Final Thoughts On The Best Cheap Gaming Laptops
Choosing a cheap gaming laptop can feel like a balancing act. There are no perfect options at these prices and you need to accept that you will be getting a laptop with at least a couple of serious flaws. When you go to buy a cheap gaming laptop, keep your top priorities in mind and think through how you actually plan to use it. This should drive your decision-making, allowing you to make the hard choices about the trade-offs you have to make. For most people, focusing on getting the best graphics card and processor you can afford should yield the best overall gaming performance.
Final Thoughts On The Best Gaming Laptops Under $500
The good news is that modern processors with integrated GPUs are becoming more powerful every year, making it possible to play games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox on a wide range of machines. That said, the best gaming hardware you can buy for $500 is not a laptop. Its a console or a tablet. If you want a gaming laptop that will make your games sing, youll have to spend substantially more.
If youd like to know more about buying a gaming laptop that delivers great performance and value, check out some of our other explainers on the topic, including the best gaming laptops and the best cheap gaming laptops. They may be expensive, but a great laptop will last five years or more, while you may only get a couple of good years out of these recommendations.
Where Are The Laptops With Amd Graphics Cards
Your guess is as good as ours. A few gaming laptop SKUs offered the RX 5000-series cards, but they were thin on the ground. But AMD has promised RX 6000, Big Navi mobile GPUs will be on their way to gaming laptops in the first half of this year, but so far we haven’t seen them in the labs.
Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 . He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he’s back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.
With contributions from
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Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3i Best Keyboard
Pros
The IdeaPad goes gaming and Lenovos cheapest model is the best starting with a GTX 1650 for enough graphics grunt and a Core i5 thats good enough for daily use.
Its also impressive how nice the 3i looks and its also quiet with a decent keyboard, too.
Theres a lot to like including a 120Hz refresh rate but the usual compromises are found here such as a pallid display, single-channel memory and a small SSD.
Generally, these are acceptable downsides so the IdeaPad Gaming 3i is a good choice if you cant afford anything more expensive.
Best Gaming Laptops In 2022
The best gaming laptop isn’t just a squished desktop PC. It’s a mobile package of power that can run the best looking games out there. Gaming laptops include so many features that a normal desktop would that it’s not a bad idea to pick one up if you’re looking to play games away from your desk. Gaming laptops have come a long way and shouldn’t be overlooked.
We’re currently enjoying a battle royal between AMD and Intel for mobile CPU dominance, and that means there are some seriously powerful options out there, with AMD’s Ryzen 6000-series mobile CPUs squaring up nicely with Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake chips. We’ve also got AMD’s mobile GPUs squaring up against Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti mobile GPUs.
The newest gaming laptops are getting more portable, and yet still sport all the fancy features that high-end gaming PCs do. We’re talking multicore CPUs, high-end GPUs, and speedy NVMe SSDs. You can even find heaps of RAM and super-high refresh screens under the hood. Gaming laptops with mechanical keyboards even exist, like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 .
While bagging a new graphics card for your desktop rig has been a pain recently ), gaming laptops mostly sidestepped chip shortage. This does mean manufacturers have turned their focus toward high-end offerings, however, meaning mid-range and budget configs are a little rarer.
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Best Cheap Gaming Laptops 202: The 5 Top Affordable Gaming Laptops
The best cheap gaming laptops on the market offer a surprising amount of power to go along with their affordability. They may not come equipped with flagship components after all, those tend to cost quite a bit, especially with the global silicon shortage but they still come with robust internals that can get you up and running in your favorite games in no time as long as youre willing to lower some settings. So, even if youre working with a limited budget, youll be able to game to your hearts content.
Since these are machines that go for less than the majority of gaming portables, there will be some compromises. When looking at budget gaming laptops, its important to keep in mind that a lot of them wont be able to keep up.
While we avoid any bias concerning brands, youll find plenty of solid machines from well-known manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo, Dell, and Acer. Value is the most important feature here so we dont let a brands name sway what we include on this list. Speaking of value, you’ll find options ranging all the way from around $600 to $1,000 with our choices, with plenty of options should you want to spend a little more to score yourself one of the machines reviewed on our gaming laptop buyers guide.
Read the full review: Dell G3 15
Read our full review: Acer Nitro 5
Read our full review: HP Omen 15
Q: Can You Use A Normal Laptop For Gaming
Broadly speaking? Sure. Really, it depends on what you want to play. A productivity laptop made for work and general computing, like the picks above, is usually capable of playing some games using its discrete graphics chip. They will only play some games, and often on lower settings, though.Many of todays top AAA titles require more powerful CPUs, GPUs, and a certain amount of RAM. If you own an older machine, your laptop may not meet that games minimum requirements. You will probably not have a good time playing a or Assassins Creed game on the average work laptop. That said, there are plenty of great indie games that dont require a ton of graphics processing power.We recommend buying a laptop specifically for gaming if thats something you plan to do every day. As we mentioned, gaming-specific laptops are perfectly capable of performing other tasks, like word processing and web browsing. However, not all standard laptops, particularly models on the lower end of the spectrum, are capable of playing the newest games.
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Why You Dont Have To Pay More For A Gaming Laptop
Sure, having the most expensive laptop available in the market has its perks, but sometimes, it is also not the most ideal. These days, its no longer necessary to drop $2000 on a decent gaming laptop. A lot of gamers can get through with their gaming needs just fine even with budget-friendly computers that are under or just a little over a thousand bucks.
With AMD making a comeback in the gaming laptop market and Intel introducing its latest 10th Gen Comet Lake H-Series processor, there are plenty of options to explore. Apart from that, on a 1080p screen, which is the type of display seen in most gaming laptops, powerful graphics cards dont give substantial performance boosts. Therefore, theyre not worth the extra expense youll be splurging on them.
Despite their low pricing, these budget laptops can do almost everything their more high-end counterparts can, including high refresh rates, RGB keyboards, support for VR headsets as well as playing AAA games at high frame rates will be no fuss at all.
Youll be able to enjoy the most popular games like Fortnite, PUBG, and Minecraft in high definition. So shopping for your next or first-ever gaming laptop will be hella fun with these new modern features laptop manufacturers are now offering.
So without further ado, lets head onto our top picks for the best cheap gaming laptops in 2021 for people on a budget such as yourself.
What You Use It For
Before you buy an affordable laptop, you need to consider what you’re actually going to use it for. If you don’t ever plan to game on it, then you don’t need to buy a laptop with a discrete graphics card. By skipping discrete graphics, you can save money or spend it on a configuration with other features, like a better CPU, more storage or a better screen.
Will you be doing any photo or video editing? You want at least 8GB of RAM and the best CPU you can afford. Plan to use your laptop more as a portable movie machine? Make sure it has at least a 1080p display and battery life to spare. Want your laptop for working on-the-go? Pick a laptop with a full-size keyboard and a light weight so you can throw it in your backpack.
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What Should I Look For In A Cheap Gaming Laptop
For the best gaming experience with a budget gaming laptop, you want to make sure you get the most graphics power affordable from the start since this can’t be upgraded later, unlike memory or storage.
A cheap gaming laptop with an entry-level Nvidia GTX 1650 normally starts around $700, though the current chip shortage has prices up and supplies low. That chip gives you enough graphics performance to play the newest demanding games at medium settings. Spending between $800 and $1,000 will get you a laptop with a GTX 1650 Ti, a 1660 Ti or even a 3050 Ti for a better gaming experience.
If you’re on a strict budget when shopping for a cheap gaming laptop, again, go with an Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics chip. If you can afford to spend closer to $1,000, you’ll be better off in the long run as you’ll be able to play more demanding games now and later.
Hp Omen 15 Best Processor
Pros
- Soft keyboard
- Mediocre battery life
Its a tad over our price cap but only just and well worth considering if your budget will stretch.
Apart from its new design, the HP Omen 15 is very powerful with a brilliant AMD Ryzen 7 processor and Nvidias GTX 1660 Ti graphics card that not even a cut down Max-Q version.
Thats a lot of performance for your money and, furthermore, you get dual-channel RAM, a huge 1TB SSD and other specs like Wi-Fi 6.
Wed like a better screen as its a little bit washed out but does offer a 144Hz refresh rate so the Omen 15 is still a solid choice at this price point.
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Q: Does Ram Affect Lag
RAM has a direct impact on gaming performance. It will not impact network lag in online games, but can absolutely limit or reduce the FPS your laptop is able to achieve. If there is too little RAM installed in your system, it will quickly become full and cause the game to stutter or even crash. RAM speed can also impact gaming performance but isnt likely to cause the same stuttering behavior. Instead, upgrading to faster RAM can increase your maximum frame rate.
Extra Cheap Gaming Laptop: Hp Pavilion Gaming 15z
If your biggest priority is to buy something on the cheap, the HP Pavilion Gaming 15z is the best laptop to cover your basic gaming needs at a low price. It still packs modern specs, but it cuts corners in some areas to make it more accessible.
Starting with performance, the Pavilion Gaming 15z comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor, which weve seen on many AMD-powered gaming laptops already. Its a 6-core, 12-tread CPU, and it can boost up to 4.2GHz, so you wont be missing out on a ton of performance here. The bigger sacrifice comes in the form of the GPU, which is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, with no option to upgrade from there. This setup should still run most games with some tweaked settings though, so its not as bad as it might sound. It rounds things out with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage in the base model, but you can upgrade both of those beforehand or later on.
The display on the Pavilion Gaming 15z is a 15.6-inch panel and it comes in Full HD resolution , so its not far behind other laptops in that regard. The base model comes with a 60Hz refresh rate and 250 nits of brightness, but both of those aspects can be upgraded in HPs configurator depending on your budget, going up to 144Hz and 300 nits of brightness.
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Q: Is A Gaming Laptop Good For Students
While gaming laptops can handle everyday tasks, they arent necessarily the best option for students. Gaming laptops tend to be larger and heavier than laptops made for work, making them a burden to lug around campus. Students who carry their computer from class to class may not get enough battery life on a single charge to make it through a full day of school. They can also get uncomfortably hot after extended use, so you may not be able to use them on your lap in specific situations.
Which Laptop Is Best For Gaming
At a base level, youre going to need a gaming laptop that runs the newest game releases, whether theyre AAA or games that require lower graphics settings. Ideally, youll want to pick a gaming laptop with a decent graphics card – it doesnt have to be as advanced as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, which can play even the most graphically intense games at the highest settings, but youll want something that can play any and every game you might play.
RAM is crucial in the best gaming laptops as well, as it makes sure there arent performance issues within the laptop. The last thing you want is for your game to sputter or freeze in the middle of important action sequences or cutscenes, so youll want a gaming laptop with plenty of RAM to tackle those high-intensity games.
Screen size should also factor into your gaming laptop decision. If youre someone who likes having the biggest screen to see as much as possible of your game, youre going to want a bigger screen, ideally something from 16- to 17.3-inches. If youre okay with having a standard size screen, you may be able to get away with getting a gaming laptop with a screen anywhere from 14 to 15.6 inches.
If you travel a lot youre going to want to consider how heavy the gaming laptop is, as well as any necessary accessories youll need to pack. Travelling often will also mean you need to make sure your gaming laptop has a decent battery life, otherwise youll be trekking from outlet to outlet on your journey.
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What Specs Are Most Important
4. Storage5. Display
The graphics card is by far the most important component for gaming laptop deals in 2022. It’s the heart of the machine and the part that’s most responsible for pushing out smooth gameplay. If you’re going for maximum bang for the buck, you’ll generally want to prioritize getting a better GPU over other components.
That’s not to say the other specs aren’t important though. The processor is going to be responsible for fast loading times, smooth general use, and supporting your graphics card in game. It’s the second most important component to prioritise, and, depending on your game, can make a huge difference to your overall performance. The RAM is also an essential supporting component for boosting frames per second and loading times in game. We would, however, rank it third in importance because it’s fairly cheap and easy to upgrade this component yourself with a bit of know how.
Best Affordable Gaming Laptops
But just having decent hardware is not enough it should comprise a high-resolution display, portability, and fine ergonomics and have fitting internal hardware at an affordable price. All the passionate gamers looking for outstanding performance and that too without any delays.
Its always fun to game on a gaming laptop, but the problem is they do carry a heavy price tag. And sometimes its not possible for a user to spend that much for a gaming laptop. Gaming laptops are a bit overpriced, but if you look there are some that are at hand with excellent frame rates at an affordable price.
Usually the big amount they charge you is for exclusive components such as graphic card and processor. And one more obvious reason is the brand name and latest designs but all this is too much for a user.
But you dont have to bother about this issue, the affordable laptops that we gathered for you might not be trendy or stylish but, they will certainly give you the excellent performance and you can have a great gaming time at an affordable price.
Its quite easy to get a gaming laptop within the range of $1,000 and if you want there are some for less than that also. Gaming is a craze now and its touching new heights with every passing day. You can see gamers in every part of the world and this makes it more fascinating.
When you get a gaming laptop you can start youre gaming from the word go as they have everything that gaming needs to be started.
Best Affordable Gaming Laptops of 2022
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