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[sneakey pete]

When can we stop calling these things laptops? That's more like an ultra-portable desktop than anything I might want to put on my lap.

"desktop without the cords"

[Volfram]

if you have ever taken apart both a laptop and a desktop, you'll notice that they have pretty much the same stuff.  keep in mind we are talking about a gaming laptop, for a gamer.  so you are still talking about a mouse (no real gamer uses a touch pad), a keyboard, a monitor, and a power supply.  both fit in a backpack, and both need a wall socket.  the desktop has one extra wire (for the keyboard), is bulkier and has a negligible weight increase, while it is also more upgradable, cheaper, and slightly more durable.  if the downsides bug you, then there are better options than a gamer laptop.

frankley a gamer laptop is a middle ground between a laptop and the current version of baby AT desktops , it can't do either well enough to replace them, and the differences between the two is entirely in power consumption and battery capacity, so unless there is some sort of energy breakthrough to make electricity from a power plant virtually free there won't be a gap wide enough to warrant a gamer laptop.

Well for a 'middle ground' computer that laptop can run pretty much any game out on the market today, and run it well. I was more pointing out the gain vs loss on a small PC vs a laptop. You gain a marginal performance increase but lose the ability to just toss the laptop in your backpack and go. You cannot equate carrying a PC, montor, keyboard, mouse, and wires with the ease of folding a laptop+power supply up and sliding it in the backpack and going. Yes most people would also bring a mouse, but why would you bring an extra keyboard/monitor?

Flatscreen monitor and roll-up keyboard.  If I expect to play a game that'll support it, I also bring my Dualshock 3.  Besides that, you're missing the most key part.  The laptop may play any game available, and it may play them well, but the mini desktop will play them even better, it's cheaper, and it can be upgraded.

That said, I've rarely found upgrading a computer to be a good use of funding.  If you need to upgrade parts, you should have bought better ones in the first place.  If you bought better ones in the first place, upgrading one part will likely require upgrading all of the others.(it always has for me.)

[jamoecw]

Well for a 'middle ground' computer that laptop can run pretty much any game out on the market today, and run it well.

but without upgradeability that won't last, unless you go out and buy a new one in a few years.

You gain a marginal performance increase but lose the ability to just toss the laptop in your backpack and go.

and my point is that you can build a pc that you can just toss in your backpack and go, nearly as easily as an oversized laptop.

You cannot equate carrying a PC, montor, keyboard, mouse, and wires with the ease of folding a laptop+power supply up and sliding it in the backpack and going. Yes most people would also bring a mouse, but why would you bring an extra keyboard/monitor?

actually i was operating out of size and shape comparisons, thus the laptop equates to a little more than the monitor and keyboard, hence the extra bulk comes from the size difference from the power supply, versus a baby AT tower/micro tower/mini tower/express tower, which is only as bad size wise to a little more than a second laptop.  and there is only one extra wire to deal with, well two in aklyatne's case.

p.s. and we haven't even gotten into the minipc, or mac mini.

Why would anything apple related be brought up in a discussion about gaming? Or good computers for that matter.

er, cause you can scrub the OS and then put on XP, and then you'd have something that plays games as well as the gamer laptop, only smaller.  what answer were you expecting?  a coaster?  hopefully that was the case other than you expecting me to say something like getting mac variant of games and playing them.