Glad to see that there are laptops that don't suffer like this. But I think the combo of having a steam deck + business laptop beats buying a gaming laptop. Assuming you already own a gaming rig at home.
Glad to see that there are laptops that don't suffer like this. But I think the combo of having a steam deck + business laptop beats buying a gaming laptop. Assuming you already own a gaming rig at home.
20 years ago, I had a midrange laptop with a dGPU and while it played games with mediocre results, the laptop experience itself was also mediocre. Stupidly, 10 years ago, I bought a laptop with a dGPU again, but because NVidia didn't play nice with Linux back then, I don't think I've used that GPU for more than an hour or so.
Never again. A laptop with a dGPU runs counter to the things a laptop should be. Keeping gaming activities on a desktop is the best option in my experience.
A few months ago, I started working at an e-waste recycling company, and discovered that used Microsoft Surface tablets are what I've been looking for. My work "laptop" is a Surface Pro 5 with Debian (my work desktop is an Optiplex micro). I'm typing this on a Surface Go (with BlissOS) that I bought for myself. The cameras don't work on either and the work Surface never knows it's battery status, but I don't care (it lasts an entire afternoon with a barcode scanner, good enough for me).
I daily drive Ubuntu on this laptop. It has issues, but the Nvidia GPU is not one of them. Times have changed.
If you don't like a dGPU in a laptop, that's fine. But people have different needs. I travel a lot and do 3d content creation work.
Almost any Ryzen laptop these days will have faster integrated graphics than a SteamDeck just due to the age of the chip set Valve still uses.
I've had 2 now from different manufacturers and the firmware seems alright due to the integrated nature of the API making them all fairly homogenous.
Exactly, you can get decent integrated graphics with any recent Ryzen and you have lots of choice in form factor.
Well, I do play games on my laptops. But that's just a nice perk, what I bought them for is 3d content creation.
Also, comparing a steamdeck to a modern gaming laptop is like comparing a $1 water pistol to a super soaker.
That is my current approach as well. A steamdeck/switch/none + FW13 while traveling.