Is a gaming laptop better than a regular laptop?

Is a gaming laptop better than a regular laptop
Is a gaming laptop better than a regular laptop

The popularity of gaming laptops doesn’t come as a surprise. Gaming is only getting popular, so demand for laptops that can handle gaming software skyrockets.

Is a gaming laptop better than a regular laptop? You might be considering upgrading your current laptop or buying your first laptop. Either you’re an avid gamer or you’re looking for a laptop for school or the office. Whoever you are, gaming laptops have gotten more popular over the last few years.

The popularity of gaming laptops doesn’t come as a surprise. Gaming is only getting popular, so demand for laptops that can handle gaming software skyrockets. Depending on the job you’ll be doing, you should get a conventional laptop or a gaming laptop. Each has benefits and drawbacks. Therefore, the type of laptop one should purchase ultimately depends on the needs of the customer.

Gaming laptops are powerful electrical devices with high-performance requirements that are mostly utilized for demanding tasks like video editing or gaming. These kinds of software strain a laptop’s internal parts to the breaking point. Laptops designed for gaming are built to resist such strain on their parts.

The majority of official uses for standard laptops. Work tasks including word processing, email writing, PowerPoint presentations, making audio and video calls, etc. are ideally suited for these laptop models. Regular laptops are also employed for leisure activities like watching movies, web series, etc. High-performance components are not required for these jobs, therefore regular laptops are typically less expensive than gaming laptops. In addition, it weighs less. As a result, carrying is made easier.

But are gaming laptops only for gamers? No, you don’t have to be confined to this term and think you can’t use a gaming laptop because you’re not a gamer.

Gaming laptops are most of the time your best bet for a good-performing laptop or computer.

These laptops are made for gaming and most of the time need an expensive graphics card. Regular laptops are not meant but can be used for gaming.

Decide whether you need a graphics card for editing or gaming and buy accordingly.

To play games you need a laptop running on some pretty high specs. Most online games require a new or recent video and graphics card.

Graphics cards are the most important part of any laptop you want to game on.

Is a gaming laptop better than a regular laptop?

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Should I buy a gaming laptop for gaming? Well, you don’t need a laptop specifically for gaming. It’s just that most gaming laptops support high performance.

You have to decide whether you want to spend more on a laptop for a graphics card that is designed for gaming.

Maybe you’re a gamer or a video editor, or the work you do at the office requires a lot of battery and power from your laptop.

Let’s say you’re an engineer and you work with 3D software to design products then you want a laptop that can support this task easily.

Don’t worry about my internet padawan, I will guide you through everything you need to think of when buying your next laptop for business, gaming, or YouTube videos.

Most laptops are not meant for gamers or people who edit videos. Average-priced laptops are made for regular consumers so they don’t have an expensive graphics card.

Neither a gaming nor a non-gaming laptop is better than the other. They’re made for different people and different needs. I will take you through the things you need to think about.

In this article, I will cover topics considering: price, quality, durability, which laptop is best for which tasks, and why you should buy one or the other.

What are the differences between gaming and a regular laptop?

Other than the name by which these products are described, there are a lot of differences between the two.

First, you’ll notice that most gaming laptops are made with backlit keyboards, designs of popular games, weird colors, etc.

Believe it or not, gaming laptops are targeted at most gamers. This means that you shouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of laptops being designed with a Star Wars theme.

Gaming laptops have more quirks and features which games would appreciate. Laptops are made in certain themes, colors, or amazing designs.

What’s The Difference Between A Gaming Laptop And A Regular Laptop?

  • Regular laptops are made for the average consumer, supporting average specs that can handle daily tasks such as Word, Powerpoint, etc.
  • Gaming laptops can handle more tasks at the same time than regular laptops.
  • Regular laptops are great for normal use, but gaming laptops are better for heavy users.

Either you’re a software engineer or a business student. The first will most likely need a gaming laptop or a laptop with strong specs, while the latter will probably be fine with something like a Chromebook.

Here are the most important differences between gaming and regular laptops:

  • The price, gaming laptops are more expensive because of design elements and better graphic cards.
  • Fast and more expensive processors are found on gaming laptops and less on regular laptops.
  • Ports and gaming laptops have more ports including HMDI, USB, and sometimes VGA. Regular laptops have fewer ports to keep them thin.
  • Cooling, gaming laptops have better and more cooling systems and fans. Regular laptops don’t require such cooling because there is less strain on the CPU and GPU.

So do you need a great graphics card? Then you might look into a gaming laptop.

But there are a lot of laptops that aren’t considered necessarily ‘’gaming” laptops but still have the required power you need. Take for example Apple MacBooks, they’re also expensive but are not ‘’gaming” laptops. They don’t have any game design elements or colorful keyboards.

MacBook Pros can support gaming performance but they’re more expensive than a regular windows computer.

Check with your budget and if you’re already using a lot of Apple products.

When is a regular laptop better than a gaming laptop?

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In many cases, you probably don’t need a gaming laptop for the things you’ll be doing on your laptop.

Are you a gamer or do you call yourself a nerd sometimes? Then you might be interested in a laptop that has some gaming design elements. For example, the HP Star Wars-themed gamer laptop.

One cool trick is when you plug a USB into the USB port of this Star Wars laptop, you’ll hear a ‘’swoosh” sound from Star Wars ]light. Which is just incredibly cool.

Regular laptops are better if you’re a normal, a few hours-a-day user. This means that you don’t need a gaming laptop if you’re not using the expensive graphics card built into them.

Gaming laptops are only interesting when you’re required to run high-battery-draining activities. Do you want your laptop to run Word, emailing, and some small programs? Then a regular laptop is a great pick for you.

Regular laptops are a lot cheaper than gaming laptops. The most expensive part of any laptop or computer is the graphics card. The graphics card displays the images you see on your laptop.

With a high-performing and more expensive graphics card you can run games and high-resolution pictures better on your laptop without any lag.

The lower your graphics card, the more lag you will encounter when running programs with fast-moving and great-quality video.

Non-gaming laptops are great if you care about your budget and would like to spend as little as possible to do the required things you need to do.

You can edit videos on a regular laptop, just make sure the graphics card is new enough to handle the software you’re going to run.

With a gaming laptop, you don’t have to worry about this because it will most likely run on a graphics card that can adhere to great gaming quality.

A gaming laptop gives a certain amount of convenience factor because you’re buying a laptop with everything you need to run gaming programs and more.

When buying a regular laptop that isn’t sold as a gaming laptop; you need to look at all the specs to make sure it can handle editing and gaming.

Regular laptops are better if you’re not looking to game, edit videos or run 3D programs. Also if you need a laptop with high specs but don’t need it specifically for gaming you should consider a normal Windows laptop with better specs.

Gaming laptops are more expensive just for having the name ‘’gaming laptops”.

How gaming laptop better than a regular laptop?

To compare performance we need to set some basic parameters on which you can decide which one is better for you.

The following specs are considered when deciding if a gaming laptop is performing better than a regular laptop: RAM size, graphics or video card, and processors.

  • RAM size:

This will ensure your computer can run fast even when more programs are opened.

For most gaming laptops 8 GB RAM is the minimum to smoothly run games without lag. However, 16 GB is more optimal and also accounts for future games and programs that will only require more and more RAM as time goes on.

  • Graphics card/video card: 

Graphics Card or Video Card Or GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) is the electronic component responsible for rendering graphical data. The main work of this piece of hardware is to extract information from the CPU and convert it into visual data which appears on the computer monitor.

There are significant differences between the graphics card of a normal laptop and the graphics card of a gaming laptop. In this part, we will explore those differences. Graphics cards in normal laptops are embedded in the CPU and use the same RAM as the CPU. As a result, its power and efficiency are not much. Such graphics cards can only facilitate lightweight tasks of graphical data such as Powerpoint presentations, playing movies, etc.

On the contrary, gaming laptops have dedicated graphics cards known as GPU or Graphics Processing Units. These GPUs use their separate VRAM, so it is much more powerful and works faster than the integrated graphics card in a normal laptop. These dedicated graphics cards can do heavy photo or video editing, 3D rendering, VR simulation, running graphics-intensive games, etc.

Popular GPUs in the market are NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards.

Different brands offer graphic cards, but the most common are AMD and Nvidia. The newer the graphic card, the more expensive but the better the performance.

The graphic card will most likely be the most expensive on your laptop, so don’t worry about spending a few extra bucks to get a good one.

I recommend comparing different offers from both AMD and Nvidia to see which specific graphics card supports the programs you want to run on your laptop.

Do you have the money and do you want to game on this laptop? Then don’t budget on this part of the laptop because you’ll run into lag and a less smooth gaming experience.

  • Processors: 

Also known as a CPU (Central Processing Unit), this will coordinate everything you do on your laptop. Its basic job is to receive information that you put into it and prove the correct output. You do A and the processor turns this into B on your laptop screen to keep this example simple.

For gaming, you’ll need a mid-range to high Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 CPU. For a regular laptop, you won’t need a crazy CPU because most tasks won’t require a lot of processing power.

  • Difference in Keyboards

Normal laptops have standard membrane keyboards. These keyboards are suitable for typing. However, the registering speed is not very fast in membrane keyboards. Also, the keys are very delicate. The major drawback of membrane keyboards is that they do not last very long.

On average, membrane keyboards can endure 5 million presses per switch. However, with the progression of time, typing experience becomes unpleasant as the rubber underneath the plastic keycaps wears out. Normal keyboards cannot register multiple keypresses simultaneously.

  • Speaker

There is a day and night difference between the sound systems featured by gaming laptops and normal laptops.

Sound is an integral part of a quality gaming experience, and quality sound can only be provided through good quality speakers. That is why gaming laptops have large and high-quality speakers that are louder than a normal laptop’s speaker. These loudspeakers ensure that the user can hear all the sound effects and character dialogues. The loud and clear sound quality of the speakers intensifies the gaming experience.

The sound system in gaming laptops serves another purpose. It often cushions any irritating noise coming from the cooling fans of the laptop and provides an immersive gaming experience.

On normal laptops, there is not much need for high-quality speakers. Also, due to the smaller size, there is not much scope to install large speakers. That is why normal laptops have small standard speakers which are well suited for watching videos, listening to music, podcasts, etc.

  • Connectivity

In terms of connectivity, there’s little to no difference between normal laptops and gaming laptops.

Both kinds of laptops offer Wifi connectivity. Wifi connectivity is very important in gaming laptops as the most popular games of recent times are online multiplayer games. Likewise, there is no alternative to the internet for official work such as sending emails, internet browsing, etc. That is why normal laptops also have the wifi connectivity option.

The thing that sets apart gaming laptops and normal laptops is the number of ports. Generally, there are two USBs, one LAN, one HDMI, and a few other ports for connecting various electronic devices in regular laptops.

There are various ports available for connecting gaming keyboards, gaming mice, and other gaming peripherals in gaming laptops. Gaming laptops have at least three USB ports. Some gaming laptops have as many as 5 USB ports.

  • Versatility

Gaming laptops provide a lot of comfort in replacing or upgrading parts. In gaming laptops, most parts such as graphics cards, processors, RAM, VRAM, etc., can be detached from the motherboard. Therefore, these parts can be easily changed.

On the other hand, the components in a standard laptop are integrated into the motherboard. Hence, those cannot be easily separated and replaced.

  • Longevity

The longevity of any electronic device more or less depends on the user. If one takes good care of their laptop, both gaming and normal laptops can last for a very long time.

Normal laptops are made for light tasks such as word processing, PowerPoint presentations, etc. If the laptop is used for this purpose only, normal laptops will last for a very long time. However, if one tries to play high-graphics video games on a regular business laptop, the laptop will soon be subject to a performance drop.

How long a laptop will last depends on how often it is cleaned. Over time, dust starts to accumulate in the air vents and other laptop components, which creates heat build-up in the system. Such heat can cause permanent damage to many components of the laptop. Whether it is a normal laptop or a gaming laptop, it shall be cleaned routinely.

This being said, if we look at the components of a normal laptop and a gaming laptop, a gaming laptop is more likely to last longer than a normal laptop because of its heavy-duty components. In case of a performance drop in a gaming laptop, it can still be used to carry out day-to-day work. However, if a normal laptop becomes slow, it becomes useless.

Gaming laptop benefits

Listed below are a few benefits of using a gaming laptop:

  • Strong Processing

Gaming laptops typically feature incredibly powerful processors (CPUs), giving them a clear advantage over standard laptops.

Even though high visuals are nice, it doesn’t matter how fantastic games can appear if you only want to use your laptop for business or school. On the other side, processing power is virtually always beneficial. Your operating system (OS) will run more quickly, and any programs won’t lag as a result.

Nothing is more annoying than attempting to work or study on a laptop that constantly lags, and a powerful processor is an excellent way to combat and eliminate this lag.

  • Extra RAM

RAM and computing power go well together. RAM, which is just a fancy way of expressing “random memory,” is what programs use when they execute.

Some browsers are infamous for consuming a lot of RAM, including Google Chrome. A powerful processor and plenty of rams are a need if, like me, you frequently have more than five online tabs open at once.

  • Simple Multi-Tasking

I adore multitasking. Most of the time, I’m not simply concentrating on one task. I can be playing games and watching YouTube videos, or I might be working on two projects at once.

There are many people like myself, even if doing this might not always be a smart idea. A gaming laptop’s more powerful technology will make multitasking much easier and lag-free for you if you enjoy it.

  • Improved FPS and Graphics

This is the key justification for why people choose gaming laptops and PCs over standard ones. A gaming laptop is a need if you enjoy playing games, particularly new games. The graphics and performance of gaming laptops are incomparable to those of regular laptops.

Because standard laptops aren’t designed with gaming in mind, even low-end gaming laptops will perform better than a standard laptop at running games.

Gaming Laptop’s Drawbacks

The following are some drawbacks of gaming laptops:

  • Expensive

A gaming laptop will be substantially more expensive than a standard laptop. Gaming laptops are constructed with high-performance CPUs, dedicated GPUs, and high-capacity RAM, all of which are very costly on their own. Gaming laptops tend to be more expensive than average laptops.

Put them in a high-end, mobile metal box, and you’re looking at a significant financial outlay.

  • Big and hefty

In addition to increasing the price of a gaming laptop, all of these components also increase its size and weight. Nothing is thicker than an expensive gaming laptop, which significantly reduces its portability.

I wouldn’t want to carry a gaming laptop to the office or the classroom, even if they frequently still fit in a bag. Gaming laptops are now far less stylish than standard modern laptops, and this trend is likely to continue.

Benefits Of A Regular Laptop

The following are some advantages of standard laptops:

  • Slim and Elegant

In general, regular laptops are far more practical than gaming laptops. Laptops continue to get smaller and more powerful every year. It’s astounding how much power manufacturers can pack into a body that’s only a quarter-inch thick, albeit they’re still nothing near as powerful as a typical laptop.

Any day an ordinary laptop would win out over a large, heavy gaming laptop if I needed to carry a computer everywhere I went—to school, work, etc.

  • Good For the Most Parts

Gaming laptops are useful for tasks that require a lot of processing and graphics power, such as gaming. A standard laptop will do just fine unless you’re producing videos, rendering animations, playing games, or doing something similar.

Most current laptops operate quite quickly and can handle everyday use. This is because most non-game apps need good CPUs (processors), battery power, dedicated graphics cards, and good battery life, which they typically have.

  • Cheap (Comparably)

Okay, so normal computers aren’t all inexpensive. However, they are frequently less expensive than gaming laptop alternatives. While conventional laptops often only have integrated graphics, gaming laptops spend a lot of money on their GPU (Graphics Card).

The manufacturers benefit greatly from this and pass those savings forward to you. Even a basic gaming laptop will set you back about $1,000, but you can currently purchase a great ordinary laptop on eBay for a little over $400.

Cons Of A Regular Laptop

Here are some of the cons command on to the difference between gaming and regular laptops:

Parts Cannot Be Replaced

Regular laptops are built to stay the same throughout their entire lives. Sometimes you can upgrade certain components, like the RAM or storage, but this is usually quite the task. For example, I replaced the hard drive in my laptop and I had to order a very specific hard drive, and getting to it took a lot of effort.

If I wasn’t comfortable with technology (and willing to break my laptop) I would have never been able to replace something as simple as the hard drive.

This is true with gaming laptops as well. Most of the time you will not be able to replace the CPU or GPU. However, in my experience, gaming laptops are more likely to have easily replaceable RAM and storage.

Poor For Gaming

This one might be obvious, but regular laptops aren’t usually made with gaming in mind. Even when a regular laptop advertises that it’s good for gaming, most of the time it’s just not.

Sure, they’ll probably be able to handle easy games like League of Legends and Fortnite, but trying to run anything beyond that will be very difficult. This is especially true if you like playing games like GTA V or Farcry.

Limited Multi-tasking

A regular laptop will only be able to handle one or two tasks at a time. When I work on my computer, I have a few programs going at once. I may have one internet tab open to write on, 3+ tabs open for research, and another tab open with a video playing.

On top of these internet tabs, I may have a couple of other computer programs open. All of these things add up, and most regular laptops just won’t be able to handle them.

When I work on my laptop, as opposed to my Gaming Pc, I usually have to pick and choose which programs and tabs I need open. On a gaming computer, you’d be able to have your cake and eat it too.

Conclusion

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Are you a gamer and are you not looking to build a pc yourself? Then a gaming laptop is a great choice to buy a laptop that has all the specs you need than normal laptop gaming laptops.

Do you need a laptop for your education or office job? Then you most likely don’t need a gaming laptop because it will be more expensive. If you do, you can still have a laptop that is not a ‘’gaming laptop” but still with high specs. You will save money on special gaming designs, things like backlit keyboards, and brand names. Both a gaming laptop and a normal laptop can be used to do everyday stuff but to also play video games. The only difference is that a gaming laptop can run the newest games that will look great on it, while a normal laptop can’t.

Decide on the first thing: do I need my laptop for gaming, editing, or programs that will require a lot of processing power such as 3D programs or memory-intense programs

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