I’ve Been Reviewing Gaming Laptops for Over a Decade. Here’s What to Look for When Shopping

Gaming laptops used to be pretty straightforward. They were powerful but thick and unwieldy. These days, you have options. There are gaming laptops that prioritize performance at all costs and others that hone in on thinness, cost, or design. Heck, there are even gaming tablets and 2-in-1s.

That breadth of choices means choosing a gaming laptop in 2025 isn’t simple. While picking any option from our Best Gaming Laptops guide is a good place to start, you still might not end up with a gaming laptop perfectly suited for your needs. Having tested many gaming laptops in over a decade of reviewing products, I’ll break down each element of these spendy machines to lead you in the right direction, as well as explain what to expect from the major laptop brands.

What Size Gaming Laptop Should You Get?

Photograph: Luke Larsen

This is a great place to start when shopping for a gaming laptop. When we talk about “sizes” of these machines, we’re usually comparing display sizes, measured diagonally. You’ll often see three sizes across brands: 14-inch, 16-inch, and 18-inch.

16-inch is the happy medium. Though they are large laptops, they give the powerful gaming hardware enough space for the thermals to breathe. Having a larger screen is certainly not a bad thing either. These 16-inch gaming laptops replaced the 15.6-inch gaming laptops of the past, which used a 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With a few exceptions, most modern displays use a 16:10 aspect ratio display with thinner bezels. 16-inch laptops can be thin like the Razer Blade 16 or Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 or thick like the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 or Asus ROG Strix G16.

14-inch and 18-inch gaming laptops are more niche, but still have specific use cases where they are good solutions. 14-inch laptops are a newer development, tending to be highly portable and compact. The two primary standouts are the Razer Blade 14 and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, but there are other models like the Acer Nitro 14, Asus TUF A14, HP Omen Transcend 14, and others.

18-inch gaming laptops are the exact opposite. They’re too big for bags, too heavy to comfortably travel with, and are often quite thick. These are gaming laptops meant to primarily be left at a desk or workstation. Why buy them? Well, if you plan to mostly game at home, you might not mind the extra heft. The 18-inch screen gives you lots of screen real estate to game on. This is especially nice if you aren’t playing on an external monitor. Some of the notable options are the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 or MSI Titan 18 HX AI.

How to Navigate Performance

Photograph: Brad Bourque

There’s a lot to consider when it comes to performance, but the place to start is with graphics cards. A gaming laptop needs a discrete GPU to be ready for 3D gaming, and typically, that means choosing from something in Nvidia’s RTX lineup. The latest options, the RTX 50-series, have been launching throughout 2025, which include the RTX 5090, 5080, 5070, 5070 Ti, 5060, and 5050. Nvidia will have you believe that multi-frame generation is the reason to buy a new laptop with one of these GPUs, though in my testing, that hasn’t always proven true. Either way, the feature is there to play with regardless of which GPU your laptop has.

As you’d expect, performance and price scale step by step. I won’t list out all the specs for these graphics cards, but there are a few important things to know when deciding. The RTX 5090 (24 GB), 5080 (16 GB), and 5070 Ti (12 GB) all received additional VRAM over their predecessors in the RTX 40-series, whereas the RTX 5070, 5060, and 5050 are all stuck with just 8 GB. That means for certain game performance, the upgrade from the RTX 5070 to the 5070 Ti is bigger than the 5060 to the 5070. It’s also important to remember that these laptop GPUs do not correspond with the desktop versions in terms of specs.

The other critical spec that is often forgotten about is the amount of power going to the GPU. For example, the RTX 5060 can run at 115 watts for the maximum amount of performance, which is what you’ll see in a laptop like the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10. Some cheaper gaming laptops, such as the Gigabyte Aero X16, run that same RTX 5060 at a max of 85 watts. That severely limits the performance you can expect out of it. This spec is not always clearly labeled on retailer pages, so make sure to check with the manufacturer before buying.

Beyond graphics, your CPU matters in performance too. Intel and AMD both have a strong position in gaming laptops, and you’ll find options for them spread out across different laptop lineups. The latest generation of chips you’ll see in 2025 gaming laptops are the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 H or HX chips, and AMD has its third-gen Ryzen AI chips, such as the Ryzen AI 9 365 or the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375. Across both AMD and Intel, “HX” in these chips refers to a higher-wattage CPU, up to 55 watts. Although it’s a bit rarer, we’re also seeing some gaming laptops adopt the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D, which is the absolute king of gaming performance right now. Meanwhile, Intel’s latest chips are a bit more commonly used and get you better battery life.

Should you buy older gaming laptops that are now on discount? Well, I wouldn’t recommend buying anything with a GPU older than the RTX 40-series. Remember: these GPUs have been around since 2023, so you’re potentially purchasing something that’s a couple of years old. If you can find a good discount on a high-end 2024 gaming laptop, I won’t stop you. I just haven’t found many options that are discounted deep enough to be worth it.

How Much Memory and Storage Do Gaming Laptops Need?

Photograph: Luke Larsen

You won’t find many new gaming laptops with less than 16 GB of RAM anymore, thankfully. That’s become the new standard for even the cheapest gaming laptops. In fact, many companies are now moving to 32 GB, largely because of how memory-intensive modern games can be. The one exception to that rule that I’ve found is the HP Victus 15, the company’s cheapest model, which starts with only 8 GB of RAM, paired with an RTX 5050.

The price of upgrading RAM, however, varies wildly from company to company. Razer charges a whopping $300 to go from 16 GB to 32 GB, while Dell charges just $100. That’s also what Best Buy charges to upgrade the Asus ROG Strix G16 from 16 GB to 32 GB.

Unfortunately, some of these gaming laptops no longer let you easily upgrade the memory yourself, as it’s soldered to the motherboard. But many still offer it, such as the aforementioned ROG Strix G16, Alienware 16 Aurora, MSI Titan 18 HX, and others. That means you can purchase cheaper, faster RAM yourself and upgrade it yourself. It’s mostly the thinner gaming laptops like the Razer Blades that use soldered RAM.

For storage, 512 GB is still the standard, though some higher-end gaming laptops have moved to one terabyte as the base configuration. Razer did that with its Blade gaming laptops a few years back. Remember: modern games are absolutely massive these days, and while you’ll no doubt be using external storage at some point for your game collection, having a terabyte of internal storage can be super helpful. Most gaming laptops will allow you to easily upgrade the storage yourself, though, and often offer a second empty M.2 slot. Like with RAM, this is a much cheaper option than configuring it in your laptop purchase up front.

What Kind of Display Is Best?

Photograph: Luke Larsen

Do not underestimate the importance of your gaming laptop’s display. Unless you plan on exclusively using it while plugged into an external monitor (in which case you should probably buy or build a desktop PC), the display of your gaming laptop is the window through which you experience the world of your games.

Outside of the size, which we already discussed, there are three primary considerations with a gaming laptop’s screen: resolution, refresh rate, and panel type. Gaming laptops these days come in either 1920 x 1200, 2560 x 1600, or 3840 x 2400. Occasionally, you may run across a 16:9 aspect ratio screen with an old-school 1920 x 1080 resolution, too. More pixels mean a sharper screen, which makes a big difference in games. But more pixels also mean more performance is required to get high frame rates at that resolution. You can always drop the resolution in a game to get higher frame rates, but that also means you’re paying for extra pixels that you’re not using.

Refresh rate is equally important. The good news is that all modern gaming laptops have a refresh rate of over 60 Hz, which is the standard for non-gaming laptops. From there, you’ll see 120 Hz and 144 Hz as the new baseline, with options up to 240 Hz, 360 Hz, or even 500 Hz. Laptop manufacturers tend to do a good job of offering display resolutions and refresh rates appropriate to the amount of performance you can expect from the laptop, but sometimes you’ll have a choice of a higher resolution or a higher refresh rate.

The last important consideration with a gaming laptop’s display is the panel type, which is increasingly a very exciting aspect of these devices. While IPS is still the standard, higher-end gaming laptops have begun to adopt Mini-LED or OLED. Not only are these panels more color accurate and vivid, but they also allow for vastly better HDR performance. Many of these panels, including the OLED ones, can hit over 1,000 nits of peak HDR brightness, really bringing the lighting in games to life. If you haven’t gamed in HDR on a gaming laptop before, you’re in for a treat. The best part is that, unlike effects like ray tracing, it doesn’t cost any extra performance to enjoy the benefits. OLED also offers better response times, offering more responsive gaming.

What Are the Top Gaming Laptop Brands?

There was a time not so long ago when Lenovo didn’t have much of a presence in the world of gaming. That began to change in 2016 with the launch of the Lenovo Legion PC gaming brand, which would, over time, gain a lot of ground. Lenovo is now up to the 10th generation of some of these devices across the Legion and Legion Pro lines of laptops. It offers both Intel and AMD versions of these devices, which range from $1,340 up to over $4,500.

Legion laptops don’t always have the flashiest or thinnest designs, but they often offer great performance for the price. And because Legion laptops don’t chase the ultra-thin designs like Asus and Razer, they often have strong thermals.

To fill in the lower end of the budget spectrum, Lenovo launched the LOQ (pronounced “Lock”) subbrand in 2023. This was to replace the old “IdeaPad Gaming” brand that Lenovo had back in the day. For now, LOQ laptops only feature lower-end GPUs: the RTX 4050, 4060, 5050, and 5060. One quirk with the LOQ gaming laptops is that, unlike most of the competition, they still use a 16:9 aspect ratio display, giving them less screen and a large bottom bezel. Still, they’re one of the few gaming laptop brands right now that are offering the latest RTX 50-series GPUs in designs under $1,000.

My favorite Lenovo gaming laptop right now is the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10, which has a glorious OLED screen and a really clean, all-white design.

On the surface, Asus has just two lines for its gaming laptops: ROG (Republic of Gamers) and TUF. But don’t you worry, ROG has grown insanely huge, encapsulating three other gaming laptop sub-brands: ROG Zephyrus, ROG Flow, and ROG Strix. Let’s break those down.

ROG Zephyrus is the company’s flagship gaming laptop brand. Asus has pared back the number of laptops in this line in recent years, focusing on the immense popularity of the ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16. These gaming laptops are some of the thinnest you can buy, while still offering high-end OLED screens and graphics up to an RTX 5090. Perhaps taking inspiration from Razer, ROG Zephyrus laptops feature a clean, minimalist design that makes them great as hybrid devices that can double for work or school just as well as for gaming.

ROG Strix is Asus’s performance-focused subbrand. This is where the company’s thicker, more conventional gaming laptops are found. Pricing can range widely, as it includes affordable options like the ROG Strix G16 with the RTX 5050, which starts at just $1,300.

TUF Gaming is the company’s entry-level gaming laptop subbrand. These TUF gaming laptops used to be some of the most affordable gaming laptops you could buy, but they’ve gone up in price over the past few years. There aren’t any Asus gaming laptops under $1,000 that feature the latest RTX 50-series GPUs, though you can find plenty of older models for less on Amazon or Best Buy.

Dell’s gaming laptop lineup is fairly sparse these days. All of Dell’s gaming laptops fall under the Alienware brand, which the company acquired back in 2006. Alienware has been through many cycles of reinvention with its gaming laptops, but in 2025, there’s really only four laptops in the stack right now: the Alienware 16 Aurora, Alienware 16X Aurora, Alienware 18 Area-51, and Alienware 16 Area-51. I like the simplicity of the new lineup, which focuses on what Alienware has always been known for: its brash, gamer style and higher-end performance.

The Alienware 16 Aurora is the company’s attempt to reach a cheaper demographic, starting the laptop at just $1,100 right now for an RTX 5050 configuration.

HP’s Omen gaming brand has been around for over a decade, but it really feels like the company has started to build some momentum around it over the past few years. Interestingly, HP breaks down its options into three categories of thickness and performance. Omen Max is the chunkiest at almost an inch thick, and supports up to an RTX 5080. Omen 16 is the middle ground, capping out at an RTX 5070. Omen Transcend, which offers a 14-inch model, still supports up to an RTX 5070, but brings the thickness down to 0.7 inches. There are 16-inch size options available across all three subbrands; however, none of the laptops are as thin as some of the competition. There’s also an Omen 16 Slim, which blurs the lines a bit.

Apart from Omen, HP also launched its “Victus” subbrand in 2021, which represents its budget-oriented options. HP only has a few configurations of the HP Victus 15 and Victus 16 available right now.

• Razer is solely committed to PC gaming, unlike many of the laptop brands on this list. Its Blade gaming laptops have become iconic in the industry for their minimalist aesthetic. Like many companies, Razer has a Blade 14, Blade 16, and Blade 18, which all have an identical design, but scale up in terms of size and performance.
• MSI has made quite a name for itself in the gaming space, especially with its high-end, performance-focused, monster gaming laptops like the MSI Titan HX. Beyond Titan, MSI has a mind-boggling amount of other options, though, including the Raider, Stealth, Vector, Katana, Sword, and its budget-oriented Cyborg series. There’s a lot to dig into.
• Acer’s Predator line has its own fanfare about it. Predator Helios is its high-end, performance-driven line with tons of options across 14-inch, 16-inch, and 18-inch sizes. Triton is its thin-and-light sub-brand, but it hasn’t been updated in 2025 so far. The company also has its Nitro budget brand, which comes in 14-, 15-, and 16-inch options and with support up to an RTX 5070.

Beyond these mainstay brands, you also have PC gaming companies that have dipped into gaming laptops, such as Gigabyte, Origin, and Maingear. Just stay away from the no-name brands that have popular listings on Amazon despite lacking discrete graphics cards—like this.

Gaming on Non-Gaming Laptops

While there’s an entire ecosystem of laptops marketed toward gamers, that doesn’t mean you can’t play games on other devices. Laptops with dedicated graphics cards can often play games just as well as gaming laptops, but they’re often targeted more at creatives who need better graphics to run creative applications. These include laptops like the Dell 14 Premium, Acer Swift X 14, and the Asus ProArt P16.

If you’re buying a laptop primarily to play games, though, I wouldn’t recommend one of these. They usually don’t support the higher-tier GPUs like the RTX 5080 or 5090, and you won’t get super-fast refresh rates beyond 120 Hz. If you’re more of a casual gamer and just want a high-end laptop that can do it all, these are good options. They’re especially good if you despise the “gamer” aesthetic and want something a bit more subtle.

I should mention that integrated graphics have improved tremendously in recent years. In particular, Intel’s latest Core Ultra Series 2 chips with Intel Arc have respectable integrated graphics. You’ll still need to drop down the settings (and perhaps the resolution) to achieve smoother frame rates, but I’ve been surprised by how well lighter games like Fortnite or Marvel Rivals play on the best laptops I’ve tested, like the Dell 14 Plus or Lenovo Yoga 9i, which both use the Core Ultra 7 256V or 258V. Again, I would never recommend someone buy a laptop like this just to play games on, but they can technically play games. Heck, I even happily played Baldur’s Gate 3 on a MacBook Pro last year.

Read our guide on How to Choose a Laptop to learn more.

Where to Buy Gaming Laptops

Buying directly from the manufacturer is always the safest way to go, whether that’s Asus, Dell, HP, or Lenovo. But if you’re hunting for the best deal, as you should be, you’ll need to check around at third-party retailers. Best Buy has the best selection of gaming laptops, and does a good job of weeding out listings from unknown brands, too. It has some really good deals, too.

Amazon is similar, though I’d advise you to tread a bit more carefully. Searching for “gaming laptops” can lead you to some seemingly cheap gaming laptops that you really shouldn’t buy. Stick to the name brands, and you’ll be OK. On Amazon, you also need to watch out for the “Renewed” label, which indicates that it’s refurbished. Lastly, make sure to check the seller when shopping on Amazon and double-check that you’re buying from the manufacturer.

Aside from the big two, I’d also recommend checking out Newegg and Walmart, both of which sometimes have decent deals on gaming laptops. Walmart has the same problem as Amazon with junky, super-cheap listings, and even Newegg keeps listings up like this. Calling this a gaming laptop is wildly misleading.

If you’re lucky, there’s a Micro Center near you (or something similar), which is a great place to go and play around with the latest gaming laptops so you can get a proper feel for them before dropping a wad of cash.