For many years, the term “gaming laptop” referred to a highly powerful, exceedingly expensive, very large, and extravagant looking computer that usually had very limited battery autonomy. It was more or less equivalent to a high-end desktop computer that had the advantage of being portable (and which was generally used to showcase its manufacturer’s most advanced hardware).
In the process of writing this buyer’s guide, we began by searching for manufacturers that offer one or more gaming laptop product lines. Next, we selected the computers that have the best price-performance ratio (based on tests conducted by a number of online websites such as Tom’s Hardware and LaptopMag). Finally, we organized these computers by brand: Acer, Asus, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, and MSI.
Choosing the right laptop might be one of the most important decision you will take. Especially, if you are going to use it as your primary computer. What you pick would affect your gaming performance and your experience dramatically, and can be the difference between “just winning” and being victorious.
A good gaming experience is defined by various factors. First and foremost is the hardware. How good a GPU and CPU you have? What kind of SSDs are you using? How large is your RAM and VRAM?
With the start of a New Year, Intel’s new Coffee Lake processors and winter sales on most of the game titles it is a great time for gaming laptops and other gears. For the price point of $500 the options a very large and diverse. To get the best bang for your buck is not an easy task since most of the options available will have a catch that will put you at a disadvantage.
The key question to be answered for most of them is what your use case for the laptop is going to be. In our list of reviews below, we consider gaming as the main use case, but even then the questions like “What kind of games?” and “Will you be using it for something else?” arise.
[toc]As a minimum requirement for hardware you can expect at least an i5-7200U for a CPU and a 940MX or better for a GPU is fine. It can play most popular titles at reasonable frame rates and visual quality. But obviously, these are entry-level devices and put AAA title at extreme settings would only lead to frustration.
We consider the price range of $500-$1000 and guide you in your quest of the perfect gaming laptop such that you get the best bang for your buck!
How to choose your perfect gaming laptop?
To cut a long story short, the perfect gaming laptop must have a powerful and modern GPU and a mediocre to high-end CPU and you are good to go. But these terms are vague and the necessities go beyond the raw computing hardware. The perfect companion for a gamer needs to be portable, ergonomic, equipped with a high resolution display and must have the best possible internal hardware for that budget.
If the price is nearer to a $1000, it is easy for you to get an Nvidia GTX 1050Ti or a GTX 1060 which are quite powerful for running games at 60 fps, at 1080p. For CPU you can start with an i5-7300HQ if you are on a budget or even an i5-7200U would be enough to prevent any CPU bottlenecks allowing you to make full use of your GPU and other accessories.
Serious gamers may laugh at the idea that they could get a competent gaming laptop under $600. It’s true that these budget-friendly computers may not be able to play the latest games on the highest setting, but they can’t deliver enough power for more casual gamers. If you enjoy older games or don’t care about the highest definition graphics, many laptops under $600 can be found.
Since the GS60 and GS70 were launched in early 2014, the GS lineup has been the perfect example of ultra thin gaming laptops.
With the GS65 Stealth Thin, MSI is exploring an idea that is quite overused in multimedia laptops, although it is actually quite new in gaming laptops because it reduces bezels as much as possible to get a smaller chassis. For example, this is what ASUS and Dell do with their ZenBook and XPS lineups, respectively.
The laptop is slightly different from the MSI GS63VR, which was the only 15.6-inch GS model so far. The MSI GS63VR also has an independent numeric keypad, which the GS65 lacks due to its small size.
Instead of the striking red details found on most gaming laptops, MSI has decided to go with a subtler design for the GS65. Although it has the typical black finish of the GS lineup, the GS55 also has elegant golden details on the exhaust vents, the hinges and the lid, which has a golden line around it and rocks the Gaming Series dragon logo in the same color.
Although MSI is using the word “thin” for the model’s name, it is actually not any thinner than the aforementioned GS63VR Stealth, which is 17.7 mm think (according to the manufacturer). Its weight is also very similar (both models weigh 1.8 kg, according to MSI).
The GS65’s biggest downside is that the chassis isnot sturdy enough. Despite being made entirely of aluminum, it somewhat tends to bend under focused pressure, which happens both on the lid and the keyboard area.
It is worth mentioning that the camera is above the display and not below like in a lot of models with thin bezels like this one.
The laptop’s hinge system is the only part made of plastic and allows us to fold back the display 180º. The design keeps the display in its place while using the laptop as usual, but it cannot prevent the display from moving if we use the laptop in unstable places like moving buses or trains.
The GS65 is one of the first laptops to feature the new 6-core 8th-gen Coffee Lake processors (or 9th-gen if we take into account the Kaby Lake R), which are much better in terms of performance than the 7th-gen Kaby Lake processors.
The laptop has a 6-core Intel Core i7-8750H at 2.2 GHz, which scored twice as much as the old Core i7-7700HQ in the multi-core Cinebench R15 benchmark (over 1000 points). Such score means the laptop is able to perform advanced tasks in the most demanding ways.
We are still talking about all the new MSI models, which is taking longer than I would like due to the amount of available information. Now it is time to talk about the MSI GP73 Leopard, a 17.3-inch gaming laptop that has a Coffee Lake processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or GTX 1060 GPU, placing it between the popular MSI GL73 and the great MSI GE73 Raider.
This new laptop is clearly based on the MSI GE73 Raider. Its external design has a black surface with an elegant brushed finish on both the keyboard area and the lid, while the bottom case and the screen bezels have a smooth finish.
Just like the GE73 Raider, the GP73 Leopard’s lid has a striking wavy finish with two oblique lines that frame the backlit Gaming Series logo. In contrast, the red lines on the lid are shorter than those found on the GE73 Raider’s lid.
The GP73 is relatively bulky. It is 32 mm thick, but it does not seem to greatly affect the laptop’s weight, which is quite light (2.7 kg) for its size.
On the right side, we can see the power jack, two USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A ports and the SD/MMC card reader. On the left side, we find a wide range of ports, including another USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A port, an RJ45 port, an HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort output, a USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-C port, two independent audio and mic jacks, and a Kensington lock slot.
I am being told only the lid of the laptop would be made of aluminum, a material that does not seem to make the lid sturdier in this case because it will clearly bend under focused pressure. In contrast, the keyboard area feels more durable and sturdier despite being made of plastic.
The hinge design is so firm that it does not allow us to open the laptop with a single hand. The design keeps the display in its place while using the laptop as usual, but it cannot prevent the display from moving if we use the laptop in unstable places like moving buses or trains.
While in the last posts we reviewed some top of the class gaming laptops, now we will consider some affordable options for the ones who are thinking about a laptop with modest portable gaming experience, however you don’t expect the highest frame rate, or the extreme graphic settings.
We decided to lower the price range from 1000 dollars down to 800 dollars, and find the best gaming laptop solution in this price range. Didn’t come as a shock finding that we have found there are tons of options in this price group, some even surprisingly good for the money you’ll spare.
In our manner, by dong a massive research and analysis, and limiting the playing range even more, we have managed to make a list of top five gaming laptops in the range of 800 dollars on the market momentarily. Although not looking as pretty as high end laptop, the performance of these laptops is surprisingly good, so they can freely be named “mid-high end”.
Is your old PC too weak for the newest games or complex 3D rendering processes? Instead of buying a high-end computer, you can soon rent a virtual one. This is what Blue Shadow is doing, and this is how it works.
Those who are not yet familiar with cloud computing and cloud gaming might be curious about this. Renting a virtual computer and installing demanding software or playing the newest games in maximum detail on it? How does that work? This is what service providers such as Blade are making possible. Its offer, called Shadow, is coming to Germany this week. The idea behind it is that you pay monthly for a fully-equipped PC with Windows 10 and stream all contents directly onto your old computer or even your smartphone.
How cloud computing works with Blade Shadow
In Amsterdam, as well as other places, the French company Blade operates a computer centre, in which there is extremely powerful hardware. If you opt for Shadow, you get the performance of a computer that has an Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce 1080 GTX, 12GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB hard drive. Such a PC would cost around 1000 euros for sure, but with Shadow it only costs about 30 euros a month.
The difference is that the computer is not in your home, but you stream the system content from said computer centre to your living room. A 15 Mbps broadband connection is required to use the virtual Windows 10 machine on your old computer (Windows, Mac), smartphone or tablet (Android, soon on Apple also). You use your mouse, keyboard and gamepad – any input is received basically instantly so that there are no unpleasant breaks during gameplay. If the internet connection is problematic, the picture quality will worsen but it will not come to a halt. That’s what they have promised.
Focus: cloud gaming
Blade Shadow is primarily aimed at gamers who cannot afford or do not want a powerful computer. They get a system with can display games in 4K resolution (60Hz) or rather 1080p (144Hz). The pre-installed Windows 10 can be configured individually; you can also, for example, install Steam with your own games library.
Historically, PC video games have been designed with a keyboard and mouse in mind; it is difficult to imagine playing a round of StarCraft or Battlefield 1942 without using either of these indispensable accessories. Nevertheless, things have changed with time and an increasing number of gamers have become seduced by the advantages of using a gamepad on their PC or have altogether transitioned towards playing on a gaming console. Football simulators, racing games, platform games… there are many types of games for which a gamepad has become the preferred control device. The convergence of gaming consoles and PCs which we have been witnessing over the last few years has motivated many gamers to use their console controllers (PS4 / Xbox) on their computers and vice versa.
In order to clarify things, we created the following table in which we list the controllers we found to be the most interesting for use on a PC. We established this ranking by comparing a long list of controllers which can be found in a table at the end of this article (along with our opinion about each one). In the following paragraphs, we will cover some of the key factors you should consider when selecting a gamepad for use on your PC.
How to choose a gamepad
The notion of using a gamepad for PC gaming has become well-established. However, as is often the case when dealing with PC hardware, there is a vast array of different gaming controllers available on the market (each one of which has its own specific characteristics). What’s more, there are just as many manufacturers of gaming controllers as there are different models (each one of which claims to be the best). To complicate matters even further, there are many other factors to consider… Should you choose a wired or a wireless gamepad? Can a PlayStation 4 controller be easily used on a PC? Are there any controllers that can be used as a replacement for a mouse? Is a good controller necessarily very expensive? We will attempt to provide answers to all of these questions in an effort to help you find the best gaming controller for use on your PC.
What type of controller should you choose?
Wired or wireless?
Not that long ago, wireless gaming controllers still suffered from a bad reputation due to their supposedly high latency (a delay between the pressing of a button and the signal’s arrival at a PC). While some hardcore gamers may still shun wireless gamepads for this reason, nowadays, latency is no longer an issue for commercially available gaming controllers. At the very least, you can rest assured that none of the controllers we have included in our selection suffer from latency problems.
As a result, the question of “wired or wireless” comes down to practical considerations as well as individual preferences. You should consider the fact that a wired controller will always be ready-to-use and will never quit on you at a critical moment during your gaming session. Wireless controllers rely on batteries or a power pack which can “run dry”; because of this, wireless gaming controllers are also usually heavier than their wired counterparts.