After returning to WoW from an 8 year hiatus I have noticed the performance of my old computer just doesnt cut it anymore. I plan on purchasing a laptop this time around for mobility purposes. That said I am not too knowledgable on gaming laptops. Looking for advice on what to purchase around the $2,000 range or less.
This user has done some good reviews. Maybe this specific model may not be what you’re looking for (sub $700) but he seems to know about these laptops. Maybe @Hokushin can chime in.
It’s $599.99 at Micro Center but is out of stock at (I believe) all locations at the time of posting this. They’re getting restocks though.
I don’t think you need 2000$ to get a good laptop that would run WoW. If you plan on playing other games, though, it depends on what are your priorities:
- Do you want resolution? Like being able to do 4K, for example.
- Do you care about framerate? I personally do and would rather play with less resolution and graphics but have stable 60 fps. It’s easy to get used to 30 fps and most people barely think about framerate but it does make a difference, so I’d suggest checking that out and see if you need the 60 fps.
- There’s also the noise thing. If you’re sensitive to noise, it’s important to make sure the laptop you’ll get will not be loud.
I’ve had a few gaming laptops over time and from my experience, they’re not worth it. Primarily because no matter how powerful of a laptop you get, they always have less power than the desktop PC with the same specs. Being able to take your laptop and play on the couch, bed and outside is great but it’s not that big of a deal, in my opinion. The laptop always spends the resources on mobility, even if you turn on all the “gaming modes” and such, it’s still a little underpowered.
But yeah, it depends on what games you want to play on it and what are your preferences. If you just want it for WoW or FF XIV, even 1000$ would be enough.
Oh, and another thing to consider is that laptops can’t be upgraded. So, if you’ll feel like there’s a game you want to play but your laptop doesn’t run it, you’ll just have to get a new one compared to PC where you can just upgrade a GPU or CPU.