Laptops

[Snowreap]

it has not been my impression that gaming laptops do a particularly good job of dissipating heat, so if you go that route also get a laptop cooler. but take that with a grain of salt; I have never owned a 'gaming' laptop myself so I only hear about this second-hand. excessive heat can damage components, and on laptops it is rare for any component to be replaceable without replacing the entire laptop. on a desktop you can manage heat damage by improving the cooling system or replacing the damaged component, but these options typically aren't available on laptops.

also, with a screen that big the laptop isn't going to be as portable; it may be difficult to find a bag big enough to hold it and schoolbooks too. this is probably not a problem in a high school / boarding school environment where the machine will live in her room, but in a college / campus environment it would make a difference.

my mother is on her third D630 laptop now. the first one died due to tea spilled in the keyboard and the second one died due to GPU failure probably caused by excessive heat (the first one had Intel graphics and the second one had an nVidia Quadro mobile GPU which was probably a lot more heat-sensitive. for her third machine she's back on Intel graphics again). we have also replaced her screen once due to accidental breakage. fortunately the D630 was very popular so it's easy to get replacement parts or even entire refurbished units. as a result, system replacements have been very easy -- we simply remove her hard disk from her old unit and install it in the new one, and she's up and running again. there is no need to reinstall Windows, install any new drivers for new hardware, reinstall anything or migrate any data.

-ken