Making your Gaming Laptop easier to use with Laptop Gaming Accessories
Clearly, gaming laptops have come a long way over the last few years, with the latest high-end models offering desktop-like gaming performance. They’re powerful, so much more portable and convenient, especially if you are short on space. Or you’re life involves travelling with your job or staying away from home with college. Or you might just be like me, a casual stay at gamer with a passion for gaming laptops.
With nearly ten years of laptop gaming behind me, I have come to understand the importance of having a good selection of laptop gaming accessories. They will help make your laptop easier to use and will also improve your gaming performance. Whether that’s an external keyboard, or most importantly, not so expensive gaming laptop cooling pad.
In this guide, I will recommend what you should consider to make my your laptop easier to use, and you don't need to break the bank to do so.
TIP 1: A Laptop Cooling Pad
Gaming laptops have a reputation for pushing out extreme heat. Which is one of the most important factors manufactures have to take into account when designing their laptops.
Even more so, when the latest Intel and AMD laptop processors have higher core counts than ever. Plus the fact that Nvidia is pushing laptop graphics card power to new heights with ray-tracing and other AI technologies.
Manufacturers are squeezing these powerful components into smaller spaces, with ultrathin high-performance laptops now commonplace. When you think about it, much of the space inside a gaming laptop is taken up by installing, not just the graphics card and the processor. But also the memory, the storage, the keyboard, and the Wi-Fi card, not forgetting a hard disk drive. Which are all important features.
Therefore, it’s no wonder heat is an issue as it doesn’t leave much room for the cooling solution. Namely, the heat pipes and the fans. And the performance of the laptop will depend on the cooling of the gaming laptop.
For that reason, it is recommended that a laptop cooling pad be the first laptop accessory on your shopping list.
I say that for two reasons. The first being obvious, they will help cool down your laptops core temperature. Ok, they won’t work miracles, so if you’re suffering extreme CPU and GPU temps, a laptop cooler won’t help, they are just not powerful enough. However, what they will do is, cool it down by a few degrees and just enough to notice.
So if your CPU is wavering just over 90 degrees, a laptop cooling pad may just bring it under to a playable temperature.
How do I know? Well, I recently tested a cooling pad with my HP Omen gaming laptop to check if they really work. It did, you can check out the results below. Alternatively, visit my website for the full details.
Tested to See if Laptop Cooling Pads Work
For the second reason, a laptop cooler will make it easier for you to type. As you can see from the image below, my laptop is raised up, and my keyboard is slightly angled which makes it much more comfortable when typing for long periods. Not only that, this will also allow for better airflow and that will help with the cooling of your laptop.
TIP 2: An External Keyboard
From my own experience typing on laptop keys for long periods can be awkward. To save space keys are mostly scrammed together and on some gaming machines I’ve seen there are far less keys than you would get with a desktop PC keyboard. I mean, some laptops don’t even have number pads. And a lot of the time you’re having to use the function key (FN) and secondary keys to perform simple tasks, which is not ideal.
Being a gamer myself, I would often find myself banging the WASD keys during high intense gun battles playing Call of Duty Warzone. If this was to continue then inevitably over time these keys will deteriorate and they could stop working altogether. It’s also worth noting, underneath the keyboard are the core components, it would only take a second for them to suffer damage.
So for these reasons alone you should consider buying an external keyboard. Since I got mine, I haven’t looked back, it’s mostly used for gaming and when typing for long periods, and the same keyboard I’m using to type this article.
The keyboard I am using is the Logitech G213 wired gaming keyboard and so far it has been a pleasure to use. It has clicky mechanical keys, with RGB customizable lighting and dedicated media keys, an integrated Palm rest and adjustable feet which makes it easier to position and make it comfortable to use.
However, you may prefer a wireless keyboard although they may not be as responsive and would also cost more. And you would only have to plug in a USB adaptor into a spare USB port and away you go.
Corsair is the brand I would mostly recommend for mid-range wireless keyboards, the CORSAIR K57 RGB Wireless Gaming Keyboard would be a great example. Corsair also offers many premium options in the 60% keyboard market, they mostly don’t have number pads or F-keys but absence of these will make for a tiny footprint and would be useful for those short on desk space.
Whichever choice you make, know that an external keyboard will improve your gameplay, and help prolong the life of your laptop. I mean, there’s a big chance your laptop cost well over $1000, in my book, that’s a lot of money. And, if you’re planning on using it for the next 3 or 4 years it’s worth considering adding an external keyboard to your laptop gaming accessories.
TIP 3: More USB Ports For Your Laptop
If you own an older laptop it may only offer two USB ports, so once you have connected your mouse and keyboard, or wireless adaptor. That would be it, then to use a different device you would need to unplug one to accommodate it. Which takes time, fiddling with wires.
Although, these days things are a little easier, the latest gaming laptops are equipped with many more ports, three, four, and maybe even five depending on the model so you may not need extra USB ports.
But if you are running short on USB ports adding a USB hub to your laptop accessories will allow you to connect more devices. You can plug your mouse, keyboard, and your headset if it has a USB connection into the HUB and the HUB is plugged into only one port.
It’s worth noting, a standard USB hub is not the solution for high powered devices like external hard drives, or gaming mice with RGB lighting for that you would need to consider purchasing a self powered USB HUB.
The difference between a standard HUB and self powered hub is that one plugs into your laptop ports and it will share the bandwidth between all the devices you plug into the hub, so they are great for standard mice, keyboards, flash drives or even gaming controllers.
Whereas, a self powered hub or docking station plugs directly into a power source and will provide full power into each USB port you use. A self-powered USB hub will support and charge higher-powered devices and peripherals. Like an iPad, a small electrical fan, digital cameras, and many other laptop peripherals.
So whichever option you choose, whether that’s a standard USB or a self powered HUB, know that they will help make your laptop so much easier to use, and either option is reasonably affordable.
TIP 4: Budget Wired Headset with a Microphone
Gaming headsets have come a long way over the last few years with the latest headsets offering excellent surround sound, reliable wireless technology, they’re comfortable and the sound quality is superb.
However, if your budget is a bit tighter there are plenty of affordable options that will help improve your gameplay, and allow you to hear enemy footsteps, distant gunfire, and give you positional awareness. These are just a few of the reasons why it’s worth considering adding a gaming headset to your laptop accessories especially when you can grab a decent budget set that wouldn’t look out of place on a gaming enthusiasts desk.
A budget headset I use myself is the Razer Kraken Wired Gaming Headset, and recently I wrote a review comparing the Kraken with the Kraken X, which has slightly less features and is a little cheaper but still worth a punt.
The Razer Kraken headset is affordable, comfortable and offers loads of decent features with a 3.5mm jack socket.
The design is simple, all black and delivers comfort and the sound quality is good. Furthermore, the Razer Kraken features a mic that is retractable. To be honest, sometimes I do forget to retract. And the way the headband adjustment works means it’s easy to pull the headset down onto your head.
Moreover, the earcups on the Razer Kraken budget headset are leather. The padding is deep and they clamp firmly around your ears. The headband is also padded, which does make them feel snug.
Adding a budget gaming headset to your laptop accessories will make your laptop easier to use. Ok, there are plenty of other headsets at this price point. namely the Corsair HS60 Pro or if your budget is a bit tighter then check out the Razer Kraken X wired gaming headset.
Conclusion
Here we have four tips that will help make your laptop easier to use. So, if you are short on ports then a USB hub will offer a neater way to use more devices with your laptop.
A laptop cooling pad will reduce your laptop operating temperatures and will also offer a more comfortable platform to type on. Whereas, a decent budget headset will improve your gameplay and you don’t need to look any further than the Razer Kraken.
Finally, an external keyboard will make your laptop easier to use, it will help prolong the life of your laptop.
Hopefully, I have given you some ideas on how you can make your laptop easier to use. Ok, there are many other laptop gaming accessories you can add to improve your laptop, but considering these four would be a good start.
If you are looking for ways to improve your laptops performance you can visit my website for helpful guides and laptop tips.
