Credits to SGRAFO

My Computing Journey

So ever since I was a young child, in elementary, intermediate, high school, until now, in college, I’ve always felt left out. It seemed to me that I was the only kid who didn’t have an Xbox or a PlayStation. I only had access to a cheap PC my parents bought from Costco. So growing up, I pretty much only played BTD5 on Ninja Kiwi. Looking back on it, I am very grateful that I didn’t, because without the PC, I wouldn’t have learned how to tinker with things on the computer. When I was in high school, I planned to get a Razer gaming laptop, a horrible mistake, but a learned mistake nonetheless. I will never buy any Razer product ever again (I might do another blog rant about this) and never a thin and light laptop meant for gaming and high computing processes. Anyway, I’m deviating from the story. I got a gaming laptop, and made a Steam account, and tinkered about in there. Got me interested in doing a Hackintosh project, that went ok, just made me realize that I hated MacOS. Eventually, I dove into Linux, a year or two later, I tossed the Razer laptop (battery got bloated to the point where it bent the frame of the housing and second battery did the same) to the side. When I got my Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3, I dual-booted Windows 10 and Arch Linux. On PC, I currently use Arch Linux and sometimes using Windows through KVM/QEMU. Windows is used sparingly if the school ever forces me to use that proprietary nonsense. Along with converting to Linux, I also ditched everything Apple and now use a degoogled Google Pixel with GrapheneOS on it.

So yeah, I started off as a normie user, and now an evolved power user. I hope that wherever you guys are, you gain enough technical and problem-solving skills and evolve and learn more about using your computers. With the rising popularity of computers and the upcoming need for everyday jobs roles to utilize them efficiently, it’s essential to be technically savvy.

You Can Do Everything You Want on a PC/Laptop

Would you spend upwards of $700 for a computer that only does gaming? Admitedly, I’ve spent around $1000 on my laptop and around $3k on my PC, so if you just compare the numbers, it’s much cheaper to buy a console. However, a lot of people buy that $700 console and then also have to buy another laptop or computer for their schoolwork, which usually starts at $300 for a cheap Chromebook and goes up from there. For $500 you can get a very entry level laptop that pretty much only does web browsing and some document editing, if you can get a used ThinkPad, you might be able to play some games on it. If you spend a bit more from the $800 to $1k range you can get a laptop for light gaming, anything over than that, you should just get a PC at that point.

So let’s see, best case scenario, you are some liberal arts or humanities major who doesn’t do anything too intensive on your computer. You buy a $700 PlayStation and $300 Chromebook. That would be $1000 and Chromebooks last from 8-10 years. After that it will be unsupported. So you’re spending $1k total and that Chromebook might be a recurring expense every decade or so.

If you get a decent laptop, let’s compare my ThinkPad for a moment, I spent $900 on it, upgraded the 512 GB SSD to 2 TB and put Windows and Linux on it, so it comes out to around $1k. It’s perfectly capable of smoothly playing games. It runs Linux so it will always be supported. Unfortunately, because I bought the AMD version, RAM is stuck at 16 GB but if you get the Intel version, I believe you can push it to 40 GB or something like that. Connect some controllers to it, play Geometry Dash, Celeste, Ultimate Chicken Horse, Overcooked, Rounds, Stick Fight, Speedrunners, Golf With Friends, Rocket League, etc. Realistically only bottleneck is my T.V, most of you don’t have 144hz TVs, once you get a 144hz monitor, why not just get a PC at that point? For light gaming it’s perfectly fine. The moment I play more intensive games, I’ll update the review but for now, that’s all I’ve been playing on my laptop. Additionally, you can take it to school and do some schoolwork on there. You can host a server on it, do Stable Diffusion on it, use it for anything you want.

Buying Games on Console vs PC

Most people who “buy” games on console, use the game pass and have to pay every year or they lose access to their game. I hate this system and would much rather wait for games on Steam to go on Sale. There are more stores you can buy games too like on GOG or Itch. If you are tight, you can sail the high seas and pay for the game when you are in a good place.