Luned: So my oldest will be heading off to college in the fall. I'm not certain whether we want to go with buying her a gaming laptop, or a cheaper, light laptop for classes (she's not planning on being an engineering/IT major) and a desktop gaming rig. Pricewise, I think we could come out about even either way.
I could use opinions from current college students, especially US students, as to whether the desktop takes up too much dorm room space to be worthwhile. I think Microsoft often offers a student PC deal including an Xbox One around August; not sure if that's another avenue worth considering.
It depends on their space availability.
I have very limited space, so I own a MSI Phantom Pro, a 14" gaming laptop that has an i7-7700 and a GTX1060 in it.
I can play ANY game out there, do satellite imaging and GIS work at university, and literally fit it in the "tablet" pocket of my (admittedly large) ScotteVest that I wear.
The sweet deal was that it cost me $1500 (I believe they're down to $1200 now on NewEgg and Amazon) when it first came out, not much more than a decent gaming desktop would if you're buying it off the rack rather than building it yourself, and is infinitely more portable unlike the previous 17" 14# monstrosity or full dower desktop that I owned before it.
There is one downside, however, the lack of upgradability for laptops means that five years from now I'll have to buy a new one rather than a motherboard/CPU and new GPU to upgrade a desktop, though with MSI quality and pricing I'm not really opposed to that, and I can pass my current laptop on to my kids (like I do with phones and everything else electronic that I go through an upgrade cycle with) to keep the tech chain going.