- Sunday, 29 November 2009
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The INQUIRER: Because it's already tomorrow and yesterday somewhere
Gaming laptops are a complete joke
The concept is a good one, in theory, but falls flat in reality. The promise is to have a portable machine that plays games as well as it does all the things you want a laptop for. All the machines to date fail on both accounts, with only a nod to portability.
Let's look at the pros of the current crop of gaming laptops. They are, in no particular order:
1) More portable than a desktop
2) Fanbois think you are cool
Now let's look at the down sides, again in no particular order:
1) Very expensive
2) Proprietary hardware that is unfixable if it breaks
3) Proprietary hardware that is unupgradable
4) Slow CPUs
5) Slow buses
6) Slow memory
7) Slow HDs
8) GPU makers lie about the capabilities of mobile GPUs (the 5000M is every bit as good as a 5000, really)
9) They are heavier than a normal laptop
10) They are as portable as a phone book
11) Battery life measured in hummingbird wingflaps
12) Screen responses measured in glacial movement units
13) Keyboards and mice that pale in response to a Logitech G5/G15
14) Lots of expensive crap bolted on you will never use
Let's look at these in detail, shall we? The initial count says two wins for 14 losses, but the devil is in the details. First the pros, portability and cool factor. Portability is a given, it is a laptop, and you can ostensibly game on it. Some are relatively light, but none of those are what I would consider gaming laptops. The gaming ones, with multiple video cards and big high rez screens are all 17 inches or larger and weigh as much as a mid-sized sedan.
Portability is hindered by the fact that to get anything not outright laughable for battery life, you need to add in a car battery. A good keyboard and mouse are a must for any real gamer, and with the power brick and other widgets, you suddenly aren't all that portable. A good µATX case with two PCIe 16x slots isn't far behind, especially with nicely designed carrying straps or handles.
Then there is the coolness factor. You know, when you pull it out and all your friends go 'aaaah'. There is no denying that, but six months and three revisions down the line, you are still owing 93 per cent of the value in payments, that wears thin. Cool is very short lived in computers.
Still, they are more portable, and people will swoon over the shiny finish of the moment. As a friend told me when I got a Camaro in high school, "You can pick up chicks in that". I bluntly looked at him and said, "Do I want the chicks I can pick up with a Camaro?" The same holds true for laptops, if you want that attention, fine by me, but I won't go there, it isn't worth it.
That brings us to the negatives, and boy are there a lot. As I alluded to, they are shatteringly expensive. For the exact same performance, expect to pay at least twice what you pay for a desktop, and the premium only goes up from there. Why is it good to drop an extra $1500 or so on a beast that gets eaten alive by a mid-level desktop in it's main function?
Then there is the proprietary hardware bit. If you push over your desktop monitor, you go out and by a new one. If it is more than six months later, you will get a better one for less money, likely with more features. You will feel stupid, but you will still have better hardware.
Crack the screen on your laptop, and you are in hell. If it is six months old, expect to get merely screwed by the replacement costs. As it gets older, if it is possibly to replace at all, it is almost never worth it, the price of a screen quickly becomes more than the price of a new faster laptop. The chances of you being able to buy a replacement part off the shelf? Do you believe in fairies?
The same is true for upgradability. NV is pimping their MXM 'technology', ATI their Axiom, and neither ever amounted to anything much. If you are lucky enough to find a manufacturer that allows you to buy one, you will basically be stuck with what is out there when you buy the notebook. The next version of the 'standard' won't work with the current one. I looked for years and found all of no manufacturers offering an upgrade on even the next generation of GPUs. They may exist, but I will take my chances with fairies.
The same is true for just about any other part other than RAM. You may find a bigger faster part, but as soon as you plug it in, if it works, watch the temperatures, and more importantly, watch that battery life. HDs occasionally work faster, but pale in comparison to the most average of desktop parts on a good day. You usually overload the PSU before you get any decent speed increases.
That brings us to the quality of the hardware itself, specifically the CPUs. You can make a CPU that is optimized for speed or for power use, but not both. The fundamental tradeoff in transistors is that speed brings leakage and more power use. More efficient transistors mean slower but less leaky parts. Expect to give up half a GHz or so if you want anything more than fractions of an hour of battery life.
Then there is bus speed, or lack thereof. Almost every mobile part out there hamstrings the bus for power. Currently, Intel is 533MHz behind on its mobile parts, AMD is sucking down battery life as the tradeoff. Neither is a good thing. Every bit you push out across a wire costs power, and the faster you do it, the more additional overhead you pay.
Then there is the memory. Most laptops are capped at DDR2/800 with bog standard or worse timings, but faster is coming. This is OK for a business desktop, but on a gaming rig, especially a 'high end' gaming rig, well, prepare to be laughed at if I see you at a lan party.
They are at about a 50% raw speed deficit to real gaming memory, tend to have laughable timings, and cost even more of a premium than the normally expensive premium desktop parts. Densities are a joke, and even if you could find a huge fast stick, your mobile chipset probably would not support it.
In the end, there are some manufacturers that make good gaming laptop memory, OCZ, Corsair and Kingston come to mind. If you can find appropriate memory, and if your machine takes advantage of it, and if if you can tweak your BIOS appropriately, you stand a good chance of overheating the memory. Trust me, transient and heat based memory problems are a true joy to debug, especially if they only happen in the heat of battle when you are getting shot at. Grins all around there.
Then there are HDs, another area where laptops really stink. There are 7200rpm S-ATA drives, and I would expect all decent gaming laptops to have one or more of them, but many will try and pass off 5400rpm parts. If you look at other factors such as seek time and areal density, laptop drives, well, blow.
Any average desktop drive will eat a similar RPM laptop drive for lunch. If you are a serious gamer, you will have a 10K WD Raptor or three anyway, and those destroy the best laptop parts without breaking a sweat. While others are playing, you are watching the load bar, that is a great thing for you to show off your shiny toy with.
That brings us to the heart of any gaming laptop, the GPU, and possibly the greatest scam in laptops, mobile GPUs. This deserves a rant of it's own, but the condensed version centers around three things, specs, power and drivers.
First power, a good high end desktop GPU takes 150W or so, a mobile one on the order of a quarter that. Most mobile power saving techniques center around idling the CPU when it is not under full load. GPUs do this as well, shutting off units and even downclocking massively.
The problem? When you are gaming, you are never under low load, it is almost a certainty that you will be pushing the GPU to it's max, so no downclocking. Your laptop will melt with 150W, so NV and ATI can work miracles and bend the laws of physics, or they can give you a 50W part.
Guess what they do? They give you castrated mobile parts. The scam of it all? They use the same numbering schemes as the desktop parts hoping you are dumb enough to not look closely. If you bought a gaming laptop, you were that dumb.
You end up with a mere shadow of the part you thought you were getting, but you have a sticker that fanbois will ogle over. This satisfies pro 2) but rarely satisfies the purchaser. It is a scam.
Then you have drivers, or rarely do you have drivers. The situation is improving, but they are still hard to find if they exist. You usually end up with a vendor supplied driver that from last November that contains bugs exorcised a year before in the desktop parts. Enjoy the screen corruption people.
The screens themselves are another bit of happiness. Response times are typically achieved through newer technologies or overdriving the screens. Overdriving costs power, and power costs battery life. Not good for laptops.
Any sane person will stop calling anything bigger than 17-inch a laptop, but 1920 * 1200 screens are starting to crop up in the 17-inch world now. While I applaud greater resolution, if you squint at the same rez on a 24-inch screen, imagine it on about 75 per cent the size. The increased dot pitch is not necessarily a plus if you can't read the text on the screen.
So, you end up with slow and blurry but still making you squint, or squinty and battery draining. Have you ever seen a laptop screen that is better than a high end desktop LCD? I mean that in a measurable, testable sense, not in fanboi "Oooooh.... shiny" mode.
All of the tech in a modern laptop is skewed toward battery life, and impressive gains have been made. Fractions of a watt a fought over by Intel, AMD and chipset vendors to give you that extra 15 minutes of battery life and to shave off that last few mg of weight. Vista is 17 steps backward in this regard, but if you are dumb enough, you deserve what you get.
Gaming laptop give those laudable goals the one finger salute, they are there for gaming not intercontinental flight marathons, right? Well, yes and no. The added power draw means added battery mass so they don't get laughed out the door. Strike one.
The added heat dissipation means you need bigger heavier copper HSFs and heat pipes. These also take up space, and copper is not cheap or light. You also need bigger fans to move that heat off the end of the heat pipe, and those suck more power and generate more heat. Strikes two and three.
More importantly the side of the laptop will put out enough heat to wilt the mightiest of oaks and remove that wetland problem those pesky environmentalists are always carping about. You end up with a massive brick that puts a phone book to shame in both volume and mass. But your friends will go "ooooh". For six months. Then it is just heavy, unwieldy and slow.
Then there is the problem of controllers. Laptops have come a long way, some are even offering exceptionally good feeling and almost full sized keyboards. Track pads have gone from jokes to quite nice over the years, probably due to Synaptics more than anything else.
For a real gamer though, a higher standard is needed, the keys that are downsized tend to be the ones you need for gaming, arrow keys, numpad, function keys and others. A high DPI mouse also is needed. You can get p0wned repeatedly or you can use the right equipment. This brings us back to portability, but you get the point by now.
That brings us to the added stuff that manufacturers feel compelled to toss in to their machines. Webcams are one big one, the thrill there wears off in days, if you are still impressed in a month you need to go outside more. The various readers, widgets, lighting schemes and buzzers all are cute, but they add cost and weight. Once the sale is made, they are superfluous if not an outright negative.
In the end, you have a class of laptops that is barely fit for their intended purpose, reaching mid-range speed on a good day. If you are really lucky, they can drive the fixed rez of the screen you have on a modern game with most features turned on. In a few months, that won't be the case, and you are stuck. In a year, you will be cursing your wonderbox.
On the other hand, an SFF machine like a Shuttle or the late Monarch Hornet, even a generic µATX case, will do everything you need. You can pick out a board with 2 16x PCIe slots, 4 DIMMs, quad core support, and everything else you need. If you want more, there are slots. Want to upgrade? You can, easily!!!!
They may not be 100% future proof, but they are infinitely better than any laptop ever made. Get one with a decent handle or carry straps and you don't give away much in portability, and only a little in weight.
In the end, you can buy a faster gaming rig and a laptop for less than what you can get an uber-gaming laptop for. There is no reason other than vanity and stupidity to buy one of these, but strangely people do. While they are waiting in line for the high colonic, I will be gaming in the comfort of my house, at high frame rates. µ
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Wonderful article. You opened my eyes.
you know, i had never actually looked in detail at the spec differences of the gaming gpu's... thanks mate for opening my eyes n saving me a couple o grand
I totally agree with you on this one. If you are a gamer, then go all out with a high-end desktop or SFF. Just use the portable laptop for another purpose! Thanks for this!
If you have money to burn, would you buy one? I mean, how old are you dude? change is inevitable, portability is the new king. sure desktop rigs are great but if you are a gamer and you move around much, a gaming laptop sure beats the boredom. I think the one thing that annoys the most is the price tag. Like I said it all comes down to the question: can you afford it?
I have both. It's not a desktop replacement, but augments my gaming obsession with mobility. I'll bring my hot, expensive, mediocre notebook to a LAN party any day rather than lug a full desktop rig. Why, cause I can. 

My two cents: Lose the venom, people aren't stupid.
The Venom is nice, I love articles that aren't "standard" you know..go on a rant in a ....classy way...i hate those.

Gaming laptops are stupid...and whine... your games are going to be on a 17" crapola resolution piec of plastic..trying to play crysis.

So yeh you can take it...but it sucks...sorry.

Gaming laptop fanbois are like the over confident high school jock thats a d*ck to everyone.....but handicapped.(Look big and athletic but he has one arm).
You forgot to mention craptacular sound for games. There is absolutely no solution, hardware or software, that will allow you to have EAX 5.0 effects. Gaming sound for laptops is pathetic; and I blame Creative Labs 100%.
Your article makes you sound like a desktop fanboi. Also sounds like you got your ass handed to you by many a laptop user. Theres no news here, desktops have always been the more common setup...higher spec laptops are just nice for those of us who would rather carry a 20lb brick than a 50lb suitcase when we move our computer.
Sure, laptops make tradeoffs, but they're LAPTOPS. 75% of the gaming ability with 25% of the size and power consumption? Yes please. I toted my desktop around for ages before moving to a 17" laptop, and I'll never go back, at least for a portable rig.

Only the people with more money than sense buy the pre-packaged "gaming" laptops (XPS, Alienware, etc). Those of us who are smarter buy the lower model with the same chassis and add in the GPU. while they definitely aren't as upgradeable as a desktop, if you pick the right parts when you build it (i.e. get all the top stuff), you're covered until the next big wave of CPU/GPUs they shove in there.
This whole non-modularity in laptops in general is a strange one. 

I worked in IBMs mobiles more than 10 years ago, and when it came to the core internal parts (mobo, hd, fdd, RAM) they were very much modular - each was encased in a colour-coded box, and they plugged into one another like lego bricks. 

Upgrading simply meant - open it up, unplug whatever module was being replaced, and plug in the new one. Any drivers added in as per usual.

Keyboard, chassis, cover and screen replacements were also very easy. Don't see why that shouldn't be the case today, just add in graphics and sound cards and optical drives to the available parts.
I've used a gaming laptop before. It weighed just the same as a regular laptop. They're just as portable as any folding electronic When you said slow memory, you were just thinking of stone-age notebooks. If you buy a laptop from sites that let you customize them, you can get up to 4 gigs of RAM. Which, mind you, is the largest size of desktop memory as well. It's also damn fast. They're expensive because of the abnormal size on the hard drive. I've seen a Dell Inspiron that had 750 gigs on the hard drive, which is more than enough for anything, even on a desktop.

Do you know why people buy gaming laptops? They're meant to hold the large filesize of uploaded games. Therefore, you can have muliple games on it.

By the way, you need to work on your grammar.
Many thanks for one of the best-written and funniest technology pieces I've read in a while! It's only venom if it's directed at someone; this was just hilarious. It's a big world out there, with plenty of people who *aren't* experts and *can* benefit from this perspective.
I'm concerned that your argument is based on hearsay versus experience. You make real life comparisons to exaggerated conditions instead of real life to real life.

Have you tested the platforms? If so, can you provide data and benchmarks?

IE Comparing FPS to a glacier is not helping me. The human eye can see a max of 75 FPS so what are the laptops kicking out? 50? 40? ... 10?

Not meant as a flame. I found your article interesting, but being in the market for portability, I'd like to see more factual information.
So...

If you're a gamer and need/prefer the convenience of a laptop, you're suggested alternative to owning an expensive laptop is to own an expensive desktop in addition to a laptop?

A laptop will never match the performance of a desktop, but it's foolish to dismiss them as a gaming platform. I'd much prefer owning one expensive piece that's used constantly than 2 that are used half as much.
I was going out to buy one today. You have changed my mind. I could see the need if I moved around a lot but I don't.
Your article's points are well stated, except for one point. The whole reasoning behind a laptop is to have a computer that you can transport with you. I spend 130 or more days a year in hotel rooms around the country, and that is a long time to go without gaming. I won't buy one of these for wow, I would by it for necessity.
Please think before you open your mouth...have you seen the new movie " I AM LEGEND" well thats kinda how you are....all alone by your lonesome. Mobile gamers no way not me im the authority on this stuff. Read my facts, er uh my OPINIONS I write about these laptops that dont live up to their calling!!! you are the only man besides your family members you asked to back u up with positive comments, lol how is your cousin earl andyour other cousin earl jr anyways lol still livin down in Mayberry eh. I chalange you to your own word or are u scared...respond so we can see if you really know what your talking about. I mean forget LAPTOP, COMPUTER SHOPPER, MAXIMUM PC MAGAZINES...they dont know the scoop like you man..your the man...!Ha Cnet reviews..ha you tell em whats up your the one to open everyones eyes!!!Respond so I can take your job...you need to sell used cars or 99 cent store, not in the technology industry...


George
spccortez@msn.com
but was quickly removed from the mainstream of communication being recieved. Hmmmm, bawk, cluck cluck, cock a dooodle dooo...whatever a chicken sounds like.... come on post this one then...lol
Creative idea but your missing the whole point.. the idea is to be portable with the ability to play games not to be a main gaming source (although some are) in fact I am getting one in December and i have no regrets.
Good Article. I imagine more than one Laptop owner burn in hate reading this article, but is true. Your ironic parts are fun, but points out a real deal. We can`t deny that mobility is the future and there will be a day were mobile systems will deliver a good performance, but for now they... well.... just suck. Today I was thinking on buying a gamming laptop but know I´m sure I'll go for Desk Top. I'm already thinking in a very nice handle design,,, you know,,, for Mobility. Excuse my poor English but I’m not entirely familiar with your language.
who ever wrote this is a twonk.
besides trying to be sarcasicaly funny which he fails to do miserably.

if he said: laptops are not as good as desktops for gaming....ok, that would make sense.
but what do u expect from something which is a fraction of the size u fuktard?

and looking at his pros and cons.... o many biased and pointless ones to list, but my favourite is con number 13....
making fun of a mouse?
heres a newsflash moron: u can use that same mouse with a laptop.

what a goof
First off...i can't believe people sit there and say "You opened my eyes! Thank you so much!" I would think most readers of this site would have a clue. Not everyone's a moron, but jeez.

And I can't understand why in the world you would have such a negative opinion on gaming laptops. You're right in the more extreme sense, but don't be so damn narrow minded. I travel 6 days a week, hundreds of miles away from my home gaming rig, and I'd go nuts without my laptop now. Merely a T7200 2.0GHz, 2gigs, and a GeForce GO 7600 on XP Pro, all I need to power a couple of hours of WoW or Portal or HL2. I'm not pullin 6xMSAA with this unit, of course, but I'd rather game in less visual splendor then nothing at all.

Do I game with my laptop? Sure
Does "gaming" only include the latest DX10 hits? Hell no.

I'm really curious to hear what the true expert has to say about this topic, Thomas Von Drashek M.D. Where is that nut job?
I have been playing COD1 for almost two years on an Acer laptop with 1G RAM and a 128 MB shared memory video CHIP. I do not play the game for the view, I play to win and I do fine thank you. As a matter of fact I do well. Yes I have my res all the way down and turn off all the extra gee-whiz stuff like blood, brass and bullet holes. I also play on the lowest sound setting to save memory. 

Yes, there are players out there that have hotter systems than I do but if they can't play the game I still win. When I went into bios and upped my vid chip to 128, from 64, I started owning others. When I upgraded my RAM I got better. When I learned from my mistakes all of the sudden the field evened out and I became as good as those with the high-end systems. 

I will use a laptop because I am not able to take my desktop to work with me. I use the laptop because I prefer to play in my recliner rather than at a desk. I wil continue to use a laptop because they fit my needs AND I wil still do very well thank you. 

It ain't the 'puter that wins it's the player.
You made some good points and some of it was pretty funny. One of the things you didn't take into consideration however is what game the laptop-gamer is playing. If you want to play a new release first person shooter game on a sub-$2000 gaming laptop... well you're prob dreaming. However, if you want to play other types of games, you can now pick-up what I call a light to moderate gaming laptop for under 2 grand which will get the job done nicely. I have an Asus G1 I bought a year ago and I play Company of Heroes, Guild Wars, Wow, with no problem at all. I also play Counter Strike, Might and Magic:DM, COD2 (low settings), and a few others. So it depends on what games the laptop-gamer wants to play. But unless you have a good reason such as being a regular business traveler I would also recommend saving yourself a ton of cash and sticking with a desktop for those PC gaming sessions.
I can't remember the last time anyone put their PC on a plane and took it for a two week stay in a hotel. Or anyone who preferred making up to twelve trips to the car (2-3 to the car, 2-3 from car to LAN party, 2-3 LAN party to car, 2-3 car back to home) plus time hooking it up and tearing it down (assuming that you wire it behind your desk once you get it back home again). Also, some specifics would be nice rather than generalized comments about the battery life sucking and the speed being terrible. What is the real difference? I hate articles like this where the author can't really break down the issues with any real substance. What a waste.
i totally agree
i have for a long time tried to find 'my' gaming laptop and have come to realize what u just said was true.... expect 1 thing,
just twice the price !!!?
man todays gaming laptops are not under 3k US$ with some reaching just below 5k
Ok, granted you make some valid and in-valid points in the old laptop vs. desktop gaming rig. However, desktop rigs do not fit everyone's lifestyle. After selling the house, wife, kids and dog I ended up living on a sail boat. I tried the old "desktop on a boat" thing for about a year and it just did not work out. It was fine for some things, but it sucked the power down too fast. Granted, at the time there were no reasonably priced laptops that would play the games I wanted to play (2001 - 2002.) So I did without. I know it is crazy, but I did not want for entertainment. 
You see, the boat moves and I was able to visit the entire west coast of Mexico, Central and Some of South America in the last six years. Imagine my suprise when I got back from the third world and found out that there are desktop replacements that weigh in under 15 pounds that actually can play the latest and greatest games, not to mention all the ones I missed since I left (the Orange Box.) 
I picked up a 'disposable laptop' on sale prior to Christmas and was supprised at the speed and power that is available for so inexpensive a platform. Now I am looking into Boutique Laptops in the 3K range. Absoutluly Astounding what is out there. I burned up a 3.5K Gateway in Costa Rica and it was not even a gaiming rig, just expensive. 
So before you get down on the portable desktop replacement rigs I invite you to a boat LAN party. Just dingy out your desktop rig and bring your own generator........
I think many people have missed the point of the authors rant. He is not dismissing laptops for playing games but focusing on "Gaming Laptops". These are so called "uber" machines built specifically for playing games and cost an arm, a leg and your left testicle. 

I have a gaming desktop, a business desktop and a laptop. I need the laptop for the numerous business trips and for sitting on a rig for 30 days. 

My laptop does indeed play games, quite well in fact. It also ticks all the other boxes I bought it for, however I paid 600 US for it and not 3000 US. 

The Gaming laptop are a con, directed towards people who don't know there hardware. There are many ripoffs like this in the world where suppliers use bright lights and powerful keywords to describe a product that doesn't fit the bill. 

As for technical information, comparisons and benchmarks they are not needed. Anyone who knows more than a little of computers will know laptops always fall short of comparable desktops even if you took two identical systems side by side. It's the trade off between portability and power usage. 

I also think, the sort of people who buy "Gaming Laptops" are probably the sort of person who buys a "Desktop replacement Laptop" that yes, does replace a desktop, but only in the physical sense. 

I will continue to use my laptop, it is not as a good as playing on my 24" home screen with every box possible ticked, but it is an invaluable tool for those of us who use them for what they were initially designed for. At least until PDA's are up to scratch.
Alright, no one's arguing that gaming laptops aren't gaming desktops, literally or performance-wise, but laptops give the user something that desktops dont: A life. You can take a laptop around school, a bar, airports, coffee houses, etc. but can that be done with a desktop. In my opinion, most guys that own high end desktops live in their parent's basement and/or paid for the computer by opting out of getting a car. Now as cost goes, a real HIGH-end laptop with all the amenities can run you into the ground with about 20k. A pretty good one will be about 2.5 to 4k. However, a ground demolishing desktop, as in the case of a Halogen Krypton fully decked out, will run you upwards of about 40k. Please find a gaming laptop for that. We can argue day in and day out, but, in the end, my point is that both have their pros and cons so we should just leave it up to what a person feels they need. Thanks for reading this.
haha i don't know what you have experienced but it seems that you haven;t seen the world yet.. what u said might be right 5 years ago lol but now the technology has improved and now my laptops have grown even stronger then most of the desktops... I think you guys should go and see what alienware has to offer and Rock laptop.. My laptop has 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800M GTX graphic card.. Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)processor...4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 2048MB MEMORY!!!...8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW) w/ LightScribe Technology OPTICAL DRIVES!!...and 500GB 5,400RPM (8MB Cache)... Now u tell me if this laptop is worth it or not?? cuz how i c things this laptop can kick 80% of all desktops.. and all that will cost only 2000-3500$ and if u want to suit up ur desktop u gona be lookin for 3000-5000+$ 
so now ask yourself, how stupid is this article?
I feel compeled to mention that less than 1 year after this article was made, it goes from being partially wrong to very wrong.

My gaming laptop, (which i bought in december of '07, 4 months after the article was written) has a 2.2GHz core 2 duo processor at 800FSB and 4 MB of cache. That's the speed of a mid-range desktop core 2 duo when i bought it. My laptop has 2GB of RAM. More than then's off the shelf desktop. My video card? 8600M GT. 256MB dedicated memory. plus turbocache. I can play Crysis on medium settings. Crysis. Almost every other game besides that i can play on highest settings on my native resolution of 1200X800, which is quite comfortable. I dont notice much difference in resolution compared to my desktops 1680X1050.

That was THEN.

Today?

Today's high end gaming laptops have more video power than an 8800 ULTRA.

You nag on power like powers the issue with gaming laptop.

Seriously, who the hell plays videogames on a grassy hill?
Gaming Laptops are for portability, not for gaming away from a power outlet. Which 99% of hotels and other buildings in the us have.

Gaming laptops are awesome. The gap between a gaming laptop and a gaming desktop is closing all the time. It won't be long until fully fitted desktops are smaller and laptops can be just as powerful.
Geeeez! It’s been a long time since I saw someone whine as much as that.

Laptops/notebooks cost a lot more because it takes a lot more R & D and skill to cram so much into a small space. 

The future is smaller, lighter, faster, and more portable.

I am an electronics engineer and know what goes into making one of these. If people listened to your griping we would not advance towards the ultimate machine. Just the fact that you say that the machine is almost obsolete every six months is an absolute reality that we are constantly making progress. It takes money and a huge amount of skill to reach our goals…..but we are getting there fast. 

Don’t forget with the technology before the transistor which is not too long ago, just a regular cell phone with all its features would have taken up all the space of the empire state building and would have needed Niagara Falls to cool it down. If you showed someone from those days the crappiest notebook of today……he would have probably paid a couple of million dollars for it.

Don’t turn people away from progress because you are bitter for some reason. Can you also picture the sight of people lugging around desktops with keyboards sticking out their trousers and monitors slung over their shoulders? For starters, people would need to use steroids first.

I prefer seeing the brighter side of progress.
Marc 
alright...first off..you have to be the most idiotic person i have ever seen post anything about a cpu...second explain to me why a XPS laptop can outdo ANY desktop i have ever seen...third..explain to me wtf your even doing posting about computers when you dont know wtf your talking about? i rest my case and all you that believe this joke..needa be smacked
I think before you ever get the urge to write an article again, it would be in your best interest to maybe look at a grammar book. Just look at it. You couldn't possibly do worse. As for this article, I find that the author is just bitter because he cannot afford a gaming laptop. Also if I ever saw him at a LAN party I would have to re-evaluate my life and first ask the question: Why am I at a LAN party? I believe gaming laptops are more for allowing you to play games anywhere there is a high speed internet connection. Like in between my classes so I don’t have to go home for 2 hours before my next class. Not so I can go sit in a tiny room with a bunch of sweaty fat guys and their 2-liters of Mt. Dew. If you can afford one, buy one.
My AW m15x destroys this article hands down. It flips all of the 14 points in the beginning, plus it has wow factor (as in wow that LED keyboard is cool, or wow you payed $%&@# for that thing!?! That's more than my sport bike!) Yes, expensive, but it can not be topped in the 15.4", under 8 lb category. There are similar (to some better) competators, but the m15x matched my taste and gave me the most options in a 15" notebook. Specs: 3.2ghz overclocked Intel X9000, 9800mGTX, 4gigs of overclocked RAM, 1 TB storage, 7200 rpm HD, BluRay player, 1900x1200 screen, cosmetic crap, all the bugs featured in bad reviews are fixed (doesn't creak when you open it, is not too hot for a lap), 3DMark Score is over 10,000, fast as F#*%, plays Crysis @ 29 fps, COD4 111 fps, and in power save mode can play a BR movie for 3 hours. 

There are other great gaming laptops like PC Micro Works, Vigor, Sager, etc, but I wanted the 15"er with the ost options. Any desktop with the same hardware (camparable) and performance specs as mine or these costs nearly the same. You could get close with a budget rig, but you can't fly on planes with it, enjoy it in an airport, hotel, or whenever traveling, and you can't take that thing to Iraq like I did my "gaming laptop", no? I'm sorry, I didn't think being able to relax playing high end FPS and adventure games in between missions in a war zone as a "joke". It helped me keep some peace of mind and was a morale boost with LAN line deathmatches in a FOB.

Looks like the joke is on you, Charlie.
Listen people, please understand what he is trying to tell you, not take his words and put it out of place.

First you have to understand that he is directing this article towards the people who buy laptops for 3k+ USD only to stay on the top edge for a few months.

Taking that into account, understand please...
Desktops will always have the CAPABILITY to be better than laptops, for a lesser or equal price.

Upgrades will always be an issue in laptops, 

Secondly he is talking about GAMING Laptop, he isn't trying to say buy a desktop rather than a laptop. People will always need laptops, and soon it will be more popular than desktops (even i own a laptop due to needs and i don't play all that much for a desktop)

HE is telling only the people who buy gaming laptops for 3-5k, buy a pretty good desktop for 1.2k-1.5k then buy a very decent laptop(midline GPUs) that will be in mainstream for an average time for another 1.5k

after that you can upgrade the desktop parts like the GPU to play the latest and greatest games for a lot less than buying a whole new laptop.

Try to understand that he is just trying to make you choose the wiser decision rather than rant about laptops in general.

Finally, i support his view point that spending 3k+ on a laptop is just stupid, financially and enjoyment wise. As a laptop half that price can do 80-90% of what the 3k+ laptop can do. 
what a load of tate i buy many new gameing laptop yearly and thay do cost a lot but totaly blow away any other laptop not just on games with office data and any other aspect in fact everyone is in aww at my machines i buy.
Well not even a gaming laptop as such, but I have been playing WoW on an Asus X53S Series for around 6 months without many problems. Yes it gets hot and sometimes FPS can be an issue.

Only found this article while google'n for gaming laptops. I was thinking about something a bit better but I think I'll save my cash :D
I HAVE BEEN A GAMER SINCE THE DAYS OF PONG IN THE 70's. I'AM A PRO GAMER AND PROGRAMMER. I AGREE A DESKTOP PC IS BETTER THAN A LAPTOP BUT PORTABILTY IS THE KEY SO THINK CLOSELY WHAT IS OUT THERE FOR GAMES.
I WORK ON SUBMARINES WERE SPACE IS VERY TIGHT BUT I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT GAMING SO I OWN AN ALIENWARE LAPTOP WHICH ALMOST MATCHES MY DESKTOP WHICH IS TOP SPEC. I THINK YOU HAVE NOT RESEARCHED YOUR DATA ENOUGH MATE AND YOU ARE ABOUT AS FUNNY AS TOOTH ACHE. ALIENWARE IS EXPENSIVE SO REVIEWERS PLEASE NOTE (MSI) FOR UNDER £700 DO A FANTASIC RIG. 
SUMMARY: USE BOTH TO SUIT YOUR ENVIROMENT AND DONT SPEND UNDER £600 FOR A GAMING LAPTOP, THIS REVIEW IS JUST OK BUT DONT TAKE IT FOR GOSPEL, GOOGLE ALL THE SPECS FOR THE RIG THAT SUITS YOU AND ALWAYS BUILD YOUR OWN CUSTOM PC AND ONLY BUY EITHER TOSHIBA / MSI / ALIENWARE FOR YOUR GAMING LAPTOP.

[No need to shout! Mod.]
I don't know about most laptops but I know mine comes with this handy thing called a power adapter. It allows me to plug my laptop into a wall socket, just like desktops can! This way I don't kill my battery when gaming...

My laptop:

2Ghz Core 2 Duo
512MB 8600 GT
2GB DDR 800 Mhz
64GB SSD HD
N wireless/Gigabit LAN
1GB Intel Turbo Memory
15.4" Screen
etc etc

$879 CAD... not many thousands like the author suggests.. suits me just fine.
Very nice, gettin a sff instead of laptop.
I just bought an Asus G50VT-X1 from BestBuy for $950 not including taxes, my gaming desktop that I bought for $1500 has slower components than my gaming laptop, and I get a good 2 hours battery life on High Performance setting while playing The Orange Box games, and getting an average of 30 fps in Crysis on High Setting. The laptop fits perfectly in my UnderArmour laptop backpack and in front zipper pocket fits the charger, and Razer gaming mouse with Kingston security cable and phone usb cable. In the main section of the backpack can fit my gaming headphones, 2 schoolbooks, and my laptop lapdesk all without stuffing it in. With my G50VT-X1 along with my UnderArmour backpack, portable gaming has never been simpler when going out to LAN partys and Gaming Cafes. And no weight is no problem because of the adjustable straps and probably helps that I weightlift 3 times a week, but to say that gaming laptops are a joke, just give it a couple more years and see what comes out then.
Many have not read the article at all.
I know for a fact that laptops are inferior to desktops, especially for gaming. Even with higher specs, laptops still dont function very well.
I know this from personal experience.
Throw in Windows Vista and you have a huge headache.
Laptop owners need not get offended. Every single one of my friends who own laptops have huge headaches with them and are constantly whining about how slow it gets after a few months usage etc etc.
My older desktop still functions better than many of these new laptops that look nice on paper.
And give this portability nonsense a rest. I travel alot and most laptops soon become a bloody nuisance to carry around. The weight begins to tell. It also attracts unwanted attention. Te university i studied at suffers laptops thefts on a weekly basis and even lecturers are not safe.
If people were that desperate for portability for the essentials, they can get a Netbook. But very few people are that desperate. Most people just get attracted to the media marketing.