The classic image of a gaming laptop being a chunky wedge with RGB lighting is practically extinct. These days the best gaming laptops are sleeker, more portable, and classier looking than ever. They’re also more powerful thanks to the latest CPUs and graphics cards. That extra prowess makes for an actually playable 4K gaming experience on a portable rig – something previously only achievable with a desktop gaming PC. And, nothing beats playing games at silky frame rates on a quality display.
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TL;DR – These are the Best Gaming Laptops
- Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 – Best Overall Gaming Laptop
- Asus TUF Dash 15 – Best Budget Gaming Laptop
- Alienware m16 – Best 16-Inch Gaming Laptop
- Razer Blade 18 – Best 18-Inch Gaming Laptop
- Asus ROG Flow Z13 – Best Gaming Tablet
- Razer Blade 14 – Best Gaming Ultrabook
- Acer Chromebook 516 GE – Best Gaming Chromebook
There are loads of gaming laptops out there that can run the best PC games. Some go for a big screen and high-end internals, replacing your desktop, while others keep it a bit more modest for ultra-portability. After comprehensive testing and research, we've narrowed down our picks so you can be sure the gaming laptops you're looking at are the best of the best – and click here to find them in the UK.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
Best Gaming Laptop
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is the absolute best gaming laptop you can get for performance, battery life, and general overall value. Coming in at a reasonable price, this machine still plays Call of Duty: Warzone at max settings and its full 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. Beyond that, we experienced silky smooth 60-140Hz gameplay in a variety of games running at 1080p with Ultra settings. What’s even more amazing is all of that is pulled off with a less traditional pairing of a Ryzen CPU with Radeon graphics.
Besides being plenty powerful for all your AAA games, the lightweight build and compact size make the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 perfect for toting along to school or work. That AMD combo also manages to keep running almost all day with nearly 10 hours of battery life. It’s truly a fantastic setup all-around with an ample 1TB of storage and a 16:10 display that makes everyday tasks more manageable.
Asus TUF Dash 15
Best Budget Gaming Laptop
Asus TUF Dash 15 A budget laptop with an Intel Core i7-12650H CPU and Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics ready to cruise at 144Hz when 1080p gaming.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a good budget gaming laptop, as most cost well over $2,000. But Asus has you covered with the TUF Dash 15. At under $1,100, you get a pretty spiffy setup complete with latest 12th gen Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics and enough money to look for some of the best game deals. This is a great platform to get your toe into PC gaming, especially when playing competitive online titles like Apex Legends and Overwatch. And these components are more than capable of handling indie games and smaller single-player experiences, too.
On top of the Asus TUF Dash 15’s capable processors, it’s packing 16GB of memory to keep you cruising through games and tasks, even with loads of tabs open. Plus, the 512GB SSD storage is a great starting point, which you can always upgrade if you plan to keep a big gaming library on the device. It’s also toting tons of connectivity, including a Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, and HDMI, so you can hook up other gaming peripherals. To round out this machine, you get a 15.6-inch, Full HD display with a 144Hz refresh rate, while a MUX switch allows for direct communication with the GPU, giving you less latency and even more fluid, pleasant gameplay. This all makes the Asus TUF Dash 15 one of the best gaming PC deals around.
Alienware m16
Best 16 inch Gaming Laptop
The Alienware m16 is a beast of a machine in more ways than one, as it features some impressive internals and weighs over seven pounds. Though hefty, this 16-inch gaming laptop is still portable and ready to power a brilliant QHD+ display. Games can run at over 240fps at full resolution, while G-Sync is loaded in to ensure some stutter-free, butter-smooth gameplay, keeping you immersed in the action.
Now, you’re probably wondering what’s powering that display, and this rig has a 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor and Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU combined with 16GB DDR5 RAM, letting it tackle just about any game with ease. And Alienware places a focus on cooling, so it overengineered the thermals with large vapor cooling chambers, a custom Element 31 thermal paste, seven heat pipes, five vents, and four cooling fans. That makes it easy for this laptop to overclock the 24-core processor and push the GPU to operate at 240W without throttling.
Razer Blade 18
Best 18 Inch Gaming Laptop
Having a thin-and-light laptop is nice, but for a true desktop replacement, the Razer Blade 18 is hard to beat. This 18-inch option packs the latest 13th gen Intel Core i9 processor paired with an equally impressive Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card that can chew through just about any task without breaking a sweat, including gaming and editing. Combining those processors with 32GB DDR5 memory and 2TB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage only further solidifies its ability.
Clearly, the Razer Blade 18 is packing all the power needed to take advantage of its QHD+ display with a 240Hz refresh rate featuring G-Sync. Its IPS panel is bright and vibrant, covering 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, while the large screen size means you’ll probably never feel the need to hook up a gaming monitor. However, if you have the urge to add some additional screen real estate or other peripherals to this laptop, it’s packed to the brim with well-spaced ports, including three USB-A, a USB-C, a Thunderbolt 4, a HDMI 2.1, and a UHS-II SD card reader.
Asus ROG Flow Z13
Best Gaming Tablet
You probably think any tablet that you grab isn’t going to the powerful gaming rig, but the Asus ROG Flow Z13 might just change your mind. Sure, it doesn’t have as much gaming prowess as some of the other options on our list, however, that’s made up for in extreme portability. You get a device weighing slight over 2.5 pounds with a 13.4-inch full HD display that totes a 120Hz refresh rate All you have to do is kick out the kickstand, pair a controller or keyboard, and you’re free to game while lounging on the couch, laying in bed, or wherever else you choose.
This portable slate pairs an Intel Core i9 CPU with Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti graphics to let you play AAA and indie games almost anywhere. And if you’re looking for a bit more power, you can also opt to buy the Asus’ eGPU module, the XG Mobile that packs up to an Nvidia RTX 3080 for a serious graphical bump at your gaming desk. Between, the Asus ROG Flow Z13’s function as a true gaming tablet and support for external graphics, this is one of the most versatile 2-in-1 gaming laptops around.
Razer Blade 14
Best Gaming Ultrabook
Razer’s immaculate build quality elevates the Razer Blade 14 premium gaming laptop to Ultrabook status. It packs some powerful parts despite weighing under four pounds and being slightly over a half-inch thick. Of course, the 14-inch QHD display also delivers plenty of eye candy and you get tear-free gameplay at 165Hz thanks to its baked-in G-Sync support.
This machine runs on an AMD Ryzen 9 processor and Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti graphics. That combo of internals plus the16GB DDR5 RAM allows the Razer Blade 14 to cruise through even your most labor-intensive games with ease. You even get 1TB of SSD storage for speedy system boots and room for a decent gaming library. Overall, this is the perfect system if you’re looking for something small, light, and powerful.
Acer Chromebook 516 GE
Best Gaming Chromebook
Chromebooks have come a long way from their simple, affordable roots, as some are now highly capable workhorses that can even handle gaming. The best example of that endurance and stellar performance is the budget-friendly Acer Chromebook 516 GE with its 12th Gen Intel Core i5 CPU that totes 12 cores and 16 threads alongside 8GB of memory and 256GB of SSD storage. Unfortunately, you get an integrated graphics card to help keep the price lower, but its other internals allows this laptop to cruise through your favorite titles while cloud gaming.
All that good under the hood pairs well with the Acer Chromebook 516 GE’s 16-inch WQXGA display featuring a 120Hz refresh rate and 100% sRGB coverage for smooth and vibrant graphics. Though, unlike many Chromebooks, it isn’t a touchscreen. However, you get multi-zone RGB lighting and anti-ghosting on the keyboard, which most gamers will appreciate, while everything is housed inside a lightweight, sturdy chassis for optimal portability.
Where to Get the Best Gaming Laptops in the UK
We've managed to find the vast majority of very best gaming laptops available in the UK, with all our favourites ready and available to buy from retailers such as Amazon, while other brands can be found elsewhere such as Dell, Currys PC World, or Scan.
Alienware m16 £1,999.00
MSI GE76 Raider Best 17 Inch Gaming Laptop£2,729.00
Asus ROG Flow Z13 £1,999.00
RazerBlade 14 Best Gaming Ultrabook£1,763.00
Acer Chromebook 516 GE £699.00
What to look for in a Gaming Laptop
The best gaming laptops have come a long way in relatively little time. Power, portability, and price have all seen dramatic improvements in just the last 5 years, and somehow gaming laptops are getting thinner and adding even more features.
The first thing you’ll want to ask yourself is where will you be taking this gaming laptop. If you imagine yourself taking it out every day you’ll want something portable, so you may prefer getting a 15-incher or something smaller. Users who just want a laptop to live at home as more of a desktop replacement should go for a 17-inch rig for the larger screen size and greater power.
The newest gaming laptops come equipped with the latest Nvidia RTX or Radeon RX graphics chips. These mobile chips are nearly as capable as their desktop version, plus they support the latest ray tracing and DLSS technologies.
Choosing the latest processor isn't quite as necessary, but it's nice to have. When shopping for a gaming laptop be sure the Intel processor has a model number of Intel Core ix-12xxxH (i.e. Intel Core i7-12700H or Intel Core i9-12900H), this denotes that it's one of Team Blue's latest Alder Lake H-series processors. If the gaming laptop you're eying has an AMD processor, ensure its model number has a six or seven at the start of it—such as AMD Ryzen 7 6900HS—as it lets you know it's one of AMD's latest 6000-series or 7000-series processors.
The portability is a huge advantage, as is a ready-to-go display, often equipped with variable refresh rate technology or better-than-HD resolutions. The disadvantage is most gaming laptops are only as portable as the nearest electrical outlet. All that power comes at a price, after all, and while there are a few exceptions, like our top choice, the general rule of gaming laptops is battery life stinks.
Another big disadvantage a gaming laptop has compared to a gaming desktop is its price. It costs quite a lot more to stuff all those components (i.e. the built-in trackpad, keyboard, speakers, and display) into an easy-to-carry shell. When considering a gaming laptop over a gaming desktop, ask yourself, is the premium in price worth it over, and would it be cheaper to buy these all separately?
From our experience, it's always better to stick with the least amount of memory and storage on checkout, and then upgrade it yourself with higher capacity components that are much cheaper to buy on their own. A 1TB SSD might sound tempting as it'll help get your system boot instantly and store all your games, but a high-end upgrade like that can often cost half or a quarter as much as the whole machine.
However, upgrading leads directly to another consideration, how easy it to swap out components. Whereas it's usually a snap to add or replace a component in your desktop rig, upgrading anything in your gaming laptop, other than RAM, will often mean having to buy a whole new computer.
Should You Buy a Gaming Laptop or a Gaming PC?
In most cases, a gaming desktop is the better choice. Gaming desktops provide more bang for your buck, are less expensive to upgrade and repair, and last longer before they go obsolete. However, if you're looking for portability, then a gaming laptop is certainly your best bet. See our guide to gaming PCs vs. gaming laptops for more info.
Should You Buy a Steam Deck or a Gaming Laptop?
One of the biggest advantages to a gaming laptop over a gaming PC is that it offers portability. Which is also the greatest advantage of the Steam Deck over a gaming laptop. Gaming handhelds are portable and have enough power to run just about any PC game you need to. Check out our guide on the Steam Deck vs. gaming laptops for a deeper analysis.
For more helpful guides, be sure to check out our guide to the best gaming chairs, gaming desks, and the best gaming headsets.
Kevin Lee is IGN's Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam
Danielle Abraham is a freelance writer and unpaid music historian.
Image Credit: Annalee Tsujino is a multi disciplinary designer and illustrator. Check them out on Instagram @antsu_illustrations.