2022 has seen some truly groundbreaking gaming laptops hit the market. There are all manner of portable options for gamers nowadays to suit their varying needs. From budget rigs to high-end laptops, 2022’s machines feature top-of-the-range graphics cards, sleek chassis and high refresh rate displays.
Choosing a Laptop for Serious Gaming
If you take your gaming pursuits seriously, whether you’re a budding eSports pro or a committed amateur gamer, it’s important to invest in the most suitable gaming laptop. You might think that getting your hands on a $6000+ fully tricked-out machine is the way to go, but there could well be more cost-effective options out there.
One important thing to take into consideration when choosing a new laptop is your gaming style, specifically the types of games you play and where you’re likely to play them. If you travel to different clubs or simply enjoy gaming with your friends, a lightweight machine will be much more portable than a beefed-up rig.
Different gaming verticals have different requirements from a laptop and, while you can certainly find all-round laptops to suit a variety of gaming habits, if you specialise in one vertical more than another, shop according to your needs.
Take the online casino vertical, for example. Having gained immense traction in recent years, online casino gaming is now one of the world’s most popular verticals and is populated by a variety of different games and gaming platforms. So, if you’re a regular at PokerStars Casino, you’ll need a laptop with a minimum of a 1080p refresh rate, especially if you don’t want to miss the action when playing the likes of Sweet Bonanza, with its cluster format. Of course, not everyone’s an iGamer so let’s look at an another example.
eSports gaming requires a lot more power and graphics capabilities than playing online casino games. Even playing games at an amateur level, you can expect to be participating in marathon gaming sessions. Therefore, if you’re a keen eSports player you’ll need a device that packs as much power as possible into its chassis, which is especially important for 4-hour+ gaming sessions in the likes of Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Here are a few other things to keep in mind when purchasing your new gaming laptop:
- Most modern games are dependent on a high-performance GPU. Therefore, you should aim to get the most powerful GPU that your budget allows.
- Forget about battery life, as even top-end models barely deliver 8 hours after a charge. To always play at your peak, keep your device plugged in.
- You’ll typically find that modern laptops have soldered CPUs and GPUs, but you can always upgrade RAM and storage later down the line.
Top Laptops for Serious Gaming
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at top gaming laptops for serious play, which will last you well into 2023 and beyond.
Acer Nitro 5
- Intel Core i5-2500H
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti
- 1920 x 1080 display with 144 Hz refresh rate
- 2.5kg/5.5lb
Here to blow assumptions of budget gaming models out of the water is the Acer Nitro 5. Cleanly designed and with a modest price tag of $899.99, the latest model in this affordable series offers superb performance and will suit a variety of gamers.
While, sadly, it doesn’t escape the bloatware trap (Acer are notorious for installing unnecessary extras on their budget machines), the Nitro 5 at least offers plenty of room for potential upgrades.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
- AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS
- AMD Radeon RX 6800S
- 2560 x 1600 display with 120 Hz refresh rate
- 1.72kg/3.79lbs
This sleek ultraportable may sport a higher price tag than budget models, coming in at around $1599.99 for a machine with basic specs and rising to $2499.99 for a top-tier rig, but it’s versatile enough to be worth the investment.
AMD laptops are rising in popularity, and the Zephyrus G14 is one of the better examples. It even possesses a ten-and-a-half-hour battery life, making it a great notebook for basic work or leisure tasks on the go.
MSI GE76 Raider
- Intel Core i9-12900HK
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
- 1920 x 1080 display with 360 Hz refresh rate
- 2.9kg/6.39lbs
With its jaw-dropping 17.3-inch screen and a mammoth 360 Hz refresh rate, the MSI GE73 Raider is an absolute beast of a machine. Delivering high-level CPU and GPU performance, this is a machine for eSports enthusiasts who can afford to invest a bit more to get a top-quality rig.
The GE73 Raider comes with a $3999 price tag, but that’s to be expected from a device like this that packs desktop-worthy power into a portable form. It also features a pretty flashy RGB light bar which, while not necessarily adding to the gaming experience, nevertheless looks cool in the dark.
