Best Gaming Laptops (2026): Razer, Asus, Dell, and More

I’ve been testing gaming laptops for more than a decade, and I’ve observed an evolution of sorts during those years. Gaming laptops were once expensive, thick, and altogether impractical—not to mention pathetic in performance compared to a desktop PC. In almost all cases, it just made more sense to buy or build a desktop.

Now, not only is a gaming laptop a solid alternative to a gaming tower, but it isn’t much larger than its non-gaming laptop cousins. To serve you the very best options for your specific gaming needs, I’ve reviewed more than a dozen models in the past year, including budget-friendly options and decked-out powerhouses.

If one of the options below doesn’t work for you, check out my comprehensive guide to How to Buy a Gaming Laptop for more information.

Updated August 2026: I’ve added the Alienware 15 and Lenovo LOQ 15 Essential Gen 11 as alternative budget options to buy. I’ve also confirmed links and ensured up-to-date prices throughout.

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Photograph: Luke Larsen

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Razer

Blade 16 (2025)

$2,400

Razer

The PC gaming aesthetic of the past was loud and in your face—blaring lights, harsh angles, and oversize vents. These days, it’s all about embracing a clean, modern style. Thinner and less chunky is ideal, as is a subtler approach to RGB and branding. The Razer Blade has always been a proponent of that new generation of PC gaming, and the Blade 16 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) embodies that aesthetic best. Aside from the green-snaked logo on the lid, a slim few elements here scream “gamer.”

There’s a reason many regard the Razer Blade line as the MacBook of gaming laptops (complimentary): It sports a machined aluminum construction, thin bezels, very few vents, and simple straight edges. In 2025, the Blade 16 came out with an even slimmer profile, despite its ability to range up to an RTX 5090, which is the most powerful laptop graphics card right now. It’s really expensive, though, and currently only available through Razer.com.

If you like the design but want something cheaper and more accessible, the smaller Razer Blade 14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is also impressive. Your GPU options with the 14-inch model are only between the RTX 5060 and RTX 5070, but you’ll be surprised by its strong performance, nonetheless. The Blade 14’s compact nature makes it the better choice if you’re planning to bring it around campus or on work trips.

For years, the Razer Blade laptops were alone in their pursuit of being the ultimate minimalist gaming laptop. Then, Asus came around with its ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16. Once relegated as cheaper knockoffs of the Blades, they’ve evolved into unique devices that are every bit as premium as Razer’s laptops (and now they also cost about the same). They’re just as thin, powerful, and all-around high-end. Like the Blades, the G14 and G16 both use a high-resolution OLED display.

Another class of high-end gaming laptops focuses more on performance than on being thin or portable. The Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of my favorites in this category, featuring a beautiful white chassis, glossy OLED display, and either RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080 for graphics. Unlike some OLED displays, the Legion 7i’s screen can crank up to more than 1,000 nits of brightness. The result is some really splendid HDR performance that brings games to life.

And though, as mentioned, this laptop prioritizes performance above a sleek build, it’s only 0.7 inches thick and still includes many ports on the back. offering either the

Finally, if you want that upper echelon of performance, the Asus ROG Strix G16 is among the most budget-friendly gaming laptops (currently selling for $1760) you can buy these days that still gets you a powerful RTX 5070.

No gaming laptops worth buying are actually cheap relative to all laptops on the market. High-refresh-rate displays and discrete graphics will always make them more expensive than standard laptops. But as you get closer to $1,000, there is one laptop I always come back to: The Lenovo LOQ 15 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). Pronounced “lock,” this Lenovo sub-brand is known for cutting the fluff to give gamers a top-rated performance at an affordable price. No laptop does that better than the LOQ 15. Many laptop manufacturers sell their RTX 5060 configurations for hundreds of dollars more. If you’re shopping around $1,000, there’s no reason not to buy the LOQ 15. Just do it.

Want to save some extra cash? Another option that costs less than the LOQ 15 while making very few compromises is the MSI Cyborg A15, which comes with an RTX 5050. While laptops at this performance level went for as little as $600 in the past, these days, they cost right around $1,000. The Cyborg A15 isn’t the prettiest laptop in the world, nor does it have a high-quality display. But it gets you decent performance in games for less money than many of the other options. And unlike the Acer Nitro V16 and Lenovo LOQ 15 Essential (more on those later), the A15 comes with an appropriately sized 180-watt power brick to ensure you’re getting max performance.

You will also find lots of gaming laptops for less than $1,000 that use older graphics cards, such as the RTX 4050 or 3050. In general, I’d recommend staying away from those. They’re only one or two generations back, but remember: Nvidia only releases new laptop graphics cards every couple of years. So, an RTX 4050 laptop may be well over three years old already, and an RTX 3050 is over five years old. Not only do you get worse graphics performance in this case, but these laptops are much more likely to need replacing sooner.

One exciting facet about gaming laptops is their experimentation. While clamshell gaming laptops with a conventional Nvidia GPU are the industry standard, there are a few ways to take your PC games on the go that stretch the boundaries. You might consider a gaming handheld, for example, like the Steam Deck or Xbox Ally X. These handhelds have their fans, and though you can’t also do your homework on these devices, they work great on couches, trains, and planes.

Photograph: Luke Larsen

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Asus

ROG Flow Z13 (2025)

$2,100

Asus

$2,199

Amazon

$2,400 $2,215 (8% off)

Best Buy

Beyond handhelds, there are other interesting gaming laptops that play with form factors. My favorite is the Asus ROG Flow Z13 (7/10, WIRED Recommends). This is a 2-in-1 gaming laptop, meaning it’s essentially a Windows tablet with a detachable keyboard cover. All the guts of the device are behind the screen, which, in the case of the 2025 model, includes the AMD Ryzen Max+ chip. In other words, it’s a Surface Pro designed for playing games.

Nearly every gaming laptop I’ve ever used gets warm on the palm rests and keyboard while gaming, leaving you with sweaty hands after a few missions of Arc Raiders. But not so with the Flow Z13; because it’s a tablet, your hands are never near vents and warm surfaces. It’s also one of the smallest and most compact gaming devices you can buy. Asus has also been experimenting with dual-screen gaming laptops for years, with the most interesting edition out later this year: the ROG Zephyrus Duo. I saw it at CES a few months ago, and it was one of the most exciting new gaming devices I’ve seen in a while.

Many laptops that aren’t necessarily marketed as gaming products can play games. Some laptops with discrete GPUs are oriented toward content creators, like the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i (7/10, WIRED Recommends) or the Asus ProArt P16 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). I like both of these options, particularly given the new version of the Yoga Pro 9i with an RTX 5050 for $2,400. Not bad.

For something a bit more grounded, I’d consider the Dell XPS 14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). While it doesn’t have a discrete graphics card, you can configure it with Intel’s latest X7 integrated graphics, which are surprisingly powerful. While I wouldn’t buy the XPS 14 mainly as a gaming device, like a 16-inch MacBook Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends), it’s absolutely capable of running AAA games on the side. I was able to average 56 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077 with the settings at medium. For a laptop without a discrete graphics card, that’s kind of mind-blowing. When you need it, Intel offers both a low-latency mode and XeSS upscaling. When used together, you get faster frame rates without too much visual distortion or input lag. Your battery will also benefit if you go with a non-gaming laptop. Unlike many of the gaming laptops on this list, it actually gets fantastic battery life, competitive with the 14-inch MacBook Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends).