18 Inch 2023 Laptops Coming

[dkrew]

As you may know, we are about to see a slew of 18 inch laptops ( notebooks ) coming to market. Brands so far reportedly include Acer, Asus, Alienware, Lenovo, Razer. It is very expensive in terms of time for me to switch laptops so I'll be tempted to get a maxed out system even though I don't game, but do plan some video editing. Couldn't care less about portability or the weight. So far, the Razer is said to be February, the Acer March, and I don't know about the others. I'm building an Excel and am collecting the data. The main thing that jumps out at the moment is that the Razer Blade 18 does not have an option for a mechanical keyboard. Not sure if that is bad. I don't have enough data yet to offer any conclusions from looking at the Excel data points I have so far. 

[Reciever]

Since this is speculative, I have moved it out of the WLSIB sub-forum.

 

In any case welcome to the forums! 

 

I find it odd that now that DTR's, MXM and SLI have been methodically killed off that we start seeing announcements of 18" chassis again.

[Meaker]

The TDP requirements of the latest GPUs and the current design philosophies point to that happening. Better in their eyes to have an 18 inch device than a chonky 15 inch.

[ryan]

its pretty subjective. I used to have a 17,3in laptop now im using a 16incher. I notice less screen real estate but it feels more portable. I can have it on my laptop on the couch without having my legs falling asleep. if i needed a 18in id just get a desktop

[dkrew]

I have a 17" Dell laptop now, and all the laptops in B&H Photo in Manhattan yesterday looked horrifyingly tiny to me, even the 17.3" models. The description above saying that Lenovo should have an 18" model seems to be premature as I see no evidence of there being an 18" Lenovo. As for the others, for me, I might be oriented toward whichever of the Acer, Asus, Alienware, Razer has the best keyboard. I don't know which of these vendors, if any, is better than average at this.  

[Sandy Bridge]

I can see the appeal for someone who mostly keeps the laptop on a desk.

 

My dad's an example - 98% of the time his laptop is on a desk, so he always buy a 17" laptop.  Once in a blue moon he'll take it out to the living room to surf the web while watching a basketball game on TV, and once a year or so he might take it down to a beach rental to use in the evenings while on vacation.  Portability isn't very important, but a nice screen size is.  Of course he's now thinking of switching to a desktop since it doesn't move 98% of the time, but he will still have the existing one for the other 2%.

 

My sister used to have one of the HP HDX laptops and loved it for its screen, I can't recall if it was the 16" or 18" model.  We revived it a few years back and I've never seen anyone so nostalgic for a Windows Vista machine. 

 

They also had the 20" HDX Dragon.  But even that ridiculously large laptop could make sense if you were a heavy LAN gamer and were taking it to friends' houses or meetups where you could set it on a desk while you gamed.  Better than hauling around a laptop and a monitor.

 

I'll most likely stick with 15.4" or maybe move up to 16" over the next half-decade, since my use cases have slightly more portability in mind, but I welcome the new options.  They don't have to have SLI, more screen real estate has value of its own.

 

 

[Steerpike]

I'm loving my LG Gram 17, which is super lightweight.  I use it 50% of the time on the dining room table, 30% in my 'office', and 20% on my lap, depending on time of day, etc.  I have an office but it's boring in there and no view, so I only go there when I have to. Our dining table is in the primo location of the house, with a beautiful view out the window, and of course it's a perfect work surface with lots of room. But - my g/f insists I clear it off at meal times so the place doesn't look a mess, which is fair enough (if it were up to me it would sit there all day 🙂 ).  And later on, when it's TV watching time, I will sit in front of the TV with the laptop ... on my lap. 

 

I've been working this way for years, but now I have the LG Gram 17, it's such a breeze picking it up and moving it around the house, and of course it's a delight to have on the lap.  
 

I did buy a Dell XPS 17 last year; it was an engineering marvel, built to withstand a nuclear blast, but - it was way too heavy and I sent it back. 

 

If LG bring out a gram 18 (or any vendor, if it's super-light), I'll be lining up at the door to buy one! 

[dkrew]

Here is one way to try to keep some tabs on this topic: https://listium.com/@GizmoSlipTech/80658/all-2023-gaming-laptops-ranked-list-gizmosliptech  

[dkrew]

Pre order Asus Scar 18 ASUS ROG Strix Scar 18 - 18.0" - Intel Core i9 13th Gen 13980HX https://www.newegg.com/black-asus-rog-strix-scar-18-g834jy-xs97-gaming/p/N82E16834236365 

[1610ftw]

Drive options are pathetic on these new 18" units with the exception of the Alienware 18".

I am very much displeased with the trend to not have more than that in almost every laptop.

Three of these with a 2280 form factor take up about as much space as a single 2.5" drive so why is it not even possible to have three?

 

Almost the whole laptop segment is becoming a lightweight downpared joke even at the very top end.

I have no issue with 99% of laptops being (for me) worthless soldered lightweight e-waste but how about at least a handful of models being different?

 

[dkrew]

Good point about storage drives. One way to look at this considering Asus Scar 18 vs. Alienware M18 is that the Asus has the faster better screen (twice as bright 600 vs 300) and Asus has 2.5GB Ethernet (vs "gig") but Alienware has two choices in keyboards (why not get both and see which you prefer and ebay the other one) and the Alienware has up to 9TB in drive storage (4 drives) vs. only 4TB (two drives) for the Asus. The Alienware also has 2 USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports vs. only one on the Asus.  

 

 

[dkrew]

Over at Reddit a member argues that the Scar 18 is not really limited to only 2X2TB, saying: "Yes it can support 4TB [cards] just fine, my current laptop [not a Scar 18] rocks a 4TB one even though they only mentioned max of 2TB. 4TB is not considered mainstream at this point, and to get to 8TB you’ll have to switch your original drive too. Anything that’s M.2 2280 will fit and work. Hell you could put a 8TB NVME SSD by Sabrent rocket too ($1200 online)."  I heard that some laptops cannot support having SSD storage on both sides of the card, which sounds like there could be limitations with some laptops. 

[John Ratsey]

On 1/31/2023 at 9:53 AM, Steerpike said:

I'm loving my LG Gram 17, which is super lightweight. 

I'm another happy Gram 17 owner. I got there by way of my eyes wanting a screen bigger than 15.6" but not wanting to give up my desk to a desktop so I bought a Dell Optiplex All-in-One which proved to be too big for convenience. If I want to use my desk for something else then it's easy to close the Gram 17 and move it out of the way. The Gram 17 has two M.2 2280 slots which gives me enough storage space but the one failing is inadequate cooling system. LG decided to fit one small fan when there's room for more, probably to keep within the target 3lb weight.