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?
I can recommend the Acer Nitro 5 series. Have it for a few years now. The main drawbacks are
Portability - You will run into this issue a lot with gaming laptops. But the Nitro series is probably one the lower end when it comes to portability. Especially if you go with the 17 inch screen. It’s heavy and big.
Speakers - the newest series apparently upgraded them, but the one I have has terrible built in speakers. I use a headset anyhow while playing. So doesn’t concern me. But it just can’t be used to watch movies together in bed.
Fan noise - It can get very noisy, especially during gaming session. If you are using a headset, you aren’t noticing it. But it can be distracting to others in the room.
Batter life - It’s just bad, even if you aren’t gaming. But again, while playing you are usually plugged in anyway.
Overall none of the big issues affect me. But could be a dealbreaker for others.
The big pros:
Available in 17 inch - which was a must for me.
Decent cooling - Just make sure you get a 2021 or later model.
Easy to upgrade internal storage & ram - you can put 2 additional SSDs inside. And even upgrading the ram is super easy. This also means they aren’t charging absurd amounts for upgrading the stock variant from 256gb to 512 or even 1tb.
Performance for the price - It’s not a end of the line model but for the price you will get decent performance.
I have an Acer Nitro 5 too and I would recommend against it on fan noise alone. Saying that it’s very loud is an understatement. It’s absurd how loud it is even under light loads. It’s like sitting in a jet on take-off.
My wife has an Asus ROG and it is much, much quieter when gaming than mine is when idling. So, I’d say get the ROG, not the Nitro.