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Most if not all mass-use tech manufacturers put their gaming products in the highest tier available. The most powerful phones in the world are probably gaming phones and arguably the most powerful commercial PCs in the world are gaming PCs. A lot of workplaces these days require a reliable PC in the day-to-day workflow so that begs the question. Are gaming laptops good for everyday use?
Yes, gaming laptops are definitely good for everyday use. Not only you get a powerful portable PC that can handle everything you can throw at it, but you are also all set to play games anytime you want to. Having a gaming laptop by your side also negates the need to upgrade your laptop any time soon. Since any good gaming laptop which holds up for good gaming specs today will definitely be very relevant to handling all kinds of tasks and applications for several years down the line.
A gaming laptop is a great tool to have at your side if you need a lot of processing power on-the-go. These are great for people who want to get some decent performance out of their laptops. They are great at everyday tasks that you would expect a laptop to be able to handle and they’re also powerful enough to pull some more serious load. But with great power comes faster battery drainage and a few extra lbs. so that’s something you may have to look out for.
Let’s look into how a gaming laptop can be good or bad for you.
“Are gaming laptops good for everyday use?”-Why and Why Not
Strong specs and great performance:
Gaming laptops, hands down, are probably the best spec’d laptops around. They may face some competition from the Studio laptops but that’s close enough to doubt. Gaming PCs have been the mammoths of PC specs for a while now. That makes sense since modern games are probably the most widely used high-processing-demanding applications around. They’re not specific to a specific region and have enthusiasts around the globe. So to meet the ever-increasing demand for modern games, gaming laptops have to step-up their game constantly.
That’s one of the reasons gaming laptops stay at the front of the cutting edge, top-tier product line-up from most manufacturers.
Before Studio laptops were launched, content creators whose jobs revolved around CAD ( or Computer-Aided Design) or anything involving manipulating high-quality graphics may have had to go with gaming PCs to get the job done since their specs were better suited to meet the challenge as compared to normal laptops.
And still today, people around the globe can buy gaming laptops to perform all sorts of demanding computer activities. Gaming laptops are still at the bleeding edge of the laptop domain with the most extreme processors, the latest GPUs, and the most powerful cooling systems among the various types of portable PCs.
More processing power on deck:
One of the most significant problems that gaming devices address is the lack of processing power. As mentioned above, high-end games can demand processing power like there’s no tomorrow and they’re always pushing the envelope of the capabilities of what commercial PCs can do. So gaming laptops have to come strapped with specs. The largest RAMs, the best displays, the most powerful graphics cards. That’s what the leaders among gaming laptops are all about. They lead with the massive numbers and dazzling spec sheets.
That’s why even people who don’t play games on their PCs may prefer gaming laptops over normal laptops. They’re simply much more powerful.
So the lack of sheer performance is supposed to be off the list of issues that you’ll face when you have a decent gaming laptop. But it should be mentioned that this performance comes at a price. Well, two prices, actually. The first one is the actual price tag of the laptop which is a bit more obvious than the second one. The second one is the battery life. We’ll look into that down below.
All-in-all, gaming laptops come packed with beefy specs and the sharp leading edge of innovation at their side so performance should not be an issue if you invest in a gaming laptop with a top-tier processor and a top-tier graphic card. Everyday tasks should be a breeze even compared to their non-gaming laptop counterparts. With a gaming laptop, you just have more headspace to move with respect to performance capabilities, even if you don’t have the most pressing need for a top-tier laptop with some beefy hardware.
Battery life might not be the best:
So here’s the catch. Gaming laptops are more powerful but with more power comes an increased appetite for the battery. Gaming desktops don’t face the issue of a restricted power supply and that is one of the reasons why desktops, in general, can out-run laptops. But you really can’t blame a laptop for that. Even with the biggest batteries, a direct supply from the wall is bound to give a PC more freedom to dispense with all it’s packed power than a dedicated battery.
Since gaming laptops depend on their built-in or swappable batteries, when these laptops go into hyper-consumption mode at times of higher processing speeds, they drain batteries quite fast. And resultantly a gaming laptop may last between 3-8 hours per charge depending on what you’re doing and which laptop you have.
It’s important to really dig into the device that you think will satisfy your needs before you make a commitment. If you’re around power supplies and all you need is a portable device that can lift some considerable processing weight and that you can use at different places, gaming laptops are a much better option than normal computers and would definitely be useful in enhancing your work-flow and productivity. But if you aren’t around power supplies or don’t want to be carrying a relatively messy cable with a heavy power brick on you all the time, maybe looking into a desktop would be a better option.
There are a bunch of great gaming laptops like the Lenovo Thinkpad T580 that come with Power Bridge technology that lets you switch between batteries without even shutting off the laptop! Neat, huh? For around an extra 100$, you can purchase an additional battery and an external direct charger. That lets you charge the extra battery outside of the laptop and then swap one battery out for another when the first one runs out. That’s one way to solve the problem of portability and performance along with maintaining durability.
Optimizer software
Battery optimizer software are a great way to extend battery life when you’re not doing any intensive work on the laptop. This helps direct the power to the components that need it most and prevents excessive power consumption. It could prevent the GPU from running (and consuming chunks of battery) when the task at hand could easily be handled by the CPU itself.
Most laptops should come with a version of built-in battery optimizer software from the OS itself, if not from the manufacturer.
They might be a bit chunkier:
And so we come to the elephant in the room. Gaming laptops pack a punch of performance but with that performance comes some weight. Some actual lbs., that is. The more powerful cooling system, the bigger battery, and the sturdy build that some gaming laptops have can add a few extra pounds to a laptop. Gaming laptops aren’t usually pushing the envelope on thin designs which might be more of a professional laptop thing. But that isn’t to say that gaming laptops are going to have to be dragged around on the floor. It just might be an opportunity to tone those long-neglected muscles a bit.
Gaming laptops come in all sorts of sizes though, from super sleek to reasonably bulky. Just look for what the right specs and the right price is for you and the weight shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
They’re sturdy and durable:
As with other gaming devices, gaming laptops are built to last and persevere. They don’t just have powerful muscles to flex around, they can also have some solid skeletons to endure all the damage coming their way.
Gaming laptops are often designed in a more… Tron-like way. That might be to attract more gamers to the laptops but don’t think the designers don’t have functionality in mind. Gaming laptops take those RGB keyboards and that heavy-handed heat outlet design and integrate it into something that not only seems cool but is also functional.
The size and weight of a gaming laptop can be a little bit beefier than the typical MacBook but that comes with increased durability. For example, rather than building the body entirely with plastic, a gaming laptop may be built using alloys or metals that may allow for better heat conduction and make the laptop more durable in the long run.
Their keyboards may also be a little bit on the stiff side. Some gaming laptops like the Aorus 15G and the HP Omen X also have mechanical switches which are great for people that have to type a little bit which isn’t uncommon in the modern workplace. That way you can have a bit of both worlds, performance, and ergonomics.
Specialized alternatives for professionals (Nvidia Studio)
For professional use, laptops that come with the Nvidia Studio driver badge target the niche of customers that do heavy graphic work on their laptops. They’re basically built with content-creators in mind rather than gamers. Before these specialized laptops arrived, graphic professionals still relied on powerful gaming laptops to get things done.
Now that they have specific alternatives just for them, it’s a good idea to switch or buy a laptop that’s especially meant for a specific kind of profession. But gaming laptops are still very much capable of doing heavy graphic and computing work. The fact that they’re associated so much with gaming is somewhat due to the nature of the demand for games. Their capacity isn’t limited to that specific category. They have better cooling systems than normal laptops so they can keep going at higher clock speeds for relatively long periods and they still get the best GPUs in the market so their capacity for content creation isn’t impeded or obstructed that much.
So there isn’t a huge canyon between what gaming laptops can do and what professional studio laptops can do. They both just target some areas differently and you should be able to get things done with a gaming laptop just fine in the case there’s some reason that you’d prefer a gaming laptop over a more specialized laptop.
Conclusion
In a few sentences, the answer to “Are gaming laptops good for everyday use?” is that gaming laptops are great to have with you if you have the budget to buy a good one and want to invest in something that can perform and endure. If you don’t have much need for processing power or performance in general, you can look into normal laptops but if your work dabbles into some heavier stuff like graphic processing, content creation, or heavy computations you should look into getting a gaming laptop with powerful processing power and manageable battery life.
