The best budget gaming laptops might not be as powerful as their more expensive counterparts, but many are still beefy enough to play demanding titles at high settings. So, even if you don't have the cash for a juggernaut gaming PC, you can still enjoy nearly any game you want with stable frame rates.
For buyers looking for the best budget gaming laptop value, we recommend the Acer Nitro 5, which is bulky but offers fantastic graphics for a low price. And if you want something more unique, check out the Asus ROG Ally, a portable gaming PC shaped like a Nintendo Switch.
Here are five of the best budget gaming laptops on the market right now. Each one offers its own balance of power, features, and price, but they'll all let you play great games without breaking the bank.
Our top picks for the best budget gaming laptops
Best overall: Acer Nitro 5 - See at Newegg
Best for vibrant visuals: Dell G15 - See at Dell
Best for battery life: Asus TUF A15 - See at Amazon
Best gaming Chromebook: Acer Chromebook 516 GE - See at Best Buy
Best laptop alternative: Asus ROG Ally - See at Best Buy
Best overall
The Acer Nitro 5 is a budget gaming laptop that can play modern games with ease, and comes at a price that's hard to beat. Despite some design flaws, it's a solid choice for any gamer looking to save some cash.
What we like
What we don't like
The Acer Nitro 5 is an affordable gaming laptop that offers solid hardware for a low price, which helps cement it as our top pick overall for the best gaming laptop on a budget.
Nitro 5 models are available with 30- or 40-series Nvidia RTX GPUs. The 15.6-inch model we link to here sells for less than $800 and has an RTX 4050, which is strong enough to run most games at stable frame rates. It also supports ray tracing in many titles, which isn't always a guarantee on cheap gaming laptops.
This isn't to say that the Nitro 5 can run every game at the highest settings. In our testing with an RTX 3060 configuration, some intensive titles like Cyberpunk 2077 lagged no matter how much we turned the graphics down, especially when other apps were open. But others, like Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered and Halo Infinite, stayed stable. And popular games with simple graphics, like Fortnite and Valorant, always ran wonderfully.
The Nitro 5's biggest flaw is its hardware design. The HD (1920x1080) screen on the 17.3-inch model we reviewed is dim, and the colors are dull. It's also a bit heavy, coming in at six pounds for the 17.3-inch model or 5.51 pounds for the 15.6-inch option (along with another one-pound charger). The Nitro 5 works best when kept stationary and connected to a brighter external monitor.
One warning we will make about the Nitro 5, though: It's available in over a dozen different configurations with 15.6- 16-, and 17.3-inch screen options, each one with its own unique combination of hardware and price. If you're buying a Nitro 5, double-check that you're buying the right configuration for your needs before you commit. But also know that no matter the configuration, they all offer great value.
Best for vibrant visuals
With powerful hardware and a bright screen, the Dell G15 is one of the best budget gaming laptops on the market.
What we like
What we don't like
The Dell G15 is a popular 15.6-inch budget laptop, and for good reason: It's affordable and offers great graphics and CPU options.
Depending on your budget, you can buy the Dell G15 with an RTX 3050, 4050, or 4060 GPU. But the G15's processor is where it truly shines: It uses 13th-generation Intel CPUs, which are leagues faster than older laptop CPUs, turning this inexpensive device into a multitasking beast.
That's not the G15's only surprising feature. The RTX 4050 model can be configured with 16GB of RAM and a full terabyte of solid-state storage, both of which are fantastic for the price. And unlike other budget laptops, it has a great screen: Full HD options are available with up to a 360Hz refresh rate, nearly double the industry average.
The 165Hz and 360Hz configurations also deliver vibrant visuals with a brighter image than the 120Hz option. The 165Hz model we reviewed is one of the few budget gaming laptops that doesn't suck to watch movies on.
However, it's not a perfect laptop. The onboard speakers are mediocre, it only comes with a single USB-C port, and the trackpad is small. It can also run hot and loud under load, but that's a given with most gaming laptops, especially at this price point.
Best for battery life
The Asus TUF is built with military-grade shock resistance, and its incredibly powerful battery can last for around nine hours on a single charge.
What we like
What we don't like
It isn't just the name — the Asus TUF A15 is a sturdy budget laptop that can survive drops, bumps, and more, all while letting you play nearly any game at the highest settings. It's got excellent battery life, and we've yet to find a gaming laptop that beats it there.
The TUF A15 is built to "military grade" standards, providing incredible protection against impact damage and extreme temperatures. If you need a laptop that'll withstand a rigorous traveling schedule, then the TUF A15 is a perfect choice. This sturdy construction is backed up by a massive battery that can last upwards of eight hours on a single charge if run with power-saving modes on.
It'll hold up to the most intensive games and apps, too. The 2023 TUF A15 is built with an RTX 4050 GPU and an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS, powerful enough to compete with Intel's 13th-gen chips.
In terms of flaws, some reviewers have had issues with the AMD CPU, claiming that programs can lag if more than a couple are active at once. To avoid this, keep an eye on the TUF A15's Task Manager. It's also outfitted with a dim 15.6-inch screen, meaning it can be hard to see in bright environments.
The Asus TUF A15 is the definition of "reliable," and it's a great choice for gamers who know they'll put their hardware through its paces.
Best gaming Chromebook
Although it won't win any awards for power, the Acer Chromebook 516 GE has the best screen and chassis of any Chromebook, making it an affordable way to enter the growing world of cloud gaming.
What we like
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Chromebooks aren't known for their beefy specs, but they can be an excellent, affordable option for people who just want to play cloud gaming services.
When you play a game through the cloud, the game is actually running on a high-end computer somewhere else, and the game's visuals get sent to your computer as a video stream. All you need is a strong internet connection to receive those visuals and send your controller inputs. The rise of services like Xbox Game Pass, Amazon Luna, and Nvidia GeForce Now has done a lot to make cloud gaming more popular.
If you only plan on using cloud gaming apps — or if you're on an extremely tight budget — consider the Acer Chromebook 516 GE. Chromebooks don't use Windows but instead run on Chrome OS, a unique system where nearly every app operates through the web browser. It's not as flexible or customizable as Windows and can't run anywhere near as many programs, but it's great for users who only need basic computer features.
What sets the 516 GE apart from other Chromebooks is its design. It's outfitted with a bright 16-inch screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2560 x 1600 resolution, making it better for gaming than a lot of other Chromebooks. The keyboard is lined with RGB lights, giving it a sleek and colorful look. It's also one of the few Chromebooks with a built-in Ethernet port, which is necessary for maintaining a fast and stable internet connection. All of this is backed up by a solid 12th-generation Intel i5 and a long-lasting battery.
The Acer Chromebook 516 GE carries a list price of $650. That's cheaper than nearly any modern gaming laptop but actually relatively expensive for a Chromebook. We consider the 516 GE to be the best Chromebook available for gamers — but if you don't care about the design or can put up with a weaker CPU (and possibly worse cloud gaming performance), cheaper options are available.
Best laptop alternative
The Asus ROG Ally is a handheld gaming PC with Windows 11. Its hardware is powerful enough to run nearly any game, but its control issues make it awkward to use.
What we like
What we don't like
Though it's not a gaming laptop in the traditional sense, the the Asus ROG Ally is definitely worth a look for anyone who wants to play PC games on the go.
The ROG Ally is a "handheld gaming PC." It's shaped like a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck but runs on a standard version of Windows 11. This means you can access any app and play any game that you'd be able to on a regular laptop. This includes titles from platforms like Steam and Xbox Game Pass, browsers like Google Chrome, and productivity apps like the Microsoft 365 suite. The ROG Ally's processor and GPU can even handle intensive games like Forza Horizon 5 at stable speeds. Battery life is pretty mediocre, though.
Of course, this isn't to say that you'd want to run every Windows app on the ROG Ally. The joysticks and touchscreen are much better suited to games than editing Excel spreadsheets. And the steps to remap your controls to fit each game you want to play can be confusing.
But if the need arises, you can use a USB-C hub to connect the ROG Ally to an external mouse, keyboard, and even monitor, turning it into a real computer. The ROG Ally is a unique little device. It's not a laptop, but it's hard to find a more portable gaming PC, especially for the price.
How we pick budget gaming laptops
We write all our laptop guides using a combination of in-depth testing, research, comparison, and past experience with gaming hardware.
When reviewing units, we evaluate the best budget gaming laptops using various criteria, including price, graphical power, build quality and portability, multitasking performance, and more. Which laptops are using the newest generation of CPUs and GPUs, and which ones are lagging behind? Which companies are charging more for outdated or underpowered hardware? The best budget gaming laptops need to excel across categories to make it onto our list of recommendations.
Budget gaming laptop FAQs
What are the differences between a budget gaming laptop and a midrange or high-end gaming laptop?
The best budget gaming laptops are more powerful than ever. But the absolute most powerful gaming laptops will still cost hundreds of dollars more.
Right now, the best graphics card you can get in a budget laptop is an RTX 4070, and even that's rare. If you want an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090 — the kind of cards that can run games at high settings in 4K and run virtual reality titles without a stutter — you'll need to open up your wallet.
These more expensive laptops will also have better CPUs, meaning apps and files will open and load faster; better screens with higher refresh rates and clearer speakers, which help your games look and sound better; and more storage space, meaning you can have more games and apps installed at once. Depending on the model, they might be able to do all this while having better battery life and lighter frames.
Some will also include extra bonuses, like the mechanical keyboards built into high-end Alienware models or the customizable chassis featured on some Asus laptops.
What kind of games will I not be able to play on a budget gaming laptop?
There are very few if any, games you outright won't be able to play on even the cheapest laptops we've featured here. That includes hyper-intensive titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5, and Far Cry 6.
But if you're only using an RTX 4060 or older, don't expect to play those intensive titles at the highest settings without any stuttering, especially if ray tracing is enabled. That's doubly true if you connect the budget laptop to a 4K monitor, which will put extra stress on the GPU.
RTX 40-series cards support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) feature, which uses AI to increase your frame rate in some games artificially. But even this feature isn't perfect and is prone to lag spikes.
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Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at reviews@bjinnox.com.
