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Risto_Saarelma comments on How To Have Things Correctly - Less Wrong
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I'm having trouble owning a desktop gaming PC these days. With the form factor of personal computers having gone from the traditional "mini-fridge" to a much nicer "deck of cards" or "thick envelope", I don't really like having to have a giant box and a mess of peripherals and wires that could fit right in a late 1980s computer den around just so that I can play graphics-intensive modern commercial games. I can do all actually useful stuff like reading, writing and coding on a laptop or a tablet, as well as do all the entertainment other than modern PC games. Ditching the desktop box would make the workstation setup a lot simpler.
ETA: Did just remember another reason for keeping it around. I occasionally try to write software, and I need a non-virtual Windows machine to test that it can be ported to Windows.
This is all somewhat ironic, considering I just bought a desktop PC specifically to start gaming again.
I just bought a new laptop specifically with gaming in mind. Seems to work great, though I've only tried it with XCOM so far.
My laptop could run Fallout 3 pretty well with minimal settings back when I had Windows as the primary OS. I'm not going back after switching to Linux though, which leaves Wine and dual booting. I've been meaning to get a SSD drive, which would be pretty small for dual boot. There seems to be a general slightly higher annoyance level in getting a diverse set of games running on a laptop.
Yes, this is a good solution too.
I have a friend / extended-family-member who converted to laptops exclusively around 8 years ago, but still buys big power-house gaming laptops with large screens. Some creative desktop arrangements allow him to put down the laptop to use as a screen+mainbox, while plugging in large external drives, keyboard and mouse using eSata and USB ports, for whenever he wants to do some "real gaming".
Unplug all three and you've still got a laptop to carry around, though obviously it's a bit larger than most laptops and the laptop itself costs a lot more than normal.
Possible approaches:
I think I already often go weeks without turning the machine on. I have a lot of fun whenever I get into a game, but it doesn't happen often.
The loved one just got her other boyfriend's cast-off laptop: a Dell XPS M170 gaming laptop from 2006. The key attraction is the 17" 1920x1200 screen and the decent graphics card. Uses: art, gaming, movies. Weight: 4kg. Not quite convenient, but can in fact be used in one's lap. I must say, I've found 11-inch gaming laptops a temptation (though I still think of laptops as things one's employer pays for).