mahinGaming Laptops That Look Normal
I would never buy a gaming laptop. Instead I’d buy a SFF PC
That being said, of course there are many cases (frequent travellers) for whom a gaming laptop makes more sense, but for someone just going between home and college every few months or a similar arrangement, a SFF PC can fit in your luggage pretty easily and will be more powerful and cheaper due to having more space to push out heat and being made from a collection of upgradable parts.
My personal pick for most situations that I described would be an SFF PC for the more intensive things like gaming, rendering etc, and then a thin and light cheap laptop with no dedicated graphics for your carry laptop.
Do you use a portable monitor with it?
For this type of setup, you typically just bring a regular monitor that stays at the location your frequent.
Thats why I said its really for when you are back and forth between 2 locations not super frequently/doesnt work for frequent travellers do different places.
If you need a portable monitor for your usecase, I’d guess that a SFF PC might not be the better pick vs a gaming laptop for that user.