Gaming laptops are overrated – but the Steam Deck is the real deal

techradar.com:

I’ll let you into a little secret: I’ve never really got on with gaming laptops. In the many years I’ve been a tech journalist, I’ve had the chance to try out some incredible gaming laptops – but while I’ve been impressed with their performance, I’ve never felt the need to own one.

Instead, I’ve always returned to my trusty desktop PC. It feels more comfortable to use, and despite mobile components being more powerful than ever, even the mightiest gaming laptop can’t compete with my desktop PC when it comes to raw performance.

The fact that I can upgrade my PC to keep it current, or swap out any problematic components, also means it’ll have a much longer lifespan than a laptop. Sure, after a while my PC ends up like the Ship of Theseus – if every component is eventually upgraded, is it even the same PC? But it’s certainly cheaper than buying a whole new gaming laptop every five years or so.

Of course, my aversion to gaming laptops has meant I've missed out on the portability and convenience they offer. I love my big, bulky, inconvenient desktop PC, but I’m not going to be taking it anywhere with me.

Meanwhile, gaming laptops didn’t really make me feel like I was missing out on too much. Yeah, they were more portable than my PC (which isn’t really difficult), but they were still bulky and heavy enough that I wouldn’t really want to carry any of them around with me. Their poor battery lives also meant that if I wanted to do any serious gaming, I’d need to be plugged in – limiting that much-vaunted portability.

So, there I was being perfectly happy with my desktop PC life. When I fancied playing my PC games downstairs on the TV in my lounge, buying a gaming laptop wasn’t ever a consideration for me – I just built a compact small