Hello everyone!
I am looking for a suitable laptop that will be able to run UE 5.4 smoothly. I have a PC but lately I have been having to work a lot on the go and sadly I have to look for a more portable solution.
I would mainly use the laptop for game design, level design and code compilation amongst other things.
I’m trying to find a laptop that won’t kill my wallet but that will be robust enough to let me develop without much difficulty.
Thank you all in advance!
Greetings @pm_pr
Welcome to the Unreal Engine Community Forum!
It’s a pretty broad spectrum you’re looking at. I usually recommend checking on reviews via Google and Reddit on things like that. Although, I do recall using a Discord(If you’re a user) channel called BuildAPC where other users who seemed fairly knowledgeable were super helpful on picking out components and builds for anything you could imagine with a computer. It may be something worth looking into. However, keep in mind I’m only throwing a personal reference and this is in no way a recommendation from Epic itself(Since it’s a separate entity). So, proceed at your own discretion. But, I liked it.
Hello @pm_pr !
I don’t know how much you’re willing to spend, but the Asus ROG line is really good for working with UE, other software that requires a graphics card, and of course, for gaming too.
It’s not a cheap laptop, but you wouldn’t have to worry about replacing it in 2 or 3 years due to outdated hardware. It’s a laptop that will last you a good while.
In any case, the most important thing is that you check the UE Specifactions and Minimum Requirements and evaluate based on that. But don’t aim to just meet the minimum; it will be too limited.
Let me know what you bought! 
Asus are a nightmare. 
For some of us at least 
… So not recommending them. Put it this way, there’s a good reason you can find ROG for sale for cheap. 
Overall, Asus have the worst rep on the UE forums imho, based on posts from the UDK era, UE4 and UE5 now. So 3 generations of game tech. Suggestion: Go ahead, do a search…See if you are able to find as many complaints about any other brand.
Had much better luck with Acer & Omen. Nothing amazing in terms of specs. But they still work after 5 years. An Acer Predator GPU here just died (RTX-2070 ). But that was after 5 years of medium workload. And will still get use out of the built-in Intel graphics for a while.
Had the most luck so far with Omen overall. That’s after 5 years of heavy workload. Such a pity Omen don’t seem to make the OmenX range anymore. OmenX is a hybrid VR PC (fully portable). It fits neatly into a backpack. But you need access to a TV or VR headset at destination locations to use it. BTW: Ignore the fact Omen is part of HP - HP itself as a brand is better avoided.
Cooling is the biggest issue or enemy of reliability with laptops. Every manufacturer should make hybrid PC’s. That way better cooling design would extend the lifespan of the rig. As its just too big an ask to have everything in one box. As you need much of the box surface area for cooling. But that’s way too hard, when you also have to supply a built-in screen and keyboard on laptops.
To add… Asus non-gaming laptops seem fine. The EEEPC range from eons ago still work today running Linux. Its the motherboards and GPU’s on Asus laptops you need to watch out for. Anyway, read other threads first before deciding. Here’s one… Box clever. Don’t buy more hardware than you need today. More tips there for extending lifespan too (never use a dev laptop for gaming + turn-off real-time in all UE editors). Also try to go big on SSD. 1TB isn’t even enough for UE4. Not anymore… Go for 2TB SSD + up to 20TB portable HDD.
It is essentially impossible to get a laptop that matches a desktop for Unreal Engine, especially if you want the laptop to weigh less than ten pounds.
If budget is the main challenge, try to stick with the 4060 based laptops, and load up on RAM and CPU. (Typically you can always upgrade the internal drive later, and as long as it’s M.2 NVME it’ll be good enough to start.)
If you want to attempt to match desktops, while still having a portable form factor, the Razer laptops are the closest you can get, but they are prone to overheating (like all laptops) and aren’t easy on the budget.