Every time I've ever owned a non gpu laptop, it's like I've always had to bring along either another laptop or a gaming console when on longer term trips or temporary moves. I don't care that gaming laptops are 0.2 inches thicker which somehow makes them 100% impractical to most people. I'd rather only have to bring 1 device with me.

Yeah, I used to work a job where I was basically on call for 6 hours at a time, but didn’t need to do much unless something broke. I’d help set things up at the top of the day then tear things down at the end. But in between, I was basically just waiting for things to break. It’s safe to say that I used the fuck out of my gaming laptop and VPN at my desk. Because I obviously didn’t want to try playing games on a company computer.

I played a lot of single player and idle games at that job, because those are easy to walk away from at a moment’s notice. Just hit pause and you can give your full attention to whatever problem has popped up. Then once it’s resolved, you’re right back where you left off.

I too used mine as a backup. I don't have a working one atm, but technically my steamdeck works for most of the games I'd want to keep up with, if a bit harder to use. I can even do ffxiv, though definitely less skilled using the steamdeck. I might try with a dock and my 8bitdo controller and see how that feels (already have both, but haven't really tested it since I use that controller for switch instead).