Laptop Purchase Decision

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theDon

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If this is the incorrect place for this question I apologize. I am posting question because I have been a member for a long time and generally I have not been let down..

Background: I have been Mac exclusive at home for a while, and my macbook while it has aged well is still almost 10 years old. So I decided to replace it.. I really liked my ability to setup boot camp or parallels to do Windows stuff, but that all went away with the newer Macbooks. I also enjoy gaming, and have been wanting to get back into PC gaming.

I purchased an Eluktronics Prometheus XVI. Some things bother me.. It is loud, and the battery life is not great.. It also has a different feel than my old macbook.. I am hesitant to say cheaper, but it isn't the all metal frame like the Mac. All of that said it is an absolute beast at current games..

My question is do you all think these issues are me being whiney, and they are exasperated having come from a Mac? Any thoughts would be appreciated.. Also any of you that have used this model of laptop any input would be appreciated..
 
I think your issues are largely due to the fact that you bought a full fledged desktop replacement gaming laptop, not a MacBook competitor.

Loud and poor battery life is going to be consistent across most gaming laptops. Build quality wise you might be happier with the nicer Dell XPS or HP Envy offerings at the cost of less powerful GPU options.

The Razer Blade is probably going to be your closest middle ground between Mac build quality and decent gaming performance. Unfortunately you pay a premium to get less performance and more thermal throttling than you would with a traditional gaming laptop.

Essentially you need to find a decent balance between performance, build quality, battery life, and price. In this case it looks like you went full performance.

If you have a local best buy you may want to checkout their laptop display. Mine normally has a couple Razers, Asus Zephyrus, Legion Slim, etc.
 
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Thanks I appreciate the insight. The Zephyrus was my first choice as I wanted a nice AMD build, but then I got into reviews and this whole debate over TPW and now here I am. Turns out that rabbit hole ended in a very hot and loud place. :)
 
I had a 2019 Razer Blade Pro 17 and when I upgraded I got a MSI GS 66 from another [H] member who got a deal on 5 of them.

10870H
3080 16gb
15.6" 300hz IPS screen
full metal chasis

The thing is a beast. IIRC it cost me $2400 or so, which given the specs is amazing. A much better deal than I got with Razer just a year earlier. Other than Razer, that model MSI is the only one I would compare to my Macbook in terms of quality.
 
Personally I feel the same way about build quality on all windows laptops except the Surface range. I'm a snob for fit & finish, but if you're coming from a Mac you may be too.

To be fair I don't know that any laptop that has high end specs will be quiet. Too much heat with small fans. But if you can live with midrange specs and hardware that's a bit overpriced I'd look into a Surface.
 
I think my expectations were probably a little too high. To be fair my Mac gets pretty loud when it struggles through Endless Space 2.
 
I recently replaced my old Acer laptop that was very portable/light with an Asus G14. The G14 is a bit heavier but gives me the option to play modern games instead of just old stuff. The battery life for desktop/work use is great, usually lasts ~6-8hrs. Been very happy with it, hopefully lasts as long as the Acer did.
 
Build quality on the PC side has gotten way better over the years but by and large it still can't compete with Apple on fit and finish - with few exceptions as mentioned above. All of which are $$$.

This is especially true now that Apple pricing seems to have gone down slightly with their new M1 family laptops.

For non-gaming PC lappies another one I forgot to add (which I've used as well for office stuff / not gaming) is the XPS series from Dell. I've only used the 13 and 15 but I'd imagine the build quality is similar across the entire line. For light gaming I think the fully max'ed out version has 1650 or equivalent as an option but still definitely not a "gaming" machine.
 
The last two MS laps I owned were an XPS and an Alienware.. It had an 11 inch screen and an 760 (maybe) pin I7. That was a long time ago.. the AW would shut down if you gamed with it sitting on the carpet.. I think the question is do you go with fit finish of Apple or something a little different that provides utility of gaming..
 
I also had the AW11. That little sucker was great. I think it's still sitting in a storeroom somewhere. I pulled the HD and replaced it with a 1st gen SSD (way back when) and it ran like a top for another few years. Took that thing with me when I traveled around the world for work.

BUT relevant to the original question - IIRC it was largely plastic fantastic and could not compete with a unibody aluminum Apple - even on its best day.
 
It's a shame that high quality parts on the inside is no real indicator of high quality parts on the outside. With the amount of heat a 3080 generates an all metal body might conduct heat a little too well.. Whats the battery like on your MSI?
 
I honestly couldn't tell you. It's my portable workstation so it only goes from plug to plug. For lighter work (email, text, spreadsheets), I use my M1 MBA and google docs. The thing I can tell you though is that the MSI is one of the few laptops (I'm assuming) to have a maxxed out battery capacity (99whrs) - which is the legal limit for going on airplanes I think. Not that you would want to lug it around. While the laptop by itself isn't too bad, people forget to include the huge power brick which is another few pounds.

It just comes down to where your priorities are - GPU performance (and what apps) or portability. If it were me and work / portability was my highest priority, with gaming just added in, I'd look into a game streaming service instead. Unless you live in the boondocks (or have bad internet service in general), I've heard they work pretty well within their limits, of course).

If I wasn't a hardware geek that just liked building PCs as a hobby, I'd probably have switched to a Mac and one of these services for when I got the gaming itch, but that's just me.
 
I used to have a few apple MacBook pros starting about 9 years ago. I now have a Lenovo Legion 7 and I don't miss any of my MacBooks at all. In fact since a little bit before windows 10 I havent missed appleOS especially since I enjoy gaming sometimes. The legion 7 is pretty solid check it out.
 
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