TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
Don't compromise on power or portability with the best gaming laptops.
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The best gaming laptop is a modern technology flex. No longer are we exclusively talking about hot, heavy, and loud beasts with chassis the size of VCRs, we're finally in the realms of thin and light machines with genuine gaming chops as well as the ability to deliver stellar frame rates even on battery power.
This is why the Razer Blade 16 is my pick as the best gaming laptop of the lot. Its newer, slimmer chassis, RTX 50-series GPU with the BatteryBoost tech, and improved cooling make it an all-round great notebook.
But that's not to say that more traditional machines don't still have a place. While I love the latest Razer Blades, MSI's Vector 16 HX is still a delightfully anachronistic thing. It does have a large, old school chassis, and it does sound loud if you ramp it up, but it also delivers a great experience on a balanced setting and does so for a great price, making it my favorite mid-range machine.
If you're looking to save some cash, though, Lenovo's LOQ range has matured to the point now where it's my pick as the best budget gaming laptop you can buy today. It's stylish, well-built, and regularly discounted.
We have individually and independently tested 63 of the best gaming laptops in the past two years.
Best overall
Best budget
Best 14-inch
Best mid-range
Best high-performance
Best 18-inch
Dave James has been working in the industry as a technology journalist, testing the latest and greatest (and sometimes the worst) PC gaming hardware for 20 years. And in that time he has tested probably in the region of 50 to 100 gaming laptops. He has written for a host of different PC technology titles since switching discipline from games journalism to technology, including PC Format, What Laptop, Techradar, PC Answers, PC Plus, and PCGamesN. He also formulated the current gaming laptop testing methodology used on PC Gamer.
April 29, 2026: I've carried out a full sweep of our gaming laptop recommendations and I still stand by the Blade 16 as my all-time favorite machine. Though I love the Blade 14 and the Vector 16 is a steal. I've added in fresh benchmarks for each recommendation, too.November 17, 2025: We have a new block at the top to roundup our picks for the best gaming laptop, as well as adding in the new Gigabyte Aero X16 and Framework 16 laptops into the also tested section. Quite clearly they're not going to topple the Blade 16 from the top of the best gaming list, but the Framework is still a hugely important machine, marking the first generational graphics card update for an existing laptop, with an RTX 5070 mobile able to be dropped into a notebook that was released a year and a bit ago.November 5, 2025: The individual reviews have been tweaked to make the pages load faster, and I've added in the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI to our also tested section. I've also included a full break down of the gaming battery life benchmarks for all the machines we've tested this year. But all of our actual recommendations remain the same. If you're after a new gaming laptop this year, these are the best gaming laptops to spend your money on.
Our expert review:
We tested: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | RTX 5090 | 32 GB | 2 TB SSD
✅ You want a do-anything gaming laptop: The Blade 16's portability and gaming chops mean that it's a machine that can be your beefy desktop rig as well as your mobile companion.
❌ You just have to have the outright highest performance: That thin chassis does hold back something like an RTX 5090, but if the experience is key to you, the Blade 16 nails it.
💻 The Razer Blade 16 is easily the best gaming laptop I've ever tested. It's a machine that's perfectly sized and setup for PC gaming in modern times, but also one that delivers an unprecedented level of gaming prowess away from a power socket. It's a do-anything notebook...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
The best gaming laptop is a modern technology flex. No longer are we exclusively talking about hot, heavy, and loud beasts with chassis the size of VCRs, we're finally in the realms of thin and light machines with genuine gaming chops as well as the ability to deliver stellar frame rates even on battery power.
This is why the Razer Blade 16 is my pick as the best gaming laptop of the lot. Its newer, slimmer chassis, RTX 50-series GPU with the BatteryBoost tech, and improved cooling make it an all-round great notebook.
But that's not to say that more traditional machines don't still have a place. While I love the latest Razer Blades, MSI's Vector 16 HX is still a delightfully anachronistic thing. It does have a large, old school chassis, and it does sound loud if you ramp it up, but it also delivers a great experience on a balanced setting and does so for a great price, making it my favorite mid-range machine.
If you're looking to save some cash, though, Lenovo's LOQ range has matured to the point now where it's my pick as the best budget gaming laptop you can buy today. It's stylish, well-built, and regularly discounted.
We have individually and independently tested 63 of the best gaming laptops in the past two years.
Best overall
Best budget
Best 14-inch
Best mid-range
Best high-performance
Best 18-inch
Dave James has been working in the industry as a technology journalist, testing the latest and greatest (and sometimes the worst) PC gaming hardware for 20 years. And in that time he has tested probably in the region of 50 to 100 gaming laptops. He has written for a host of different PC technology titles since switching discipline from games journalism to technology, including PC Format, What Laptop, Techradar, PC Answers, PC Plus, and PCGamesN. He also formulated the current gaming laptop testing methodology used on PC Gamer.
April 29, 2026: I've carried out a full sweep of our gaming laptop recommendations and I still stand by the Blade 16 as my all-time favorite machine. Though I love the Blade 14 and the Vector 16 is a steal. I've added in fresh benchmarks for each recommendation, too.November 17, 2025: We have a new block at the top to roundup our picks for the best gaming laptop, as well as adding in the new Gigabyte Aero X16 and Framework 16 laptops into the also tested section. Quite clearly they're not going to topple the Blade 16 from the top of the best gaming list, but the Framework is still a hugely important machine, marking the first generational graphics card update for an existing laptop, with an RTX 5070 mobile able to be dropped into a notebook that was released a year and a bit ago.November 5, 2025: The individual reviews have been tweaked to make the pages load faster, and I've added in the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI to our also tested section. I've also included a full break down of the gaming battery life benchmarks for all the machines we've tested this year. But all of our actual recommendations remain the same. If you're after a new gaming laptop this year, these are the best gaming laptops to spend your money on.
Our expert review:
We tested: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | RTX 5090 | 32 GB | 2 TB SSD
✅ You want a do-anything gaming laptop: The Blade 16's portability and gaming chops mean that it's a machine that can be your beefy desktop rig as well as your mobile companion.
❌ You just have to have the outright highest performance: That thin chassis does hold back something like an RTX 5090, but if the experience is key to you, the Blade 16 nails it.
💻 The Razer Blade 16 is easily the best gaming laptop I've ever tested. It's a machine that's perfectly sized and setup for PC gaming in modern times, but also one that delivers an unprecedented level of gaming prowess away from a power socket. It's a do-anything notebook...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?