My sympathies. I had an ASUS until an MS update bricked it. I never really loved it, it always felt cheap and flimsy for the price. Tried to contact them and despite giving them money, it was a complete fail. Gave it to the spouse who replaced the hard drive and is using it now to run the laser cutter.
I avoid that brand like the plague since that time.
Some of us have medical and/or accessibility needs that make a desktop a bit of an issue. It has nothing really to do with portability, although that is great for people who travel.
If you are planning ahead (good idea), then the advice to buy the best you can afford is good.
I say this as someone playing on an Alienware Laptop from 2013. I still play all my Blizz games on it today. WoW, D3, Diablo 2 Resurrected (the highest demands so far), and any other games I want. I admit I spent a bit at the time and got what was nearly top of the line.
I can’t run things on high graphics anymore, but I can certainly still play decently. I am actually very impressed this laptop has lasted 9 years so far. I take good care of it, but still. It is a laptop and can’t be upgraded to speak of.
The old Alienware had a good reputation and I find a good top of the line laptop will last quite a while, especially if you’re not into the newest, must have high graphics to play games.
9 years is amazing though. I have never had that kind of luck but with me it was the hard drive that generally died and it was easier to simply replace the laptop.
I cloned the original HD long ago to a larger SSD so that is not really an issue. I may just do that again so I can have a 1TB SSD. There is no platter type HD on this laptop at all. For better or worse. It limits storage, but it does not break. I can always use an external drive for storage.
Oh, and this laptop was purchased after Dell bought Alienware. I worried about it a lot but so far it has been perfect. I just wish there were drivers for the onboard camera and headset jack. Those don’t work at all after the upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10 
I mean you could opt for ITX case/board. You can go fairly compact there.
This puts you back in the laptop category for sure then.
So assuming WoW is your only game…
I know the Zephyrus G14 had pretty good specs/reviews at least back in 2020/2021 when I was looking. It is still a solid 3.5 lbs, which not sure if you could do better for just WoW. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you also need to carry a work laptop, you are at 7 lbs, then chargers for each, possibly a headset … etc. you might be pushing 10lbs before you actually get to anything else you intend to carry with you.
If it serves as your primary media device (and you don’t also have a monitor to dock to at your destination, you might want to get a decent screen even if it is overkill for WoW, for movies and such.
I personally would push for 16GB. I know 8 is enough, but if you intend to have multiple tabs open in chrome, or other things running in the background … I can fill up 8GB pretty easily myself and so consider 16GB to be the minimum in 2022, so that you have some headroom.
I tend to disagree here. Laptops have a 2-4 year lifespan (imo) whereas a desktop is probably closer to 4-6+. At least historically. I haven’t been in the non-work laptop space for a while, but back in the day that was about the life expectancy before stuff started to go wonky (not enough ram, not upgradable, battery barely charges, charge port is broken, etc. , etc.). They may have a longer lifespan now.
I bought this Alienware laptop in April of 2013 and have used it as my primary computer for everything since. It still plays all my Blizzard games, although not at top resolution.
I consider 9 years (so far) out of a laptop to be good. The pace of obsolescence seems to have slowed way down. The move to mobile or tablets made things lightweight again and they tend to not push the computers anymore - not to the degree it did.
Alienware is total utter garbage. Waste of money, terrible products. Buy literally anything else. You’ll be thermal throttling most of the time and you’ll wonder why your performance sucks.
Funny, thats what the M1 Mac guys keep saying about anyone with an Intel or Ryzen chip…
There is a reason every PC person on here has recommended a cooler with their lap top and several have commented about fans.
95% of Macs arent used for gaming.
Do you follow tech? Go watch laptop videos and how much they thermal throttle. Bad manufacturers, like Alienware, are almost guaranteed to have issues.
The crappy MSI fans wouldn’t have been a big deal if you didn’t need to completely disassemble your laptop to change them.
Yeah I follow tech and realize that might have been 2 YEARS AGO but not today…
Edit - see video posted above from icy veins
I’m literally reading reviews right now on Alienware latops thermal throttling, generally running very hot and being very noisy. If that sounds like a great experience, then yea, get one of those. Have fun undervolting your 5900x and getting less than advertised performance.
Power limit throttle can exist from the mfg in BIOS as well, to sidestep some of this. Again, getting less than advertised performance of the chip.
You responded to me about macs. I didnt touch Alienware of today…
The M1 varients will run cooler and better than any PC chip you have. THeir GPU will not match the best GPU you can buy buts it good enough to 120 frame @ 10 …
Currently using this computer, runs WoW on ultra at 144 FPS consistently. Also has a 144 laptop monitor which is a nice bonus.
Yea, no one buys Macs to game on, sorry. Not really an option for actual gamers. Neither is a laptop tbh, but here we are.
It’s 2022, laptops are fine for gaming.
Plus some people have both.
No but many people are a one or 2 game only type person like me and they need a computer as well. If I only want to ever play WoW and FFXIV, a mac is perfect for it.
Cool running, long battery life great Unix based OS along with fantastic resale value and a system that will hold up for years.
There are PC makers that do this as well, just not usually in the gaming part.
My Alienware is from 2013. I don’t think any modern reviews are relevant to my laptop or experience with it. At the time, it was a higher end laptop for the market. Buying a higher end laptop means that 9 years later it is still running perfectly and I can play all my Blizzard games on it, although not at top graphics anymore. Yes, I use a cooling pad. Pretty much standard with any laptop that you want to last.
I know. I played on one in Wrath for a long time. But overall it’s a bad experience for WoW. Not upgradable, expensive. Good for people with limited space or travel but that’s about it.