In terms of Late Win9x and late 2k/XP gaming, I'm noticing that the higher end XP laptops (early to mid 00s) are almost comparable in viability to a desktop, depending on the games you want to play. I'm not sure what the most powerful XP laptop is, but a lot of higher-end XP laptops are definitely good choices for gaming, and in many cases, as they're overlooked, they can be had for a decent price. Certain laptops also have upgradeable CPUs and graphics cards which means that they have a fair bit of upgrade potential, plus if either of those components fail, it's relatively easy to replace! Older laptops are a bit more of a mixed bag, however in terms of DOS gaming, as there are far more elements at play as to what makes a good DOS laptop, such as the sound card, and also if you want to use it along with Win 3.1(1) or Win 95/98. The storage drives on any of these laptops (DOS to XP) aren't much of an issue, especially if you use IDE adapters for mSATA/m.2 SSDs, SD cards, or Compact Flash cards to replace the mechanical drive, though RAM may be a sticking point for the older laptops, plus they won't have replaceable CPUs/GPUs in a lot of cases.
That's not to say that DOS laptops are a lost cause, far from it! With the right laptop and stuff like the LPT/OPL devices out there, but expenses do end up increasing to get the perfect DOS/early Win9x laptop because they're more in demand nowadays, compared to before, to the extent that desktops probably end up cheaper - unless you happen to find a great deal somewhere (usually away from eBay!) - even if you decide to add in a Voodoo card to the mix. That said however, laptops will never be beaten for their space footprint, even if you have 2 (and really, if you want to play older DOS/Windows games in multiplayer, you'll need at least 2 similarly specced laptops! One point I haven't mentioned with the laptops I've been getting from eBay is that the XP laptops I've been getting recently still have serial and parallel ports, and that is deliberate, as I have software/games that require the ports, plus I want to experiment with Dosbox to see the viability of using null modem connections via that method, seeing as XP laptops are more affordable currently, plus I think that Dosbox in some form (or another emulator that supports DOS) is going to be viable for people who want to play certain DOS games but don't want to delve deeply into finding the the "ideal" laptop in that regard.
Another bonus of an XP laptop is that most Win9x (and potentially 3.x games) will work pretty well still, given that XP is a 32-bit OS, though there are some rare instances where it may not work as intended. Furthermore, a lot of source ports for certain games (OpenTTD, FreeCiv, Doom Engine, Descent series, Command & Conquer, Theme Hospital, X-Com Classic, Quake, etc) will work on WinXP still, meaning you can have the best of many worlds, seeing as source ports are a better way to play certain games nowadays, unless you want the "nostalgia" factor of how the DOS games look, either via emulation, or a pure system. In terms of things, higher-end XP laptops really fit well inside the overlap of older and newer (albeit slightly older) Windows games, and with the use of Dosbox, can also cater for most peoples' needs for a retro gaming laptop, especially given that Dosbox is pretty much a strong option for running games that require a 4.77 MHz system, without having to buy one, be that an original (very expensive!) or one of those recent clones that have come out that mimics those systems (newer hardware, and more affordable, but it's not necessarily as portable as a laptop).
The reasoning behind that is that games aimed at that specific architecture/CPU speed run extremely fast on any CPU that is even 2 times as fast as that pairing, and even slightly faster systems will have similar issues, so unless you're a hardcore purist, Dosbox will probably be the most viable method for the majority of folks. Now, you may be wondering as well, regarding the use of source ports and even Dosbox to an extent, that if you're using them, then doesn't that pretty much mean that you may as well be using them on a much newer system? Well, yes and no. By all means, use a source port on a newer system, and take advantage of the more powerful hardware; it's what I do too, but the reason why I'm going down this route as well is that there would be the advantage of newer networking protocols/methods being supported via the source port, so it's less of a nightmare getting things to work. Also, going back to Dosbox for a moment, given that those laptops have a serial connection - whereas the majority of newer devices don't - gives you the option of using the null modem connection. And if you're also wondering why a USB converter couldn't be used... well, certain software gets VERY finicky if you use that, so you're better off having an actual serial port available, especially given that they'd be easier to find than a PCI card with serial/parallel ports on it, plus you'd need a spare PCI slot, if you have any at all!
The bottom line is that really, a decently specced XP laptop is going to be the best balance of features for some retro gaming, even if you want to play some DOS games, seeing as the on-board ports are going to be able to be routed through Dosbox, plus this era of laptops also comes with a higher chance of having an Ethernet port, which should enable you to also have networked games with relative ease, seeing as as much as I love Windows 98 SE, it comes from the era of computing where things weren't quite standardised when it came to certain aspects, meaning that there is a lot of fiddling around required to get something working sometimes. Luckily, there is a USB driver for Windows 95, 98, and 98 SE nowadays, so it's not completely the dark ages in that regard; the 2 pairs of Toshiba laptops I have (Portegé 3110CTs and 3440CTs) have a USB 1.1 port, meaning that with the USB mass storage driver for all major versions Win9x (though ME comes with built-in USB support), you won't need to rely upon floppies or burning CDs/DVDs just to get data over, which is a godsend! That said however, apart from the single USB port on those laptops, you need to use a port replicator for all additional ports, and also for a floppy drive use you need to use USB or via a connector to get anything on the laptop, which will be problematic if you want to do a fresh install of an OS for some reason.
Likewise, you'd need to use a multimedia port replicator, USB, or PCMCIA cards (remember those?) to connect an optical drive to the laptop. Of course, equally viable (and maybe less hassle) would be to copy the Windows install files to the drive you plan to use with the laptop, be that the original drive (less recommended nowadays, but totally viable if you don't use it often), or ideally using an SSD, Compact Flash, or SD card (recommended more for DOS or light Win9x usage) via adapters, seeing as those options mean weight reduction and less power consumption too, which is always a bonus. There are actually IDE/PATA SSDs available, but I've done my research, and it seems that using mSATA or m.2 SSDs with an IDE adapters are quite a bit cheaper, with the m.2 option being the cheapest, mainly because of the IDE adapter being a fair chunk cheaper than the mSATA version, as otherwise the drives are comparable in price, with m.2 still being marginally cheaper for some options, plus given that m.2 drives are the new standard anyway, they're in no danger of disappearing anytime soon, plus they can be reused in newer systems if you wanted to transfer them, plus there are USB adapters available too, if you want to take advantage of the increased speed rather than using the far slower IDE interface.
Of course, there are going to be speed benefits with using any type of flash storage over mechanical drives, but the main reason for opting for an SSD is the lower power consumption, and reduced weight, on top of the fact that they're currently available, and subject to price decreases as the tech moves on, so you may find in a year or two from now, the m.2 option will become even cheaper for lower capacities, depending on the OS you plan to install. You'd probably want to peak at 256GB for an XP laptop, though to some, even that is overkill; you can partition the drive though, which is what I'd recommend, as it means you can have one partition dedicated to the OS and its system files, and another dedicated to everything else, or you could go up to a larger SSD and have separate OS/core software, software/other and download/ISO partitions, thus negating the need to have as many discs available, and though this would work best with a laptop with no optical drive, even those with them benefit as well, especially if you rip the inserted discs to ISO format too. Nowadays, physical media is less of a thing, but using ISOs does help preserve the media as it no longer needs to be used, as well as not needing to dig it out every time it's played. I would also recommend having PDF manuals to hand as well as compressing the unused games and all the manuals, mainly because compression means less space taken up, plus it makes the files slightly faster to move as they're smaller.
I want to make this a proper project, rather than this stream of consciousness that this blog represents, seeing as they're a string of observations so far that need refining to be more useful information. To this end, I'm compiling spreadsheets of laptops that may be suitable for retro projects, from DOS to WinXP. Note that I don't have the space for all of these laptops, but given I've discovered that there are cousin models, the range of laptops I can cover will be increased from what I have. One laptop I do want to get my hands on is my old Toshiba that's back in Ireland, because that may be a viable DOS/Win9x laptop, but I forget the name of it beyond being one of the Satellite series, although it's broken too, so hopefully over the time I put into this project, I'll be able to fix it as well, but I have to be able to get it first, though that is presently very difficult, given the current situation globally! Another thing I plan to do as well is benchmark the various laptops I have, both in their base configuration, but also the upgrades I plan to do to the various components, so if anyone knows of any good benchmarking software for older laptops, please feel free to let me know!
So far, I'm looking at using the benchmark pack from Phil's Computer Lab, Final Reality, 3DMark, and PC Mark, though I will also compare my desktops as well for a bit of fun. Either way, I still have a lot of research to finish, but I hope the info I provided is of use to someone, but even then, it may not be fully useful, given it's not fully joined together, but that's why I'm trying to refine it. Hopefully, something will come out of it soon, but I will for the most part be working on laptops in pairs, if not quads, in the case of the Toshibas, though the Pico laptop will be a solo job. I haven't really mentioned this one much because it's currently a mystery to me for the most part. I will say however that it has excellent potential to be a DOS/Win9x laptop, as it has a 4MB graphics card, although it's a bit of a weak card for 3D gaming, though it seems like it's far better for DOS gaming, which means that in that regard it probably ranks pretty highly; having 4MB of VRAM probably means that it's going to perform quite well in DOS, and probably certain Win9x games, though my XP systems can probably pick up the slack in that regard, although equally, the 3440CTs have 8MB S3 Savages, which means they're going to be a step up if I need a bit more oomph with Windows games, but it'll probably struggle to run games like Unreal (Tournament) and Quake III, although in the case of UT, there is the S3 Texture Compression (S3TC), so I'm gonna see what happens there.
Overall though, I don't think WinXP laptops have been explored much compared to DOS laptops, and I think even pure Win9x systems haven't been explored much either, so I think that if you're curious about this stuff, it'll be an interesting ride. In any case, I've written a massive essay, so I'm going to stop it here for now. If you've read this far, help yourself to a cookie firstly, but also, comment below or @ me on Twitter if you have any suggestions, be that for software can try, or things I can test the laptops for. I think after the laptop I'm waiting for (Inspiron 8600) arrives, I'm gonna hold off on getting any more laptops, although I will be on the lookout for useful accessories/parts for the laptops I have, seeing as I am wondering if the Toshibas could pretty much become strong DOS systems through the use of something like the LPT port sound cards (LPT3OPL, I think), or even a PCMCIA one, seeing as the only thing that lets them down for pure DOS is the sound cards not working in DOS, whereas everything else does, although a Pentium II or III may be overkill for DOS, unless I underclock them, but that's something I'll explore another time.
Hopefully, this post was of interest in some way, although I want to refine the entire thing and make it more digestible over a series of videos and more focused blog posts, as well as pictures, spreadsheets, and anything else relevant. In any case, I think it'll be an interesting rabbit hole to go down, and one I might have to juggle with other projects, so I don't just focus on this, especially given I need time to get the bits I need!
Until next time though, take care, stay safe, and I'll see you all later on.