Open Forum: What Are Good, Non-Heavy Laptops for Running Second Life?

Just got a good question from reader Cathleen Lunasea that's an ideal open forum question before the long Labor Day Weekend here in the US: "Do you have any recommendation for a not too heavy laptop to play SL?"

The "not too heavy" qualifier is an important one, because you can run Second Life quite well on a massive and pricey beast that's really a laptop in name only. 

Please post suggestions? Unfortunately I can't really recommend the one pictured above, my trusty and affordable Dell G5 15 gamer laptop, for Second Life, even though it works great for high-end AAA games like Deathloop. That's me visiting the region “Wo Qui Non Coin” [teleport here] which Cajsa covered last year, and it definitely does not look* as excellent on my laptop as it does in her post.

Anyway, please post recent recommendations in Comments, and I'll feature some of the best in an update next week!

* Yes I'm using the default viewer, not Firestorm or Black Dragon, please no dunking on me; I report on what Linden Lab is doing with Second Life (or not doing) as well as the user community, after all!

Comments

[dkronfeld]

The MacBook Air runs SL surprisingly well, if you disable Hardware Open GL Vertex Buffer Objects (used to be a graphics setting, is now a debug setting) and set water reflections to "None:Opaque". It's actually a shockingly good SL laptop, if "not too heavy" is a requirement.

[Whiskey Monday]

Pardon the Best Buy link, but this is my new laptop and it's light and ridiculously powerful in SL. I can run SL and PS at the same time and while the fans are loud, it runs like a champ. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-16-wqxga-165hz-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i9-16gb-ddr5-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-ti-1tb-pcie-4-0-ssd-off-black/6494637.p?skuId=6494637

[Mondy]

The Asus Rog Zephyrus weighs over 4 lbs, not sure that counts as non-heavy ;)
I think any gaming laptop that runs SL really well or as good as a desktop will have the same problem. I have a Legion 5 with 2060, bought just before they switched the Legion's over to the 30 series and that runs Second Life great but I wouldn't call it light. Perhaps the Legion Slim series ?

[seph]

Most Nvidia Studio stickered laptops. They all are equipped with powerful RTX cards, but are built with creators in mind so they're lighter and have better aesthetics than gaming laptops. They also have special Studio drivers that while won't improve Second Life performance will help with some productivity apps related to Second Life.

[George]

Have a look at Asus Rog Flow X13.... if you want something light, portable and super-powerfull and with an external monitor when back home is wooww.

[Evert Guzman]

Ah I’m having a really good time running Second Life on my Steam Deck.