Before you pick up a gaming laptop, there are a few things that you are going to want to consider. These pointers to note before buying a gaming laptop will guarantee that you end up with something that suits your needs perfectly. This will ensure a better gaming experience and, ultimately, a laptop which offers better bang for your buck.
Storage options
The problem with many gaming laptops nowadays is that they tend to cut costs when it comes to storage. Obviously, you will want to have a Solid-State Drive (SSD) on your laptop. This will ensure fast loading of your operating system and your important games. However, you also want to have a standard hard disk drive (HDD) in place too. This is because SSDs are incredibly expensive. The cost has gone down in recent years, but the cost per Gigabyte is still quite high.
As a result, some laptops will have tiny SSDs built into them. However, these are so small that you probably won’t be able to fit some of the more recent games on them. At the most, you will only be able to fit a grand total of one or two games. This is probably not ideal if you play a couple of multiplayer games at the same time.
Check, check, check the specifications
This is probably one of the best pointers to note before buying a gaming laptop. Know the specs that you want in the laptop. You should probably have a decent idea about the types of games that you want to play. Do the grunt work and see what the minimum specifications you need to play all of them is. One important pointer to consider also when looking at higher specifications is that the machine may heat up excessively due to increased power. It is best that you also invest in cooling pads and check on ways on how to cool down a laptop fast.
When searching for a gaming laptop, you should probably look for components that are rated for gaming use. For example, don’t just look at a laptop and see that it has 4GB video memory, and decide to purchase it as it meets your game’s requirements.
If it is an integrated graphics card, then it probably won’t perform that well no matter how much dedicated video memory it is. Buy a laptop that has your standard gaming graphics card built into it e.g. something from Nvidia or AMD. Most games are optimized for these cards and will perform a whole lot better as a result.
Check reviews as well
Before you spend your cash on any laptop, make sure that you read through as many reviews as you can. Get a feel for the experience other people have had with that laptop. You need to remember that laptops are not like desktop computers. They are built to a fixed specification by companies and, as a result, these companies will have their own software or tinkering with the hardware. So, a computer made by Alienware could use the same components as one made by Dell, but it could be vastly different in the way it functions.
For a well-reviewed laptop, you can consider https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops
Check the ‘travel’ on the Keyboard
By ‘travel’, we are referring to the distance on the keyboard that a key has to be pressed for the system to recognize the keystroke.
If you want to game comfortably, then you will need to find a laptop keyboard which has around 2mm of travel. This is to ensure that you do not accidentally press other keys and jumble up your in-game movements. Any less than this, then you will ‘enjoy’ pressing the wrong key a lot. Any more travel, and gaming becomes a bit uncomfortable as it requires a lot more effort to press the key.
Quality Display
You could have a fantastic graphics card. Tons of RAM in fact, lots of storage space, and fantastic sound. But if you do not have a quality display for it all, then it is rather pointless as the display is unable to display these graphics fully. Make sure that you choose a laptop with a 1920 x 1080 screen at the absolute minimum. This is the minimum dimensions to experience full HD. You can opt for a 4K display, but it is unlikely the components in the laptop will output anything in 4K. Well, at least modern games.
Conclusion
Obviously, there is a lot more to consider when it comes to purchasing a quality gaming laptop. Reviews should tell you a lot about what you need to know. However, if you follow these pointers to note before buying a gaming laptop, your job becomes a whole lot easier. If you make a good purchase, then you will have a gaming laptop that will provide you a good few years of quality gaming.
Author | Emily Forbes |
An Entrepreneur, Mother & A passionate tech writer in the technology industry!
Email:- forbesemily@yandex.com
