4 ms·

"And if you can make it look like it's for grown ups too, that'd be great." THIS. I'm not going to buy a laptop that looks like a prop from a Michael Bay movie

"And if you can make it look like it's for grown ups too, that'd be great." THIS. I'm not going to buy a laptop that looks like a prop from a Michael Bay movie. The best current option for a laptop with a GPU and a design that wouldn't be embarrassing to leave the house with is the Microsoft Surface Book, which is expensive, has a mediocre GPU and is actually still kind of embarrassing to own. I'm pretty excited about the day that gaming laptop manufacturers realize that their target audience isn't entirely composed of guys whose main fashion inspiration is Reaper from Overwatch.

MAGZine 10y ago
I think the surface book looks great. what's your hangup with its aesthetic?
devonkim 10y ago
I don't see how much room for design there is on a Surface book besides the keyboard dock assembly, but even that looks pretty spartan with clean lines and a rather pale gray that could be mistaken for an Apple laptop from the Aluminum Powerbook era. So I don't know what's embarrassing about it except for, contentiously, the monochrome Microsoft logo attached to it.
- serge2k 10y ago
  The surface book is one of the few that isn't embarassing. Most of the gaming laptops are big plastic bricks with red LEDs everywhere .
soylentcola 10y ago
I dunno. I've had decent luck with Asus laptops that are at least somewhat gaming-capable. They've still got the same M-class GPUs you'd expect (outside of these eXXXtreme or external options) but you're still looking at a standard brushed aluminum chassis (maybe a plastic base depending on model), i5 or i7, 16GB of RAM, SSD, and $1000-1500 price tag. Not exactly cheap but certainly not in the same range as the GPU-laden Surface Books. I picked one of the Asus notebooks up a couple years ago when I needed something for occasional use (so I didn't want to go all out on budget) that could still handle some graphics work and live projection visuals which typically need OpenGL support past what you find in an iGPU. It's not as thin and light as an ultrabook or tablet/convertible but that's the flipside of powerful and not too expensive. Maybe if it was my main or only machine I'd have gone higher end and higher price but there's definitely some options in between the crappy $600-800 general purpose laptops and the $2000-3500 Decepticons and fancy detachable tablet offerings.
izym 10y ago
I can highly recommend the Dell XPS 15. I too was in the market for a laptop with a mediocre GPU, which didn't look absolutely terrible, was affordable and not too bad on the whole portability thing. So far it has definitely lived up to my expectations. I can recommend getting the 1080p version (but not the entry-level model, as that one has a smaller battery and no discrete GPU), unless 4K is very important to you and you know what you're getting into wrt. high-res scaling in Windows.

MAGZine 10y ago

I think the surface book looks great. what's your hangup with its aesthetic?

devonkim 10y ago

I don't see how much room for design there is on a Surface book besides the keyboard dock assembly, but even that looks pretty spartan with clean lines and a rather pale gray that could be mistaken for an Apple laptop from the Aluminum Powerbook era. So I don't know what's embarrassing about it except for, contentiously, the monochrome Microsoft logo attached to it.

serge2k 10y ago
The surface book is one of the few that isn't embarassing. Most of the gaming laptops are big plastic bricks with red LEDs everywhere .

soylentcola 10y ago

I dunno. I've had decent luck with Asus laptops that are at least somewhat gaming-capable. They've still got the same M-class GPUs you'd expect (outside of these eXXXtreme or external options) but you're still looking at a standard brushed aluminum chassis (maybe a plastic base depending on model), i5 or i7, 16GB of RAM, SSD, and $1000-1500 price tag. Not exactly cheap but certainly not in the same range as the GPU-laden Surface Books. I picked one of the Asus notebooks up a couple years ago when I needed something for occasional use (so I didn't want to go all out on budget) that could still handle some graphics work and live projection visuals which typically need OpenGL support past what you find in an iGPU. It's not as thin and light as an ultrabook or tablet/convertible but that's the flipside of powerful and not too expensive. Maybe if it was my main or only machine I'd have gone higher end and higher price but there's definitely some options in between the crappy $600-800 general purpose laptops and the $2000-3500 Decepticons and fancy detachable tablet offerings.

izym 10y ago

I can highly recommend the Dell XPS 15. I too was in the market for a laptop with a mediocre GPU, which didn't look absolutely terrible, was affordable and not too bad on the whole portability thing. So far it has definitely lived up to my expectations. I can recommend getting the 1080p version (but not the entry-level model, as that one has a smaller battery and no discrete GPU), unless 4K is very important to you and you know what you're getting into wrt. high-res scaling in Windows.