Originally Posted by
roguedubb
I had a Macbook + monitor + peripherals for similar reasons and never really liked it. The extra screen space was good, but instead of having a desktop (the actual physical desk) that I could put stuff on, there was a mess of cables and connecting everything was always a bore. I tried putting the laptop under the desktop in one of those slide-out keyboard thingies, but that just made for more problems with cables not being long enough or trying to connect them without being able to see them. For me the portability factor was trumped by the clutter and hassle of power packs and cables.
The laptop itself should be fine as long as it is plugged in to a power source so that the battery isn't being throttled all the time, though even then I would want to make sure the external power was being used before the battery so that the battery life isn't being shortened.
I haven't looked at the gaming laptop market recently, but if it's anything like it was then chances are you will be trading off a lot of the portability of a laptop to get something good for gaming. Anything around two kilograms or heavier I find to be a hassle to lug around (I get around on a bike and public transport mainly).
It's a tricky issue, because with a good laptop that has a ~17" monitor all you really need for gaming is a mouse. But then chances are you will be less likely to haul a 17" laptop around and even much less likely to pop it open for casual use (few people use a 15"+ laptop on the train, but every third person uses a phone/pad/ebook/netbook). And for the same cost you can get a good desktop with a great 20" to 24" monitor with a good response time.
For now I have settled on a 24" iMac + iPad which works well - iPad is easy to take everywhere and I can play a few games if I want to, type up notes at uni and do research, then do more in-depth work with images on the iMac, watch movies or play games. And only ever have to take one cable anywhere.
Bookmarks