What Is The Cheapest Gaming Laptop

Best Budget Gaming Laptop Dell

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Dell creates some of the best gaming monitors and premium gaming laptops, but the Dell G15 proves they can make some excellent budget gaming laptops too.

Under the hood, you’re getting an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor and 8GB of RAM which should provide a solid amount of power while gaming.

This laptop also features a Full HD, 120hz display, which means you should be able to experience high-quality, fast and fluid gameplay.

The Dell G15 is even equipped with Game Shift technology to enable performance mode while gaming.

Hp Victus 1: Battery Life

As with many gaming laptops, the battery is the worst aspect by far and the HP Victus 15 is no exception. In both our battery tests, the laptop only lasted a little over four hours, which is half of a full work day. When we used it for non-strenuous daily tasks, it lasted about the same amount of time. For gaming the battery dies much faster, which would limit sessions to maybe two hours at most.

However, its charge time isnt bad when using the charger it comes with, taking around an hour to get to a little over 60% charged. That time would be faster if using a USB Type-C charger, and something wed recommend if that option is available.

• Battery Life: 2 / 5

Best Gaming Laptop For Vr

Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 512GB SSD | Display: Full HD | Weight: 5.1 pounds

If virtual reality is key to your gaming considerations, its important to remember that not all laptops are VR-ready. This one is. It has more than enough horsepower and memory to cut through VR games like butter, plus ample ports to connect a VR headset and controllers.

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Solid But Needs More Gpu Power For The Money

The IdeaPad Gaming 3i starts strong with a sturdy and restrained physical build, but it doesn’t hold up as the best value on the graphics-performance side. It’s not a bad laptop, just tough to recommend in a competitive field. At this price, the MSI Bravo 15 is our Editors’ Choice for a superior value, while the MSI GL65 9SC and Acer Predator Helios 300 are our top picks at the lower and higher ends of entry-level pricing, respectively.

What Alternatives To Cheap Gaming Laptops Do Exist

There are a few alternatives to cheap gaming laptops. The first is the desktop computer, which can be used for both work and play. However, this option has its own drawbacks as well its not portable at all and requires more space than most people have available in their homes or apartments. Another alternative is an inexpensive laptop that isnt designed specifically for gaming but still offers decent performance when playing games on lower settings . This type of machine will usually cost less than $500 USD, though you may need to spend closer to $600 if you want something with a dedicated graphics card rather than integrated graphics like Intel HD Graphics 4000/AMD Radeon R7 M260DX found in many budget-friendly machines. Finally there are ultraportable laptops such as Apple MacBook Air 13 or Dell XPS 12 Convertible Touchscreen Laptop , which offer great portability while sacrificing some power compared to full-size notebooks due to smaller batteries and slower processors .

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Where To Get The Best Cheap Gaming Laptops In The Uk

It is definitely possible to game on a budget, and these magnificent laptops will certainly help you get there. Thankfully the vast majority of laptops on this list are also available to purchase in the UK, with just the one exception. Otherwise, take your pick, as there are plenty of great options to choose from. Don’t see the laptops below? Click here.

What’s The Difference Between An Ssd And An Hdd

SSD stands for “solid state drive,” and HDD stands for “hard disk drive.” An HDD is typically much more affordable since it’s based on older technology that uses a physical disk that is written and read similar to old, blank CD-Rs. They’re also much more prone to damage since they have physical parts that can break down and wear out over time and are more susceptible to shocks and drops. A solid state drive uses flash memory and a specialized chipset to store programs and files. This not only helps prevent damage from normal wear and tear, it makes accessing said programs and files much faster. And if you have an SSD as your boot drive, you can get your computer up and running in seconds. They tend to be more expensive though, especially at higher capacities, so make sure your budget can handle it.

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Should I Buy A Laptop Or Pc For Gaming

Laptops are becoming increasingly more powerful and efficient, however, the PC still takes the crown when it comes to sheer power for gaming.

Although, for many, a gaming laptop is a solid option over a PC thanks to its slim, lightweight build and high portability.

Ultimately, which one you should go for depends on what you’re specifically looking for, if you’re after a powerhouse that stays in one place then we’d say go for one of the best gaming PC’s.

But if you’re looking for something that you can play games on and easily travel around with, a gaming laptop is likely the best option for you.

The Graphics Processor: Now Here’s Where To Spend

The dedicated graphics chip is the backbone of any gaming computer. In budget gaming machines, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX line dominates the market, and the latest chips at this writing are part of the company’s GeForce GTX 1600 series, or “Turing” family, which rolled out in April 2019 in mobile versions of the GeForce GTX 1650 and GTX 1660 Ti. A GeForce GTX 1650 Ti joined the family in April 2020, fitting in between those two.

However, due to some changes in Nvidia’s stack, it’s not just about GTX at this price. When Nvidia launched the GTX 1650 Ti on laptops in April 2020, it also lowered the starting price for laptops with its RTX 2060 GPU to just $999. The RTX 2060 will only be found in laptops at the very top of the “budget” price range , and even then, only in a couple of selected models. But still, it technically brings the RTX line and its signature ray-tracing capabilities to this category. This means gaming at high settings on an entry-level laptop is more attainable than ever.

Meanwhile, this spring, Nvidia rolled out the new, mainstream GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti GPUs for gaming laptops. So far, they have only barely tipped into laptops under $1,000 we’ve seen just a few RTX 3050-based machines starting at around $999.

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Things To Consider Before Buying The Best Cheap Gaming Laptop

Buying a cheap gaming laptop can be a marketing minefield. More often than not, the product pages are littered with lofty promises that dont line up with how your new laptop will actually perform when you boot up a game. Its not as if those numbers are made up, though: There is useful information out there if you know how to find it.

Hp Pavilion Gaming Laptop

HP Pavillion Gaming Laptops start at a mere $599.99. Aside from the gaming aesthetics, which we know many of you love, youll get pretty good specs too. At least considering how little these cost.

For that money, you get a 15.6-inch 1080p 60Hz display, an AMD Ryzen 5 processor, and Nvidias GeForce GTX 1650 GPU. You also get a USB-C port , three USB-A 3.1 ports, an HDMI port, an ethernet port, and an audio jack. The laptop also has 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SDD.

Its sturdy, the green accents arent overwhelming, and like the previously mentioned HP Omen, this budget gaming laptop rocks Bang & Olufsen speakers.

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Who This Is For

If you want to play games but also need an affordable laptop for school or workand your top priority isnt playing the newest games at maxed-out graphics settings at QHD or 4K resolutionthese picks are for you. But if you dont need a portable computer, you can get an entry-level gaming desktop with similar performance for around $800. And if you want to play new games at 4K on ultra settings, youre better off with a desktop that offers more powerful graphics: A $1,200 desktop is much more powerful than a laptop at the same price, and you can more easily upgrade it in the future.

Spending around $1,200 on a gaming laptop these days buys you a machine that can play most new gamestitles such as Star Wars: Squadrons, Death Stranding, and Borderlands 3on high settings or better at 1920×1080 resolution at or above 60 frames per second. You dont need to spend $2,000 on a more powerful gaming laptop to get great performance. More to the point, you shouldnt: Right now, laptops with more powerful graphics dont offer worthwhile performance benefits on a 1080p screen , and they arent worth the extra cost. Some gaming laptops in the $1,200 range have high-refresh-rate screens and RGB keyboards, features that were previously relegated to much more expensive models.

What To Look For In A Cheap Gaming Laptop

Below I’ve sketched out which graphics card and what other specs you need in a cheap gaming laptop. I also go over the main features to consider when shopping for a cheap gaming notebook.

For screen resolution, a 1080p display hits the sweet spot between price and required GPU beefiness. It is really the only option for a value-oriented gaming laptop. Even if you could score a cheap laptop with a high-resolution 4K panel, the GPU inside won’t be able to run games at that resolution, so prepare yourself for 1080p gaming.

When it comes to storage, try to steer clear of laptops with a lone solid-state drive. Heck, even a model with a 256GB SSD offers barely enough space to keep multiple games installed and at the ready, so you might be stuck getting a system with a slower, yet much more spacious, spinning hard drive.

You can also get a sweet deal by going with something older sporting previous generation processors, as they are usually available at fire-sale prices and there’s not a huge difference in performance between 8th Gen Coffee Lake and 9th Gen Coffee Lake Refresh for gaming. You won’t be quite as future-proof down the line, but you’ll still enjoy several years of solid 1080p gaming at a low price.

Jason Cipriani has covered technology full-time for the past 8 years. During that time he has freelanced for the likes of CNET, Fortune, Time, ZDNet, Macworld, Wired, and TechRadar.

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Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3i Keyboard And Touchpad

Typing on the IdeaPad Gaming 3is shallow keys wasnt as unpleasant as I expected, as each key delivered a somewhat clicky feedback. The keyboard was comfortable to type on thanks to the way it dips into the chassis and the texture of the palm rests below.

I sped through 77 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is just short of my current 78-wpm average. The keys felt pleasantly heavy to click on, but would have benefited from more key travel.

Unfortunately, the keyboard doesnt have any RGB-key lighting. Instead, it is stuck with one color: a light blue, which matches the font of the keyboard. The color isnt bad, but when the font of the keyboard matches the backlighting, it tends to look gross .

The touchpad was pleasantly soft and smooth and offered a decent click on top of that. Windows 10 gestures, like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tabbing, worked well thanks to the Windows Precision drivers.

Should I Worry About What The Cpu In A Gaming Laptop Is

That really depends on what you want to do with your laptop. An 8-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen chip will allow you to do a whole load of productivity on the road, but honestly, it will have little benefit in gaming. That’s one of the reasons Intel has launched its Tiger Lake H35 chips they’re quad-core, 8-thread CPUs, but they’re clocked high to deliver high-end gaming performance when paired with something like the RTX 3070.

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Battery And Display Tests

We test laptops’ battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file ) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturationwhat percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can showand its 50% and peak brightness in nits .

The Victus was next to last in battery stamina, but its seven-hour runtime is by no means bad for a gaming notebook. The $1,000-plus units’ displays all showed good if not great color fidelity, with the Dell’s cheap screen falling short, and both the HP and Alienware were impressively bright, the former far exceeding its rated 300 nits.

Best Value: Msi Gf63 Thin

Like the Acer Nitro 5, MSI made a great budget laptop that can easily be upgraded by the owner. The MSI GF63 Thin is an attractive budget-friendly gaming laptop with plenty to love. If you want to spend as little as possible, but still walk away with a dedicated GPU inside the notebook, this is about as good as you’ll get.

This was one of MSI’s first laptops to contain 9th Gen Intel processors, which is precisely what we’re getting here. It’s an Intel Core i5-9300H, an older yet still capable CPU. The GPU is the trusty mobile NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, and you get 8GB of DDR4 RAM, as well as a 256GB NVMe SSD.

The RAM may sound like not enough, but this can be upgraded to a maximum of 64GB. This can transform the MSI GF63 Thin into one awesome gaming laptop.

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How Does A Cheap Gaming Laptop Work

Cheap gaming laptops are not as powerful as the high-end ones. They have a lower resolution display, less RAM and slower processors. However, they can still run most games at medium settings with decent frame rates. If you want to play on ultra settings then it is better to buy an expensive laptop or desktop computer instead of buying a cheap one for gaming purposes only.

Who Should Use A Cheap Gaming Laptop

If you are looking for a cheap gaming laptop, then it is best to buy one that has been built with the right components. You should also consider buying from a reputable brand and make sure that they have an excellent customer service team in place. This will ensure that if anything goes wrong with your device, you can get it fixed or replaced quickly without any hassle at all.

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What To Look Forward To

At CES 2021, Nvidia announced its next generation of mobile graphics. The low-end RTX 3060 will run modern games better and will appear in gaming laptops starting around $1,000. And in May, Nvidia announced new RTX 3050 Ti and RTX 3050 graphics that will replace the GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1650 in gaming laptops around $800. Many laptop manufacturers have already updated their lineups with the RTX 3060, and RTX 3050 Ti and RTX 3050 laptops are expected to ship this summer. We plan to test these new models as soon as theyre available.

Until weve updated our guide with new picks, we recommend extra caution when shopping for a gaming laptop right now. In previous years, you could expect similar performance from any gaming laptop with the same graphics . But with Nvidias latest 30-series graphics, GPU performance will vary depending on how much power the laptop maker chooses to send to it, which means that a GTX 3060 could outperform a GTX 3070 if given more wattage. Manufacturers can also pick and choose which additional Nvidia 30-series features to include on each machine. PCWorld and Dave2D both have more in-depth explanations of the situation. Well be taking these performance variations into account when we make new picks in the coming months.

Best Budget Gaming Laptop Lenovo

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Lenovo makes some of the best gaming laptops and the Legion 5 is a fantastic machine with some impressive specs to its name.

A 120Hz refresh rate should be great for gaming, and with full HD it should deliver the goods when playing games like Fortnite, Warzone and more. Thanks to its anti-glare IPS screen you’ll be able to game even in well-lit rooms.

8GB RAM ensures this laptop will be able to run most games at standard settings, which is why we’d recommend opting for 8GB over 4GB RAM in laptops.

At only 24mm thin, this is a seriously slim gaming laptop too, making it a great call for taking on the go.

One of the more minimally designed entries on the list, we think this Lenovo Legion ticks a ton of boxes for a great budget gaming laptop.

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