It’s just about prime holiday shopping season, and I expect a lot of people will be in the market for affordable gaming laptops as Christmas presents. Even if you’re limiting yourself to a budget of $1,000, here are five great options. Three of them don’t even cost $700, meaning you can get a gaming laptop that’s about as good as an Xbox One X or a PS4 Pro for less than double the price of either console (which does not include Windows 10 and is not as portable).
Note: We have written about all of these laptops at our sister site, Laptops On A Budget. If you want to read the full write-ups, click on the link in each header. If you want to jump straight to Amazon, click on the picture or the Amazon link at the end of each section.
MSI 15.6″ GE63 Raider RGB-605 Laptop
This laptop costs $999.99, so it just slips in under $1,000. It has 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an addition 1TB HDD, an Intel i7 processor, and an NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics card. In other words, it has excellent specs to play pretty much any game you want, and it has enough storage to have them all installed at the same time too.
GPD Win 2 Handheld Mini Touchscreen Laptop
The GPD Win 2 is a fully functional laptop in the form of a handheld gaming console (specifically, something like a Nintendo DS). It even has a gamepad built into the device right above the keyboard. It has the worst graphics card on this list (Intel HD 615 integrated graphics), but it does have 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, so it can still hold its own for games that aren’t so graphically demanding.
ASUS TUF FX505DT Gaming Laptop
This laptop is just under $700, as it will run you $699.97. It has 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an AMD Ryzen 5 R5 processor, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. In other words, it will be able to run pretty much any game you want for a few years, even if you have to settle for medium settings in some cases.
Lenovo IdeaPad L340 Gaming Laptop
This laptop will cost you $684.00. It has 8GB of RAM, a whopping 512GB SSD, an Intel i5 processor, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. It’s not a 2-in-1, but the screen can tilt all the way back to lay flat, which might be a bonus for some gamers. This laptop will also be able to handle pretty much any game released in the next few years, though maybe not at ultra settings.
Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Finally, the cheapest gaming laptop on this list is $670.48. It has 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an Intel i5 processor, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card. The graphics card is just a single notch below the one used in the two laptops above it (see Logical Increments for graphics card comparisons), but besides that it’s comparable. It will also have no problem running any game released in the next few years, even if you occasionally have to turn down the display settings.
Regardless of which of these gaming laptops you end up choosing, the person you’re shopping for will be thrilled. All of these laptops will be able to play pretty much any game for years, except for the GPD Win 2. However, the handheld laptop might be a good choice for people who put a premium on portability.
