Laptops Laptop or Portable Monitor?

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Mystical

Mystical

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I require a portable machine of some sort for college use cases. I am currently split between getting a portable monitor + keyboard + mouse + headphones for around 20k or a laptop for 20k.
The portable monitor will use my phone to stream to my PC at home (via parsec/moonlight)

You may ask why?
Even though A laptop may have smaller form factor opposed to carrying 3-4 items at once, portable monitors do have a few advantages.
I already need a keyboard, mouse and headphones for my desktop setup. So even If I buy a 20k laptop,
10k (Cost of keeb, mouse, headphones) + 20k (Cost of laptop) = 30k
20k (portable monitor + keyboard + mouse + headphones) = 20k

So I would have saved 10k.
Also I get to use a better keyboard and a better mouse than I would in a laptop and I can use my PC which will be better than any 20k Laptop.

What would do you in this situation?
 
Mystical said:
college use cases.
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What are these use cases? Taking notes? Researching? Completing assignments? Referencing PowerPoints and PDFs?

Can you forsee a situation when you'd be academically disadvantaged if you're not able to connect to your PC at home (because of an internet or power outage)? Meaning, does your grades/scores depend on having this computer available or is it merely a supplemental aid?
 
Can’t edit it so writing it here, Use cases: Coding, to take notes, slight gaming, researching and other daily use cases and for @rsaeon ‘s question, I would be academically disadvantaged if I’m not able to connect to my PC during classes or after classes (Since I rely on it for my cs classes). I have thought about this and concluded that I would end up just using something like Samsung DEX to take notes and use something like vscode.dev for my coding needs (In case of a power outage). So, is it worth the trouble for the cost savings + better keyboard & mouse?
 
ibose said:
You may want to expand on your "use cases".
Did you consider a tablet ? Portable monitors are not cheap, the last time I checked. You may as well get a tablet at that price.
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I did compare a tablet and a portable monitor. A portable monitor costs about 10k and there are tablets in that price range. The only issue I have with tablets is the screen. They just seem small compared to 15.6 screen. That's the reason I came up with the phone + portable monitor solution as the phone acts as the brain and the monitor acts as the big laptop screen all for a cheaper cost (since I am going to get a phone, keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc anyway)
 
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ibose said:
Can you share the link to a 15.6 inch portable monitor within 10k ? The prices appear to have come down drastically.
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For now this with bank discounts comes out to 11k. I found one or two within 10k during sales (those were with bank discounts too).
 
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Mystical said:
portable monitor + keyboard + mouse + headphones
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Add a good power bank to the list and you would be always looking for deskspace, time to setup and cables.
Rather just get a preowned/renewed/refurbished/used Dell latitude with i5 8th gen at least or similar laptops. After your college just sell it (or reuse your choice) and buy your keyboard+headphone+mouse. Having a laptop in hand will go a long way. You don't have to fear network connectivity to use vscode or other services. Compilation/build heavy tasks can be sent to home system and most companies give these latitudes at work so you get a feel early on.
Latitudes have good plastic build and if you find the touchpad lacking a cheap Bluetooth mouse would do.
 
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Mystical said:
I require a portable machine of some sort for college use cases. I am currently split between getting a portable monitor + keyboard + mouse + headphones for around 20k or a laptop for 20k.
The portable monitor will use my phone to stream to my PC at home (via parsec/moonlight)

You may ask why?
Even though A laptop may have smaller form factor opposed to carrying 3-4 items at once, portable monitors do have a few advantages.
I already need a keyboard, mouse and headphones for my desktop setup. So even If I buy a 20k laptop,
10k (Cost of keeb, mouse, headphones) + 20k (Cost of laptop) = 30k
20k (portable monitor + keyboard + mouse + headphones) = 20k

So I would have saved 10k.
Also I get to use a better keyboard and a better mouse than I would in a laptop and I can use my PC which will be better than any 20k Laptop.

What would do you in this situation?
Click to expand...
Why are you even considering buying 10k worth of peripherals? It seems like you want to buy some expensive mech kbs, gaming mouses and headphones rather than looking at your needs first. Trust me the happiness of seeing some lit rgb keyboards fades fast.
Get your needs first and wants later.
From what I can tell from your thread, you need a machine for your classes to code on, get a refurbed 8th gen thinkpad as another member suggested. And believe me, in theory your idea of streaming from your pc to your phone would make sense in a perfect world however practically I don't think it's feasible for you to do so in college. Also do you know if your college wifi or if your mobile data will even be sufficient to stream all of this? I'm not completely against the idea of a portable monitor but have you atleast tested your idea first? From my experience in college so far, the internet on phones is pure dogshit when there's thousands of students in a 8+ storey building and the student wifi firewall heavily limits what you can have access to.
 
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My 2 cents, never found a phone/tablet to be productive due to the OS and screen size. Also, having used jugaadu setups in the past, it gets irritating when you need to get things done. Having a self-sufficient laptop males more sense. The portable monitor will probably be as bad as the monitor on a cheap laptop and if you can get a second hand laptop with decent specs, it would probably have a much better screen.
 
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Rezep said:
Why are you even considering buying 10k worth of peripherals? It seems like you want to buy some expensive mech kbs, gaming mouses and headphones rather than looking at your needs first. Trust me the happiness of seeing some lit rgb keyboards fades fast.
Get your needs first and wants later.
From what I can tell from your thread, you need a machine for your classes to code on, get a refurbed 8th gen thinkpad as another member suggested. And believe me, in theory your idea of streaming from your pc to your phone would make sense in a perfect world however practically I don't think it's feasible for you to do so in college. Also do you know if your college wifi or if your mobile data will even be sufficient to stream all of this? I'm not completely against the idea of a portable monitor but have you atleast tested your idea first? From my experience in college so far, the internet on phones is pure dogshit when there's thousands of students in a 8+ storey building and the student wifi firewall heavily limits what you can have access to.
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Yea, I was planning on getting a peripheral upgrade (mech keeb) since I don't want to use a good PC with a membrane keyboard and office mouse and as for the college wifi I just planned on using unlimited 5G data. The only issue I have with a 8th gen thinkpad is that I actually have one (a inspiron 15 3000 with a broken screen that is connected to my monitor) and it is just SO BAD. I don't know what's the issue as the specs look good on paper but it can't even run windows properly so I have use arch linux (one of the lightest linux distros) to run basic programs on it. Just repasted like a year or so ago, bought a SSD and I just bought a laptop cooling pad to keep it alive. Still after reading all the feedback I am straying away from this idea and considering a laptop. I just need a laptop that is good enough for my use cases.
 
Mystical said:
The only issue I have with a 8th gen thinkpad is that I actually have one (a inspiron 15 3000 with a broken screen that is connected to my monitor) and it is just SO BAD. I don't know what's the issue as the specs look good on paper but it can't even run windows properly so I have use arch linux (one of the lightest linux distros) to run basic programs on it. Just repasted like a year or so ago, bought a SSD and I just bought a laptop cooling pad to keep it alive.
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Then there is either something seriously wrong with that laptop or you are doing something very wrong because my 7 years old i3 laptop with ssd & 8gb ram runs windows & day-to-day tasks smoothly.
 
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Mystical said:
Yea, I was planning on getting a peripheral upgrade (mech keeb) since I don't want to use a good PC with a membrane keyboard and office mouse and as for the college wifi I just planned on using unlimited 5G data. The only issue I have with a 8th gen thinkpad is that I actually have one (a inspiron 15 3000 with a broken screen that is connected to my monitor) and it is just SO BAD. I don't know what's the issue as the specs look good on paper but it can't even run windows properly so I have use arch linux (one of the lightest linux distros) to run basic programs on it. Just repasted like a year or so ago, bought a SSD and I just bought a laptop cooling pad to keep it alive. Still after reading all the feedback I am straying away from this idea and considering a laptop. I just need a laptop that is good enough for my use cases.
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You should try and send the laptop to a service centre and get it fixed there if troubleshooting it by yourself isn't working out. That laptop should still serve you well if the screen replacement charges aren't too much. It might leave some cash out for your mech keyboard as well.
 
Rezep said:
You should try and send the laptop to a service centre and get it fixed there if troubleshooting it by yourself isn't working out. That laptop should still serve you well if the screen replacement charges aren't too much. It might leave some cash out for your mech keyboard as well.
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I forget to mention this, the battery on this thing is basically non existent. If I remove the charger for a split second, the laptop turns off plus the screen and trackpad is broken. If I get to work at the intended rate I will try to fix it.

1703035785733.png

A quick benchmark for my laptop. Is this normal or is something wrong?
 
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