My mom likes to play No Man’s Sky and Valheim, but her Asus TUF started freezing on games. RMA found no problems and sent it back to her but it still happens. I ordered a Legion for her but now I see these posts about all Nvidia 40-series laptops freezing up. What’s a gaming mom supposed to do?
It might also be worth looking at Steam Deck alternatives. GPD, AYA, ASUS, etc.
I only own a Steam Deck, but I’ve seen a couple videos on alternatives and they look pretty good. Since you were already planning on spending laptop money, an upgrade might be worth it so your mom can have that extra power. They might not be as user friendly as the Steam Deck though
i also recommend doing a factory install of your OS with a USB drive
As a gaming mom myself, I’d second the Steamdeck recommendations. I love mine! Best thing I have bought in years honestly.
I can play in the living room, while hanging out with the rest of the family, and I take it with me on work trips as well. I don’t have Valheim on it, but I do have No Man’s Sky and it works well. I’m currently playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on the deck - there are so many great options.
I know this might be off-topic, but damn that’s a cool mom!
I’d also suggest a Steam Deck, but for a different reason. My experiences with switchable graphics (both, nVidia and AMD) have been extremely disappointing. It’s quite frustrating to spend €1500 on a gaming laptop, and then constantly facing driver issues, tearing,…
If I were to buy a laptop, I’d therefore also go with an AMD integrated graphics unit, and no switchable graphics. Performance would be comparably bad, but at least an integrated (non-switchable) card works… And now we are at the point of having a dedicated gaming device like the Deck, which lets you have both: A performant enough gaming device, and a laptop that isn’t burdened by the price and issues of switchable graphics.
I want to echo the steam deck recommendations, but not because I have one, but rather because I daily drove gaming laptops for the better part of a decade and hated it
Sincerely. Get a device dedicated for gaming, not a compromise between form factor and expected output. A cheap used Thinkpad with some knock around Linux distro will do 90% of what you likely need a laptop for, and put the rest of your budget into a tricked out steam deck. You’ll have money left over relative to a gaming laptop, too, which are always – and I mean, always, terribly low on battery life, extraordinarily hot, and rarely performant enough to justify either shortfall. Usually they weigh a ton too.
I’m glad gaming laptops are improving steadily and integrated graphics are improving to shore up the slack through things like the steam deck and also just letting most laptops play games better without breaking the bank, but I’d have been far happier with a cheap gaming computer and a cheap laptop than an expensive gaming laptop as my only option. And in lieu of a full tower for gaming, a steam deck is your next best option
The only exception, in my eyes, is if you need a laptop as a portable video editing workstation as well as for gaming. Then gaming laptops become a more valuable proposition, but even still I’d go with the above. I just figured I’d mention something that gaming laptops have over a steam deck or other comparable offerings, steam decks make a creative workload a lot more cumbersome than a proper laptop would be
