Now, there is another class of high-end gaming laptops that focus more on performance than being thin or portable. The Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10 is one of my favorites in this class, with a beautiful white chassis and bright OLED display. Unlike some OLED displays, the Legion 7i’s screen can be cranked up to over 1,000 nits of brightness. The result is a truly spectacular HDR performance that brings games to life. HDR is a powerful way to improve the visuals of your games without any performance cost. The Legion 7i Gen 10 is one of the best in this regard.
It’s still quite thin at 0.7 inches thick, while plenty of ports are found on the back. This is the definition of a “clean” gaming laptop. There are no shortcomings when it comes to performance, with an RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080 offered for graphics.
Cheap Gaming Laptops That Are Worth It
No gaming laptop worth buying is really cheap. High-refresh rate displays and different graphics will always make them more expensive than standard laptops. But as you get closer to $1,000, there’s one laptop I always return to: the Lenovo LOQ 15. Pronounced “lock”, this Lenovo subbrand is known for cutting out the fluff and focusing on giving gamers the performance they need at an affordable price. No laptop is better than LOQ 15. Many laptop manufacturers sell their RTX 5060 configurations for hundreds of dollars more. In fact, if you’re shopping around $1,000, there’s no reason not to buy the LOQ 15. Just do it.
If you want to save some extra cash, there is another option that is cheaper than LOQ 15 with some compromises in key areas. Acer Nitro V16 is the laptop which comes with RTX 5050. At one point last year it was as affordable as $600 — before laptop prices soared due to memory shortages — but it’s the only laptop cheaper than the Lenovo LOQ 15 that’s actually worth it. It’s quite powerful for an RTX 5050, and while the screen is pretty poor, it’s not a bad-looking laptop. The one big caveat is that the 135-watt power supply that comes with it doesn’t provide enough power to keep it charged in performance mode. Read more about this issue in my review, as it’s important to know about if you’re planning on purchasing this.
There are other cheap gaming laptops I’ve tested, like the MSI Cyborg A15, but either the Acer Nitro V 16 or the Lenovo LOQ 15 are better, cheaper options. You’ll also find plenty of gaming laptops under $1,000 that use older graphics cards, like the RTX 4050 or 3050. In general, I would recommend staying away from these. They’re only a generation or two old, but remember: Nvidia only releases new laptop graphics cards every two years. So, an RTX 4050 laptop may already be over two years old, and an RTX 3050 may be over five years old. Not only do your graphics performance suffer, but these laptops are also more likely to have to be replaced sooner.
experimental material
One of the exciting things about the world of gaming laptops right now is experimentation. While clamshell gaming laptops with traditional Nvidia GPUs are the most standard way, there are a few different ways to push your PC games that push the boundaries. For example, you can use Steam Deck or Xbox Ally
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