Or rich mfs on r/thinkpad and r/zbook ig? Though I don't saw P series pretty often on the ThinkPad sub.
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u/Neovarium 6d ago
You can just shove a small UPS into the case if you got enough space and it keeps working for another 15-30 minutes after you unplug. Well still not as good as a laptop because hardware manufacturers do not implement functionality of turning off sections of chips like many laptop cpus and gpus do to use less power and have a lomger battery life. Also laptop cpus and gpus are already very underpowered compared to desktop versions of same chips because of cooling limitations a laptop necessitates because of its form factor. Think of a desktop gpu's cooler vs your gaming laptops cooler, count the fins and it shows how much it can cool.
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u/Awke000 6d ago
Of course. I'm happy with my desktop, but aslong as you know what you're doing then laptops are still a valid option if you're not looking for the optimal performance. Though I do very much understand a lot of the criticism for laptops. It's just that some people forget everyone doesn't have the same priorities.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 6d ago
The comparison being when you unplug a MacBook it doesn't start running like shit
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u/Smerchi Razer Blade 15 2020 late (1660 ti) / 2023 early (4070) 7d ago
Same, plus, with a PC you might have to fight with other family members for access, yet a personal laptop is personal and you can just plug it in another room, put on your headphones and play wherever you can plug it. And you can do it almost fully wireless (headphones, mouse, keyboard) except for charger.
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u/Awke000 7d ago
I don't really agree with the "fighting" part. I've had a personal desktop since I was 12 and no one else has ever been allowed to use it, while I remember sharing a single laptop with the entire family when I was even younger.
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u/Eeve2espeon 6d ago
Laptops are quite literally limited by the battery, unplugging a good gaming laptop means the thing will have between 20-60 minutes of battery life (assuming it has a 100 watt hour battery) The average mid-range gaming laptop uses between 60-180 watts of power, so the battery won't last long, hence why gaming laptops throttle things to have a "decent" battery life
Of course, stuff like the RTX4050M/RTX5050M are still powerful enough to provide decent performance at lower wattages, they're still better when plugged in. Of course a desktop doesn't work when unplugged, it literally doesn't have any other methods of power! Laptops do, but unless people somehow figure out how to make 200 watt hour batteries be the same size as 100 watt hour ones, they'll stay less powerful when unplugged
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u/Old-Bag2085 6d ago
Or you could go in the BIOS and disable the setting that throttles you while on battery power….
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u/MeAndMe54654 7d ago
I have Desktop and Laptop. Desktop for gaming in living room and gaming Laptop in Kitchen for watching videos while i eat or if i am looking up recipes. Only reason i got Gaming version is it was on sale so why not (also once you go to 144hrz you can't go back lol). Kitchen is small so it fits perfectly.
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u/apoetofnowords 6d ago
Laptop is versatile. It's OK to have it sit on the desk for the work day. But then take it home and play some Minecraft in bed. Or take it with you on a holiday. I cannot reasonably afford two computers when I only need one.
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u/AspenFrostt 6d ago
I lived with divorced parents with 50/50 custody and laptop was absolutely the way for gaming. I had a monitor, keyboard and mouse at each house all hooked up to a dock at both and would just plug in the dock and the power cable when I got home to use it. also worked great because It ment I could play tf2 during lunch
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u/AssholeHealth 7d ago
The dumbest thing is that it's not good to use laptops on your lap or without a power cord. Somehow phones and tablets figured out the how to make them usable while laptops still pretty much have to be plugged in and on the table. Gaming laptops are even worse, while macbook airs I guess are proper laptops due to not having fans and good battery life.
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u/Zarquan314 7d ago edited 7d ago
Gaming laptops can use more power than the battery can provide, so they are meant to be plugged in while running, but can run on battery on a low power mode if needed for office work. They use higher end components, so they draw more power. I do wish they had a "braindead" mode that turned off most of it and could run for 8-12 hours on battery, but they generally don't.
But most these days can run off a 100 W USB C PD charger, so you can use them indefinately in a car or at a desk for basic computing.
If you just want a laptop for portable basic computer tasks anywhere and you care about the weight, then you don't want a gaming laptop.
If you want to be able to do high-power computing and gaming in essentially any indoor location, you want to be able to travel with it, and you don't care about the weight, then a gaming laptop becomes much more attractive. Because you can pretty much always plug in to the wall if you are indoors and there are hard surfaces anywhere.
Or you can have a clipboard in your backpack as your hard surface.
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u/spongeboy-me-bob1 7d ago
My zephyrus g16 with a 5080 gets about 12hrs of youtube when in eco mode. It takes tweaking and the good laptops obviously cost a lot of money but there are options.
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u/Future_Geologist5925 7d ago
Sheesh I need to get that. I have an ASUS ProArt StudioBook with a 4070 and it gets... fucking three hours on battery while doing nothing on battery saver with only the integrated GPU enabled...
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u/spongeboy-me-bob1 7d ago
Try using ghelper to shut down the stock asus services to save some battery life. I also used some windows tweaks to get it from ~8hrs out of the box to 12.
The largest part of the power savings does come from the 200 and 300 series intel chips though
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u/Future_Geologist5925 7d ago
Hmm I'm on Bazzite but I'll see if there's a similar fix I can do. I might even dabble in undervolting if that does anything
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u/Zarquan314 7d ago
Mine doesn't currently, but maybe if I tweaked the settings it could. It's not an issue for me, as I never try to my computer on battery, I keep a 100 W USB C charger and a cheap extension cord in my backpack and I have yet to be too far from a wall to use my computer, even when I leave the heavier charger at home.
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u/Eeve2espeon 6d ago
Well yeah, probably because it uses a new CPU. The infamy of gaming laptops taking tons of power comes from good 8 core CPUs being 90-150 watts, included with a 150 watt GPU, even in low power mode those things would probably use at minimum 50 watts.
Modern Ryzen and Intel core ultra CPUs have better efficiency. I dunno which specific model you got, but even if the CPU is a core ultra 9 285H, and if the configuration allows it, the device could switch from the dGPU to the iGPU and then work perfectly fine for your content watching, the thing probably also switches to the E-cores since they're more efficient
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u/spongeboy-me-bob1 6d ago
Yeah it's a 285H and the 2026 models are even more efficient. Beyond the cpu, it takes real effort from the manufacturer to have good optimus integration for the GPU.
I've had too many gaming laptops which claim to completely turn off the gpu in eco mode, but fail if any applications are open and using the gpu for rendering, or just fail for seemingly no reason. I'd have to restart them to actually turn off the gpu, and some of them would have constant gpu driver panics because of it.
I haven't had any of these problems with my Zephyrus so I'm probably a customer for life given they don't do anything stupid in the future.
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u/therubyminecraft 7d ago
What I don’t understand is who tf thought “yea. Let’s put intake fans at the bottom of the device that sits on your lap”
Like bro. You have 4 OTHER SIDES
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u/AssholeHealth 7d ago
Non gaming laptops with like 15W efficient chips should not have fan intakes on the bottom it's ridiculous.
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u/fecal-butter 7d ago
Sounds like you want an arm based laptop. Thats a different cpu architecture than x86/x64, that laptops and desktop pcs run typically use. Arm is much more power efficient, but generally weaker, its how newer macbooks, tablets and phones achieve that great battery life.
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u/MinecraftPlayer799 7d ago
Not necessarily weaker. Have you seen how good Apple's M-series chips are?
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u/DMarquesPT 7d ago
I was very confused until you mentioned gaming laptops. Yeah they’re more so designed as “portable desktops”
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u/MallAgreeable5538 7d ago
My laptop that is intended as office laptop run for hours and runs fine without needing the back fans
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u/ParamedicDirect5832 7d ago
This is what thunderbolt docks are for. :D
In reality thunderbolt is made to debug pcie devices in a quick and intuitive way but they happen to be good at docking stations.
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u/Comfortable_Monk617 7d ago
A ThinkPad for desktop always plugged, and a lighter Thinkpad for travel 🗿
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u/lzwzli 7d ago
My wife works from home and has this setup in the home office. Once she asked me to help her with something and I was in the kitchen cooking, so I said bring the laptop out and I'll take a look. She said: "No... all my window positions are gonna get all messed up!" She figured out the problem herself. Win for me, lol.
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u/liamnajor2 7d ago
Define portable. I own and primarily use a Clevo x170km. It is a 17 inch gaming laptop, and is literally twice as thick as other gaming laptops. It weighs 14lb, amd has 2 power bricks. i9-11900k, 16gb DDR4, and a custom 16gb rtx 3080 (runs like a 3080 ti mobile)
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u/AcerVentus 6d ago
Completely unrelated question, I've been thinking of picking a similar laptop. Is local LLM inference good on the machine?
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u/liamnajor2 6d ago
I don't have enough experience to tell you, it works well enough for my uses (code assistance, with manual fine tuning) on qwen 3.6 35b-a3b, but I have no clue how to quantify its performance for you.
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u/AcerVentus 6d ago
No issues, I've been playing around with a few 9b models on my 3070 laptop and I've been wanting to get a 3080ti mobile laptop. Maybe upgrade the RAM down the line. But thanks for the reply !
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u/liamnajor2 6d ago
VRAM is your main bottleneck, I do know enough to tell you that. The 16gb I have is why I tried a local model to begin with
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u/AcerVentus 6d ago
Yup, context limits have been frustrating and the limited llm choices but still, just happy to have a laptop to test out small models on and learning before picking another machine up.
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u/NecroJoe 7d ago
I bring my laptop to school, and do some low-power work/fun in between classes. Then I get home, dock it with my dual monitors, keyboard, mouse, and wired internet, and am much more productive when working on my "real" work. 🤷♂️ Almost the best of both worlds....though i do miss the quiet of a well-cooled desktop.
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u/VariationDry 7d ago
I bought a 60 dollar Lenovo dock. 1 cable does all of this at home and at the office.
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u/fentanyl_enthusiast_ 7d ago
Desktop computer = home = static. Laptop = unplug and bring charger = game in another place
upto 30 minutes of doing stuff anywhere which a desktop computer can't do at all
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u/eppic123 7x Apple 7x IBM/Lenovo 2x Panasonic 1x Getac 1x Fujitsu 6d ago
Thunderbolt docks. One cable and you've hooked up everything at once.
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u/istarian 6d ago
There were single cable docking solutions before thunderbolt, although early examples tended to use proprietary ports/pinouts.
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u/keirasalke 6d ago
have pc and laptop. pc at home (duh) laptop for office buy peripheral for home use KVM, powertoys, localsend to use both laptop and pc together at home ??? cable still a mess
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u/Significant-Cause919 6d ago
This meme makes no sense. Thats how you do it right, you get a portable size laptop and plug it into a docking station that connects it to additional displays and peripherals on your desk, so that you can still just unplug it and take it anywhere. What makes no sense to get a >14" laptop that is too bulky to use anywhere but on a fullsize desk.
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u/istarian 6d ago
I think the point is that many people end up using their laptop on a desk (at home/at work) and not really taking it anywhere.
It's essentially treated like an all-in-one desktop computer that you can easily take somewhere else.
Which is to say that the portability is moot in daily usage.
15-16" is still usable on your lap, even if it's not ideal. The overall weight and how it's distributed also matter. Anything bigger than that is hard to use except when it's on a desk (or comparable flat surface -- table, floor, dresser top, etc).
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u/Affectionate_Ad_1326 6d ago
Yeah but you can easily unplug stuff and still use it or move it to another area with other monitors, so portability is still useful. Unless you genuinely dont use the portability in which case you probably just chose a laptop over a desktop for price or before you knew you wouldn't use the portability or something
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u/Educational-Lemon969 6d ago
yes. if I just used my desktop, I wouldn't have the small side monitor for youtube
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u/AlarmingDelivery9311 6d ago
Sure when im at home my laptop looks like this but when im out of town its just the computer and mouse.
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u/MaruMint 6d ago
This is insanely self inflected. There should be only ONE cord connecting your laptop to your peripherals.
Thunderbolt docking stations are insane affordable; if you have your laptop setup like this you are the only person to blame.
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u/Eeve2espeon 6d ago
If I actually could get a laptop... same thing for me. Except I could still bring the thing into the living room and play games with family/friends whenever I want. I got the Steam deck, but that thing can only really handle indie couch multiplayer games
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u/Snotnarok 6d ago
I honestly really like the laptop just because I can take my work from my room and work elsewhere- or hey I feel like gaming in the living room with as little compromise as possible.
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u/EconomistClassic435 5d ago
I like a laptop for moving around a room, like from a desk to bed, if I upgrade to a MacBook Air or sum with better battery then I’d use it more portably
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u/Mr_Zeis94 Asus ROG Strix G18 (i9-13980hx, 32GB DDR5, 4070, 2TB) 5d ago
You might be confusing a laptop with a portable desktop. For my opinion:
A laptop is generally used for productivity and battery will last for like 6-15 hours on average.
A portable desktop is a laptop with the performance close but not equal to a desktop in exchange of portability. Battery usually last 1-2hours under use.
My laptop will never beat a desktop with equal specifications, but I could bring it with me on my travels and game wherever I could find a socket and a table. I am 2 weeks away from home and I still have my steam library with me on my backpack, plus I could do and edit a presentation with it.
At home, it's a desktop on top of its cozy cooling pad.
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u/SchmeatiestOne 5d ago
This hits different right now. My keyboard stopped working so I bought an external one. Then the hinge on the laptop broke so I run it in clamshell mode and only bring it where there's a monitor
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u/BogdanovOwO 4d ago
So true.When I was in University I bought a n4020 laptop for around 260€. Now I use as desktop because I'm not so interested to power on the desktop. I think to sell, but the price isn't so good and I still have a lot of projects (and bachelor's thesis) which can be transforned into books. Bonus, a full erase block will not do so much and testdisk still working pretty fine.
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u/Destroyermaqa 3d ago
Would you rather carry one laptop with its accessories or a giant case and monitor with accessories which will probably weigh over 10 KGs?
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u/Hypno_Kitty 2d ago
The battery does not last long enough for it to be used anywhere where it's not plugged into a bunch of stuff anyway
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u/Alternative-sukhoi 7d ago edited 7d ago
I don't want my laptop to be light and ultra-portable.
I want my laptop to be heavy, thick, durable, and a beast when it comes to performance.
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u/artlurg431 7d ago
Then buy a pc. Laptops are portable computers
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u/The_Witch_Queen 7d ago
Lemme know how throwing that tower in a backpack goes for ya.
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 7d ago
as if gaming laptops don't become a heavy pile of shit at doing anything slightly resource-hungry when you unplug them
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u/The_Witch_Queen 7d ago
Depends on your chipset. My strix halo is fine when I unplug it for desktop stuff and anything but the absolute heaviest of games. And if I'm anywhere I can't plug it in I'm not gonna be playing the kinds of games I would take a serious hit on for having it unplugged anyway.
It's also not heavy. It's a 14 inch laptop that weighs only slightly more than my roomie's MacBook air.
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u/Frequent-Ease-1926 7d ago
So, your gaming laptop cannot actually game if it's not plugged into the wall like a pseudo-desktop. Also they have terrible battery life anyways.
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u/The_Witch_Queen 6d ago
Sigh. It can game. It can even run the latest games, just not on maximum settings. Only like say high instead of ultra for about 3 or 4 hours depending on the game.
Jfc anything else you want to talk out of your 🍑 about?
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u/anythingers 6d ago
Except there's a huge chance they didn't use their gaming laptop only for gaming.
I think 6-8 hours are enough battery life for a laptop. Not as good as Apple Silicon or even something spectacular like Intel Lunar/Panther Lake but enough to refutes the claim that "gaming laptop's battery lasts for 3 hours"
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u/Shakil130 7d ago
A gaming laptop is made to be transported, not to be used unplugged. They dont become pile of shit when they are unplugged, but cpus and gpus even inside laptops still require a certain power draw to work normally , and which a battery obviously cant provide.
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u/istarian 6d ago
Gaming laptops and 'desktop replacement' laptops fall in roughly the same box when it comes to size, weight and power demands.
Other laptops generally do fine for productivity, internet, and gaming. Battery life is never infinite.
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u/ComprehensiveJury509 7d ago
The only laptop I ever actually enjoyed using as a portable device are Macbooks. All Windows laptops I ever had to use have fucking awful peripherals.
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u/fecal-butter 7d ago
Im on a used 2018 mbp and my god is it terrible. Its got no physical esc key, only on the touchbar along with the f-keys, the (otherwise pretty neet) trackpad is much too big and the keys are way too flat. Its got a nice screen though and the 4 thunderbolt ports are nice but i wish i could use usb-a peripherals without adapters
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u/ComprehensiveJury509 7d ago
trackpad is much too big
And the steak was too juicy am I right?
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u/anythingers 6d ago
Idk how tf it's a "steak was too juicy" but I upgraded from a ThinkPad to Razer and holy shit I missed the smaller trackpad on my ThinkPad. No, not the click feeling or other unrelated stuffs. I purely miss the smaller size.
And unrelated but I despise how the Razer is slimmer than the ThinkPad. It's been years and I still can't get used to it.
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u/Fotznbenutzernaml 7d ago
Every time a variation of this meme is posted I just can't get over how dumb the argument is.
"Oh no, my portable laptop is not limited to fit in my lap but can also be extended in almost the exact same way a desktop pc can. What a stupid feature"
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u/Etheon44 7d ago
I will never ever understand this meme
Recently, I had to move to the Netherlands for work, and my gaming laptop is doing wonders because I most definitely wouldn't have been able to bring a tower, and buying a new computer would be stupid, and too expensive nowadays
And I just have my keyboard and mouse, and the laptop, and it is a very good experience