A lot of students go through this stage, where finally it’s the time to choose between so many good laptops and they wonder if getting a gaming laptop would be worth it for college or school.
Should I buy a gaming laptop for college or school? Well, gaming laptops are costly no doubt in that and can get even more costly depending on each and every individual’s taste.
Some might by it just because of the way it might look or feel but most buy it to get something to handle their work on the go. Being portable is the biggest advantage of laptops, you can do your work wherever you want until your laptop can handle all the load. I did some research about what other people might think of this topic and decided to save some research time for you guys.
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Should I Buy A Gaming Laptop For College Or School?
What I found after a lot of research is that the answer to this question actually depends on you which I will explain how, but before that, we should acknowledge that every individual has different needs due to which they might prefer something which some might not.
If You Are A Student Who Is A Gamer
If you are a gamer and definitely want to play games on the go, then its clear for you that you want to play games on the go and unless someone wants to roam around with a desktop everywhere then you should get a gaming laptop, it will handle most of the games and software just fine depending upon the laptop you decide to buy.
There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to buying a gaming laptop, one of them certainly being the cost. They are costly, no doubt about that but if it provides you with what you need then it might not be a problem for you. Let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of buying a gaming laptop.
Advantages Of Owning A Gaming Laptop
There are many advantages to owning a gaming laptop whether you want to buy it just for gaming or for work. Let’s look at some of the advantages of buying a gaming laptop if you decide to buy a gaming laptop for college or school.
1) Performance
One of the most favourite and definitely noticeable advantages of buying a gaming laptop over normal laptops is certainly performance. More performance means more F.P.S more Fps means a better experience in gaming as compared to normal laptops. Hardware demanding software like Adobe After Effects would run better on a gaming laptop as compared to a normal laptop.
Here comes a twist, here the case is if you want to work on the go, would also be applicable in a case where you travel a lot, using software that uses more resources, games would run smoother on a gaming laptop as compared to normal laptops, but they would run even better on a desktop.
2) Portability
Due to it being smaller having a convenient size it’s very easy to carry around with you most of the times when are in need of it. Which definitely is an advantage of having a machine that could perform well whenever and wherever it is required to. Being very easy to carry around saves a lot of headaches for those who need performance and portability at the same time.
These were the obvious and most noticeable advantages of buying a gaming laptop, while I was researching I found these to be the most important points of advantages rest of them were just the obvious ones, which you and I definitely know of.
But if you don’t you can dig a little deeper for more advantages but what I found was that they were just the obvious ones.
Disadvantages Of Owning A Gaming Laptop
What matters the most over here is not if there are more disadvantages than advantages or more advantages than disadvantages but what matters the most is the context, once you understand it you will know it by yourself.
1) Being Costly
Certainly, not everybody is able to afford a gaming laptop, the reason being the cost of purchasing one. This will always be one of the disadvantages, if you have the money to get one then it won’t be any problem for you, but for the most price is a big problem. A GTX 980 in a laptop won’t be as same as the desktop version of GTX 980.
Laptops have the mobile version of graphics cards and some other components which won’t perform as the user might expect it to perform. As the mobile version of a graphics card would deliver much lower performance as compared to the desktop version.
As a result, some demanding games might even start giving you problems when trying to run it on higher settings.
2) Upgradable Up To Some Extent
Depending on the laptop you buy it is very much upgradable, unlike desktops, there isn’t much to upgrade in a laptop. Besides R.A.M and storage and some other components, there isn’t much option available for you to choose from.
In desktops, you can upgrade much more effortlessly, you can upgrade the processor, motherboard, your graphics card and some might even decide to upgrade their power supplies and cabinets.
That does not mean you should not buy a gaming laptop if you need one, because laptops being portable it might be the best option to go for depending upon your needs.
If You Are Student Who Is A Casual Gamer
Now you are just a casual gamer, in that case, you don’t have to rush out for getting an expensive gaming laptop just for gaming purposes. Taking into account you would be using it for mostly work purposes like making assignments, projects, presentations, you get the idea a normal good performing laptop that could run your programs fine will be perfect for you.
You won’t have to buy an expensive laptop just because you thought you won’t get any kind of performance in non-expensive laptops. Performance is just fine in normal laptops there isn’t much to worry about for you.
Is A Normal Laptop Good For Me?
As long as the laptop of your choice can handle the programs that you need you are good to go. It will also handle most games at mostly around Medium settings they would be playable. Games like GTA V would run fine on normal laptops. Normal laptops here mean having a quad-core processor with a graphics card in it. Now if you are buying a laptop with Nvidia’s MX150 in it then you better know this before buying.
Do your research fully before buying any laptop, see the benchmarks. You will get a basic idea of how your laptop might perform which you have decided to buy. See if the model you are purchasing has some good reviews about it online, sometimes some laptops surprise us with issues like overheating.
As a student, you would get assignments and presentations that you would be required to make. You will need Microsoft Office for that purposes which will definitely run more than fine on normal laptops.
Your work would also be finished and if you get in a mood to play a game for some time you are all set then.
If You Are A Student Whose Work Does Require A Good Performing Machine
Here you are, you are a student whose work does require a good performing machine. Many around the globe are very keen on learning about filmmaking, journalism, game development and much more, the sky is the limit for a person who is just dedicated to doing something in life, to learn something and to create something good.
If your work requires software like Adobe After Effects, Cinema 4D, Maya then here it depends completely on your situation. While rendering, these programs tend to use quite a lot of resources approximately about 80% of your resources are being used up when you are rendering.
Yet they do have a feature in which you can limit them up to how much percentage they can use, which is a very helpful feature and often comes into play when we decide to do a bit of multitasking while the file is being rendered in the background.
You can research your next project or maybe just surf around the net for some time while the file gets rendered.
If You Are Required To Do Most Of Your Work In Class Or On Campus
Now you have a choice, which completely depends upon your situation. If you do most of the work in classes or on campus or school then a laptop is what you should consider.
As you are doing most of your work on campus or in school a desktop would be not an idea and according to your work, you would have to choose a laptop which might get a little costly considering that you have to work on campus or in school most of the time on your laptop rather than home.
If You Are Not Required To Do Most Of Your Work In Class Or On Campus And Get Your Work Done Mostly At Home
If you do some of your work on college or in school on a laptop and then come home to do most of your work then you might split up your budget and get a laptop that could handle your programs when you are in the classroom and with the rest of the money which is saved you might build a good desktop which will deliver much higher performance compared to any laptop around that price point.
So that when you are in class you can keep up with your professors and other students and when you get back home you shall finish the rest of your work on a desktop on which your programs would run much more effectively and you will also save time when rendering files.
You can then upgrade anytime you want, suppose you got some money saved to buy a new graphics card you can just upgrade it easily and get your work going.
It will also handle games much more effectively, you will get a higher frame rate and game would run smoother on higher settings depending upon the configuration of your system.
