Gaming laptops these days can be quite expensive; Some can even reach the ‘three thousand’ dollar point! Therefore, it is not easy to find a gaming laptop that is lighter on the pocket, and yet serve its function fully. Good news is you are not out of luck since this article shall guide you in buying the best affordable gaming laptops out there.

When it comes to gaming laptops, specs aren’t everything. Sure, the latest generation processor coupled with a heavy Graphics Card with 16 GB or more of RAM sounds nice, but battery life and portability are some other things which should be kept in mind. What’s the point of a laptop if it lasts just 1 hour or something? Not only this, but for some, the screen display is really important, and for the audiophiles out there, the audio quality too. Some get annoyed by the heat and its associated sound, thus in all, you are pretty much covered here.

Therefore, do give the following laptops a read, before going on your shopping spree.

Origin Eon15-S – Best Value for Money

If you are looking for a laptop which offers the best productivity divided by the dollar, then this would be it. The Origin Eon 15-S is a great laptop to have a 15-inch screen which is fairly easy to handle, and weighs 5.2 pounds, compared to the average of 6 pounds for a gaming laptop. With a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution offering 118 percent of sRGB gamut, and 276 nits on the brightness meter, its display is pretty vivid and accurate.

Powered by a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i5-7300 HQ and coupled with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM, this laptop would surely meet your productivity needs. Not only this but 8 GB of RAM combined with 256 GB of SSD storage, along with 1 TB of 7,200 rpm HDD, you won’t feel any lags and won’t run short on storage space either.

Surprisingly, the laptop doesn’t get hot either, even though its thin measuring 14.9 x 10.5 x 1 inches. The Eon 15-S offers a good amount of battery life to the users too lasting around 4 hours and 47 minutes, which is better than most gaming laptops.

Though, you might feel that the sound quality isn’t that great, even when the laptop houses the Sound Blaster Cinema 3 software. As for the ports, the laptop has all the ones you need, ranging from a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.0 port, a secure lock slot and jacks for headphones and a mic on the right side, while the left side packs the latest ones: a USB Type-C port, a pair of mini DisplayPorts, a 6-in-1 card reader, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet and also another USB 3.0 port.

The laptop’s keyboard is island style and has a travel of 1.7 millimeters and the actuation force is just 61 grams. Thus, you may find your typing speed to be a bit faster than usual. Also, there is a dedicated num-pad too for all your math calculations. The best thing about the keyboard is its backlight. Its brightness is so strong that you can still the key lights under well-lit places too.

Also, you will find the 3.9 x 2.2-inch Synaptics touchpad spacious enough for easy scrolling. There is also a dedicated integrated fingerprint scanner in between the mouse buttons, for easy log in. You can buy it from Amazon here.

HP Omen 15 – Best Budget Gaming Laptop

The laptop’s design perhaps maybe the major selling point here for those who want to have a laptop which offers a premium look and an eye-appealing design. You can easily remove the panel to upgrade storage capacity, and RAM too.

The laptop has a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU. The GPU is the AMD Radeon RX 550 GPU with 2GB of VRAM which is good for gaming. Though for the base model you won’t be getting an SSD, but rather a 1 TB HDD. Moreover, the RAM is just sufficient for now at 8 GB, though you can always upgrade to 16 GB if you want.

Speaking of the Design, the laptop chassis is made up of carbon fiber and feels soft to touch. The Voodoo logo is in blood-red again having something to do with gamers like it aggressive. When you open the lid, you would find a faux carbon-fiber pattern, which is amazing to look at.

As for the laptop ports, there is the usual 3.0 port, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, an SD card reader and a power jack on the right side. While on the left, there are a couple of USB 3.0 ports with a headset jack and a secure lock slot.

The Omen 15 measures 15.1 x 9.9 x 1-inches and is fairly portable compared with other gaming laptops. The Display is 15 inches one with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080, which a very low sRGB gamut reproduction at 71 percent leads to much less vivid hues. Not only this, but the laptop’s display also recorded just 247 nits at the brightness meter.

The keyboard is a bit hard to type on too, but the trackpad works wonders. The great thing is the battery life, which stands at 5 hours and 34 minutes. Another good thing is that the laptop doesn’t generate much heat, so feel free to use it on your laps.
With the base model available for a price tag of just $849, it is surely worth your hard-earned money after all even though with some caveats. You can also get a certified refurbished one in $789 from Amazon here.

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming-Dell’s Durability Counts

What makes this laptop different is that it is VR ready, thus when the time comes for VR gaming, your laptop could easily play them, and trust us, the time is near.  Powered by the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU, rest assured of playing top quality games with great detail, on a laptop which offers solid performance.

As for the design, it isn’t something you would find on a proper gaming laptop but nevertheless is different from the rest of the Dell laptop lineups. The logo on the lid is again in red to attract eyes, and the island-style keyboard is also painted in red. The laptop chassis, although is in black, and feels soft to touch. The laptop measures around, 15.2 x 10.8 x 1 inches, but weighs a hefty 6 pounds, which might make it difficult to carry around all day.

Coming to the ports,  there is even a Noble Lock Slot on the left side where you would also find the Ethernet jack, a USB 3.0 port, and an SD card slot. On the left side, you get to see the headphone jack, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a Thunderbolt 3 port, and an HDMI output. Put simply, the laptop is easily backward compatible with the ports as well as future-proofed.

The display has improved but still lacks in some areas. Dell switched gears to an IPS panel with a 1080p screen resolution, and since then color accuracy has increased substantially. The 15.6 inches display is sharper now but the sRGB gamut at just 70 percent might disappoint you, since the industry averages around 102 percent. This means much less vivid hues. As for the brightness, the laptop recorded 233 nits on the light meter, which is again less than the average of 253 nits.

The keyboard might be a bit difficult to use. This is because the travel is just 1.2 millimeters and a 79g actuation force is required to press a key which might don’t make it any easier to press a key. The keyboard is also a bit far up, which might prevent easy use of the keyboard and trackpad at the same time. The benefit of this is that the trackpad is now spacious enough and so you can easily scroll and perform multi-touch gestures.

The laptops which we have compared so far, perhaps the battery life is the major selling point of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000.  The battery lasts a whopping 7 hours and 4 minutes, and for a gaming laptop, this just might be enough to last out a day. The battery doesn’t suffer degradation over the time either, as the laptop emits much less heat, and rather stays calm and cool most of the time.

The base-model Inspiron is available for a very affordable price tag of $680 on Amazon and is powered by an Intel Core i5-7300HQ CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, a 1080p display, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU and 6GB of VRAM. What we would advise you is to spend $50 extra and get the model with a 128GB SSD coupled with 1TB of Hard Drive.

ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS M-Great laptop though slightly expensive

Normally, Asus doesn’t associate itself with the casual laptop users but is more targeted towards gamers. Its latest laptop is the ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS M, which is powered by the latest 8th Generation of Intel Core i7 Processor. Not only this, but the laptop has a whopping 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of NVMe PCIe storage, which might be sufficient if you don’t keep your files on the laptop.

The screen size is 15.6 inches and offers a screen resolution of 1080p. The refresh rate stands at an astounding 144 Hz and fully supports the Nvidia’s great G-Sync Technology. Though, there are some caveats. Some of these would not be in the cheapest model offered by the company. For instance, the base model available for a price tag of $1,499 would be coming with a GTX 1020 and shall offer refresh rate of 120 Hz. If you want the model with 144 Hz refresh rate while maintaining the same GPU, then you shall have to spend $1,899.

The laptop’s design is made from brushed aluminum and is a sight to see. With an actuation force of 79g and a travel of 1.5 millimeters, you would find typing on the laptop keyboard easier. The backlights of the keyboard can also be changed as you wish, though not individually but rather in groups. You would find the 4.1 x 2.3-inch touchpad to be spacious enough for easy use too.

The battery life though might disappoint you as it lasts 2 hours and 47 minutes, so you might want to keep it plugged in whenever possible. Though the laptop fans do get louder once you start gaming, that isn’t really noticeable. Courtesy Asus’ special technology, the laptop doesn’t get hot though and that’s what should matter.

In all, a great laptop to buy if $1499 seems affordable to you.

MSI GL62M- Powerpacked machine yet easy on the pocket

The laptop’s design is rather minimalistic and more professional looking. On the lid, there is the prominent red-backlit dragon sigil, which reminds everyone at once about the MSI. With the matte finish, it feels soft to touch the laptop. Though, that does mean that you might leave some finger-prints onto the surface.

This is perhaps one of the few latest laptops which still houses a single USB 2.0 port. Though there are a couple of USB 3.0 ports on the left side. Along with that, you will find the latest USB Type-C port,  HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, a mini DisplayPort, a secure lock slot, and jacks for headphones and a microphone. On the right side, you will get to see an SD Card Reader and well as a power jack too.

As for the laptop’s portability, it is portable enough measuring 15.1 x 10.2 x 1.1 inches and weighing 5.3 pounds. Thus you can carry it all day along, though its battery life isn’t so great as it just lasts 3 hours and 33 minutes of continuous use. Therefore, you might need to find a wall outlet soon enough before the battery drains completely.

The keyboard has a decent 1.5 millimeters of travel and requires 72 grams of force to press a key. Expect your typing speed to remain the same, since the click responsiveness isn’t that good. On the other hand, the 4.2 x 2.3-inch Synaptics touchpad is spacious enough for you to drag an icon from one corner of the screen to another with ease.

Display wise, the laptop has 15.6-inch screen size with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080. It disappoints the user due to its low brightness with just 198 nits recorded on the brightness meter. Though it makes up for that by covering 153 percent of sRGB gamut.

The $729 base model offers a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i5-7300HQ CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB M.2 SATA SSD, an Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU with 2GB of VRAM and is perhaps a good buy considering the budget. Get it from Amazon here.