Best gaming laptop 2024

The Alienware M16 R2 is now the gaming laptop to beat, offering a decent spec, a great screen, and upgradable parts, all in a well-built chassis that keeps the machine cool. We tested the RTX 4070 spec with a Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and found it to be seriously potent for 1080p gaming, averaging 102fps in Cyberpunk 2077 with the Ultra ray tracing preset with some help from DLSS.

While you don’t get an OLED screen with this machine, as you do on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, the supplied 240Hz panel is still excellent and has a pin-sharp 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. The RTX 4070 model struggles with games at high settings at this resolution so you’ll need a model with an RTX 4080 if you want to push the resolution beyond 1,920 x 1,080.

We particularly like that this machine uses standard SODIMM slots for memory, and has two M.2 SSD connectors (one of which is free), rather than soldering these parts to the motherboard, meaning you can upgrade them. It’s also great to see 32GB of RAM in the standard $1,999 spec. It’s not quite a slam dunk – it’s disappointing that there’s no OLED screen on a laptop at this price, for example, but Alienware has otherwise struck the balance just right.

Even the price is reasonable, particularly if you look out for deals on Best Buy or Dell’s website, where you can regularly save a few hundred bucks on this machine.

Read our Alienware M16 R2 review.

You don’t need to bend backward to meet the prices of powerful gaming laptops to have a solid gaming experience, and the HP Omen 16 is proof of that. Costing just over $1,000 / £1,000 for its base spec, the value it offers budget-conscious gamers is stark.

To hit this price point, HP has smartly focussed on what matters most about a laptop (its performance) but this does mean that the device isn’t the flashiest around. While its cooling solution is admirably sufficient, it can get loud and hot if you push it hard enough.

Iit doesn’t skimp on connectivity or battery life, making it an ideal machine for gaming and lightweight tasks such as office work or study.

Read our HP Omen 16 review.

We’re astounded that you can buy a gaming laptop with such an amazing screen for this low price right now. The Lenovo Legion 5 Slim’s 14.5-inch OLED screen offers a crisp, sharp display with amazing color reproduction, and it runs at 120Hz as well. You even get a decent CPU for your money, with the eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS putting in a solid performance.

Meanwhile, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU supplied with the $1,299 spec copes well with gaming at 1,920 x 1,080, and even averages 75fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at the Ultra ray tracing preset, thanks to some help from DLSS upscaling and frame generation. There isn’t enough GPU power to run the latest games at top settings at the screen’s 2,880 x 1,800 resolution, sadly, but games still look good at 1080p on this little panel, and that high resolution looks amazing when you’re working in Windows.

Meanwhile, this laptop’s small footprint and weight mean it can easily slide into your bag and be carried around, and its chassis is made from a high-quality mix of aluminum and plastic. Our only major complaint is the use of soldered RAM, which means you’re stuck with the 16GB of memory that comes with the base spec and can’t upgrade it at a later date. This is still enough RAM for gaming, though, and it runs at a fast speed of 6,400MHz.

Otherwise, this is a top-tier machine for a surprisingly low price. If you want a slim and light gaming laptop with a great screen, but can’t afford to go above $1,300, this is the model to buy right now.

Read our Lenovo Legion 5 Slim review.

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 14 is a fantastic choice of gaming laptop for anybody who’s after something that can provide a solid 1080p gaming experience. The asking price is pretty reasonable, and under the hood, you’ve got Intel’s Meteor Lake architecture, which includes six powerful P-Cores, eight efficient E-Cores, and an extra two less powerful E-Cores. Add to that a decent 1TB SSD, an Nvidia GPU with an RTX 4070, and it’s a pretty impressive machine.

The only real issue is that it has just 16GB of RAM, which is about half as much as you’d get from some of the more powerful gaming laptops and might create some issues on big, processing-intensive games. Worse still is the fact that it is soldered, so there’s no opportunity for upgrading it. There are still a lot of games that’ll play just fine, but it does have a solid glass ceiling.

Still, it’s a fancy-looking laptop that’d be just as at home in your gaming room as it would in an office space. Speaking of which, it’s got a pretty sturdy battery and when we tested it, we got a pretty consistent run of 100 minutes of use for gaming, and 401 minutes for general use (close to six hours) which is a pretty decent lifespan that’ll give you plenty of time to do what you want to do whenever you’re not using it plugged in.

One last thing we’d like to mention is its screen. Not only does it boast a refresh rate of 165Hz, but it has a massive pixel density of 249.84PPI, which gives you wonderfully sharp picture quality and an amazing level of color accuracy. It’s pretty much the best screen you can get without it being OLED. All things considered, it’s a pretty great product.

Read our full Acer Predator Helios Neo 14 review.

If you want the very best and are prepared to pay for it, the latest Razer Blade 16 is as classy as it gets. Its build quality is superb, and its aluminum chassis looks and feels like a premium product when you pick it up. You really see what you’ve paid for when you open it up and see the OLED screen, though. The display is fantastic, with deep blacks, high contrast, and vivid colors.

You get some seriously powerful specs too, with a 24-core Intel Core i9 14900HX CPU under the hood. This processor is arguably overkill for gaming, but it means you can do practically anything with this machine, including heavily multi-threaded work such as video encoding. There’s a choice of GPUs as well, and the GeForce RTX 4070 model held up well in our testing, even managing to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 74fps with the Ultra ray tracing preset at 2,560 x 1,600, thanks to some help from Nvidia’s DLSS 3 frame generation tech.

However, you pay a high price – even higher than the Blade 16 (2023). The base spec will set you back $2,999 and only comes with a 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM. We also found that the Blade 16’s screen can be overly reflective under bright light, making lots of fan noise when working hard. If that’s not an issue and you have the money, this is the most stylish and powerful gaming laptop on the list.

Read our Razer Blade 16 (2024) review.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is as impressive as 14-inch gaming laptops get, deftly balancing performance and portability in a premium package. It falls just shy of perfection, owing to minor flaws, but they’re quickly forgiven or forgotten once you start playing.

Unique to the Zephyrus G14 is a gorgeous, glossy OLED panel that supports Nvidia G-Sync, making for a sublime viewing experience. While all content on this screen benefits from its fantastic color reproduction and contrast, games in particular shine thanks to the display’s excellent response times, made all the better by the lack of screen tearing.

While its native 1800p resolution is supremely sharp, with 243 pixels per inch, it can be fiddly to manage given the capabilities of its GeForce RTX 4060 and 4070 graphics. While this is easily solved with a few clicks, via downscaling or DLSS upscaling, it does hurt the premium, design-first feel of the Zephyrus G14, albeit slightly.

Soldered RAM proves the biggest flaw of the Zephyrus G14, making it almost necessary to get the 32GB model for longevity. If you can stretch your budgets further, you’ll find your cash well spent.

Read our Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 is a great example of fine craftsmanship and design in a gaming laptop. Its CNC-machined aluminum chassis looks and feels luxurious, and its 16-inch OLED screen offers amazing contrast and HDR reproduction, supporting Nvidia G-Sync, which eliminates tearing artifacts in games.

The price is also surprisingly generous for the spec and build quality you get. All versions of this laptop feature the same fantastic OLED screen and Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU, which has six of Intel’s latest Meteor Lake P-Cores, and eight E-Cores, with a peak 5.1GHz boost clock.

We recommend going for the cheaper RTX 4080 or 4070 version of this laptop, as the RTX 4090 in our test sample was restricted to 115W, which meant you didn’t get much of a performance advantage. Both GPUs support Nvidia’s latest DLSS 3 suite of technologies, including AI frame generation to boost performance.

The one main downer is that the ROG Zephyrus G16 uses soldered memory, rather than replaceable modules, which means you’re stuck with the configuration you buy. For this reason, opt for a 32GB configuration if you can afford it, to buy you as much future-proofing time as possible. Otherwise, this is a deliciously premium laptop with loads of gaming performance in the bank, and with great value.

Read our Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 review.

Bigger doesn’t always mean better, but the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 makes a strong case in favor of 18-inch laptops. Serving up top-tier specs, including a Core i9 14900HX processor and up to GeForce RTX 4090 graphics, portable gaming doesn’t get much faster than this. But it does come at a substantial cost.

The Strix Scar 18 features a newly improved display. Replacing the aged IPS screen from last year’s laptop, this new Mini LED panel is beautiful, responsive, sharp, and makes for an excellent HDR experience. Its chassis, despite its admittedly cool semi-transparent finish, is less easy on the eyes though, adopting a typical ‘gamer’ aesthetic.

The ROG Strix Scar 18 won’t break your back or bank, either (relatively speaking), as it’s one of the more affordable and lighter 18-inch gaming laptops available. The only downer is the sound quality from the speakers, which we found weak and tinny.

In our testing, the Strix Scar 18 turned in strong performance across our testing suite, with frame rates comparable to a desktop GeForce RTX 4070 Super, showcasing the full power of a GeForce RTX 4090 mobile GPU running at 175W. It also turns in great CPU performance, with the Core i9 14900HX clocking in similarly to a Core i5 14600K. Suffice it to say, this machine will handle pretty much anything you throw at it.

Read our Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 review.