Alright, so I'm jumping into waters without knowing much about it here in this thread. Words like latency, tearing, and all of those acronyms are over this guys head. So please forgive a novice for mis-speaking words or terms.
My Asus G73S gamer from 2012 got it done for a long long time. Matter of fact it still does. But at 10 pounds and a nearly 18" screen it is more of a desktop status than a portable. Fast forward 10 years and I was thinking macbook but anything in my price range just couldn't compete with my 10 year old machine creature comforts-wise. Not user serviceable and only two ports one of which the charger uses? Not much there to cause this Windows user to convert. Especially since I wasn't going to use it to play John Madden 2022 or Mario Kart.
So back to Windows it seems. I'm was Asus G14 or Alienware X14 in late 2022. Goodness knows, those Asi' machines have never let me down. Dell now owns Alienware so is a Dell any good? The Asus had an AMD, the Alienware an Intel. Long battery life from the AMD or faster processing but less battery life from the Intel? There were a bunch of questions like that. Graphics cards were pretty similar, accessory ports similar, at least for my predicted usage.
Certainly downsizing the screen size also downsizes the price, but the Alienware was more expensive. A lot more. I go to a local electronics store ready to play with keyboards and the kid in the blue shirt says they had an open box X14..... for less than the G14. As fate would have it they did not have a G14 on display.
I gave the macbook a test drive as afterall that was what started to idea of replacing my 10 year old gamer. I liked how slick it operates, but only two ports? Not even a USB for my mouse? Many of my favorite softwares don't do mac so....
It seems the X14 is a love it or hate it machine. Some hated the keyboard, some hated the power button being so close to the delete key. Some hated the battery life. Some couldn't stand that every port is on the rear. (Eh, I could live without that too.) Some said refresh rate too slow and not enough nits. (Terms I had to look up.) Some said it was too slow, not enough bass in the tweeter size speakers, fans too loud, gets too hot, yada yada yada. I think it stacks up very well against the other 2022 14" gamers but would not have paid retail price.
Being a Dell caused me to be skeptical as well. But when I was editing big file size RAW photos while listening to super slow Windows media player and downloading several hundred gb of files it never broke a sweat. One 98gb folder on a backup ssd moved through the USB port into my hard drive in less than 3 minutes. Holy smokes!! I had figured hours and hours because that's what I'm used to.
How do others feel about a 14" for portability. Do you believe a little bit larger for a lot more performance is warranted? Is 14" even a viable size for gamers? Is the i9 processor that much better than the i7? What about AMD? Is Optimus worth the extra cost to folks?
Is the 2023 offerings leaps and bounds ahead of 2022 offerings?
Whatcha thinkin?
My Asus G73S gamer from 2012 got it done for a long long time. Matter of fact it still does. But at 10 pounds and a nearly 18" screen it is more of a desktop status than a portable. Fast forward 10 years and I was thinking macbook but anything in my price range just couldn't compete with my 10 year old machine creature comforts-wise. Not user serviceable and only two ports one of which the charger uses? Not much there to cause this Windows user to convert. Especially since I wasn't going to use it to play John Madden 2022 or Mario Kart.
So back to Windows it seems. I'm was Asus G14 or Alienware X14 in late 2022. Goodness knows, those Asi' machines have never let me down. Dell now owns Alienware so is a Dell any good? The Asus had an AMD, the Alienware an Intel. Long battery life from the AMD or faster processing but less battery life from the Intel? There were a bunch of questions like that. Graphics cards were pretty similar, accessory ports similar, at least for my predicted usage.
Certainly downsizing the screen size also downsizes the price, but the Alienware was more expensive. A lot more. I go to a local electronics store ready to play with keyboards and the kid in the blue shirt says they had an open box X14..... for less than the G14. As fate would have it they did not have a G14 on display.
I gave the macbook a test drive as afterall that was what started to idea of replacing my 10 year old gamer. I liked how slick it operates, but only two ports? Not even a USB for my mouse? Many of my favorite softwares don't do mac so....
It seems the X14 is a love it or hate it machine. Some hated the keyboard, some hated the power button being so close to the delete key. Some hated the battery life. Some couldn't stand that every port is on the rear. (Eh, I could live without that too.) Some said refresh rate too slow and not enough nits. (Terms I had to look up.) Some said it was too slow, not enough bass in the tweeter size speakers, fans too loud, gets too hot, yada yada yada. I think it stacks up very well against the other 2022 14" gamers but would not have paid retail price.
Being a Dell caused me to be skeptical as well. But when I was editing big file size RAW photos while listening to super slow Windows media player and downloading several hundred gb of files it never broke a sweat. One 98gb folder on a backup ssd moved through the USB port into my hard drive in less than 3 minutes. Holy smokes!! I had figured hours and hours because that's what I'm used to.
How do others feel about a 14" for portability. Do you believe a little bit larger for a lot more performance is warranted? Is 14" even a viable size for gamers? Is the i9 processor that much better than the i7? What about AMD? Is Optimus worth the extra cost to folks?
Is the 2023 offerings leaps and bounds ahead of 2022 offerings?
Whatcha thinkin?
Last edited: