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Fingers resting on a keyboard Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

The Best Gaming Laptops of 2023

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed's editors. Purchases made through the links below may earn us and our publishing partners a commission. Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

Fingers resting on a keyboard Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

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Editor's Choice Product image of Asus ROG Strix G18 (2023)
Best Overall

Asus ROG Strix G18 (2023)

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is a beefy gaming laptop that’s great for gaming and productivity, and undercuts competitors by several hundred dollars. Read More

Pros

  • Excellent CPU and GPU performance
  • Surprisingly long battery life
  • Competitive pricing

Cons

  • Basic design
  • Weak speakers
  • 720p webcam
2
Editor's Choice Product image of Acer Nitro 5 (2022)
Best Value

Acer Nitro 5 (2022)

The Acer Nitro 5 may be a budget PC, but it gets the details right on the hardware and the design. Read More

Pros

  • Great 1080p performance
  • Quality keyboard and trackpad
  • Chassis stays cool

Cons

  • Mediocre battery life
  • Muted display, mediocre audio
  • Chunky chassis
3
Editor's Choice Product image of Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022)
Most Loved

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022)

The ROG Zephyrus G14 from ASUS is light and portable, has a brilliant display, and its gaming performance is top-notch. Read More

Pros

  • Excellent battery life
  • Fantastic performance
  • Sleek form factor

Cons

  • Limited configuration options
  • 720p webcam
4
Product image of Dell G16 (2022)

Dell G16 (2022)

The Dell G16 packs in plenty of cooling hardware and doesn’t put limits on its power draw. It's a great choice for utility-minded gamers. Read More

Pros

  • Sturdy chassis
  • Good performance
  • Great screen

Cons

  • Awful battery life
  • Thick
5
Product image of Razer Blade 14 (2023)

Razer Blade 14 (2023)

Razer’s Blade 14 delivers performance only a hair behind the larger, Intel-powered Razer Blade 16. It's also attractive, compact, and still expensive. Read More

Pros

  • Compact and attractive
  • Strong GPU and CPU performance
  • Useful connectivity

Cons

  • Battery life could be better
  • Mediocre keyboard
  • Expensive entry-level MSRP

The best gaming laptops have high refresh rates, high-resolution displays, and the latest graphics cards and processors. Portable, great gaming performance without the hassle of building your own desktop gaming rig sounds pretty great, huh? Not to mention it can be cheaper to get a gaming laptop instead of a desktop.

Our pick for the best overall gaming laptop is the Asus ROG Strix G18 (available at Best Buy for $2,299.99) , a powerful, fun machine that delivers superb performance for gamers and streamers. But if you have specific preferences like keyboard placement, battery life, portability, or other features, we’ve reviewed plenty of other great laptops so you can find the model that’s perfect for you.

A black laptop on a light brown desk
Credit: Reviewed / Matthew S. Smith

It's not the fanciest laptop around, but it can still perform with the best.

Best Overall
Asus ROG Strix G18 (2023)
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-13980HX
  • Graphics: Nvidia RTX 4070
  • Memory: 16GB LPDDR5
  • Storage: 1TB SSD
  • Display: 18-inch, 2560 x 1600, 240Hz, IPS LCD
  • Battery life: 9.5+ hours

The ASUS ROG Strix G18 is a beefy gaming laptop that’s great for gaming and productivity. It undercuts competitors in price by several hundred dollars, making it a value alternative to Razer and Alienware.

The 18-inch display delivers excellent color performance and motion clarity, and while it’s not on par with OLED or Mini-LED alternatives, most laptops that feature those technologies are more expensive. It’s a bright display, too, which makes the laptop comfortable to use in a brightly lit room.

Battery life is a surprise perk. This laptop features Nvidia Optimus switchable graphics, which turn off the Nvidia GPU when it’s not required and switches to less power-hungry Intel-integrated graphics. This helps the laptop exceed nine hours of battery life in less demanding tasks, such as web browsing and streaming video. Most gaming laptops with similar hardware can only operate on four to six hours of battery power.

Design-wise, Asus opts for inexpensive plastics that look and feel unimpressive compared to alternatives like the Razer Blade 18 and Alienware 18. Still, overall build quality is adequate and reflected in the laptop’s price.

Read our full Asus ROG Strix G18 review.

Pros

  • Excellent CPU and GPU performance

  • Surprisingly long battery life

  • Competitive pricing

Cons

  • Basic design

  • Weak speakers

  • 720p webcam

An open and powered on laptop with a pair of hands over the keys playing a game
Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
Best Value
Acer Nitro 5 (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-12500H
  • Graphics: Nvidia RTX 3060
  • Memory: 16GB DDR4
  • Storage: 512GB
  • Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080p, 144Hz
  • Battery life: 3+ hours

We loved the Acer Nitro 5. Its all-black color scheme and subtle colored highlights look more mature than a lot of the RGB light shows you tend to see in the gaming space. It’s still bulky, but it uses the space to circulate air and keep its high-powered hardware cool. The keyboard and trackpad are both comfortable and easy to use. Finally, the 144Hz display refresh rate makes games look gorgeous and is useful in fast-paced esports titles.

Acer’s battery life has never been a standout feature, and this Nitro 5 is no exception. If you’re doing any kind of serious gaming, you’ll want to plug it in—our test unit didn’t even last four hours when gaming on battery power. We also wish that the display’s color gamut was more vibrant. Still, Acer gets the essentials right in its affordable Nitro 5.

Read our full Acer Nitro 5 review.

Pros

  • Great 1080p performance

  • Quality keyboard and trackpad

  • Chassis stays cool

Cons

  • Mediocre battery life

  • Muted display, mediocre audio

  • Chunky chassis

Laptop sits on a table
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
Most Loved
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022)
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6800S
  • Memory: 32GB DDR5 4800MHz
  • Storage: 1TB SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 2560 x 1600, 120Hz LED
  • Battery life: 8.5+ hours

We were amazed by the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14’s all-AMD refresh. Powerful enough to handle the newest, most demanding games, it also has the essentials nailed. Slim and portable, it has a comfortable keyboard, a huge, smooth trackpad, and a brilliant 120Hz WQHD display. Its low-watt CPU gives it nearly nine hours of battery life.

This computer is great at conserving power, but it also knows when to churn it out. It pushed out test games to the limit, reaching 120 fps in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5 and hitting 60 fps for resource hogs like Cyberpunk 2077.

The Zephyrus G14’s gaming output is intense for a laptop, but that’s not its only strength. Its compact, premium metal chassis won’t look out of place in an office setting. Its abundance of ports makes it great for work conferences and presentations, while it’s there. You get an HDMI 2.0b, a microSD card reader, two USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports.

The Zephyrus G14 stacks up well against the competition, both in performance and value. It’s not cheap (though we’ve seen it on sale for around $1,000), but it’s well worth it for those who need a gaming laptop that can do it all.

Read our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review.

Pros

  • Excellent battery life

  • Fantastic performance

  • Sleek form factor

Cons

  • Limited configuration options

  • 720p webcam

Other Gaming Laptops We Tested

Product image of Dell G16 (2022)
Dell G16 (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-12700H
  • Graphics: Nvidia RTX 3060
  • Memory: 16GB DDR5 4800MHz
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 16-inch, 2160 x 1440, 165Hz IPS
  • Battery life: About 2 hours

The Dell G16 is a utilitarian gaming laptop that puts performance above all else. It consistently outputs between 74 and 108 fps at 1080p on the highest graphics preset in some of the most demanding games. Less demanding games like Fortnite will average much closer to the G16’s 165Hz refresh rate even at max settings.

If you like crisp, vivid gaming, the G16’s native 1440p display resolution and color accuracy are spectacular—among the best you’ll find on a gaming laptop with a non-OLED screen.

It’s thicker and heavier than most gaming laptops with the same performance and price range. However, that thickness creates extra space for a better cooling design to keep CPU temps down. The G16 also offers easy access to its internal hardware. You can swap or upgrade the SSD or RAM without taking it to your local computer repair shop.

Now the caveats: the Dell G16 has abysmal battery life, even for the most basic tasks. Forget about ever trying to run games on battery power. Its fans are loud, and they run for ages on default settings even when the internal components are cool. That adds noise and contributes to the low battery life.

Still, if you’re looking to replace your gaming desktop and tend to use a headset or an external speaker setup, these things shouldn’t matter too much.

Finally, if you want this laptop for under $1,000, you will have to wait for a sale to get this exact configuration or hope the price permanently drops before it’s discontinued. Alternatively, you can bump the graphics card down to an RTX 3050 Ti and get the G16 from Dell for $900 if it’s on sale.

If you downgrade to a base G15 model with a 12th-gen Core i5 and an RTX 3050 Ti, you can still have a great gaming experience. The speed difference between the Core i5 and Core i7 is only 200MHz.

Read our full Dell G16 review.

Pros

  • Sturdy chassis

  • Good performance

  • Great screen

Cons

  • Awful battery life

  • Thick

Product image of Razer Blade 14 (2023)
Razer Blade 14 (2023)
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS (8-core, 16-thread)
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (8GB GDDR6), AMD Radeon 780M (integrated)
  • Memory: 16GB LPDDR5 5600MHz
  • Storage: 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 2560 x 1600 IPS, 240Hz, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro
  • Battery life: 6.5+ hours

Razer’s Blade 14 combines a high-end CPU from AMD and GPU from Nvidia to deliver esports framerates up to 240 fps at 1080p, and it delivers frame rates near or over 100 fps in high-fidelity single-player games with the max graphics preset turned on—comparable performance to many 15- and 16-inch gaming laptops.

Razer’s attention to detail shines with the Blade 14. It’s as stylish and as high-performing as any gamer or content creator would want. Just know Razer is like the Apple of PC gaming: it charges a premium, so this laptop is much more expensive than many of its competitors.

We do wish Razer would improve the key feel of its keyboard. Key travel is short and bottoms out with a clunky, wooden action. Other gaming laptops on this list have more crisp and responsive keyboards.

That said, the Blade 14 is still a top performer overall—if you don’t mind paying for it.

Read our full Razer Blade 14 review.

Pros

  • Compact and attractive

  • Strong GPU and CPU performance

  • Useful connectivity

Cons

  • Battery life could be better

  • Mediocre keyboard

  • Expensive entry-level MSRP

Product image of Acer Predator Triton 500 SE (2022)
Acer Predator Triton 500 SE (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-12900H
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
  • Memory: 32GB DDR5 RAM
  • Storage Size: 1TB SSD
  • Display: 16-inch, 2560 x 1600p, 240Hz, 100% DCI-P3 LCD
  • Battery Life: 5+ hours

The last-gen Acer Predator Triton 500 SE is still one of the most powerful gaming laptops available. It won’t be as powerful or as power efficient as some newer machines with Nvidia 40-series graphics cards, but this Predator Triton is no slouch—and you’ll save some money by going with a last-generation gaming laptop.

At native display resolution with graphics cranked up to the max (no ray tracing), the Predator Triton consistently delivers high-frame rates and super smooth visuals. In Total War: Warhammer III, a game that stresses both the processor and graphics card, this gaming laptop topped out at an average of 109 frames per second (fps). In an older but still demanding title like Shadow of the Tomb Raider it output 116 fps.

Our biggest qualm with the Predator Triton is battery life: a mere five hours and 38 minutes, but that’s when you use the laptop for simple productivity tasks. You will need to plug in this laptop while gaming.

Compared to some other gaming laptops of the same generation, this length of time is on the lowest end of the spectrum. Acer also falls near the bottom in general when it comes to battery life and its gaming laptops, so just keep that in mind.

Read our full Acer Predator Triton 500 SE review.

Pros

  • Incredible performance

  • Vivid high-refresh screen

  • Slim chassis

Cons

  • Battery life

  • Quiet audio

Product image of Origin EON14-S (2023)
Origin EON14-S (2023)
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-13900H
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070
  • Memory: 16GB DDR5 4800MHz
  • Storage Size: 500GB NVMe SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 1920 x 1080, 144Hz IPS
  • Battery Life: 5+ hours

Origin’s ON14-S gaming laptop is not nearly as flashy as some of the others on this list, but it’s surprisingly inexpensive for the performance and features it offers. It didn’t outperform any of the other RTX 4070-based gaming laptops we've reviewed, but it came close—within 5 to 10 fps, depending on the game.

One thing we appreciated about this laptop is its speedy SSD, which clocked in the second-highest read and write speeds we've (at the time of this writing) ever measured for a gaming laptop. The plethora of connectivity options, especially Wi-Fi 6E, bodes well for anyone who games wired or wirelessly, too.

We do wish the Origin ON14-S at least had the option to upgrade the display from 1080p to 1440p, however; most high-fidelity games would have crisper visuals and still get at least 60 fps using the highest quality settings at 1440p. But it’s a personal preference to have higher quality visuals over frame rates that hit the maximum display refresh rate.

Read our full Origin EON14-S review.

Pros

  • Great gaming and app performance

  • Decent display

  • Super-speedy SSD

Cons

  • Poor construction

  • Only 1080p resolution

Product image of MSI Katana 15 (2023)
MSI Katana 15 (2023)
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-13620H
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Storage: 1TB SSD
  • Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, 144Hz, IPS
  • Battery life: About 2.5 hours (MUX on), about 4 hours (MUX off)

The MSI Katana 15 is aimed at anyone who wants the highest frame rates possible without spending over $1,500. Other new and similarly configured gaming laptops can cost anywhere between $200 to $500 more, making this device an excellent value.

It has a perfect configuration for 1080p gaming, delivering over 100 fps on all but one of the games we test as part of our benchmarking suite. (Cyberpunk 2077 averaged 84 fps on High graphics, no ray tracing.) It weighs less than five pounds, so it’s not too big to carry around but it’s also powerful enough to replace your desktop PC.

Unfortunately, it might as well replace your desktop PC due to its incredibly short battery life; other competing gaming laptops fit larger batteries into the same size or smaller chassis. The display doesn’t have good color accuracy or a bright screen, so we don’t recommend this laptop if you’re hoping to find something for both gaming and creative work.

Read our full MSI Katana 15 review.

Pros

  • Good value

  • Full-size keyboard

  • Solid gaming performance

Cons

  • Poor battery life

  • Low peak brightness

  • Poor color gamut

How We Test Gaming Laptops

The Tests

To help determine a gaming laptop’s ability as a portable powerhouse, we first push each machine’s processor to its brink. These tests help us determine the responsiveness of the laptop and whether it’ll be able to handle streaming or running Google Chrome in the background with simultaneous gameplay.

We then run a series of tests on the graphics card to figure out how fast graphics and images are rendered on a particular machine, and whether your gameplay will run smoothly.

Since gaming laptops are smaller and thinner than gaming desktops, we tested the heat output and fan noise of each machine during sustained gameplay. If you plan to use a gaming laptop for everyday tasks, you might find the sound of whirring fan blades to be distracting.

Once that’s established, we run a battery test overnight. We unplug the laptop, set the display brightness to 200 nits, and then cycle through popular websites like Discord and Twitch until the battery dies. This is how we figure out how much action we can get on a single charge.

The idea is to emulate daily tasks. Even if you’re buying this laptop solely to play Fortnite, you’ll also likely use it for web browsing.

Lastly, we evaluate the overall build quality like how sturdy the hinges feel and if there’s any flex to the display. We also take into account how light the machine is—under five pounds is ideal—and how many ports it offers.

What You Should Know About Buying Gaming Laptops

These are the best gaming laptops available today.
Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

We test everything from processing capability to screen brightness.

Under the Hood

When you start your search for gaming laptops, you’ll notice that there isn’t much variety when it comes to internal hardware. The most popular graphics cards these days are made by Nvidia. Companies like AMD also manufacture high-performing graphics cards, but most of the laptops we tested have Nvidia hardware powering their insides. However, with AMD's newest mobile GPUs now coming to market, we'll most likely start seeing more laptop configurations include them.

The latest Nvidia graphics cards are the RTX 40-series, but you can still find older laptops offering 30-series and 16-series options. The 40 series includes the RTX 4090, 4080, 4070, 4060, and 4050. Not only are these mobile GPUs significantly more powerful than the previous 30-series generation, in both non-ray traced and ray tracing performance, but they also consume less power. Gaming laptops with any of these cards will be the most expensive options, but they've earned those prices thanks to that performance.

The 30-series includes the RTX 3080, 3070, 3060, and 3050 (and Ti versions). and they’re considered some of the best cards in their class. Like the 20-series, these cards also support ray tracing and can easily facilitate gaming on a 4K monitor. Thanks to a new GPU architecture these cards are miles ahead of the 20-series.

The 16-series includes 1650 and 1660 Ti cards. They perform alright at 1080p and 1440p resolutions and offer better memory bandwidth so that graphics continually render smoothly at high frame rates. The only caveat of the 16-series is that they tend to ship with less virtual memory, which can become a future-proofing issue down the line.

AMD has its mobile GPUs, too, its Radeon RX 7000M and 6000M series, both of which rival and surpass Nvidia’s equivalents in non-ray traced performance in most games. If you're mainly into esports and cranking out the highest frame rate possible, these are the cards you'll want. However, they fall behind in ray tracing. The 7000M cards’ ray tracing performance is closer to Nvidia’s 30-series and the 6000M cards are closer to the 20-series.

The processor inside your gaming laptop won’t directly affect your gaming prowess, but it does matter for day-to-day tasks and simultaneous streaming. Most of what you’ll find on our list comes with Intel Core 12th-gen chips, although there are now 13th-gen mobile Intel chips on the market.

AMD's Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 5000- and 6000-series processors are also in a lot of good gaming laptops, with AMD 7000-series chips on the way. They're usually a tad slower than Intel's chips in terms of single-core performance, but they shred in multi-core performance, which makes them a great choice for anyone who needs a machine for content creation and gaming.

Laptops with 6000-series Ryzen processors typically achieve slightly better battery life than their Intel counterparts thanks to AMD’s more aggressive power management.

If you’re looking at budget gaming machines, you’ll want a laptop with Intel’s Core i5 or AMD's Ryzen 5 processors. They’re capable chips, but you will see a performance difference as you push the machine to its capacity.

Display Size

The standard screen size for gaming laptops is 15.6 inches with a 1080p resolution. It’s enough screen for partaking in action without carting around a laptop that’s breaking your back. There are 17-inch gaming laptops available, too, but you might want to avoid that much screen if portability matters to you.

You may have noticed that a majority of our picks include a 144Hz refresh rate, with machines like the MSI Delta 15 with RX 6700M graphics clocking in at 240Hz, but the Asus ROG Strix G15 has a 300Hz refresh rate. The higher frame rate effectively smooths out gameplay and leads to fewer stuttering issues.

Price Point

It used to be impossible to find a competent gaming machine under a grand, but not anymore. Now you can find plenty of options starting with decent processors and enough graphics power to fuel your third playthrough of The Witcher 3.

Anything over $1,000 belongs in the mid-range category, though that label doesn’t necessarily refer to a laptop’s specifications. You’ll still be able to find machines with current-generation hardware, decent battery life, lots of memory, and plenty of storage space. Some last-generation gaming laptops may also appear at this price point.

Laptops that cost well over a grand are considered top performers because they’re equipped with top-tier specs. Machines in this category also tend to offer better display options, and in some instances, allow you to upgrade components down the line.

Meet the testers

Adrien Ramirez

Adrien Ramirez

Staff Writer

@itsaramkat

Adrien is a staff writer for Reviewed, mainly focused on reviewing laptops and other consumer tech. During his free time, he's usually wandering around Hyrule.

See all of Adrien Ramirez's reviews
Matthew S. Smith

Matthew S. Smith

Contributor

@Matt_on_tech

Matthew S. Smith is a veteran tech journalist and general-purpose PC hardware nerd. Formerly the Lead Editor of Reviews at Digital Trends, he has over a decade of experience covering PC hardware. Matt often flies the virtual skies in Microsoft Flight Simulator and is on a quest to grow the perfect heirloom tomato.

See all of Matthew S. Smith's reviews
Joanna Nelius

Joanna Nelius

Senior Editor, Electronics

@JLNwrites

Joanna specializes in anything and everything gaming-related and loves nerding out over graphics cards, processors, and chip architecture. Previously she was a staff writer for Gizmodo, PC Gamer, and Maximum PC.

See all of Joanna Nelius's reviews

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