Hardware Undercover gaming laptop

[Oypoui]

Hello,

Gaming laptops are becoming very popular around gamers who wishes to play everywhere. Between 2 working sessions or in business trip.
Usually these gamers have high expectations on the gaming experience. Otherwise they just go mobile with their smartphones or their tablets.
In addition, a gaming laptops have usually very good built quality and power to process any tasks at work.
The thing is, bringing an Asus ROG to a meeting could be kind of shocking.

So I have noticed that many laptops manufacturers start to offer solution to play undercover.
What would be you suggestions or opinions ?

Here some devices of my personal selection :

MSI P65 - GTX 1070 Max-Q

Microsoft Surface Pro 2 - GTX 1060

More original one Xiaomi Gaming Laptop - GTX 1060

 

[Dvdxploitr]

Not sure if there is the option for the WalMart OP laptops, sure they do have RGB lighting, but i'm sure it could be turned off for going into meetings. They were originally overpriced but have been cut big time in price (at least in the US)...they are pretty expandable too

 

[nxwing]

I'd say pretty much any high end laptop nowadays with sufficient RAM and a video card could play games pretty nice. My current laptop, which is an Acer E5-575G, has a Core i7-6700U, an Nvidia GeForce 940MX, and 12 GB of RAM, pretty much plays anything I want it to run on though demanding games really require toning down the settings. As for the ones you've posted, I'd avoid the Xiaomi Laptop if they don't have much of a presence in your area. From what I've read, they can be tricky to send in for repairs if you're not comfortable doing repairs yourself. I think it's safe to go with either the Surface Book 2 or the MSI P65. Surface Book 2 just looks sleeker in my opinion but the RAM being soldered to the motherboard will definitely hinder upgradability. Also, try looking into the Razer Stealth line if you want more options though from what I've heard, the recent ones aren't as stellar as the previous ones.

 

[Taleweaver]

So I have noticed that many laptops manufacturers start to offer solution to play undercover.
What would be you suggestions or opinions ?

I really like the way you say this, because it reveals those gaming laptops for what they are (or at least: what they're trying to be). Meaning: a sign of identity. Nothing screams "I'm a gamer" than a design full of sharp edges, radioactive colors and it being named after a dangerous animal.

...but in reality it is just like with cars: no matter the color, spoiler, beefed up engine and what have you...in the end it's just a means to get from A to B. Likewise: you can get gaming done on any computer. The regular business models never went "underground". In fact...they're still as mainstream as ever (I should know: I buy these things for managers on a very regular basis). Managers and CEO's don't like their computer being slow either, and when you're spending corporate money there is not really something holding them back.

Admitted: there's one exception: the GPU. Most mid end laptops just offer the basic integrated chip which would be a major bottleneck if you attempt to play recent AAA-games on it. In a strange twist, this also makes it almost the only factor to really take into consideration when purchasing a gaming laptop. It's getting hard to find a laptop without SSD or under 16 GB RAM (or without windows 10, though it's up to you if that's a convenience), so the GPU, the screen size and the price is all that you should really take into consideration. Buying a "gamer laptop" because it's meant for gaming mostly tells me you don't know shit of computers but want to look cool using one regardless.

Well...so much for my opinion. As for suggestion: it really depends on what your job title or relevance is. If you're a graphical engineer, a programmer using 3D (even if it's just for "an undisclosed and unknown project" ) or a video editor, you've got the perfect excuse. Maybe it'll be advised to put a sticker of the company logo over that other logo, but even that matters only if you're too low on the corporate food chain to ignore what others might think.

 

[FAST6191]

What Taleweaver said, though many business laptops I look at these days tend to have an Nvidia or ATI option rather than Intel nonsense (which can just about maybe if you squint be used for quite a few games these days, compared to "ahahahaha" of years past) and as mentioned if can pretend to need the ability to do CAD or maybe video editing (rarely is video editing usefully improved by a good 3d card but you could justify it).

That said the only reservations I have about those in business meetings is they often weigh in the several kilos range and that gets really annoying to cart around all day. Also several have mechanical keyboards of the very clicky variety which means if you want to do the notes on a laptop it could be a bit unpleasant for those around if it if sounds like you are racking an 80s action film shotgun several times a second.

I don't know what the state of external graphics cards for laptops is these days -- in years past there were both docking stations that had slots, and people doing fun things with the wifi card slot (it technically is a 1x pcie slot), both of which could do things for you here.

 

[Athlon-pv]

It is going to change in the 3rd quarter of this year if OEM pick up any Zen 2 based APU with 16 or 20 Navi cores. That should trigger somewhat better/cheaper solution for gaming since it is saves on a dedicated GPU and still should be fast enough to do gaming at 1080p with decent enough graphical settings.

 

[slimhakz]

Why not just play games on your laptop whilst covering yourself with a black cloth, can't get anymore undercover than that!