The Best Gaming Laptops for Every Kind of Player

[Karlston]

The Best Gaming Laptops for Every Kind of Player

We tested the latest and greatest gaming notebooks to sort the god-rolls from the vendor fodder.

 

 

Choosing a gaming laptop is a lot like putting together a well-balanced adventuring party. You need to look at what you're going to use it for, what kinds of quests you'll tackle, and try and match their capabilities to your needs—without emptying your coin purse. To that end, weary traveler, we took it upon ourselves to source the latest and greatest gaming laptops from forges large and small. We gathered them in our keep, ran them through a variety of tests to sort the god-rolls from the vendor trash. Here they are, the best gaming laptops for every kind of player.

 

Be sure to check out our picks for the best overall laptops, gaming mice, keyboards, and headsets.

 

Updated in April 2020: Updated prices, added Razer Blade Studio Edition.

 

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  Photograph: Razer

  For Bards (Best Overall)

  Razer Blade

   

  What is a bard if not a jack-of-all-trades, right? Well, that's exactly why the Razer Blade 15 tops this list. Like a capable bard, the Blade is a near-perfectly balanced blend of everything you could want out of a gaming laptop. It's thin and light, quick on its feet, but surprisingly versatile with an Nvidia GeForce GTX or RTX graphics card and eighth- or ninth-generation Intel Core i7 processor. You can spec it to meet your needs. Plus, since it's a Razer laptop, the keyboard features customizable Chroma lighting. After all, what would a bard be without a little showmanship?

   

  $1,600 $1,400 at Microsoft Store

  $1,445 at Amazon

  $2,000 $1,800 at Best Buy

   

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  Photograph: Amazon 

  For Rogues Who Like It Cheap

  Dell G5 15

   

  Sneaky, stealthy, and very careful with its coin, the rogue in our lineup is the Dell G5 15. It's not as flashy as other offerings on this list, but at less than $900, it's the least expensive, and it's still a surprisingly powerful laptop for that price. Modest hardware and a low price make it easy to overlook, but don't let its budget-minded price tag fool you. With an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card, you won't have any trouble running the latest games.

   

  $850 at Dell

   

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  Photograph: MSI

  For Powerful Wizards

  MSI GS65 Stealth

   

  Sometimes you need a little flair—something lightweight but powerful—a glass cannon capable of obliterating the opposition with a flick of its wrist and a swish of its lavish robes. The MSI GS65 Stealth doesn't come bundled with any robes, but it is a flashy little thing and we like the model with an Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics card.

   

  MSI eschews the standard red-and-black color scheme of its competitors in favor of a stylish black-on-copper design. Plus, at only 17.9 mm, it's razor-thin and light enough to carry all day without compromising the power of its hardware.

   

  $2,499 at Amazon

  $1,499 at Adorama

 

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  Photograph: Razer

  For Big-Screen Warriors

  Razer Razer Blade Pro 17

   

  The Razer Blade Pro 17 is a tank. It's a brawny warrior clad in gleaming armor of black iron. This thing is as massive as it is powerful. It's thinner than most 17-inch laptops out there, but that means it's dense and hefty.

   

  It's a credit to Razer's engineering that the Blade Pro 17 is packed to the pauldrons with top-of-the-line hardware. Customizable with Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards, ninth-generation Intel Core i7 processors, and an endless vault of storage space, it's also designed for future expansion. Razer knows you're going to pick up some extra loot along the way, so the Blade Pro 17 features an empty M.2 slot for more storage space and RAM slots expandable up to 64 GB.

   

  $2,500 $2,000 at Microsoft Store

  $2,500 at Best Buy

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  Photograph: Amazon

  For Paladins Who Demand Versatility

  Alienware M15 R2

   

  Part warrior, part cleric, Paladins represent a hybrid class tirelessly dedicated to their chosen path. That's why the Alienware M15 R2 is the perfect pick for paladins. It's a slim, light gaming laptop, but it's remarkably powerful and works well for everyday work. The keyboard is snappy, tactile, and not too loud, but it's definitely a step up from a typical laptop keyboard. It's also incredibly stylish, in a frost white colorway fitting of a paladin's flowing white cape.

   

  $1,380 at Dell

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  Photograph: Amazon

  For Clerics Who Work and Play

  Dell XPS 15

   

  Keeping everyone on their feet is tough work, so a cleric is going to need something powerful but versatile, a laptop that can game but also offers something a bit more clerical. That's why the Dell XPS 15 is on this list. It's a workhorse that's not exactly a gaming laptop but has hidden potential. With Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1650, it's not going to outrun its fellow party-members here, but it can definitely keep up.

   

  $1,699 at Dell

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  Photograph: Razer

  For Dungeon Masters Who Want It All

  Razer Blade Studio Edition

   

  It's important to get this out of the way: The Razer Blade Studio Edition is not exactly a gaming laptop. It's the laptop you'd use to make games. That's why it's a killer choice for content creators of every kind. With an Nvidia Quadro graphics processor, it has the horsepower you'll need for high-end video editing, streaming, and other media creation tasks, but on top of that it glitters like a dragon's hoard. It has a silvery-white finish, clean lines, and an absolutely jaw-dropping display.

   

  How does it achieve such crystalline clarity? Simple, it has a 4K OLED display with pitch-perfect color accuracy. Seriously, in my time with this laptop, it was an absolute joy to edit photos and videos on that screen. Even the most humdrum of cat selfies seems to sparkle and come to life on the Blade Studio Edition.

   

  $4,000 at Razer

  $4,839 at Newegg

 

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  Photograph: Hyunha Kim/Getty Images

  More Than Just Dancing Lights

  What makes a gaming laptop?

   

  A gaming laptop is like an enchanted sword. It can do all the usual sword things—chop, slice, cleave—but an enchanted sword can do a lot more, like talk or glow, or deal extra damage to orcs. When it comes to raw power, a gaming laptop is almost always going to have the upper hand over a regular laptop. The key distinction is easy to spot: Gaming laptops all have discrete graphics cards. This is the enchantment that gives your gaming laptop its extra oomph.

   

  All laptops have graphics chipsets, usually just built into the processor, so they can handle light gaming (think Hearthstone or Gwent). But a discrete, or separate, graphics card (also called a graphics processing unit or GPU) is a processing unit solely dedicated to rendering the visuals in your games. It's an essential component in any gaming laptop, and it's usually why they tend to be a bit pricey. Enchantments don't come cheap, after all.

 

 

Source: The Best Gaming Laptops for Every Kind of Player (Wired)