Maximum PC - USA (2022-04)

LAB NOTES

If you’re one of our many

eagle-eyed readers, you may

have noticed one section

of the magazine is absent

this issue. The hardware

teardown, produced in

conjunction with our friends

at iFixit, isn’t featured. Don’t

worry, it’ll be back shortly

with a fantastic repair guide to

a particularly hot new product,

but we decided to take a break

this issue in order to feature

a Centerfold on page 46 of a

product we couldn’t resist.

On a personal level, editing

the teardowns has always

been one of my favorite

assignments. It’s fascinating

to see what makes the tech

we take for granted tick and

to understand exactly how

the most intricate pieces of

hardware fit together. iFixit’s

website is well worth a look

for its non-teardown-related

articles; in fact, their handy

repair guides gave me the

confidence to attempt to

repair my partner’s Google

Pixel, which recently suffered

a broken screen. As terrifying

as it was to pry away the

broken glass with tiny plastic

tools I’d bought on eBay, it

came with a certain sense

of pride and was certainly

preferable to having it fixed by

my local repair cowboys.

We’ve had lots of reader

feedback on what you’d like

to see more of in Maximum

PC (see Comments on page

94). I’d love to revive the

Head To Heads or be even

more ambitious and create

something new. If you have

any thoughts, let us know!

CHRISTIAN GUYTON

Staff Writer

GUY COCKER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

LET ME JUST SAY this from the outset:

Jeremy Laird is a fantastic editor who did

a phenomenal job managing this esteemed

publication before my arrival. But, having

read his column “Gaming Laptops Suck” in

the February edition, I felt I had to stick up

for these little portable powerhouses.

You see, gaming laptops are what got me

through the pandemic. Sure, I’ve enjoyed

gaming desktops and their ridiculous

power for years, but during lockdowns,

I didn’t want to game in my home office,

as it’s where I’d been cooped up all day.

So I decided to invest in a gaming laptop

so I could work from the living room, the

kitchen and (hopefully, my new boss isn’t

reading this) sometimes even my bed.

This newfound freedom meant I could

rekindle my love of gaming again. Nothing

on TV to watch? Not a problem, I’d play

something on my HP Omen 15. Ten minutes

free before dinner? Time for a

game of Gears Tactics! Partner

reading in bed? No problem—head

to Scotland for a quick cruise around

Edinburgh in Forza Horizon 4.

Jeremy’s point about gaming

laptops was fair—they do lack the

power of desktops, they are harder to

upgrade so have a shorter shelf life, and

because they’re being banged about on

the road, they often suffer from component

failure. But I will say this: my new gaming

laptop, the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro, has single-

handedly killed any lingering interest I had

in games consoles. At home, I plug it into

my 65-inch LG OLED for some gorgeous

G-SYNC gaming, and now I’m back on the

road again, it’s like having an Xbox Series X

in every hotel room I go. My desktop-bound

3090 may be gathering dust, but the laptop-

based 3070 gets used nearly every night.

So I hope Jeremy takes this rebuttal in

the spirit it’s intended—an alternative view

on how gaming laptops definitely have their

place. Thankfully, he is completely right in

his conclusion to his Mac vs. PC feature—

you’ll hear no argument from me there!

Check it out on page 48.

A riposte to Jeremy Laird’s recent column

Gaming laptops

DON’T suck

© LENOVO

The Lenovo

Legion 5 Pro

laptop is a

console- kill er.

72 MAXIMU MPC APR 2022

tested. reviewed. verdictized.
in the lab

72