My New Coding and Gaming Laptop

When coding and testing, my primary workstation for the last 3 years has been my MacBook Pro.

The MacBook is a great machine for several reasons.

1. I can run Safari and OSX
2. I can install Windows on a second partition
3. The Mac OSX side allows me to use Xcode to code and test in Swift or Objective-C
4. The Windows side allows me to test on Internet Explorer and Edge

But the time has come to add a second computer to my setup. Three years old is pretty dated in terms of computer technology. I still love the MacBook, but I know one of these days something will break.

Broken laptop = No working

No working = No money

So it is time for me to get a second laptop. I am going to get a dedicated Windows PC this time. Running Windows on my Mac has worked out great except for one main problem.

Disk space! That Windows partition takes up 40 GB. That doesn’t leave me a lot of room to install a lot on it or store a lot of videos.

I am constantly having to manage the storage. Back up. Delete.

My second big reason I want a dedicated Windows laptop is gaming.

I have a big backlog of Steam games I have been meaning to play. The storage problem makes it impossible to install most newer games. Newer titles are easily over 10 GB in size. I don’t have any GBs to spare.

Then there is the fact that Macs aren’t meant to be gaming machines. I need a machine with a dedicated GPU to render the games in the highest quality I can push on it.

It’s time for that second laptop. Here are my requirements:

1. Windows
2. 15” screen. Preferable something with a good display
3. SSD boot drive
4. Large secondary drive
5. Gaming GPU

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I took Black Friday as the perfect opportunity to find a great machine for a lower price. I did my research and narrowed it down to three machines.

1. Dell G5
2. Asus Rog Strix
3. Acer Nitro

All three systems offered everything I was looking for. The deciding factor of which to get with is going to be based on the configuration and price.

The winner is:

ASUS ROG Strix Hero Edition

Here are the specs:

• 8th-Gen Intel Core i5-8300H processor up to 3.9GHz (Boost clock)
• Powerful gaming performance with GTX 1050 Ti 4GB graphics
• 120Hz 15.6″ Full HD display. Ultra-fast 3ms response time
• ASUS AURA SYNC customizable RGB Gaming Keyboard. Hero Edition dragon scale design on lid
• 128GB PCIe SSD + 1TB FireCuda Hybrid Drive
• Gigabit Wave 2 WiFi. Up to 1.73Gbps with 2X2 802.11ac. USB 3.1 Type-C. HDMI 1.4. Mini Displayport

This laptop met every need and it came for only $770. Check out my unboxing below. I’ll post a review once I break it in for a few weeks.