It has served me very well, but its definitely time to find a replacement.
Therefore, I’m looking for a spiritual successor to my old MSI;
I am looking for a sub 2 kg laptop with dedicated GPU.[1]
[1] (And I also need at least 24GB RAM for heavy photo and video editing work; you know its heavy work when you’re dealing with Photoshop files who’s size are in the gigabytes)
but unfortunately, I only got a 1000 USD budget, and here in Indonesia laptop prices are so damn expensive compared to the US….
For context, these are my cheapest options:
Acer Swift X 14 (Ultra 7 155H/RTX 4050, 32GB/1TB) - Rp18.199.000 aka 1099 USD (there’s also the RTX 4060 option at the same store for ~1140 USD)
so I’d have to settle for a regular laptop with only integrated graphics instead.
And since there’s literally only 2 brands who even got AMD Strix Halo, both of whom only use them on very expensive flagship devices (ROG Flow Z13 and HP Zbook Ultra G1a)…..
On run of the mill current integrated graphics like say Radeon 890M or Arc 140T, how much FPS can you reasonably expect to get in games?
Thanks for reading through!
if the photos of my old laptop isnt enough of a hint, my gaming target is to play Arknights: Endfield, possibly with raytracing
I’m actually a collage student and I did a bit of research on laptops before enrolling in my collage. I used to own a 3 year old katana that I bought back in highschool and I feel your pain. My laptop used to last 2-3 hours on battery, that too in low power mode. Looking for a seat next to the power outlet everytime I go somewhere is quite a hassle and I was fed up.
My friend has recently bought an Asus zenbook 14 with the core ultra 9 arrow lake that has the 140T.
You can expect decent frames in med-high settings, like:-
100+ fps in cpu intensive games like CSGO, VALORANT, LOL in high settings
40+ fps in Games like gta 5, cyberpunk, in high 1080p
You can find a youtube video ig check it out.
If you want to have a laptop for just work and a bit of side gaming say like cyberpunk, hollow knight, LOL. Then get a macbook.
I personally own the new macbook air M4 32 GB ram and 512 GB SSD it costed me around 1600 USD with student discount. Gives me 10+ hours of battery life everyday, it is powerful as well, a lot more powerful than my friend’s new zenbook.
If you want windows then I would suggest to get the ASUSTUF F14. The only gaming laptop in the market with good performance and good battery life. This was actually my second choice before buying the macbook.
Tho it’s a big shame that the TUF’s IPS screen doesn’t even approach 100% DCI-P3 colour accuracy, my old laptop having terrible colour accuracy was and is a serious handicap for my Photoshop/Figma work
The main reason I’m even interested in the Lenovo Legion 5 despite being much heavier, is just because it got an OLED screen for the same price as a TUF in my country
Yea I just found someone selling their used 2024 HP Omen Transcend 14 (the highest version with Core 9 185H/RTX 4070) for only $1389, the only snag is that my parents are very against buying used…..
But somehow there are still stores here who still got unsold stock of the 2023 Zephyrus G14 (Ryzen 7940HS/RTX 4060, the one with IPS screen) for the same price
I was also looking into getting integrated graphics and forgoing a proper dGPU. Intel’s older Xe was already up to basic video editing in Blender, and the 140 series is supposedly a lot better than it, same for AMD’s.
What you might get is more fan noise as all the heat will be concentrated on the CPU’s die rather than split between its and the GPU’s, and it will be running at full tilt to get the performance needed.
4070: 12,002 timespy graphics score in the Zephyrus G16 (115W)
5060: 12,093 timespy graphics score in the Omen Slim 16 (115W)
So you’re looking at about one step down in going with the 40 series. I like the open box G14 with a 4060 for what you said you need. I also like the 50 series Legion 5 or 5i if that’s within your budget. G14 has better battery life and is more compact, Legion 5 has a better screen and a more comfortable keyboard.
Edit: scratch the better battery life, it’s an older CPU so they probably have similar battery life, both are sporting older inefficient HX processors
hmmm, the issue with that open box G14 is that it only has an IPS panel that is very poorly documented (as every review copy of the 2023 G14 got the mini LED panel), so I’m really concerned that its color reproduction would be poorer than expected, as I need 100% sRGB and DCI-P3
Josh says we had the IPS one in, and our specs are 100% sRGB & P3. They are also listed as such on ASUS’ website. What’s the return policy on the open box just in case?
yea thats a big issue, the store selling the open box Zephyrus G14 doesnt have any listed return policies at all, unlike the store selling the used RTX 4070 Omen Transcend (1 month return)
