Looking for new laptop

[Gloom-is-good]

Hello!

My Asus ROG laptop will be 10 years old in December (it was an xmas gift). And it's struggling

I've replaced the Hard Drive on it once... I wanna say before the pandemic...?

So anyways, I think it's time to let my baby go. This is the longest I've had a laptop.

**I don't want to spend more than $2k (even that is like... yikes)
**I don't have plans to play a ton of games but I do like the speed of having a gaming laptop lol
**I don't have a hard preference for size. My current one is rather large and I think going smaller would be fine but not too small.
**If there's any models that are coming out in the near future that may be good, I'm willing to wait to purchase

If anyone has any suggestions on what my replacement should be, I'm open!

 

[dimmerwit]

**I don't have plans to play a ton of games but I do like the speed of having a gaming laptop lol

I think you need to elaborate a bit more on this. In 2025 for general tasks even a low/mid range laptop will crunch through non-gaming browsing and video playing as if it's nothing. There's not really much difference to a gaming laptop any more in this respect and you could save a chunk.

Also in terms of new laptops it's often better to buy the previous model as gen-on-gen differences are pretty small these days and again the savings can be substantial for what is a very similar product.

 

[Jawneh]

Laptops are interesting to buy as you can really customize them at all after purchase. Storage and ram are really the only two still for mainstream, though some laptops do have soldered on ram.

Anyhow.

What I suggest is to make a list of features you'd like and start looking what you can find with those. I can start with a short list for you from your post:

- GPU, 4070 or better, or 5070 or better. You won't have issues with gaming for a long time
- RAM, I suggest 32gigs these days
- Screen size looks to be 16 or 17 inches for you
- Resolution, I would suggest 1440p, but 1080p is fine if you don't want a nicer image
- Storage these days is all ssd, so however much you want
- CPU, for intel I would suggest 13th gen or newer. Amd, ryzen 7000 series or newer.


The rest are things like do you want your numpad on the side, a webcam, fingerprint sensor, fancy speakers, touchscreen, rgb stuff. Mostly waiting for sales is the way to go unless you want a brand spanking new one that came out this year. I can help looking at examples this weekend if you want.

 

[Mark]

Hello!

My Asus ROG laptop will be 10 years old in December (it was an xmas gift). And it's struggling

I've replaced the Hard Drive on it once... I wanna say before the pandemic...?

So anyways, I think it's time to let my baby go. This is the longest I've had a laptop.

**I don't want to spend more than $2k (even that is like... yikes)
**I don't have plans to play a ton of games but I do like the speed of having a gaming laptop lol
**I don't have a hard preference for size. My current one is rather large and I think going smaller would be fine but not too small.
**If there's any models that are coming out in the near future that may be good, I'm willing to wait to purchase

If anyone has any suggestions on what my replacement should be, I'm open!

I think you might have more luck over in the Hardware forum, because not a lot of people really pay attention to this forum since it's for member to member sales.

 

[shortkut]

I think you might have more luck over in the Hardware forum, because not a lot of people really pay attention to this forum since it's for member to member sales.

I view the forums by the new posts feature, so I don’t know what forum anything is posted in

 

[Mark]

I view the forums by the new posts feature, so I don’t know what forum anything is posted in

I just "work" here. I know nothing beyond that. I rely too much on notifications, so I end up missing more content than I probably should.

 

[Crystal]

I just "work" here. I know nothing beyond that. I rely too much on notifications, so I end up missing more content than I probably should.

Aisle 17 next to the porcelain toilets. If you hit the garden center you've gone too far.

 

[Jawneh]

Errr... I did forget. But hey! I'm here. Also, check this out:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-tuf-gaming-a16-16-fhd-165hz-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-32gb-ram-nvidia-geforce-rtx-5070-1tb-ssd-jaegar-gray/6617666.p?skuId=6617666

Pretty decent thing from the looks of it for around 1500 after taxes. No oled screen or 1440/1600p, but those are really the only downsides I can see. Build quality might be mostly... plasticy from the looks of it, but the hardware is good in it.

 

[Jawneh]

There would be a lot more options closer to the 2k price point at the moment. I think the tariffs kind of borked laptop prices which was to be expected. With the extra 500ish you could get things like a slightly bigger screen, slightly better resolution, oled screen, possibly one step higher gpu and probably a better cpu too. Not necessarily all those, but there could also be a deal for them all. Probably not both an oled and better gpu together.

Also also, if you do find something yourself, do post it here. I can have a look and see if what they are offering is decent for your money.

 

[Gloom-is-good]

@Jawneh , I super appreciate your recommendations. I actually made a little note in my phone of the list you put up top so that when I'm looking at new ones, I can see if they check all the boxes you listed lol

Possibly a dumb question but... if I get a smaller laptop, what do I miss out on? I've always had pretty big laptops and the one I currently have is 16" but I'm thinking of going smaller.. like 13-14"..? I think having a more portable machine is kind of the point of a laptop. Is it true that once I go big, I can't go back?

 

[shortkut]

what do I miss out on?

A larger screen?

 

[Jawneh]

@Jawneh , I super appreciate your recommendations. I actually made a little note in my phone of the list you put up top so that when I'm looking at new ones, I can see if they check all the boxes you listed lol

Possibly a dumb question but... if I get a smaller laptop, what do I miss out on? I've always had pretty big laptops and the one I currently have is 16" but I'm thinking of going smaller.. like 13-14"..? I think having a more portable machine is kind of the point of a laptop. Is it true that once I go big, I can't go back?

Generally, the smaller it is, the less powerful. I think anything smaller than 15" don't have a dedicated gpu in them (as far as I can remember), so you won't necessarily be able to play all the games you might want. Though, going from what you have now, I think probably all integrated gpus are better anyhow lol. Also most likely max ram at 16gigs.

Screens might still be decent. Like, there are some neat 2in1 laptops that flip into a touchscreen tablet. But it'll be a smaller screen so if you don't mind that then it can be small.

In the end it's whatever your use case will be. If you want something that will be more of a media device or something to ready or possibly occasionally type something up, a smaller laptop is fine. And for viewing desktop sites instead of mobile ones on your phone. But if you want to consider playing games, you really do want something with a decent dedicated gpu in it. Your smaller cozy games or anything that's not like AAA level can be fine without one, but anything slightly demanding would be out of the question.

 

[Jawneh]

Actually, I take some of that back. There are 13-14" laptops with a dedicated gpu in them. From the looks of it though, you're still basically paying the same price for it. Probably thanks to spending more money getting a smaller laptop take in all that hardware.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-proart-px13-13-3k-touch-screen-laptop-copilot-pc-amd-ryzen-ai-9-hx-370-32gb-memory-rtx-4060-1tb-ssd-nano-black/6593426.p?skuId=6593426

Since I mentioned 2in1s, here's one. A bit on the expensive side, but it's also meant for artists and/or video editors, but in a small size. I'd say more for artists, since I imagine editing a video on a 13" screen would be painful lol. I don't necessarily recommend the above for the price, but it's not a bad laptop. Great screen. Pretty powerful for a small thing. OLED touchscreen. And the thing can flip into a laptop.

 

[dimmerwit]

There are 14" laptops all the way to the 5080. I don't know of a 5090 one. 14" discrete options are common enough but they are a little more niche than for bigger sizes. Smaller size means worse battery life and less thermal headroom which normally means either more aggressive throttling or more fan noise (or a mix of both).

Integrated GPUs are better than they used to be and are only getting more capable, particularly on the AMD side, but if you want that level of performance I'd still recommend some sort of discrete GPU at the moment as they are better value.

Possibly a dumb question but... if I get a smaller laptop, what do I miss out on? I've always had pretty big laptops and the one I currently have is 16" but I'm thinking of going smaller.. like 13-14"..? I think having a more portable machine is kind of the point of a laptop. Is it true that once I go big, I can't go back?

It's mostly the screen. If you are going higher end in the GPU then you'd want the larger size for thermal reasons as I said before, but there are plenty of decent 14" options if you're not going for the cutting edge. If you're fine with not having the discrete GPU then there is even less difference.

I always go for 15-16 because I do find the 13.3/14 ones a bit too small and I've never found the larger size an issue portability wise. They'd go in the same bag anyway.

I do think I should go back to the previous question - are you looking to game on the machine? If you're not or are planning to play only old or lighter games then I think an iGPU is probably fine if you buy a decent one and it would give you equivalent performance for more basic tasks like browsing, video etc. Could save money and often they have size and weight advantages too.