Anyone know about gaming laptops?

[dr.girlfriend]

We want to buy our son a gaming laptop.  We have a price limit of $2k, although I'm hoping we can find something more in the $1500 range.  My husband and I are Mac folks, and know nothing about gaming (although we've become expert at downloading/installing Minecraft mods).  I'd like to know which one we want to get in time to monitor Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales.

He probably doesn't need something heavy-duty -- he's 10 now and mostly plays Steam games like Portal, etc. -- apparently Brick Rigs and TABS are some of the ones that he is dying for that are too graphics-heavy for his current Mac -- but I figure we want something that will last him a few years when he might "graduate" to more intense games.

I've been stalking a lot of year-end wrap-ups, etc., but a lot of the reviews of gaming laptops seem to give major bonus points for it looking "sleek" or "professional" (e.g., not like a gaming computer) or being good for graphics work as well as gaming, etc., and I don't think he cares about that at all so I don't want to pay a premium for style.  Here are the ones that I've heard mentioned several times:

OMEN HP 17-inch Gaming Laptop w/ 144Hz Anti-Glare G-Sync Display, i7-8750H, GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB, 16GB 2666MHz RAM, 1TB HDD & 128 GB PCIE SSD, Windows 10 Home (17-an120nr, Black), Metal

Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop, 15.6" Full HD IPS, Intel i7-7700HQ CPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1060-6GB, VR Ready, Red Backlit KB, Metal Chassis, Windows 10 64-bit, G3-571-77QK

MSI GS65 Stealth THIN-051 15.6" 144Hz 7ms Ultra Thin Gaming Laptop GTX 1060 6G, i7-8750H 6 Core, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, RGB KB VR Ready, Metal, Black w/ Gold Diamond Cut, Win 10 Home 64bit

Anyone have any advice?  We're totally out of our depth here.  Figuring out which one of these (or any other recs) would be best, or if we need different specs in some domain (e.g. more sRAM or SSD), would be awesome.

[munkii]

Don't get the MSI! I do a lot of graphics heavy work. My MSI was not pleased with my use of it and decided to start burning. I was in the middle of class one day, and it started smoking. Smoking! The same thing happened to a friend with an MSI. So, I will neither buy nor recommend them.

IDK a lot about gaming computers, but here is my preference when purchasing for graphics heavy use: separate memory for graphics, NVIDIA graphics (GeForce is NVIDIA), and SDD not HDD. If you need to go with HDD (even with hybrid), it needs to be 7200 rpm; otherwise, the pc will run hot.

[sarahsays]

Is there a reason you are looking for a laptop? I would recommend a desktop so that components can be more easily replaced as needed.

[namasteak]

FWIW, DH just built a low - mid level gaming desktop and it cost $1250 w/o keyboard, monitor or windows.

He looked at laptops and the issue is that a lot of them have graphics cards that can play current games but won’t will be able to play games that come out in a few years.

[konapoppy]

Everyone I know who does gaming on computers has a desktop.

[dr.girlfriend]

Nov 10, 2018 17:57:27 GMT -5 sarahsays said:

Is there a reason you are looking for a laptop? I would recommend a desktop so that components can be more easily replaced as needed.

He needs to carry it from room to room, and to his friends' houses to play.

[DazeyDee]

We have the Acer Nitro 5, which is technically a gaming laptop even though we don't use it to game. It's been a fantastic machine - I know nothing about the rest of them, but I can't say enough good stuff about the Acers. We only paid $600 for ours, so there are for sure deals to be found on them, even the higher range ones.

[capscapscaps]

A laptop is not going to be nearly as good for gaming as a desktop. I k ow he wants to carry it around but he should be prepared that some games, particularly new games that need a high graphics card and lots of memory, are not going to play well or at all on a laptop.

[lizrd7579]

DH has an MSI and has had to send it back twice in the less than 2 years he's had it. He's regretting having bought it even though at the time, it was one of the most recommended gaming laptops.

[dutchgirl678]

I bought an MSI laptop for work but for machine learning with the graphics card, not gaming. Still, I can't recommend it. Even when brand new, the laptop battery only worked for 45 minutes before have to be on the charger again. It was super annoying. I don't have experience with the other laptops. But SSD is faster than HDD for hard drives.