These days, gaming laptops are getting more powerful, and they can play most new games at high settings. If you want to play titles such as Star Wars: Squadrons at 1080p HD video, you don’t need to spend over $2,000 for a laptop. You can spend around $1,200 on a gaming laptop that can handle such games.
You can get a slightly better laptop with better performance and support for features like ray tracing and Deep Learning Super-sampling. These features will eventually appear in more games, but right now they’re not yet widely supported.
Whether you’re buying a brand new gaming laptop or an older one that doesn’t play games as well, take a look at what we believe to be the best gaming laptops of 2021.
The A15’s 144 Hz display is good for playing games with low frame rates, such as Overwatch. Its high refresh rate makes the screen look sharp and smooth. Also, it helps minimize background noise when playing fast-paced games.
The A15 has a responsive and comfortable keyboard, and it also has a full-size number pad. Its RGB backlighting is a nice perk, though it only shows one color at a time. The keyboard can also be customized with various effects.
The A15 has lasted for 7 hours and 16 minutes in a web-browsing battery test, above average for a gaming laptop. It was also able to squeeze in a few more minutes as the screen’s variable refresh rate decreased.
The A15 has a second storage bay, so you can add more storage without removing the laptop’s existing components. Its M.2 slot is empty, so you don’t need to add another solid-state drive. To access the laptop’s expansion slots, you need to remove the 11 Phillips screws on the underside.
Overall, this is a very well-made laptop and easily makes the top of our list.
If your main pick is unavailable, we suggest the HP Omen 15. Its portability and built-in cooling make it a better alternative to the top pick. With a slightly lower price, it is a stiff competitor to the A15. It has the same features and is as easy to upgrade as our top pick.
The Omen 15 is just as powerful as our main pick, but it has a more effective cooling system. It works seamlessly with software, and it has a bright high-refresh-rate display. Its fans are louder than our top pick, and its battery life is typically shorter.
On its default fan settings, the Omen 15 was one of our favorite gaming laptops this year. Its internal temperatures stayed cool during our 30 minutes of rigorous testing, and its keyboard was still at a cool temperature.
The Omen 15’s keyboard is snappy and comfortable for typing and gaming. It has full-size arrow keys, similar to the A15.
The Omen 15 and the A15 share the same refresh rate and resolution, though the Omen has a slightly warmer IPS display color. Both devices have the similar screen brightness, but the Omen 15 is slightly brighter.
The Omen 15 is our top pick for a mid-range laptop with plenty of room for storage. Its two full-sized RAM slots are easily accessible from the M.2 slot.
The Nitro 5 is the best gaming laptop we’ve seen in a long time, but it lacks the features that make it stand out. It has less storage capacity and its screen isn’t as nice as its previous competitors.
If you want a laptop that can play games decently, but doesn’t require VR support, then the Nitro 5 is for you. It’s got plenty of power to play older games and less demanding titles for the next few years.
Its powerful 8th-generation processor is enough to play older games and those requiring less processing power.
The Nitro 5 kept its most important components cool during rigorous testing. After a few minutes, the keyboard feels a little warm to the touch, but that was expected even with the Omen 15 and the A15.
The Nitro 5 has a lightly cupped and responsive keyboard. Its red-backlit keys are well-placed and are responsive.
The Nitro 5 has a low-refresh-rate screen, which means it can’t maintain high frame rates in most games. Its GTX 1650 graphics card can’t provide enough performance to keep up with demanding games.
The Nitro 5 has an M.2 PCIe slot for additional storage, and it has an open RAM slot.
For a price range that is a little over half of the competitor prices, the Acer Nitro 5 is one of the best budget PCs on the market.
