Nvidia has stormed Computex 2026 with the official announcement we all knew was coming: the company's first all-in-one laptop silicon called the RTX Spark Super Chip family.

Analysts are calling this Nvidia's most disruptive move in a decade, and my colleague Jason England likens it to the moment Apple unveiled its own M1 chip back in 2020. By moving beyond GPUs into integrated processors, Nvidia is throwing the gauntlet down to Qualcomm, Intel and AMD.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed RTX Spark during his keynote in Taipei, and the first laptops powered by the new chip should arrive in the fall. Beyond that, we can expect to see the RTX Spark appearing in mini PCs and small form-factor desktops from the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, MSI, Acer and Gigabyte.

Huang noted that Nvidia and Microsoft have been working away on this for the last three years to "reinvent the PC for the first time in 40 years," aiming to move towards a responsive, proactive AI experience. Microsoft itself is coming out of the gate with an RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra that could be a MacBook Pro killer.

Here's the list of the first eight RTX Spark-equipped laptops, along with a few details we know about them.

Microsoft Surface Ultra

Microsoft hasn't confirmed many details about its upcoming RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra, but we know it'll have a 15-inch mini-LED touchscreen with 2,000 nits of peak brightness.

It will benefit from a large haptic touchpad and all the required ports: HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, SD card and a headphone jack.

Microsoft claims this will be “the most powerful Surface Laptop ever built” when it arrives later this year. Microsoft also claims it can run AI models locally and that the chip delivers power comparable to a mobile RTX 5070 GPU.

Asus ProArt

Asus is planning to launch two RTX Spark-powered ProArt laptops later this year: the ProArt P16 and the ProArt P14. Both laptops will feature 120Hz OLED touch panels in the 16:10 format (one will be 16-inch, one 14-inch) and be geared towards creative professionals.

Memory will be up to 128GB LPDDR5X 9400, while storage can be configured up to 2TB on the P16 and 1TB on the P14. Regardless of which model you choose, you'll get a full suite of ports: 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x headphone jack and 1x standard SD.

MSI Prestige N16

MSI is set to launch the 2-in-1 Prestige N16 Flip AI Plus, which, it says, will represent "a new generation of premium thin-and-light PCs.”

Sadly, we've got no further information on the specs, dimensions, or — crucially — the price. All we can say is that this will be a 16-inch laptop with a 3,840 x 2,160 OLED panel and a peak brightness of over 1,000 nits.

Dell XPS 16

Dell will launch an RTX Spark-equipped version of the XPS 16, which likely won't deviate much from the current model in terms of outward design. We can expect an aluminum 16.3-inch workhorse with three USB-C ports, an HDMI port, an SD card slot, and a headphone jack.

Price and specifications haven't been revealed yet.

HP OmniBook and Ultra 16

HP has confirmed two forthcoming RTX Spark laptops, the OmniBook X 14 and Ultra 16, but stopped short of announcing any specific details. The company says it will create "the world’s thinnest RTX Spark, built for powerful performance" and has confirmed it will follow up on the laptops with a compact desktop in the future.

“Our expanded portfolio pairs compact, powerful hardware with pre-configured environments and open-source toolchains to eliminate setup friction and accelerate the path from idea to execution," said Samuel Chang, senior vice president and division president, Consumer Personal Systems at HP.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9n

Lenovo's flagship 16-inch laptop will also be getting the RTX Spark treatment, but we haven't had any details about exactly what changes to expect. Like the other laptops on this list, Lenovo's creator-focused 16-inch machine boasts a durable aluminum chassis and configurable specs tailored to your needs.

One area ripe for improvement would be battery life, and we'd hope that the RTX Spark-equipped Yoga Pro 9n can surpass the 9.45-hour battery life we recorded on the Intel-powered Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i.

Bottom line

In addition to announcing that over 30 laptops will come with the RTX Spark chip, Nvidia also revealed that Adobe is rebuilding Photoshop and Premiere Pro from the ground up for compatibility.

Suffice it to say, the above laptops will kick off a silicon war in the fall that could be good news for consumers. Especially for gamers and creative video editors. The Spark's Blackwell-architecture GPU, with 6,144 CUDA cores, brings Windows-on-Arm compatibility with Nvidia's gaming suite, including DLSS 4.5. You're going to get thin, light laptops capable of running triple-A games at 100 FPS with real-time ray tracing.

Finally, these laptops will be positioned to move Windows into a truly agentic AI future, with RTX Spark delivering 1 Petaflop of local AI performance. In a nutshell, it'll have the power and efficiency to work on the user's behalf across various apps to achieve the desired outcome.

So we're potentially looking at laptops with a thin-and-light form factor, elite battery life, and the power to crush desktop-class AI development, heavy creative production, or cutting-edge gaming. The only question is: how much will these devices cost when they arrive?

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Alienware's notebooks are among the best gaming laptops available, but they can be pricey for most folks. This is especially true now, thanks to RAMageddon. Thankfully, the company isn’t ignoring the current reality and has just launched a more affordable gaming laptop for PC gamers. Meet the new Alienware 15 (2026) gaming laptop.

Starting at $1,299, this 15-inch laptop packs up to an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU and up to an Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU. Couple with 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of SSD storage, and you have the basics for playing the best PC games at 1080p resolution and medium to high graphics. While the asking price is still above $1,000, it’s not terrible given current conditions.

I tested a pre-production model of the Alienware 15 gaming laptop and found it delivers a solid experience for those who don’t want to break the bank. Given its price, you’re not getting a premium display or chassis, but if you just want to play your PC games on something reliable, you won’t go wrong here.

Alienware 15 (2026) hands-on: Specs

Alienware 15 (2026) hands-on: Design

At first glance, the Alienware 15 certainly has the iconic look of the company’s laptops, with its all-black shell and Alienware logo on the lid. However, picking it up instantly makes it clear this isn’t just any Alienware product.

The polycarbonate resin lid and bottom have a plastic-like feel that’s a departure from the aluminum casings of higher-end Alienware laptops. While that’s jarring at first, the smooth, contoured lines and overall sleek design help offset that.

Unlike the Alienware 16 Area-51, the Alienware 15 has a full keyboard, which should make number pad users very happy. I don’t fall into that camp, so having the keys I actually mostly located on the left-hand side made it tricky to find my stride when typing. That said, the thick keys and their satisfying travel distance do make this a good laptop for writing.

The lion’s share of the ports is on the left-hand side. This includes two USB-A ports, an Ethernet port, a USB-C port, and an HDMI port. On the left are a lone USB-C port and a headphone jack. Port placement is generally fine if that’s the side you prefer to connect peripherals to, but it could be burdensome if you would have preferred them on the right side or on the back.

Alienware 15 (2026) hands-on: Display

The 15-inch display isn’t terrible, but after testing so many laptops with OLED panels, it’s certainly a step down in both picture quality and overall brightness.

Since this was a pre-production model, we didn’t run our usual suite of display benchmarks. To my eyes, however, the screen is noticeably dimmer and less vibrant than a more premium display.

That’s not to say things don’t appear clearly defined, because they certainly do. The 1200p resolution lets you see everything on the screen in fine detail. However, the muted colors and low brightness make everything look duller than you’d like.

Again, things don’t look terrible on the Alienware 15, but don’t expect a top-end viewing experience when playing games or watching videos.

Alienware 15 (2026) hands-on: Performance and battery life

I tested a pre-production model with entry-level specs. It includes an AMD Ryzen 5 processor, an Nvidia RTX 4050 mobile GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. These aren’t the latest and greatest components, but they’re good enough for playing even demanding games at smooth frame rates.

At default graphical settings and native resolution, Cyberpunk 2077 ran at around 45 to 50 frames per second during my testing. Mind you, that’s without the frame-boosting DLSS upscaler enabled. With this feature turned on, the fps jumped to the low 60s, so it’s definitely worth it for a system like this.

Given its prowess as a gaming machine, the Alienware 15 had no problems handling my average workflow, which usually consists of dozens of open Chrome tabs and the occasional YouTube video running in the background. If you need to get work done, this laptop won’t let you down.

Lastly, let’s talk about battery life. We didn’t run our usual battery test on this machine, but during my testing, I was able to play for close to 90 minutes before the battery life warning appeared. That’s typical for a gaming laptop, so I wasn’t surprised. Naturally, you’ll want to keep this laptop connected while gaming so it keeps running and maintains optimal performance.

Alienware 15 (2026) hands-on: Outlook

Given how expensive gaming devices are nowadays, I applaud Alienware for keeping the average gamer in mind. Both the Alienware 15 gaming laptop and the $349 Alienware AW2726DM gaming monitor exemplify this philosophy.

While I wouldn’t call a $1,299 starting price cheap, it’s still affordable given the current state of things. I’ll have a full review for you once I get to test a final model, but for now, I like what Alienware is cooking up.

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The Razer Blade 16 (2026) is a gaming laptop that makes no compromises. It has an ultraportable design, yet a monstrous gaming beast is packed inside. Though you’ll pay top dollar for Razer’s latest, you’ll get a superlative gaming experience.

Inside, it packs the latest Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU, along with either an AMD Ryzen 9 or an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU. That, along with up to 64GB of RAM, means you’ll have little trouble running the best PC games with graphics and resolution cranked to the max. No matter what I threw at it, the Razer Blade ran buttery smooth.

Like last year’s model, the new Blade 16 has a gorgeous OLED panel that delivers deep contrast and vivid colors. It also delivers excellent HDR brightness for an OLED gaming laptop. Whether it’s your favorite game or a streaming show, everything on the display will look its best.

Design-wise, the Razer Blade 16 impresses with its sturdy, CNC-milled aluminum all-black chassis. Without the green Razer logo on the lid, you might not even recognize it as a gaming laptop. Though not exactly light at nearly five pounds, its thin profile makes it easy to slip into your backpack.

While the Razer Blade 16 (2026) demands a steep asking price and can run very hot during demanding games, it’s undeniably one of the best gaming laptops I’ve reviewed. If you’re in the market for a slim gaming laptop with power to spare, this is the machine to get. Find out why in my full review.

Razer Blade 16 review (2026): Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Razer Blade 16 is a thin and powerful gaming laptop featuring the latest high-end components.
• Who is it for? For anyone who wants a premium gaming laptop and is willing to pay top dollar for it.
• What does it cost? The Razer Blade 16 (2026) starts at $2,399 on Razer’s website. As configured, our review unit is valued at $4,899.
• What do we like? We like the slim design, incredible gaming performance, and vivid OLED panel.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like the steep asking price, and that it runs too hot and loud under heavy load.

Razer Blade 16 review (2026): Specs

Razer Blade 16 review (2026): The ups

The Razer Blade 16 (2026) is an absolute powerhouse thanks to its beefy specs, but its elegant design and superb display also add to its allure.

Thin and light design

The Razer Blade 16 is one of the loveliest-looking gaming laptops I’ve ever reviewed. Its slim profile, rounded edges, and sturdy aluminum frame could make you mistake it for a high-end work notebook rather than a gaming machine. Not only does it look great, but its smooth surface also makes it a pleasure to hold.

Measuring 13.9 x 9.8 x 0.6 inches and weighing 4.7 pounds, the Razer Blade 16 makes for an unobtrusive travel partner. Sure, you’ll feel its weight in your backpack, but it won’t exactly break your back. It’s rare for a gaming laptop to be this thin and light, which is a major selling point.

Despite its thin profile, the Razer Blade 16 doesn’t skimp on ports. It packs nearly all the ports you need, including three USB-A, two USB-C, one HDMI, and a microSD reader. You don’t get an Ethernet port, which is a bit of a bummer, but you still get more than enough ports to make this your primary work PC at home.

The keyboard is another highlight, thanks to its thick, responsive keys. Travel distance isn’t shallow, which makes for a delightful typing experience. I’m also a fan of the touchpad, since its large size makes it easy to make gestures and swipes. While not as good as a proper mechanical keyboard, the board here is quite great for a gaming laptop.

Vivid OLED panel

The OLED panel on the Razer Blade 16 is one of its biggest selling points. Whether it was the neon-drenched streets of Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City or the vast open expanses of Red Dead Redemption 2, everything looked bright and colorful to my eyes. You want games to look as good as they run, and you certainly get that here.

As shown in the table above, the Razer Blade 16 delivers strong SDR and HDR brightness. It also features excellent color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). These values are comparable to those of other gaming laptops we recently tested, such as the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo and Alienware 16 Area-51.

The only minor downside is that the display is very glossy and easily picks up reflections and glare. You can mitigate this by playing in a darker room, but it’s something to keep in mind before you settle in to play games or watch videos.

Powerful gaming performance

The Razer Blade 16 I tested is a true gaming beast, thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, RTX 5090 GPU, and 32GB of RAM. Those specs also give it plenty of power for video and photo editing. Whether it's demanding tasks in everyday work, the Razer Blade is up to the job.

At 1080p with graphics set to max, Cyberpunk 2077 ran at around 60-70 frames per second during my testing. This is a very demanding game, so having it run so smoothly is impressive. With DLSS 4 enabled, I saw the fps climb to the mid-70s even when I bumped the resolution to 1440p.

In our lab tests, where we run a game’s benchmarking tool with the display set to native resolution and graphics maxed out, the Razer Blade 16 also performed well compared to its competitors. Sure, you’re not seeing the desired minimum 60 fps, but the laptop can still play titles at acceptable frame rates even with everything cranked up.

I should note that while the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo has the same specs as the Blade 16, it didn’t perform nearly as well because of different TDP and thermals—not to mention a different form factor. However, the Alienware 16, with its RTX 5080 GPU and a stronger Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU variant, was about on par with Razer’s beastly laptop.

Strong battery life

It’s usually not worth discussing a gaming laptop’s battery life, since most users keep these demanding machines plugged in for optimal performance. While you won’t get all-day gaming from the Razer Blade 16, it lasts surprisingly long for productivity.

In our battery life test, which involves continuous Wi-Fi web surfing with the display set to 150 nits, the Razer Blade 16 (2026) lasted nearly 13 hours. That’s almost as long as the Dell XPS 16 (13 hours 6 minutes), which is extremely impressive. However, its gaming battery life was just under two hours, which is typical for a gaming laptop.

Razer Blade 16 review (2026): The downs

The Razer Blade 16 is a phenomenal gaming laptop, but it has its shortcomings.

Very expensive

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way — the Razer Blade 16 ain’t cheap! While the starting price of $2,399 might not sound bad for a gaming laptop, you’re settling for a lower-end Nvidia RTX 5060 and less RAM. To get the most from this machine, you’ll want beefier components, which means paying a whole lot more.

If you want to upgrade to a configuration with an RTX 5080 GPU, an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, 1TB of storage, and 32GB of RAM, you’ll need to fork over a meaty $3,999. If you want to go all out with an RTX 5090, the same Intel processor, 2TB of storage, and 64GB of RAM, prepare your bank account for a $5,599 hit.

Though gaming laptops are notoriously expensive, the Razer Blade 16 demands a very steep price indeed.

Runs loud and hot

Thanks to the Razer Blade 16’s relatively lightweight design, it’s comfortable to keep on your lap while you work. However, if you plan to do anything intensive, like gaming or video editing, you won’t exactly have a “cool” experience.

On its underside, the Razer Blade reached 118 degrees Fahrenheit in our heat test. Since we consider anything above 95 degrees uncomfortable, that’s decidedly too hot.

This is par for the course with gaming laptops, but the Razer Blade 16 also gets very loud when you’re gaming. Because of that, you’ll want to wear a pair of the best headsets to cancel out the constant noise.

Razer Blade 16 review (2026): Verdict

The Razer Blade 16 (2026) is a fantastic gaming laptop that delivers a truly premium experience. Not only can it run even the most demanding games, but it does so in a sleek form factor that fits anywhere. I’ve tested many incredible gaming laptops over the years, and this one is now easily in my top 10. It’s that good.

Of course, the main drawback is the steep asking price. That’s likely due to RAMageddon, which is a shame. However, if money is no object and you need the best of the best, you won’t be disappointed with the Razer Blade 16 (2026). Right now, it’s my favorite gaming laptop of the year.

The MSI Stealth has a whole new look for 2026. No longer is the Stealth an ultrathin shiny black box, but rather it features a more robust thermal system and a new modern design with subtle pinstriping and MSI branding on the charcoal aluminum cover.

I’ve been a fan of MSI’s Stealth line for years, since I love a good thin and light gaming laptop. Unfortunately, the Stealth models have had their ups and downs over the last decade, and the last few years have been the most volatile as MSI has pivoted from targeting hardcore gamers on the go to a more content creator-focused audience. The pricing on the Stealth has also vacillated from being a premium, ultraslim gaming laptop to a thicker, more reasonably priced option, though this year’s model is returning to that slim, premium aesthetic.While I can appreciate the subtle touches of the new Stealth and the increased thermal capacity, and thus better performance, I find myself a bit torn on the new design. The revamped Stealth may be more powerful and fit in better as a professional or student laptop, but it's lost some of its charm and portability in the bargain.

My MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026) review will help you decide if this is the best gaming laptop for you and whether or not the benefits of the new design are worth the sacrifice.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026): Cheat sheet

• What is it? The MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026) ditches the classic gaming aesthetic of previous years in favor of a new, sleek chassis with better thermals.
• Who is it for? Gamers or content creators who need a portable laptop with powerful Nvidia discrete graphics performance.
• What does it cost? The starting configuration costs $2,099 and is available at Best Buy.
• What do we like? The redesigned chassis has a more premium feel than prior models, the Intel Panther Lake CPU provides great general performance and solid battery life, with a vivid OLED display for fantastic visuals.
• What don’t we like: The Stealth lost some of its portability with the more powerful cooling system, and the RTX 5060 model is very expensive for a base configuration.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026): Specs

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026): The Ups

The Stealth 16 AI+ gets plenty right as a premium, portable, 16-inch gaming laptop. It’s got a streamlined, understated modern design, powerful CPU and GPU performance, great general use battery life, and a stunning OLED display.

Slick, modern design

The Stealth has a sturdy, all-aluminum chassis. While the new aluminum coating still picks up fingerprints, it’s not quite as much of a fingerprint magnet as previous Stealth models. However, you will probably want to keep a cleaning cloth on hand for smudges.

Ultimately, the new chassis not only feels like a premium laptop, it also looks like one with rounded corners, subtle detailing, and an almost MacBook-like clean keyboard deck.

The Stealth’s keyboard is a 4-zone RGB keyboard that can be controlled in MSI center to fit your personal vibe. The typing experience on the Stealth is pretty fantastic for a slim gaming laptop, offering decent key travel without any mushy-membrane feel. Paired with the oversized in Enlarge Touchpad and plenty of IO ports, it's hard to find fault with the overall user experience of the Stealth.

Vivid display and powerful audio

The display has gotten a glossy OLED overhaul, offering vivid color and over 350-nits of brightness, which makes up for one of the main drawbacks of last year’s Stealth model which offered an underwhelming amount of vibrancy, particularly while gaming. This year’s Stealth 16 AI+ not only offers an OLED panel’s near-infinite contrast ratio, but features super-saturated color that makes gaming or streaming video on the Stealth a proper delight.

The sound system has also been upgraded to a 2x2W speaker and 2x2W woofer setup which offers crisp, clean audio that’s powerful enough to be heard even while gaming under heavy load.

Respectable CPU and GPU performance

The Stealth is also no slouch when it comes to performance, thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 9 386H Panther Lake CPU. The Stealth isn’t just great at multitasking but can handle some serious photo and video editing too thanks to its discrete Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU.

Not only does the Stealth hit a respectable 15,170 multicore average on Geekbench 6.7, it also encoded the 4K edition of Tears of Steel into a 1080p format in just 3 minutes and 31 seconds. While not breaking any records for performance, it does pack a solid punch even when compared to some of our favorite gaming laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025).

As for gaming performance, the Stealth is pretty comparable to other RTX 5060 gaming laptops, offering fantastic performance at 1080p, while it can struggle at higher resolutions on more graphically intense games like Black Myth: Wukong or Cyberpunk 2077 where the Stealth struggles to scrape past 30fps. But for older or well-optimized titles like Borderlands 3 or Far Cry 6, the RTX 5060’s raw performance is more than sufficient without even accounting for all of Nvidia’s GPU software optimization tools.

And, as an Nvidia RTX 50-series laptop, the Stealth gets the benefits of Nvidia’s DLSS 4.5, meaning you can enable up to 6x frame generation for smoother performance at higher resolutions. And that means you can run Doom: The Dark Ages on High or even Nightmare level at 1600p without dropping frames or getting fragged by the hordes of darkness. As long as you’re willing to accept that some of your pixels are AI pixels.

Surprisingly good battery life

While the Stealth’s battery life wouldn’t hold a candle to your average consumer laptop, as far as gaming laptops go, getting 10 hours and 49 minutes of web surfing battery life on our battery benchmark is pretty impressive.

Of course, that battery life does deplete pretty quickly when gaming, as the Stealth lasted just 1 hour and 55 minutes on the PCMark 10 gaming battery life benchmark. However, that’s still enough to beat the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) and Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026): The Downs

The MSI Stealth 16 AI+ isn’t the perfect laptop, however. It lost a bit of its identity as a gaming laptop in the redesign, and it isn’t quite as thin as MSI claims. However, its biggest problem is one facing all computer hardware these days: its price tag.

A high starting price and steep upgrade costs

The Stealth’s biggest drawback isn’t even entirely MSI’s fault. Thanks to the current memory and storage shortages due to the supply chain demands of AI data centers, all gaming hardware is significantly more expensive than it used to be. And at least for the starting configuration of the Stealth, the $2,099 price tag feels properly earned. The slick, modern design, improved build quality, vivid OLED display, upgraded audio system, and powerful components help take some of the sting out of the sticker shock.

However, upgrades get even more expensive as you add GPU power. Though, interestingly enough, the RTX 5070 model ($2,849) isn't that much more expensive than the RTX 5070Ti version ($2,999). Which basically makes the RTX 5070 Stealth a poor deal. The top-line RTX 5080 model retails for $3,299, and that increased cost is entirely down to the GPU.

All of the Stealth models come with the same 32GB DDR5 7200MHz memory, 1TB NVMe SSD Gen 4 storage, and 16-inch, 240Hz OLED display. And that really does make the RTX 5060 version the best bargain, with the RTX 5070Ti coming in as the best balance of performance to price, if you need more GPU power than the RTX 5060 can offer.

Is it really the “slimmest” Stealth ever?

MSI touts the Stealth 16 AI+ as the “thinnest Stealth ever” at its thinnest point. And that is technically correct. At just 0.65 inches at its thinnest, the new Stealth is definitely one of the slimmer gaming laptops on the market.

However, that Z-height takes a big jump to 0.79 near the back hinge. While this offers improved airflow for better thermals and thus smoother performance, it does make the new stealth feel a bit chunkier than even last year’s model which was actually thicker (0.85 inches) by a good margin.

And, while this may be dredging up ancient history, MSI has had thinner Stealth models overall than the new Stealth 16 AI+. My old MSI Stealth GS63VR from 2016 was 0.69 inches thick all around. The GS63VR was also just 4.2 pounds, so a hair or two lighter than the current model.

So MSI is technically kind of correct with the new Stealth branding, but the statement has a big asterisk for a reason. However, the Stealth 16 AI+ is far less flimsy than my old GS63 model, and that alone makes the change worth it. Add on all the performance benefits of that improved airflow, and it's hard to argue with MSI’s design choices this time around.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026): Verdict

For all of my complaints about the Stealth’s design being a tiny bit chunkier than my museum piece of a GTX 1060 model, the benefits of that elevated hinge can be felt in the gaming and multitasking performance offered by the RTX 5060 model. So the change is definitely worth it from a pure numbers standpoint, and the build quality on the new Stealth 16 AI+ is absolutely worth the thicker Z-height.

Ultimately, the Stealth 16 AI+ is one of the better thin gaming laptops, offering a nearly complete package as far as performance, battery life, build quality, design, display, and audio are concerned. The only thing holding the Stealth back from perfection is its steep price tag and pricey upgrades, which aren’t entirely in MSI’s control. So if you need a gaming laptop to take with you on business trips, to class, or perhaps to take into the office, the MSI Stealth 16 AI+ is a fantastic choice. Assuming you can afford it.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo is one of the wildest gaming laptops I’ve tested. That’s because it takes the Asus ZenBook Duo’s basic dual-hinge design and crams in powerful components to make it a true gaming beast. I’m still not sure whether a dual-screen gaming laptop is necessary, but hot damn, is this thing impressive.

The main question is: Does a gaming laptop really need two displays? Probably not, but I applaud Asus for creating this magnificent machine. Granted, it costs a pretty penny, with a starting price of $4,500, but that’s expected given its raw computing power and premium design. This gaming laptop is built to turn heads.

Here are my thoughts on the Asus Zephyrus Duo and what happened when we ran two games on it simultaneously.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo: Specs

Dual-screen design

The ROG Zephyrus Duo is generally chunkier than the best gaming laptops of the modern day. This makes sense given how it has two displays and a detachable Bluetooth keyboard. That said, it’s not unreasonably thick or large, though you’ll certainly feel its weight if you’re carrying it around.

The displays are connected by a hinge that can bend back a full 320 degrees. This allows for several modes. Dual Screen places one screen on top of the other in a horizontal orientation, while Laptop mode places the included keyboard on top of the bottom display. Book mode orients the displays vertically, while Tent places the displays on either side. Lastly, Sharing mode is where you lay the laptop open and flat on a desk.

Thanks to the CNC-milled aluminum chassis, the ROG Zephyrus Duo feels durable, which you want from a premium product like this. The wide kickstand on the laptop’s bottom lets you achieve your preferred viewing angle. It also keeps the laptop stable on whatever surface you place it on.

Lovely displays

The ROG Zephyrus Duo’s 16-inch OLED displays deliver bright and colorful images. When playing Cyberpunk 2077, I was impressed by the contrast between shadowy alleys and bright neon signs. While colors aren’t generally oversaturated, their naturalistic hues make games appear more realistic.

Both displays are identical, so you won’t have to worry about one looking better than the other. Each offers sharp 3K resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. And as I’ll detail further below, this setup is also fantastic for productivity, as it’s simple to move items across the two screens to place wherever you want.

Productivity beast

The ROG Zephyrus Duo is a gaming laptop, but I was really impressed by how well it functions as a productivity machine. If you’re used to working with a dual-screen setup like I am, you’ll feel right at home here.

My favorite mode is Dual Screen, with the kickstand keeping the Zephyrus Duo in place. With this setup, I keep websites and apps on the top display and Slack and email on the bottom display. This way, I have access to everything I need without constantly switching tabs in the same window. Thanks to those 16-inch canvases, I have more than enough space to work.

Speaking of the keyboard, it’s generally good to type on because it’s spacious and has thick key caps. Travel distance is somewhat shallow, and the whole thing tends to slide around if you move your hands too much. The touchpad is smooth, responsive, and large enough to accurately capture your gestures.

Overall, it’s a good keyboard peripheral, but you might want to pair it with a wireless keyboard if you’re not happy with how it performs.

Powerful gaming performance

The ROG Zephyrus Duo I received is an absolute monster, thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU, Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU, and 32GB of RAM. With specs like that, you won’t be surprised to know that games run like an absolute dream.

I tested Cyberpunk 2077 on default settings without DLSS 4 enabled, and the game generally ran around 60 frames per second, only dipping down into the mid-50s during heavy action scenes. That’s impressive considering how demanding this game can be on systems, which says a lot about the Zephyrus Duo’s gaming prowess.

In our gaming benchmark test, which involves running a title’s in-game benchmark tool with graphics set to max and resolution set to 1080p, every game we tested ran at buttery-smooth frame rates.

The most noticeable example is the graphically demanding Cyberpunk 2077, which averaged 50 frames per second at those settings. This is even more impressive when you consider that we didn’t have the frame-boosting DLSS 4 enabled.

If it wasn’t clear already, this machine can game!

Can it run two games?

Since this is a dual-screen gaming laptop, we tried running two games simultaneously to see if it was possible. The short answer is yes, but there are several caveats. The games in question were Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and Cyberpunk 2077. We ran each title’s respective in-game benchmark tool at the aforementioned settings.

As our lead tester described to me, unlike single-game benchmarks, the frame rates for both games change dramatically depending on what the benchmark is running. Performance in the games increases or drops based on what’s happening on the screen.

To get this setup to work, you have to start each game, move one to the other screen in windowed mode, make one game full screen, select a monitor in each game’s settings, and finally tap the screen or game you want to control.

We saw the numbers above at the full 1800p resolution, with AC Shadows on the top screen and Cyberpunk 2077 on the bottom. Since you can’t play both games on the same controller, we used an Xbox controller for one screen and a keyboard for the other.

I wanted to detail this entire process to show that, while technically possible, it’s more trouble than it’s worth—especially when the frame rates are so low. I can only imagine what the results would be like with a less powerful GPU.

Bottom line

The best part of my job is testing unusual tech, and the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo certainly fits that bill. Thanks to its dual hinge design and powerful specs, there are few gaming laptops like it. Of course, that uniqueness comes with a steep price.

But if you have the cash for it, you’ll find an excellent gaming machine that’s also fantastic for everyday work. If nothing else, the ROG Zephyrus Duo is one of the most distinctive gaming laptops of the year. That alone makes it worthwhile.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just tested the world’s fastest OLED gaming monitor
• Nvidia RTX 5070 laptop GPU gets 12GB VRAM — here’s why it's a game-changer
• I'm a lifelong gamer, and I can't wait to try the Steam Controller — 3 reasons why

Nvidia has officially announced the GeForce RTX 5070 laptop GPU with 12GB of GDDR7 memory. We’ve heard rumors about this GPU for a while, but now it’s the real deal.

While the company isn’t discontinuing the 8GB model, this spruced-up 12GB variant should give vendors and customers more options. This is especially important as we’re still in the middle of RAMageddon.

Here’s what we know about the 12GB Nvidia RTX 5070 laptop GPU and why it could potentially be the most important “mid-range” laptop GPU out there.

From 8GB to 12GB of RAM

As VideoCardz and Wccftech report, Nvidia originally planned to stick with 8GB of VRAM for the 5070. Thankfully, the company reconsidered. By moving to a 192-bit memory bus and providing 12GB of VRAM, Nvidia is giving laptops with this GPU more breathing room to better run games at 1440p with high-res textures and ray tracing.

Moving from 8GB to 12GB is a wise move, since 8GB can impose serious constraints. Now, laptop manufacturers won’t be as restricted.

GDDR7

More memory is nice, but it’s the fact that we have faster memory that’s really noteworthy. GDDR7 offers higher bandwidth, which means the GPU can swap data in and out of that 12GB buffer much faster than before.

For the average gamer, this means smoother frame rates in demanding titles and a better experience with AI-driven features like DLSS 4.5. With AI now seeping into everything, that 12GB of GDDR7 should be useful for anyone seeking to run local LLMs on a laptop.

Nvidia is listening

It’s easy to be cynical about Nvidia, especially after Jensen Huang’s comment about how RAM scarcity is “fantastic” for the company. However, the RTX 5070 spec sheet suggests that the company realizes it can’t push premium prices on what are otherwise budget laptops.

By giving the 5070 12GB of VRAM, Nvidia is creating a better value for laptops in the $1,200 to $1,500 range. Hopefully, notebooks with this GPU will remain in that price range and not go up much higher.

Outlook

The GeForce RTX 5070 with 12GB of RAM should be available to manufacturers this year, so expect a fresh batch of laptops packing this mobile GPU. If they can remain relatively affordable, this could offer some welcome relief from all the price hikes we’ve had to suffer since late last year. Stay tuned for more!

More from Tom's Guide

• I played Saros for a week and it still didn’t make me a roguelike convert
• Why 720Hz gaming monitors might be overkill
• I'm a lifelong gamer, and I can't wait to try the Steam Controller — 3 reasons why

It’s no secret that Dell makes good laptops, and the storied brand has done it once again with the Alienware 16X Aurora. A powerful gaming laptop with bags of performance under the hood, the 16X Aurora is an excellent mid-range option. With its 240Hz refresh rate, bright screen, wide color coverage and accuracy, there’s a lot to love about it. Gaming performance is nothing short of exceptional, and it's perfect for everyday work too.

Graphics are beautiful thanks to NVIDIA’s RTX 50 series too. The 16X Aurora also sports a premium, good-looking design with plenty of ports for hooking up several peripherals. But it’s worth noting that its battery life can be described as mediocre at best, and the top level configuration will cost you an arm and a leg.

Is this the best gaming laptop for you? Read my full Dell Alienware 16X Aurora review to find out.

Dell Alienware 16X Aurora review: Specs

Dell Alienware 16X Aurora review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A (slightly bulky) gaming laptop boasting outstanding performance in gaming and productivity
• Who is it for? Gamers who want a high-performing laptops
• How much does it cost? The Dell Alienware 16X Aurora starts at $2,499 / £2,199 and goes all the way up to $4,299 / £3,299
• What do we like? The premium design, excellent gaming and productivity performance, and great color coverage and accuracy
• What don’t we like? The mediocre battery life and premium price point

Dell Alienware 16X Aurora review: The ups

From its fantastic design and numerous ports, to its excellent gaming performance and wide color coverage, the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora is a superb machine.

Fantastic design and connectivity

Ever since I first heard about Alienware laptops back when I was 12, I’ve always loved the design — the alien logo is a treat. The Alienware 16X Aurora is, then, a rather good-looking laptop, wrapped in dark blue and purple-ish colors, officially called “Interstellar Indigo.” Its smooth aluminum chassis feels premium, and the matte finish lends the 16X Aurora a classy look.

The 16X Aurora packs a 16-inch (2560 x 1600) non-touch screen, so it measures 14.05 x 10.45 x 0.92 inches, making it a little bigger than the Dell XPS 16 ($1,749). While not exactly compact, it still fits into most regular-sized backpacks with ease — although its weight (5.66lbs) might put you off from traveling with it for long.

I’ve really enjoyed using the 16X Aurora’s keyboard and trackpad too. The keys on the keyboard have enough space between them that you don’t accidentally hit an unintended key, but they’re also close enough that you don’t have to spread your fingers too much to type. The keyboard features single-zone RGB lighting only, which I don’t personally mind — and you can change the colors and effects via Alienware’s Command Center software. The touchpad also feels highly responsive and pans smoothly. No complaints there.

Ports-wise, the 16X Aurora is packed, and features basically everything you’d need to hook up a plethora of peripherals to it. Alongside the laptop’s left edge, you’ll find a USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, an ethernet jack, as well as a 3.5mm jack for plugging in gaming headsets.

There are no ports on the right edge; instead, the others are located on the rear. There’s another of the same USB-A port, two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one of which supports Thunderbolt 4), the port for the power adapter, and an HDMI port.

A vivid display

I’ve used the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora extensively and for a number of tasks: gaming, testing gaming keyboards and mice, conducting lab testing on the best monitors, and everyday work-centric tasks too. And there’s plenty of performance here to enjoy.

The 16-inch screen, first of all, has a refresh rate of 240Hz, which ensures silky smooth performance in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon 5. The 2.5K panel is plenty of resolution that makes games feel immersive, and there’s also an OLED configuration if that’s more your speed.

In addition to gaming, which I’ll get into in the next section, the 16X Aurora delivers bright, vivid colors across the board. I was stunned at how rich all the different shades and hues looked in the World Wildlife 4K YouTube video. Lush, green meadows appeared highly detailed, as did darker scenes filmed at night.

My lab testing confirmed what my eyes saw, as you can see in the table above. The 16X Aurora covers 98.3% of the sRGB spectrum and 99% of the wider DCI P3 color gamut. While both values are just a touch off 100%, the difference is barely noticeable, and you get an enjoyable viewing experience.

A Delta-E score of 0.6 is good too. It basically determines color accuracy, and the closer the score to zero, the better. 0.6, in this regard, is great, and I found the colors to be accurate in real-world use too.

The Razer Blade 16 ($2,999) and the Alienware x16 R2 ($2,099) boast better color accuracy making either a slightly better option than the 16X Aurora for those who do, say, color-intensive work, like photo and video editing. However, the 16X Aurora is much brighter than both with a measured brightness of 450.8 nits, so you shouldn’t have any issues seeing the screen in lit-up rooms. The MacBook Pro M5 ($1,599) upstages them all, though, with its 558 nits of brightness.

Performance aplenty

In addition to excellent color coverage and accuracy, the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora packs a powerful chip too. Depending on the configuration you go for, there are a few processing chips you can go for. My review unit came fitted with the Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX chip, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

Regardless of the task I did, the 16X Aurora performed admirably. Having multiple applications and browsers with 20 tabs open wasn’t an issue for the 16X Aurora. I didn’t experience any noticeable lag or unresponsiveness. Though there were a few instances where the laptop sounded like it was going to take off — particularly while playing the CPU-intensive Cyberpunk 2077 — I didn’t find it too jarring.

On Geekbench 6, which tests overall CPU performance, the 16X Aurora pulled in an excellent multi-core score of 18,697, outclassing both the Razer Blade 16 (2024) and the Alienware x16 R2. The MacBook Pro M5 performs slightly better than the 16X Aurora in our HandBrake video editing test (transcoding a 4K video to 1080p), but only by a very small margin.

On the BlackMagic Disk Speed test which measures the write and read speed in MBps, the 16X Aurora performed stupendously, with 4,233 write and 5,045 read speeds. The MacBook Pro M5 outperforms the 16X Aurora here with its fast 6,068 write and 6,323 read speeds, but in everyday use, Dell’s offering is more than enough.

Great for gaming

The Dell Alienware 16X Aurora is a beast for gaming. The model I tested packs an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, with the top level configuration featuring an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti card.

At a native resolution of 2560 x 1600, this laptop can run the best Steam games without breaking a sweat. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve used the 16X Aurora extensively to test the best gaming monitors, and the laptop has always performed admirably.

I played Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5 and F1 25 with the highest graphics settings enabled. In Cyberpunk 2077 with features like Ray-Traced Lighting set to Ultra, the benchmark results showed an average of 63fps. Meanwhile, in Forza Horizon 5, I hit 150fps in Extreme mode, while F1 25 ran at a silky smooth 109fps in Ultra High graphics mode. Counter-Strike 2 achieved a maximum FPS of 235, so close to the screen’s 240Hz refresh rate, and it ensured ultra smooth performance.

Benchmark results are great on paper and can tell you a lot about the laptop’s performance, but how do the games really run? Well, really well. The user experience is sublime, with stunning visuals, vivid colors, and non-existent lag or ghosting. When the driver in front of me hit the brakes in F1 25, I could see the sparks flying from underneath the tyres in great detail — just like you would while watching a race on TV. In Cyberpunk 2077, the neon lights appeared saturated enough that they made me feel immersed in the streets of Night City.

Dell Alienware 16X Aurora review: The downs

The Dell Alienware 16X Aurora is a highly competent laptop, but there are a couple of flaws, namely its high price point and mediocre battery life.

Can get very expensive

The rule of thumb when buying a laptop is that the more things you add to its internal hardware, the more expensive it becomes — and the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora can get very pricey, especially when you deck it up with the best graphic card available and fit the biggest SSD possible.

The standard configuration I tested, at the time of writing, costs $2,499 / £2,199. If you go for the top level configuration with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 card, a 4TB SSD, and an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, you’re looking at an expenditure of $4,299 / £3,299. That’s a lot. I also say “at the time of writing” as prices may vary and fluctuate with the ongoing RAM crisis. It’s also worth noting that neither of these configurations feature an OLED panel.

For the OLED model, you’ll need to settle for 32GB RAM, 1TB storage and the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HZ process, and this model costs $2,919. It’s also not available in the U.K., at the time of writing.

Mediocre battery life

One of the first things I noticed during my early testing time with the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora was that its battery life seemed very short. I was having to constantly recharge the laptop while playing games. Having conducted a benchmark battery test, I can now confirm that the 16X Aurora’s battery life leaves a lot to be desired.

Due to lab testing limitations, I wasn’t able to conduct our specialized in-house battery testing, so I used UL Procyon’s battery benchmark test instead. I calibrated the 16X Aurora’s brightness to 150 nits and let the software play videos until the laptop ran out of charge, and that took three hours and one minute, which is awful.

This is poor but it isn’t exclusive to the 16X Aurora. As you can see in the table above, the Razer Blade 16 and the Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptops also have subpar battery lives, especially when compared to the behemoth MacBook Pro M5.

Chances are, your gaming laptop will be plugged in while you play anyway, and the 16X Aurora isn’t really a portable laptop either, so does the suboptimal battery matter that much? I don’t believe so.

Dell Alienware 16X Aurora review: Verdict

The Dell Alienware 16X Aurora is a very capable gaming laptop, and one of the best you can buy today. The laptop boasts a lovely, premium design, and it’s built well too. There are plenty of ports for connecting the laptop to a monitor or plugging your favorite peripherals into it.

Performance-wise, the 16X Aurora features a vivid display with great color coverage and accuracy, and its 240Hz refresh rate makes it ideal for gaming. It’s perfect for general productivity as well. While its battery life isn’t industry-leading, and the laptop can get very expensive depending on the configuration, neither drawback should stop you from picking up the 16X Aurora. It looks good and performs even better.

Oh, Asus TUF Gaming A14. Why do you hurt me so? You started so strong two years ago and even managed to be my personal favorite gaming laptop I’d tried over the past few years. Then there was a modest upgrade to RTX 5060 with a price bump — I let it slide mostly. But now, we’re through the looking glass with the 2026 model. It’s a classic situation of “appearances can be deceiving.”

Because after correctly predicting the rise of integrated graphics in laptops, this year’s A14 got my mind spinning with the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392 chipset: the mid-ranger to the chip you find in the ROG Flow Z13 that still packs that same massive 40-core GPU. The benefits of this, of course, are lofty levels of performance paired with the power efficiency of not having to run an entire separate dedicated graphics card.

The stage was set and I was ready to have my mind changed with this Strix Halo glow up. And did it happen? …No. Asus is outside of my window with a boombox playing Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” and I’m hiding beneath the window sill.

Now let me be clear, that’s not because this is a terrible laptop. For all intents and purposes, it’s a decent machine. The switch to this all-in-one monster chip has done wonders for its prosumer productivity side of things. But I can’t ignore that $2,199 price tag — a massive $500 bump over last year’s model, which just so happens to play games better, handle high temperatures better, and have a longer battery life.

It’s the right laptop at the wrong price, and definitely at the wrong time as RAMageddon has made me feel pretty confident about my break up. When the going gets TUF, save yourself some cash and go for last year’s model.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? This is a mid-range 14-inch gaming laptop
• Who is it for? It’s ideal for portable PC gamers who want a solid 1080p/1440p system that isn’t awkward to carry around.
• What does it cost? You can pick one up for $2,199.
• What’s good about it? The switch to Strix Halo has vastly improved productivity speeds (especially in content creation), and you’re getting that same sleek body, QHD+ panel and ergonomics.
• What’s not so good? Gaming, battery life and heat management fall behind its older (cheaper) sibling, price has increased by a massive $500, and AMD’s still making it awkward to actually have the GPU perform well out the box.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: Specs

Asus TUF Gaming A14: The ups

Let’s start with the positives. Because to Asus’ credit, Strix Halo is a productivity speed boost and even though the hardware remains unchanged, it’s still pretty top notch in the gaming laptop space.

Same great display and design with some tweaks

Credit to Asus — they’ve kept the things I like about this system in the looks and works. Build quality feels familiarly premium to the touch with a metallic top and bottom, the keyboard feels great to type on and that re-engineered ventilation is there to take air in through the top deck and out the bottom.

Then there’s the QHD+ panel that is decently bright and respectably color accurate with some vividity for those key flash floods of color like speeding through Mexico in “Forza Horizon 5.”

Would I have loved OLED? Absolutely. Is this more than good enough for the task at hand? For sure.

Productivity boosts

If there’s one big good thing that can be said about the new Strix Halo internals, it’s that it does nicely equalize the general performance with gaming prowess. You can seriously get some stuff done quickly here.

Whether it's the snappiness of opening up a web browser, stretching the multitasking of many tabs, or processing advanced photo edits, this didn’t hang one iota. And with that massive GPU, local AI processing is also a breeze too — comfortably holding a 14-billion parameter model without any hitches or slowdown in its processing time. Nice!

Asus TUF Gaming A14: The downs

Value for money’s out the window and AMD’s hiding the main reason you’d buy this laptop behind a few settings screens. It’s gutting to someone who really wanted this to succeed.

Price-to-performance is way off

So you’ve felt just how fast this can be in your day-to-day creativity. Let’s move over to gaming and…well…I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

I’ll forgive it for ray tracing, as the RDNA 3.5 architecture was never really at its strongest in this crucible, and on a laptop screen, it’s not necessarily the biggest deal breaker to miss out on some shinier objects and reflections.

But when you take the $2,199 price of this “mid-range” gaming system and face it with last year’s A14 and the cheaper Lenovo LOQ 15, you start to see you get a bit short changed — both when you’ve got VRAM set to default (0.5 GB) and when you max it out (24 GB as tested here).

But it gets worse, as thermal management and battery life have taken a dip here too.

Now I know some of these pricing woes come down to the RAM price crisis, and there’s no two ways around how much that sucks. But if anything, that should make us more aware of better value for money in gaming laptops, and honestly? Even the more premium ROG Zephyrus G14 is better value.

Just AMD things

And speaking of the video memory thing, why on Earth is it that after over a year into the Strix Halo era, we’re still being left with the default slither of memory dedicated to the GPU? I know that most of us know this already, and dip into the AMD settings to tinker.

But for an experiment, I gave this to my non-techie friend and told him to play games for a day. The report the next day was simple: he went back to his PS5 after an hour because the TUF A14 was so choppy.

If he didn't know that VRAM allocation is set to 512MB (that’s megabytes…with an M) by default, then what does that say for anyone else who buys it? Change this for Strix Halo gaming laptops now — it’s a difference of literally 20-30% in performance as I found.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: Verdict

The Asus TUF Gaming A14 has a serious identity crisis that makes it hard to trust. On the face of it, it’s a good laptop. But I can’t look past that huge price tag and the subsequent downgrade in gaming performance and battery life that you get.

It’s like charging you more for less — the laptop equivalent of Chili’s shrinkflation. I hope that in the future, we remember this laptop is supposed to be the affordable arm of the ROG Zephyrus G14. The hatchback you walk out the dealership with when you’re lured in by the supercar.

But at the moment, it’s in no man’s land.

Gaming laptops weren’t exactly cheap, but now, thanks to RAMageddon, finding a solid rig at an affordable price has made things worse. Thankfully, there are still great deals out there, and I just found one that can save you nearly $500 on a killer machine.

Right now, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI is on sale for $450 off at B&H Photo. At $1,399, it’s just $100 more than a 15-inch MacBook Air M5; only this laptop can play the majority of the best PC games. This is one of the better deals for a gaming laptop, so you’d do well to give it serious consideration. Here’s why.

This Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI features many high-end components to deliver an awesome gaming experience with few compromises. It packs an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Then there’s the 16-inch 2560 x 1600 panel, with its smooth 240Hz refresh rate. While it’s an LED screen and not an OLED, everything should appear sharp and vivid.

At 14.05 x 10.85 x 0.53 inches and 5.9 pounds, this is one big and chunky laptop. That said, it has an attractive design that hits a middle ground between a gaming laptop and an average work notebook. This laptop’s size also means it has multiple ports, including three USB-A, three USB-C, one HDMI, an Ethernet port, and a headphone jack.

Thanks to its RTX 5070 graphics card, you have access to DLSS 4.5, which you’ll want to enable to help your games look better and run smoother. Nvidia’s frame-boosting and upscaling tech is made for GPUs in this category, so you have little reason not to enable it unless you’re playing a multiplayer game and don’t want the slight input lag that comes with DLSS.

This Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI deal would have been great even before the current RAM crisis. Now, it’s an even better overall value. If you’re looking for a powerful gaming laptop that won’t break the bank (and that hasn’t been marked up!), do yourself a favor and get this one. You won’t be disappointed.

Acer's own literature claims its Nitro line of gaming laptops is "known for offering gamers the 'best bang for your buck,'" and they're not wrong. While it's always nice to drool over the most powerful new laptops and desktops, reality dictates that most of us need to be more selective in our purchases to get the best value for the dwindling money in our bank accounts. If you're not one of those who need to play every game at SuperMegaMaxOHWOW details settings, modest gaming systems become more attractive.

Everyone will still have their own definition for what kind of performance is "good enough" for them, so there's still no one-size-fits-all gaming laptop or desktop. To that end, Acer offers many configurations in its Nitro line from low-end basics to high-performance desktop replacements.

At around $849, the Acer Nitro V 16 AI represents one of the least expensive variants of the Nitro V line. And given that price point, it acquits itself quite well.

Acer Nitro V 16 AI review: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The Nitro is a cost-effective line of gaming laptops intended to maximize performance value by focusing on "good enough" gaming performance instead of fancy cases, lighting, and other frills.
• Who is it for? Those who want entry- to mid-level gaming performance on a laptop that doesn't require a second mortgage.
• What does it cost? This review unit is one of the least expensive in the current Nitro line, with an MSRP of only $849. Many other models are available in varying performance levels for up to $2000.
• What do we like? The Nitro provides excellent gaming value, has a 16:10 display, superb battery life, and is user-upgradeable for storage, RAM, and wireless networking.
• What don't we like? Only 512GB of storage is low for a gaming computer; it comes with plenty of bloatware pre-installed, and the display has mediocre color gamut coverage and no VRR.

Acer Nitro V 16 AI review: Specs

Acer Nitro V 16 AI: The ups

The Acer Nitro V 16 AI has a lot to offer at its price range, including decent performance, strong battery life, and upgradeable storage and RAM.

Design

Acer's focus on reasonable cost-cutting for the Nitro V is obvious at first glance. The chassis is plain black plastic with no lighting or decoration, save for a single inset metallic N logo on the lid. If you want a flashy-looking laptop, the Nitro series is certainly not for you. Cooling vents and heatsink fin stacks are visible from the sides and back. Much of the bottom is vented for cooling intake with additional intakes above the keyboard near the hinge.

The Nitro has a full keyboard, black keys with orange printing, and all keys are backlit. The WASD and cursor keys have white rings on the edges, which outline the keys brightly with the backlighting on. As this isn't a mechanical keyboard, the keystrokes aren't as nice and crisp as those of more expensive laptops. However, it's certainly not bad for a normal laptop keyboard. The switch feel is overall mushy, of course, but it has a consistent firmness to it. The touchpad is spacious with a nice feel and a satisfying click.

Connectivity ports are on three sides of the Nitro, not just two as with most laptops. On the back is the power connector, HDMI 2.1 port, and USB-C port that can also be used for charging the laptop. Three more USB ports are available (two on the right side, one on the left), all 3.2 type-A ports. Apart from the USB ports, the left side also features a fold-down Ethernet jack, microSD slot, 3.5 mm headset jack, and Kensington security lock.

Performance

The short of it is that the Nitro V 16 AI serves its purpose quite well, given its price and intended market segment.

As mentioned before, this isn't a system meant to push intense graphics at ridiculous framerates. But that doesn't mean it won't serve up an enjoyable gaming experience. Playing through games such as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is perfectly satisfactory when using an optimized mix of med-high graphic settings.

Looking through our benchmarks, we can compare it to the Lenovo LOQ 15 and Asus TUF Gaming A14. It's important to note that both these systems are significantly more expensive than the Nitro V 16, notably in the GPU department. Again, the RTX 5050 in the Nitro is meant for modest 1080p gaming, while the RTX 5060 in both the LOQ and A14 is significantly more powerful. Despite that disparity, the Nitro still holds its own in a few titles.

In some games like Assassin's Creed: Shadows, the difference in GPUs is quite obvious as both the LOQ and A14 nearly double the Nitro's framerate. In Total War: Warhammer III and Metro Exodus, again, the RTX 5060-powered laptops hold a big advantage over the Nitro. But in other titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2, the gap shrinks significantly, or even disappears.

Lest you think it's only older games where the RTX 5050 compares favorably, look at Black Myth: Wukong. At 1080p Medium details, all three laptops stay above 60 fps.

In other performance metrics, the Nitro delivers expected results. The A14 has the strongest CPU of the three with its Ryzen AI 7 350. The LOQ and Nitro both use a Ryzen 200 series processor, but the LOQ has two extra cores. While the A14 has an insurmountable lead over the other two, the Nitro keeps it close with the LOQ in many tests despite fewer cores.

For storage, the Nitro seems to match the LOQ. Admittedly, one of the runs for a 25GB file copy on the Nitro took an alarming 132 seconds to complete, while the other two were between 16 and 20 seconds. However, as this was the last run, this was likely due to a solid-state cache overrun, and not something you'll encounter in real-world use (unless you regularly write dozens of GB to your system drive every hour ).

So, while on paper it may appear the Nitro takes a beating from the other two notebooks, consider also that it costs hundreds of dollars less than either. From that perspective, the Nitro is certainly holding its own.

Battery life

Thanks in part to the lower power draw of the "weaker" components, battery life on the Nitro is significantly higher than that of many similar laptops.

In our battery test, which involves continuous web-surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, the Nitro lasted nearly 13 hours. That’s fantastic for web browsing and productivity work. However, gaming battery life is capped at around 2 hours.

Excellent connectivity

We've been told for years that type-C is going to replace everything, but that's still nowhere near the case. And since everyone still has keyboards, mice, and USB drives that use the type-A connector, having three of those ports on a laptop is a welcome addition.

The microSD slot is also great for someone who uses a digital camera (whether a GoPro, aerial drone, or otherwise) and doesn't want to carry a card reader adapter with them.

Upgradeability

Being able to upgrade laptop components isn't a given as it is with desktops, so being able to easily pop the case and swap out some parts is a valuable feature. No, you won't be upgrading your CPU or motherboard, but increasing RAM or storage, or switching to an upgraded Wi-Fi card as new standards come out, greatly increases a laptop's usable lifespan.

The Nitro has two M.2 slots for storage. Rather than needing to clone the stock drive and replace it, you can just add a second drive to increase capacity. It's similar to RAM. The Nitro ships with a single 16 GB SO-DIMM, leaving the second slot available. Instead of requiring you to purchase a whole new RAM kit, you can simply buy a matching module to double your system memory.

Acer Nitro V 16 AI review: The downs

The Acer Nitro V 16 AI offers a good enough experience for the price, but this is still a budget laptop with some of the expected setbacks.

Gaming Performance, Pt II

As said before, the RTX 5050 is not intended for higher than 1920 x 1200 resolution. It simply doesn't have the VRAM or processing oomph to handle the 60% increase in pixels to 1440p. So if you have ideas of connecting the Nitro to a higher resolution external monitor, you'll likely be disappointed in the gaming results.

The caveat here is DLSS and AI frame generation, which Nvidia is pushing heavily. In games that implement these features well, the improvement in visual quality and framerate smoothness is amazing. However, that's on a game-by-game basis. And, as AC: Shadows shows us, there are games already released that tax the RTX 5050 to its limit even on lower fidelity settings, and it's not going to get any better.

Storage

The biggest complaint I had about the Nitro while testing it was the storage capacity. Every day that passes, games require more and more storage. Having a drive under 1TB in a gaming machine is a significant limitation.

Yes, it's easy to upgrade the Nitro with a second drive, but the thing only has 350GB available out of the box. That can easily be eaten up by two or three games these days.

Display

The 1920 x 1200 ISP screen uses a 180Hz refresh rate and has a matte finish, which helps reduce glare and reflections. While a 1200p display may not sound like much in a day when 1440p and 4K have all the intention, it's perfectly fitting on this laptop.

However, the Nitro's display has two sizeable shortcomings. First, the color gamut coverage is pretty low at only 64.6% of the sRGB gamut. Compared to the over 100% coverage of the LOQ and A14, it looks particularly bad. But to the gaming crowd, the lack of any variable refresh rate is the bigger blow.

The Nitro, and specifically the RTX 5050, can easily deliver 1080p gaming at medium-to-high detail settings in the 40 – 50 fps range, which is exactly where VRR shines the best.

Bloat

Acer, I need to pick this bone with you, and really, all computer manufacturers.

If I buy a gaming laptop, I want it to play games like Doom, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, Baldur's Gate, Forza Horizon, or MechWarrior. I don't need pre-loaded shortcuts to install things like Elvenar or Forge of Empires in my start menu. I don't want SweetLabs, AppExplorer, and other adware pre-installed. Okay? Thanks.

Acer Nitro V 16 AI review: Verdict

The secret to a low-cost gaming laptop is quite similar to a low-budget productivity one: don't let the customer notice where the cost-saving trade-offs were made. As long as there are no obvious pain points, the consumer will usually be satisfied with the product. So, did Acer succeed?

Not entirely. Yes, in terms of sheer framerate per dollar, the Nitro V 16 AI posts high marks. Excellent battery life and connectivity add to the overall value, as does the serviceable keyboard and generous touchpad. Moreover, the end user can upgrade the storage, RAM, and wireless networking. That's a winning combination that's hard to beat for the money.

However, the small stock storage drive is a pinch that the consumer will feel sooner or later. But while that can be remedied, the limitations of the built-in display cannot. The limited color gamut is disappointing, but not earth-shattering for a low-cost laptop. At worst, it eliminates the Nitro from any form of serious image or video work, but it was never really a contender there anyway. But had Acer included some form of VRR, the Nitro would be a gaming laptop on a very different level.

With VRR, you can select a detail preset and let VRR pick up the slack to get buttery smooth framerates with no tears or judder. Without, you have to experiment with individual detail settings to find the combo that keeps the game locked above a target minimum framerate, so V-Sync. That's a constant reminder of the laptop's limitations rather than its features and value.

But despite all this, it's hard to hate the Nitro. It's wrong to fault a sirloin for not being a filet mignon when the sirloin costs half as much. Is it wrong to complain about no VRR at this price point? Perhaps. Considering the Nitro can often be found well under its MSRP, that complaint becomes smaller and smaller. At $849, it warrants serious consideration at least.

Nvidia RTX 60-series graphics cards won’t be making an appearance this year but Team Green is returning to its PC hardware roots, just not in the way you’d expect.

At a time when the ongoing memory and storage crisis or RAMageddon has made PC building just as or even more expensive than it was during the crypto mining craze, there now appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. While we aren’t getting new GPUs anytime soon and building a PC still costs a small fortune, Nvidia is giving PC gamers another option: vastly improved integrated graphics.

Just like we saw with the release of Intel’s new Panther Lake chips, Team Green is also planning to give integrated graphics a major boost while simultaneously giving the best gaming laptops a run for their money. The company’s upcoming N1 and N1X chips may be Arm-based but if the latest rumors are to be believed, they could pack the same CUDA core count as an RTX 5070 GPU.

If you’ve been following our Panther Lake coverage, you’ll know that the days of integrated graphics being a joke compared to a discrete GPU are over. Sure, you’re not getting dedicated graphics level performance but being able to play Cyberpunk 2077 at close 60 fps at 1080p on a device like the new Dell XPS 14 (2026) is incredibly impressive. Now imagine that same experience but on a chip designed by Nvidia.

We already know that laptops featuring Nvidia’s new N1 and N1X chips are in the works from both Lenovo and Dell. However, could this mean you might soon be able to leave your bulky gaming laptop at home and get some serious playtime in with a device that’s significantly lighter and much easier to slip into a bag?

Personally, I’m optimistic but first Nvidia will have to overcome the hurdles that come with gaming on an Arm-based CPU. Here’s how Team Green might just be able to pull off this impressive feat.

No VRAM, no problem

Even with a top-of-the-line gaming laptop, there’s one obstacle that will always hold back its performance and that’s VRAM. Dedicated laptop graphics chips like those found on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and the Razer Blade 16 will always be limited by the amount of VRAM they have. Fortunately with the N1X though, Nvidia may have found an answer to this problem.

Just like Apple’s M-series chips in the best MacBooks, the N1X won’t use separate RAM and VRAM for memory. Instead, it will use a unified memory pool where memory is shared between the CPU, GPU and NPU. Not having dedicated memory just for graphics might seem like a downside at first but in this scenario, it’s actually an advantage.

In my time testing the best mini PCs, I’ve reviewed gaming-focused ones with dedicated graphics like the AtomMan G7 Ti but more recently, I had a chance to check out the Framework Desktop. It too uses unified memory and while my review unit came with 64GB of LPDDR5x, I wasn’t stuck just using all that memory for the CPU. When it was time to play games, I allocated a full 32GB of RAM just to its built-in Radeon 8060S graphics which really made a difference while playing through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

Based on leaks and die shots, we know that Nvidia’s N1X chip is a consumer-tuned version of its GB10 Superchip which powers its DGX Spark AI workstations. With 6,144 CUDA cores on board, this is identical to the core count of a desktop RTX 5070.

More importantly, the N1X reportedly features a massive 256-bit memory bus — the kind of "firehose" bandwidth usually reserved for high-end dedicated cards — allowing those thousands of cores to pull data from the system RAM at over 300 GB/s. Now combine that with the fact that like the GB10 Superchip, Nvidia’s upcoming N1X chip will also have unified memory and you’ve got a perfect recipe for supercharged integrated graphics.

Like on my Framework Desktop, you’ll be able to allocate a certain amount of its unified memory just to playing games. If RAM prices do come down — we’ve seen signs they might be starting to — and you get a new laptop with an Nvidia chip on board and 32GB of RAM, you could then set aside up to 16GB of memory for gaming.

This is due to the fact that by default, Windows 11 on Arm usually allows an integrated GPU to access up to 50% of system memory on its own with no intervention on your part. With a 256-bit bus, that 16GB of memory doesn't just sit there; it acts with the speed and responsiveness of a dedicated card.

Speaking of Arm, that’s the final piece of the puzzle Nvidia will need to crack if it wants to make thin and light laptops that can also deliver significantly improved gaming performance.

From emulated to native graphics

As it stands now, when you want to play the best PC games on a Windows laptop running an Arm-based chip, you need to do so using Prism. The reason for this is that most games are written for x86 (which Intel and AMD both use) and first need to be translated so that they can run on Arm.

Back in December, Microsoft updated Prism and this is what allows demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 to run on Arm-based devices. However, since your device is translating the game from x86, you lose about 10 to 20% of the power from your laptop’s CPU.

With its new N1X chips, Nvidia will reportedly bypass Prism altogether with a full ARM64 version of its GeForce Game Ready Driver. This driver works hand-in-hand with the new Windows 11 version 26H1 (codenamed "Bromine"), which launched earlier this month.

Unlike the standard version of Windows, 26H1 features a specialized "Arm-first" scheduler designed specifically to help chips like the N1X prioritize gaming performance without the usual emulation stutters.

Nvidia is taking things a step further by utilizing the N1X’s NPU (or Neural Processing Unit) to add its DLSS frame-gen tech to the mix. DLSS 5.0 will run entirely on the N1X’s NPU and if you’ve tried frame-gen tech on a less capable device before, you know how much of a difference it can make. In this case though, when games running on Arm are slowed down because they need to be translated first, DLSS can help make up for that performance loss and bring their frame rates back up.

While you’ll still be able to use Prism for older games, when playing newer titles on N1X laptops, you won’t have to thanks to the combination of Nvidia’s ARM64 driver and Microsoft’s new Windows architecture. Of course, we’ll have to test this out for ourselves once laptops with N1X chips are released but what I’ve heard so far is almost enough to convert me from an Arm skeptic into a believer, especially when it comes to gaming.

Hurry up and wait for your next laptop

Between the ongoing RAM crisis and a slew of newer, powerful laptops on the horizon, playing the waiting game is likely your best move right now. If you can hold off on upgrading from your current laptop, then you’ll likely be in for a big surprise when you do so later this year.

Imagine being someone who bought a new Intel-based Mac right before Apple released its M1 chip. With Nvidia entering the laptop market in a big way with its own chips, I think we could be in a similar situation right now.

Based on a leak from Lenovo’s own online store — which briefly listed a Legion 7 "N1X Edition" — we could see laptops sporting Nvidia’s new silicon as early as the second quarter of this year.

By playing the waiting game just a bit longer, you could get a whole lot more bang for your buck. In fact, instead of getting a laptop for work and one of the best handheld gaming PCs to satisfy that gaming on the go itch, you could effectively get both devices in one.

There are even whispers that some of these N1X laptops will feature "detachable" designs similar to the ROG Flow, allowing them to transform from a productivity machine into a high-powered gaming tablet.

Although Intel got a head start with its new Panther Lake chips, the future of integrated graphics has never looked more promising now that Nvidia has thrown its hat into the ring. If the N1X can truly deliver RTX 5070-level performance without the bulk of a dedicated GPU, the "gaming laptop" as we know it is about to change forever.

More from Tom's Guide

• Apple's rumored new MacBook sounds like a nightmare for budget Windows laptops — here's why
• The RAM crisis is out of control: Here's the most alarming tech products affected (so far)
• Lenovo is planning another PC price hike in March — and I’m all out of patience with this AI bubble

Gaming laptop deals are getting harder and harder to come by — probably because of the RAM price crisis we find ourselves in.

But I’ve just found huge savings on my two favorite OLED gaming notebooks that are the perfect high-performance upgrades for any players out there. Right now, you can get the 2025 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with RTX 5070 Ti for $500 off, and the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI with the same GPU for $350 off at Best Buy.

Make no mistake about it. These are massive savings, and after spending months testing these laptops (and loving them a lot), I can’t recommend them enough for gaming on-the-go.

The ultraportable monster

Every year, the Asus Zephyrus G14 just gets better and better. I almost missed my flight back from Barcelona because I turned my Starbucks table into the ultimate gaming station because of it!

From the outside, you wouldn’t really think this is a gaming laptop — if anything, its premium aluminum body screams “MacBook Pro.” In fact, it’s the only gaming notebook that my fiancée has looked at and said, “Nice laptop.” Every single other model, she rolls her eyes at the blazing RGB.

Asus has also paid real attention to sound ergonomics here, with a top-notch keyboard and massive touchpad. But of course, you’re here for the games, and that RTX 5070 Ti absolutely shines. DLSS 4.5 is the AI trick up the sleeve to bring unmatched smoothness.

Cyberpunk 2077 at full-res ray-tracing ultra with all the DLSS trickery on (ray reconstruction, multi-frame gen) can take full advantage of that mesmerizing OLED panel at a buttery smooth 120 FPS.

And whatever game you’re playing, be it blasting through the colorful streets of Mexico in Forza Horizon 5, or the deep, dark depths of the isolated Romanian village in Resident Evil Village, the stunning color and contrast ratio of this Pantone-validated display shines.

Throw in AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, a spacious 32GB of RAM (in this economy!?), and a 1TB SSD, and you’re onto a winner that’s not just good for gaming but a serious workhorse for power user productivity too.

The big one

But what if a small size doesn’t matter to you? What if you want a big-screen gaming experience? That’s where I introduce the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI — another go-to daily driver that I got addicted to fast in the months I tested it.

The S stands for slim, and while this is indeed a bigger laptop, that doesn’t compromise the thinness. This is a slender system in the hands, and with that extra space, Acer’s able to run this at a higher wattage.

That’s super ideal for running DLSS 4.5 and really ramping up that frame rate to make the most of that 240Hz refresh rate (double that of the Zephyrus G14, though the resolution is slightly lower at 2560 x 1600).

And as every frame matters in competitive multiplayer (plus a bigger panel too), I’d recommend this one to anyone who wants to be at their best in online shooters. Aside from the RTX 5070 Ti, you’ll find an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD — pretty similar to Asus’ offering.

If ergonomics are your thing, I’d point you to the G14, as the keyboard does feel better. However, if you can get over the ever-so-slight sponginess of the keys, you get a bigger board with a number pad here, and a far bigger touchpad that comes in clutch for creative work.

Buy now because prices will go up

Yes, both of these have 32GB of RAM. Yes, we are in a RAM price crisis. These deals exist because of the available stock, but once Best Buy sells through them, you can expect these prices to slowly but surely creep up.

The likes of Acer and Asus do have plans to bypass the rising prices by going to smaller RAM manufacturers, as I found out when talking to an Acer exec. But this will take time, and the best advice I can give anyone on the fence about buying a gaming laptop is to buy now before things get worse.

And out of all the deals I’ve seen, these two offer the best bang for your buck.

More from Tom's Guide

• I tested Intel XeSS 3 vs Nvidia DLSS 4: my laptop tests made me rethink the future of integrated graphics
• Nvidia says all RTX 50-series GPUs will 'continue to ship,' but stock and supply tell a different story
• ‘Chaotic’ RAM pricing won’t kill PC gaming, a CEO told me — and history backs him up

In the face of the RAM crisis, laptops are one of the many devices that are set to see major price hikes, driven by AI data centers causing a severe memory shortage. Now, HP is offering an alternative buying option: rent your laptop.

Recently, HP launched a laptop subscription service that lets you pay a monthly fee for an AI-powered PC for productivity or a gaming machine, with prices starting at $34.99 per month. Plus, it comes with the option to upgrade to the latest laptop after one year, along with 24/7 live support, add-on accessories and replacements if there are issues.

However, unlike finance plans, no matter how long you use the service to pay for your PC of choice, there's no option to own the laptop. In light of the memory shortage, it echoes the expectation of AI forcing you to rent your PC, and HP is among the first to take the plunge.

The beginning of the end of ownership?

HP's subscription service for laptops covers a range of PCs to suit different needs and price points, including an HP OmniBook X Flip 14 with Windows Copilot and an HP Omen Max 16 sporting an RTX 5080.

For the lowest price, you can grab an HP Pavilion 16 for $34.99, which comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. For the most costly option, the HP Omen Max 16 will set you back $129.99 per month, which is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD.

Many of these options are among the best laptops around, and depending on what you use them for, they make for reliable machines. But all things considered, these are high monthly prices to pay, even if it is for an all-new machine.

Here's a breakdown of the monthly price of each laptop offered in the subscription service, and how much they cost in full (some that currently have discounts):

The monthly fee certainly looks attractive compared to the full price of many of these laptops, and for some, it's a more immediately affordable way to grab a new laptop sporting the latest specs. Plus, the addition of being able to upgrade after 12 months is a perk, especially for gamers after the latest specs.

However, keep in mind that there is no option to own the laptop, even if you end up paying for the laptop in full after a certain number of months.

For example, the HP Pavilion 16 currently costs $769 for the exact laptop you get in the subscription service. It would take around 21 months to pay that off, so just under two years. That's without a deal, mind you, and you'll find the Pavilion 16 for less. If you hold on to the Pavilion for 3 years, the total price you pay balloons to $1,259, and if you keep it 5 years it goes up to $2,099. That's an increase of 173%.

For the HP Omen Max 16 at its discounted price of $2,499, this would take around 19 months. But if you kept paying the monthly rental fee for 5 years, the cost of the laptop would go up to $4,679. And you would pay more than three times the retail price if you wound up renting for 5 years.

With just under two years of full use and the ability to upgrade, this could be a viable option for many. But as soon as you no longer want to pay, you'll no longer have a laptop to use.

HP does offer a 30-day trial period, where you can get a full refund after trying out the subscription service. But after this, there's a cancellation fee that applies, with up to $1,429 if you cancel a subscription on the Omen Max 16 in the second month. The cost of the cancelation fee goes down after each month of use, and after 12 months, you won't have to pay anything.

The PC peripheral add-ons, including a mouse, headset, USB-C hub and even a 24-inch HP Omen monitor for just $5.99 per month, are also nice options to have. But again, as HP states, "there is no option to own the gaming laptop you receive as part of your subscription," and that includes the accessories.

Yet another subscription

As HP notes in its FAQ section: "The ability to trade in your gaming laptop every 12 months for the newest model makes the OMEN Gaming Subscription an attractive option for gamers looking to escape the headaches of an upgrade cycle and stay ahead of the curve." This line of thought also applies to the productivity lineup of HP laptops.

With the memory shortage driving up prices, it's only natural that a subscription service for laptops and accessories becomes an option. We already have subscription services like Netflix that have taken over how we watch shows, and cloud gaming services, including Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Nvidia GeForce Now and Amazon Luna.

But renting a whole machine that you'll never own is a new level of subscribing to a service, and as James Bentley of PC Gamer rightfully notes, when there are 0% financing contracts available that will eventually let you keep a device after monthly installments, renting a laptop loses its appeal. I mean, laptops these days have more than enough performance power to last for years to come, and a yearly upgrade may not be worth it.

As RAMageddon continues to change the landscape of consumer tech, with manufacturers like Micron believing it will last until 2028, we're now seeing subscription services for laptops become a reality, and the higher costs of PC hardware may force us to resort to renting.

More from Tom's Guide

• 'We're not going to create an AI device that plays the game for you': Logitech G on AI taking over tech, 'it needs to make the product better'
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DLSS 4.5 is officially here, and I’ve been testing it for a while now. Simply put, it’s Nvidia’s top piece of AI trickery that extracts better performance from your games by rendering the game at a lower resolution using the GPU and upscaling it with a neural network trained on the game itself.

It’s almost shocking how effective it is — watching it upscale a game from looking like a pixelated potato to something actually playable is insanely cool, and a real demonstration of how impressive DLSS 4.5’s Performance (Model M) and Ultra Performance (Model L) are in piecing together details.

But while I’ve been testing DLSS 4.5 on desktops mostly, I wanted to see what it does for the best gaming laptops. So I fired up my Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI and put it to the test. Spoiler alert: it’s an absolute beast.

By the numbers

Deep Learning Super Sampling can come with a compromise to the visuals, such as telltale ghosting (faint outlines around fast moving objects), jagged edges to surfaces and shimmering (brightly lit objects being a little blown out).

And while that is the case when blown up to a big screen for a desktop (though DLSS 4.5 does reduce it significantly), on the 16-inch OLED panel of the Helios Neo 16S AI, you’d be hard pressed to spot any of it.

Then when you turn to the numbers, it starts to feel like you’ve unlocked secret performance with a cheat code.

That is a near 50% jump across the board for all of these, while maintaining that detail you’d see in more quality-driven modes of DLSS!

Make sure you use DLSS 4.5 right

Quick PSA on DLSS 4.5. Nvidia itself has provided a handy guide on when to use these models you can pick between in the app.

• Model K: This is DLSS 4 and much better-built for quality and balanced DLSS modes
• Model M: This is DLSS 4.5 with a model tuned for performance mode
• Model L: This is an offshoot of DLSS 4.5, which is meant for ultra performance mode

Using DLSS 4.5 in quality or balanced DLSS modes can be a little more taxing on the GPU, and result in reduced performance, as I found out when putting it to the test across both desktop and laptop systems.

But if you make sure you pick the right model for the right purpose, you can extract the highest possible performance from your games. Smoother-running multiplayer titles are the difference between winning and losing critical battles after all.

Bottom line

So what did I learn from this experiment? Well, DLSS 4.5 is showing its strength in desktops for sure, but it really comes into its own in gaming laptops like the Helios Neo 16S AI.

The performance jump is significant, while you don’t lose any noticeable fidelity or detail thanks to that 16-inch OLED display. Blown up to a massive gaming monitor, you may spot the imperfections, but in something like this, your eyes won’t catch it.

And the point stands — this is near-esports levels of frame rates in a portable system with great ergonomics and all the I/O you’d need. Team Green just introduced a turbocharger to its V8 engine.

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The best gaming laptops do exactly what they're supposed to do — game. When it comes to monstrous performance to play the latest AAA PC titles on the move, there's no finer machine.

But aside from jumping into Steam, GOG or your platform of choice to kick up a storm in competitive multiplayer shooters or dive into a single-player epic, these laptops are far more capable than their moniker may let on. In fact, it's because of "gaming" that these machines are primed for, well, just about anything you throw at them.

In the not-too-distant past, it was largely considered that gaming laptops simply wouldn't fit into the world of work, whether that be in an office, while writing up documents in a coffee shop or hammering in numbers on a spreadsheet while traveling abroad. "They're too clunky," or "they just don't last without being plugged in," have been fair assessments, and even "they don't have that office appeal."

Today, however, the memo has changed. Faster, sleeker and more battery efficient than ever, gaming laptops have become a fine fit for work and, of course, play.

To put that to the test, I used an Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI as my main laptop for work, and as I type out this piece on the very machine, I can say it more than does the job — and then some.

Unmatched performance

An ideal laptop geared towards professionals needs to have the performance to handle a multitude of websites, apps and tools needed to get through the working day. All without that ever-annoying lag when multitasking, mind you, as a stall when switching tabs, video editing, punching in numbers and the like takes away from finishing work on time.

For me, that includes opening up dozens of tabs on Google Chrome, working through documents, light photo editing, transferring video and, yes, testing (and playing) games for benchmarking. Oh, and watching shows like "Wonder Man" in my downtime.

As you might have guessed, it's a given that gaming laptops will be able to handle these tasks without breaking a sweat. Their specs under the hood have to put up with highly demanding graphics in PC titles, after all. But it's how much performance they can offer when compared to your average laptop for work.

So, I put the Predator Helios Neo 16 AI through its paces, and it powered through everything without a hitch. It seamlessly jumped between the 30-plus Chrome tabs I had open, edited images without slowing down and did it all while being whisper-quiet.

By how much, though? Well, after benchmarking the Predator Helios Neo 16 AI, the results speak for themselves.

Even when compared to the latest Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro and MacBook Pro M5, laptops that are made for professionals in a variety of fields, Acer's gaming machine came out with flying colors. That's thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX chip, 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, which my unit comes with under the hood. The Acer did particularly well in the Handbrake video transcoding test, finishing over a minute faster than the MacBook Pro M5.

With these impressive numbers, it shows just how well a gaming laptop of this caliber delivers the performance needed to tackle all kinds of work, whether that be for accounting, creative work, coding and more. For my daily tasks (and nightly gaming routines), it's a laptop that fits the mold.

Still as portable

But it's all for naught if I can't carry around a laptop to and from the office, take it out in a café or, quite simply, I'm not confident enough to work on it without it screaming "this, right here, is a gaming laptop!"

Recently, though, many laptops made for gaming have steered towards a more universal, subtle look; one that doesn't blare RGB lights or proclaim "made to game" on their lid. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI finds that balance, with its sleek and stylish black metal chassis and subtle Predator logo etched on the lid.

No, it's not the thinnest or lightest laptop around, but given its 16-inch design that comes in at just 19.9mm thin and 5.9 pounds, it makes this machine fairly portable for carrying around.

Like most, I often stuff my laptop backpack with all the essentials my usual working day needs: lunch, a water bottle, chargers, a notebook and, of course, the laptop itself — and most likely whatever device I'm reviewing for the week. The Predator Helios Neo 16 AI fit in without taking up so much space, and it didn't give me backaches when heading to the office, either.

There is some heft, of course, but not nearly enough to make me ditch it for purely at-home office use. Besides, the majority of the time, I'd have this laptop sit on a desk rather than trek it around everywhere. However, if need be, it wouldn't be a hindrance during the plentiful walking I do during events or trips abroad.

Now, battery life is another key factor. While a laptop that takes me through the whole workday is ideal, especially one I don't need to plug in for at least 10 hours, when I'm at a desk or coffee shop with a power outlet, I make sure it's charged to full more often than not.

With this in mind, the Predator Helios Neo 16 AI doesn't have the longest endurance. While working on it, the laptop lasted just over five hours before needing some juice. It's certainly not the longest, but that's still half a day of work before a charge is needed. Considering I'd have my work laptop charged up anyway, especially when at a desk, that still gets me plenty of time to get work done.

The tools to work

I'll say it: not all laptops for work come with the tools needed to complete a comfortable work setup. Minimal port selection, cramped keyboards that are agonizing to type on, dimly lit displays that make it hard to see text — it's a shame having to resort to extra PC peripherals like USB-C hubs, keyboards or monitors to make the most of them, even if they are excellent products.

Gaming laptops like the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI, though? That's not the case, as they're focused on making sure they have the features needed to play PC titles comfortably. In parallel, that works for productivity, too.

Take the 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate, 1ms response rate and 16:10 aspect ratio. Yes, games look stunning with deep blacks, excellent colors and smooth frames, but this impressive visual clarity also translates to clear, bright images when scrolling through websites and editing photos, and it shows off the true video quality of what you've shot, too. Plus, having 16 inches for screen real estate means having enough room to split windows comfortably.

Speaking of comfort, typing on the Predator Helios Neo 16 AI is also a treat. Keyboards on gaming laptops need to be precise and responsive, and as someone who easily types over 1,000 words every day, that's a boon to have. Each key offers a snappy, tactile feel, making it a breeze to write out pages without feeling like I'm straining my fingers. Oh, and it's an extra perk to have a full-sized keyboard with a number pad included — something all the number crunchers out there appreciate.

I'm always a fan when a laptop comes with the ports I need (not just a measly two USB-C ports, like some machines I know...), and the Predator Helios Neo 16 AI fits the bill. With a USB-A 3.2, Ethernet, microSD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left, another two USB-A ports on the right, along with two USB-C (one Thunderbolt 4, the other USB 3.2 Gen 2) and an HDMI 2.1, there's a generous amount of ports to plug in one of the best monitors, best keyboards and even a high-speed wired internet connection.

A 'working' laptop

After using the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI as my main work driver, it's hard to deny how far gaming laptops have come from their stance a decade ago. These aren't the same chunky machines that sound like a jet engine when doing the simplest tasks anymore (well, most of them), as they can easily fit into the work life of a professional.

Even in my line of work, the Predator Helios Neo 16 AI more than handles my workload, and being able to game when its quittin' time makes these machines all the sweeter. That is, if you game. But even if you don't, and require the performance to power through video edits, creative projects, spreadsheets, coding and the like, a gaming laptop has it — and the portability, too.

Of course, it all depends on what you require for work, which is why slimmer, lighter laptops that still burst with power and long battery life are always a good option. But for an all-encompassing laptop, you may want to start keeping a gaming laptop in mind.

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• I just tested the Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro — and it’s an early contender for my favorite Windows laptop of 2026
• I tested Intel XeSS 3 vs Nvidia DLSS 4: my laptop tests made me rethink the future of integrated graphics
• Daily driving the Asus Zenbook Duo with Intel Core Ultra X9 has ruined normal laptops for me — 3 things I love about it (and 1 I don’t)

Just when I thought Intel Core Ultra Series 3 couldn’t get any better, Team Blue just dropped XeSS 3 multi-frame generation in a new graphics driver. And after testing it on my Asus Zenbook Duo with Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, my mind is blown.

While Nvidia maintains a comfortable lead in terms of performance and fidelity with DLSS 4.5, Intel's adopted the same AI trickery to scale the resolution and fill the space between rendered frames with AI-generated frames. And that leads seriously impressive gaming on ultraportable notebooks.

Of course, raw horsepower-wise, Team Green keeps a commanding lead — it has a dedicated GPU after all. But for most players, what you’re getting here is more than enough, and you get that additional benefit of vastly improved battery life, too!

So rather than rant on, I’ll answer the questions you have about it: how good are the frame rates now? Any latency worries? Any telltale signs of AI at work (like jagged edges and ghosting around objects)?

I decided to do this by putting it in one helluva mismatch of a competition — facing it off against the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI with RTX 5070. And the results? Well, there’s a lot here for Nvidia to get nervous about. Let’s get into it.

What is XeSS 3?

Think DLSS, but Intel’s version. XeSS (Xe Super Sampling) 3 brings frame generation and resolution scaling together to make games run a lot smoother than you could’ve done on just the GPU itself.

Nvidia, AMD and Intel all learned a while ago that instead of stuffing graphics cards with more and more transistors to work harder in rendering computer graphics directly on the card, they could work smarter and introduce AI into the mix to bring more efficient generational performance gains.

In Intel’s case, two things are at play here:

• Multi-frame generation: For every one frame of gameplay rendered by the GPU, AI can generate up to an extra three.
• Super Resolution: Your GPU will render the game at a lower resolution to save power, and then use AI to upscale that image to the resolution you want to play at.

XeSS 3 vs DLSS 4: Features

Intel's worked hard to bring backward compatibility to XeSS 3 with previous XeSS 2-supported games. But the list of supported games is completely dwarfed by Nvidia's DLSS.

On top of that, Team Green's been busy building out the capabilities of DLSS 4/4.5 around that new Transformer-based AI tech — with new features coming down the line like dynamic frame generation.

By the numbers

Running around Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 was already decent enough at our initial results of 67.1 FPS with XeSS 2. To watch that number increase to 217 FPS with one flick of a switch in Intel’s Graphics software is frankly mind-bending.

And don’t get it twisted — this is on an Asus Zenbook Duo running at a total power of 45 watts. There is a “burst” option that can go up to 80 watts for short durations, but for gaming, it stays largely at 45.

For context, the Nvidia gaming laptop I’m running these comparisons against (the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI with Intel Core Ultra 9 288V and RTX 5070) goes up to a combined power of 140W. So with that in mind, here’s what I was getting out-of-the-box with no tweaks to power settings.

Testing conditions and one thing to note: These games were set to the same in-game settings (1080p High), and DLSS/XeSS settings matched on parity. In some situations, this could cause potential CPU bottlenecks (the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V is more limited in performance than the Ultra X9 388H). Once we have Intel Core Ultra Series 3 gaming laptops with RTX 50-series GPUs, then the testing will be more on an even level. Consider these results a frame of reference.

As you can see, the Predator Triton 14 AI takes a clear lead here — turning on multi-frame generation brings the integrated GPU a lot closer to RTX 50-series than I expected. And at these high levels of frames, only the most enthusiastic of esports competitors need to really worry about that higher number.

Of course, I anticipate this gap between an RTX 50-series gaming laptop and an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H system would widen once you start to raise the resolution (think 1440p). In all the gaming tests Team Blue has shown me at CES 2026, they've all been at 1080p. That is for another test in the future, though!

But ultimately, this is the key to jumping ahead of AMD, but that’s an unfair comparison given the Ryzen AI Max silicon is definitely stronger than Intel. That being said, though, this does put AMD way on the back foot, and given the rumors that Team Red could be stuck on RDNA 3.5 iGPU architecture until 2029, it could stay that way for years… Yikes.

Visual impressions

OK, so the frames are good. Let’s pixel peep it (of course, these images are compressed a bit — you've gotta love the internet for that). Let me put some comparisons up with no names:

Now, for a question for my fellow gamers.

Got your answer locked in? You best not have been peeping at the answer!

…answered? OK, click to reveal the truth below.

That’s right — the first of all the images is the Predator Triton 14 AI with RTX 5070, and the second is the Zenbook Duo. Could you tell the difference?

So to my eyes, the answer is “yes.” XeSS 3 is still a step behind DLSS 4. There’s noticeable ghosting around fast-moving objects, small details like chain fences can warp the image behind it a little, and there’s some jagged edges.

But in the midst of gameplay, it doesn’t discount what Intel has done here. For the ultimate fidelity, a gaming laptop packing an Nvidia GPU is still the way to go. But with what Intel's managed to do, it’s clear that integrated graphics have taken a monster leap forward.

What about latency?

Multi-frame generation may be a bit of a breakthrough to many reading this, but it’s not all rosy. Fitting additional AI-generated frames in between rendered frames can introduce latency. And if your GPU is already chugging along at a slow frame rate, you’ll feel that latency more when the gameplay is smoother.

That’s why I’d always recommend tweaking your game’s graphics settings to ensure you’re getting 45-60 FPS before fiddling with multi-frame generation. With this base level, your latency should be low enough that you won’t feel it impact your gameplay — particularly in single player titles. In competitive multiplayer, where every frame counts, I’d keep it turned off.

That being said, though, Nvidia has improved DLSS quite a lot in this area, and Intel’s just rocked up with something mighty impressive. On average, you’re getting about 2ms more latency than you’d find compared to DLSS 4 MFG’s 42ms (4X mode).

So 44ms on average, and at these levels of latency, the vast majority of you are going to have a perfectly fine gaming experience on this system — which I should remind you is INTEGRATED GRAPHICS.

The future

So the present is looking incredibly bright for Intel’s XeSS 3. Without this tech already in there, the Zenbook Duo I’ve been testing has been a marvel for iGPU gaming, while bringing a huge battery life increase over your standard gaming laptop.

And now, this mini breakthrough just made things a whole lot more intriguing. With gaming laptops furnishing those who are chasing the absolute best performance and nothing else, Intel Core Ultra X series chips now pose a better balance for most players.

But where does it go in the future? Well, as Tony Polanco confirmed, Intel has told Tom’s Guide that multi-frame generation is coming to the Intel Arc B580 desktop GPU. And with that, my favorite budget GPU just became the one I’d recommend to everyone, given the RAM price crisis has just made all Nvidia GPUs skyrocket in cost.

Next, if I could make a quick wish, it would be to take a couple of learnings from Nvidia. Dynamic frame generation would be significant not just on-laptop performance, but also plugging into monitors and TVs.

And finally, there’s one area that Team Green has had the lead for years that Intel needs to catch up on — game compatibility. Don’t get me wrong, they’re working on it and all 50+ XeSS 2 titles support XeSS 3. But we need more titles on this list!

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• Samsung just confirmed 20% higher prices for Galaxy Book 6 with Intel Core Ultra Series 3 — here's what this means for you
• ‘Chaotic’ RAM pricing won’t kill PC gaming, a CEO told me — and history backs him up

If you’re a gamer like me, then you no doubt have a visceral reaction whenever you hear the words “integrated graphics.” And that’s not without reason; for years, laptops featuring integrated graphics couldn’t do much more than edit a spreadsheet or stream Netflix. If you wanted to play anything more demanding than Stardew Valley on a laptop, you were out of luck.

However, as we head into 2026, the dream of 1080p AAA gaming on an ultraportable is finally becoming a reality.

So, why am I making such a bold claim? It’s because things have rapidly changed since 2021, especially as handhelds like the Steam Deck OLED and Asus ROG Ally forced AMD and (eventually Intel) to make silicon that was powerful enough to play AAA games but battery-efficient enough to last for a decent amount of time.

This shift in focus has trickled down to the best laptops, first with battery life — such as with machines packing Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips — and now with gaming performance, as we’ve seen with Panther Lake.

Thanks to AMD’s Strix Halo and Intel’s Panther Lake architectures, I think we’re on the verge of a revolution. High-speed LPDDR5X RAM and AI-driven upscaling like AMD’s FSR 4 and Intel’s XeSS 3 will also play a part in delivering 1080p gaming in graphically demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077. This year, your new “work” laptop could secretly be a gaming powerhouse. That’s pretty exciting stuff!

Here’s why I think integrated graphics are the future of gaming laptops.

A quick history

Before diving into the meat of this article, I want to provide a brief overview of how we got here. Back in 2021, Intel Iris Xe was the effective king of integrated graphics. However, playing games meant dropping the resolution to 720p (or lower, if possible) and using Low graphical settings. If you tried to play something like Cyberpunk 2077, you’d be treated to a slideshow. For actual gaming, you needed one of the best gaming laptops.

Things changed in 2023 thanks to AMD’s Radeon 780M. This was the chip that powered high-end handhelds like the original ROG Ally. It proved that the RDNA architecture could be scaled down and deliver satisfying performance with integrated graphics. In 2024, Intel responded with its Arc-powered Meteor Lake chip, which was a fine effort but left a lot to be desired in terms of performance and battery life.

Now in 2026, with the likes of Strix Halo and Panther Lake, we’re getting chips powerful enough to run games at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. If you had told me this would happen five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you — but here we are. What a difference five years can make!

Intel Panther Lake

I was on the floor at CES 2026 when Intel demoed Panther Lake (Core Ultra Series 3), and it changed my outlook on integrated graphics. Built on the Intel 18A process, these chips promise a monumental leap in efficiency and performance.

In live benchmarks, I saw the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H deliver a massive performance uplift over the previous generation. The secret sauce is the AI. By using the onboard NPU 5 (Neural Processing Unit) to power XeSS 3, Intel has tripled frame rates in Cyberpunk 2077 without cranking the fans to 100%.

By offloading the heavy lifting of AI upscaling and frame generation to the NPU, the GPU can focus entirely on graphics. In turn, this promises to deliver better battery life than you’d get from standard gaming laptops that often run out of juice in less than two hours.

I’m going off Intel’s claims and our own hands-on experience, but right now, I expect to see impressive results when we get Panther Lake laptops into our testing lab.

The end of "budget" gaming laptops

This next bit could be controversial, but given the developments we’ve seen with integrated graphics, I can see a future where “budget” gaming laptops with dedicated GPUs are no longer a thing. Processors like AMD’s Ryzen AI Max 300 (Strix Halo) could make that happen.

One of the things that makes Strix Halo different is its memory architecture. Traditionally, iGPUs were throttled by a 128-bit memory bus shared with the CPU. Strix Halo solves this problem by featuring a huge 256-bit memory bus, which provides up to 500 GB/s of bandwidth — matching high-end dedicated cards.

Based on early performance data and our own testing, Strix Halo-powered AMD Ryzen chips match or beat mobile GPUs like the RTX 4050 and even the RTX 4060.

Our Asus ROG Flow Z13 review really nails the point home. In our testing, we found that Asus’ 2-in-1 laptop is the epitome of balance. As our own Jason England said in that review, it’s hard to recommend a heavy plastic brick when a sleek professional machine like this can deliver the same frames per second and last twice as long.

Gaming handhelds

I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing and testing the best handheld gaming consoles for the last three years, and they’re the ultimate proof that iGPUs can deliver fantastic gaming experiences. Devices like the Lenovo Legion Go 2 (with its gorgeous 8.8-inch OLED), Asus ROG Ally X, and MSI Claw A8 that run on the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip are a testament to that.

Thanks to "Dynamic TDP" managed by the NPU, these machines are hitting a level of consistency that I couldn’t imagine back in 2022. While these systems can be as pricey as a gaming laptop—thanks to “RAMageddon,” or the skyrocketing cost of the high-speed LPDDR5X these chips require—their performance can be top-notch with the right settings.

If a 7-inch device can run Starfield at 1080p on High settings, the argument for a dedicated entry-level GPU in a 15-inch laptop starts to fall apart.

Outlook

Panther Lake and Strix Halo chips heavily rely on frame generation to deliver better performance and sharper graphics, which I know can be a sore spot for some gamers. While I understand the sentiment, it’s not a stance I take. The way I see it, as long as I can get consistently smooth frame rates and sharp visuals, I don’t care how I get there.

2026 could be the year when the line between gaming and work laptops effectively gets erased. As someone who appreciates thin and light laptops but also wants the power to run AAA games, not having to decide between design and performance is a huge game-changer.

Dedicated GPUs aren’t going anywhere, but they might just be for hardcore enthusiasts. The rest of us can play our games on sleek laptops with powerful iGPUs instead.

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• Intel Panther Lake could power the future of handheld gaming
• Leaker compares Intel's Panther Lake with rumored AMD 'Canis' chips
• AMD claims its Ryzen AI CPUs beat Intel Panther Lake for gaming and AI

In a surprising twist, a new leak regarding Lenovo's next gaming laptops may have come from the company itself. And the leak appears to reveal the first true Windows 11 on ARM gaming laptop based on the upcoming Nvidia N1X chip.

The new laptops were spotted by dataminer Huang514613, who tweeted out a series of product codes for upcoming Lenovo devices.

Here's what we know about Lenovo product codes to help us understand what these actually mean. Typically, the first number you see in the code is the screen size. So for the Legion Pro 7, found on the Lenovo site, the product code is 16IAX10H.

So, that device has a 16-inch display. The first letter in the code refers to its platform: A= AMD, I= Intel, N= Nvidia and Q= Qualcomm. Other information includes the chip number.

On the Lenovo Legion Space support page under the supported devices section, a surprising code makes an appearance; the Legion 7 15N1X11, which means its a 15-inch gaming laptop powered by the Nvidia N1X chipset.

Here are other devices that Huang spotted that will likely be powered by Nvidia N1X and N1 CPUs.

• Ideapad Slim 5 14N1V11
• Ideapad Slim 5 16N1V11
• Legion 7 15N1X11
• Yoga Pro 7 15N1V11
• Yoga Pro 7 15N1X11
• Yoga 9 2-in-1 16N1X11

What makes this leak stand out is that it hasn't yet been revealed when Nvidia's consumer N1-series would actually debut in gaming laptops. It was suspected that we would have to wait at least a year before anything would actually debut.

This means Lenovo will ship a Legion gaming laptop powered by the N1 chip as a direct competitor with AMD and even Qualcomm, which makes ARM systems. However, laptops and mini PCs that use Qualcomm's systems aren't gaming machines.

This could be one of the first true Windows 11 on ARM gaming laptops. However, the dataminer didn't provide more information beyond the code existing.

The question is whether or not Lenovo's Nvidia laptop will debut before Dell's version. Earlier this week, our colleagues at Tom's Hardware reported that a Dell laptop featuring an N1X chip is will debut in the "first quarter of 2026" and will likely be under the company's Alienware brand.

What's so special about the Nvidia N1-series?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has previously confirmed that the N1-series is based on the company's DGX Spark AI systems and is powered by a GB10 superchip based on N1 silicon.

The GB10 features a 20-core ARM CPU, but is paired with an RTX 5070 GPU. It could have up to 128GB of LPDDR5X memory, though how much it actually ships with may get altered by the ongoing RAM crisis.

Meanwhile, Nvidia may already be developing a second-generation N2 chip that will debut in 2027.

Stay tuned to Tom's Guide for the latest and we can't wait to get one of these new Windows 11 on ARM gaming laptops in to test out for ourselves.

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• ‘RTX 5070 is the sweet spot’: Scan CEO reveals what Nvidia GPU PC gamers actually want
• 'Basically a photograph interacting with you at 500 frames per second': Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shares his vision of the future of PC gaming, and how the company plans to tackle GPU pricing crisis

Asus pulled out all the stops with its lineup of next-gen gaming laptops at CES 2026, with its bonkers dual-screen Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo and a Death Stranding-inspired ROG Flow Z13. But one key device surprisingly didn't make an appearance: the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with Panther Lake.

In many ways, this is Asus' flagship machine that's one of the best laptops around, and while there were updated machines with RTX 50-series, the leaked integrated model was canned. Well, sort of, as we got a chance to see the ROG Zephyrus G14 with an Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip during a hands-on demo in December, and there was no discrete GPU in sight.

Sporting an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H with integrated Intel Arc B390 graphics, this would be the first Zephyrus G14 without a GPU. As with the current Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025), these laptops usually come with graphics cards now up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080. However, with the power to game on an Intel Panther Lake chip, Asus was looking to shift gears.

For now, though, this wasn't meant to be. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with an Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip mysteriously vanished despite an upcoming reveal, but we now have some insight behind its apparent cancellation.

What happened?

During the lead-up to CES 2026, we got a preview of the ROG Zephyrus G14 with Intel Arc B390 power during an Asus hands-on event in December. Because of this, we were anticipating its big reveal during the CES showcase.

However, at the last-minute, Asus pulled the laptop from the show. It was briefly seen at Intel's demo booth, but was reportedly later removed from the area and wasn't seen again (as told by French outlet Les Numériques).

Many believe the ROG Zephyrus G14 was cancelled or at least postponed due to supply chain issues, with Asus later confirming a "change in strategy" for the laptop. Due to this, it is now looking to be cancelled.

After hearing about the Intel Core Ultra X9 G14's cancellation, we started asking around and found other companies confirming a struggle to nail down supply. So our own Jason England put the question to Intel themselves in an interview that will be published soon.

"A perfect combination of industry-level component shortages, significantly increased demand because of how good the chips are and also ramping up production, you're getting mixed signals depending on where the different partners are," Nish Neelalojanan, Senior Director of Product Management at Intel, commented.

"Good news is there are plenty of X9 designs available. So as a gamer, you will be able to go buy an X9 system from your favorite retailers. There will be availability."

While we will see laptops equipped with an Intel Core Ultra X9 chip for integrated graphics gaming performance, it won't be from the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 right now. But perhaps this wouldn't have been the best fit after all.

Not the right fit?

During an interview with Asus, I asked whether we'd see integrated graphics on laptops, with Asus' Director of Technical Marketing Sascha Krohn stating: "I would say we're definitely getting into the territory where that becomes a possibility." However, the timing may not be right for the ROG Zephyrus G14.

It's clear that gaming on an Intel Core Ultra Series X9 or X7 processor has seen significant improvements in integrated graphics, being able to play the likes of Battlefield 6 at over 140 FPS at max settings without a discrete GPU. However, it still doesn't reach the heights of an RTX 50-series GPU, and the ROG Zephyrus G14 is known for its top-level performance in a compact design.

Asus may have changed plans to make sure its flagship gaming laptop still offered plenty of power to run the latest PC games at a high level of settings, but as Intel states, demand for the chip would mean a very limited supply for the G14, too.

However, this doesn't take away from the perks of an Intel Panther Lake chip being used in a laptop that isn't just made for gaming, but also for productivity, too. After testing Intel Panther Lake, we've seen major gains in power efficiency, and this should result in machines with gaming performance that have a much longer battery life.

At the very least, we will be seeing an Asus TUF Gaming A14 with an AMD Strix Halo chip, giving us powerful integrated graphics in the company's more budget lineup of laptops.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just went eyes-on with Nvidia G-SYNC Pulsar, and now my own gaming monitor feels obsolete
• 'Basically a photograph interacting with you at 500 frames per second': Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shares his vision of the future of PC gaming, and how the company plans to tackle GPU pricing crisis
• I just tested Lenovo’s Legion Pro Rollable concept, and now my gaming laptop feels boring

Gaming has been a massive talking point at CES 2026, and Asus is one of the laptop giants at the forefront of it all. Not just because it's revealed it's bonkers dual-screen Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo or gamer-ready ROG Xreal R1 AR glasses, but also due to it's selection of devices boasting the latest CPUs.

In case you missed it, Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors have finally been announced, with the Core Ultra X9 and X7 chips in laptops offering incredible gaming performance. As in, playing Battlefield 6 at over 140 FPS with onboard multi-frame generation on Asus' new redesigned Zenbook Duo. That's without a discrete GPU, but Intel isn't the only company giving it's CPUs a significant upgrade to its graphics.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme will give laptops the ability to play the latest PC games closer to 100 FPS, while the AMD Strix Halo in the newly announced Asus TUF Gaming A14 and ProArt PX13 offering near-RTX 4070 levels of gaming performance. It's clear integrated graphics is becoming key in 2026, and Asus is incorporating all these chips in its latest lineup of devices.

The question is, will integrated graphics takeover gaming laptops? I decided to ask Sascha Krohn, Asus' Director of Technical Marketing, and even he says, "being able to play Cyberpunk on integrated graphics and it actually looks like Cyberpunk and not Lego Cyberpunk, is really impressive."

But it goes deeper than that, and I even got Asus' take on the RAM crisis and whether we'll see an Asus ROG VR headset after all (since Meta essentially canceled the once-confirmed headset).

Integrated graphics on laptops the future of PC gaming?

"I would say we're definitely getting into the territory where that becomes a possibility. I think that's something that, in the past, you couldn't really do, but I think now we're getting to the point where, and just the fact that you're asking the question — you're not the only one — it shows that if you follow this trend, it is probably going to happen. And it's just a matter of time.

"Are we there right now? I'm not sure if we're already there right now. It's going to be very interesting in the end how the market reacts, like how end users react to this.

"We have a lot of laptops that don't have a dedicated GPU that are not gaming laptops, but people are playing games on them. We don't have any specific data like survey data on how much time do people spend playing games on those devices, but I would guess that people spend more and more time playing games on devices that aren't actually specific gaming devices. Especially with integrated GPUs improving gen-on-gen for the last couple of years.

"We have 120Hz OLED displays on consumer laptops now, which are amazing for playing games. And so if you're looking at casual games, I think that's something that's very feasible today already.

"The latest integrated graphics here are really impressive. I mean, being able to play Cyberpunk 2077 on integrated graphics and it actually looks like Cyberpunk and not Lego Cyberpunk is really impressive. And I think that's definitely making some people consider, 'hey, is that actually not good enough to to play?'

"And I think it really depends on who you ask, right? I think there's a lot of people who will say yes, this is good enough for me, this is totally fine. I don't need more. But calling that a dedicated gaming device is a whole other story, right?

"I think the expectations, once you call it gaming laptop, are probably higher. Gaming laptops are not going to go away anytime soon, even in the long term. And dedicated GPUs are going to still be around for many years. How many people are going to go for dedicated GPUs and how many people are going to go for integrated GPUs, that's something that everybody has a different take on.

"It also depends how you define it, right? Like AMD Strix Halo is really impressive, but at the same time, it feels a little weird calling it an integrated GPU because, um, it isn't... How do you define integrated GPU?

"Historically it was it's built into the die itself. Now if you have a separate die on the same package and you basically just take a discrete GPU and just put it on the same package as the CPU, does that count as integrated GPU? But I think ultimately yes, there's going to be chiplet designs where you have the CPU and the GPU on the same package, and I think that's that's the trend, that's the direction."

Do you think Asus will struggle with the ongoing RAM crisis?

"That is a very big concern I think for everyone in the industry. And especially for our customers as well. Everything that worries our customers obviously worries us as well.

"Luckily enough, even though there's a big trend from the silicon vendors to use LPDDR memory because of the power savings and the increased battery life, so there's a big push there to use on-board memory, we do have still a lot of devices where we have SO-DIMM slots where you can upgrade the memory.

"So our Vivobook series, for example, and our gaming series, the ones that are not focusing on super slim and light, they do still have SO-DIMM slots so you can still upgrade the memory. I think that's something that, in this economy, is going to be very interesting for a lot of people. There's going to be a bigger focus on that, being able to upgrade the memory so you can buy it with maybe 8GB single channel only, and you just upgrade to a second 8GB, have 16GB dual channel, or you replace it.

"And depending on what the memory situation is going to be in the future, you can then adjust based on that. So I think that kind of flexibility is going to be more interesting in 2026. People will focus more on having memory slots; that's going to be a more important spec when they buy a new laptop than it was in 2025, I think.

"I think something that a lot of people aren't aware of — like end users and I think also media — is the amount of time it takes, if the day price changes drastically, for that shockwave to travel through the supply chain until it actually affects the price of devices that you see in Best Buy or Walmart or somewhere else.

"So it takes a couple of months. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised when they see that, "Oh memory prices went up, but oh, laptop prices and phone prices and and also gaming console prices didn't really go up yet." But I think that is still going to happen. It just takes more time until that travels down the supply chain until it reaches the retail stores and e-tail stores.

"So, yeah, just a heads up for everybody who's reading this, that is something that is still going to happen. But on the plus side, the way that we allocate memory and plan for memory, it helps to even it out a little bit. So it's not like going to be a sudden shock, but it's going to be a bit more steady. I do expect memory prices to go up and that is definitely something that nobody's really looking forward to."

Is Asus still looking into VR headsets after Meta apparently canceled Asus' third-party headset?

"I think that was made by our phone division, so I'm not too familiar with that to be honest. I did have it on my radar, I did know about it.

"Yeah, I'm disappointed as well. I'm a big AR/VR enthusiast, so yeah, sad to hear. I hope that it's something that we're still going to pursue, even if that's not going to happen in how it was originally meant to happen apparently.

"We are definitely still pursuing AR and VR in the sense that we have new AR glasses that we're launching here in a partnership with Xreal.

"What I like what Valve have said is that they made [the Steam Frame] a very modular design and they want to create this kind of like infrastructure around it. So third-party enablement is something that Valve has been really good at in the past. And that's something that I'm really excited about.

"And I hope that's something that we can also work together with Valve on. But I haven't heard anything about when it comes to us doing a VR headset, like coming to market in 2026. We're not showing anything or announcing anything here at CES. I do hope that we are going to do a VR device as well, absolutely."

More from Tom's Guide

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• I tried gaming on an Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip — and it kicks off a new era of PC gaming
• Qualcomm announces Snapdragon X2 Plus CPUs at CES 2026 — and it promises an ‘epic’ upgrade

My own world of PC gaming feels a little inconsistent. While I have the impressive Lenovo Legion 5 for playing on-the-go, my home setup benefits from a glorious 32:9 ultrawide OLED panel.

Those extra degrees in my field of view really add to the immersion and gameplay — to the point that anything else I play on just feels constrained.

Well, that’s where the Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable concept comes in, which packs a (yep, you guessed it) rollable OLED display that can extend from 16 inches all the way up to 24 with an ultrawide 24:9 aspect ratio.

And after testing it for a while, anytime I return to a traditional gaming laptop, it just feels so constricting. This is a breakthrough that I wish was a real thing I could buy.

Ultrawide wherever you are

Of course I could go into the tech specs here — RTX 5090, Intel Core Ultra 9, all the LPDDR5X RAM and a massive SSD. But the main focus is that display, so let’s talk about it.

It starts as a 16-inch OLED panel running at 240Hz, and the top lid looks pretty damn thick, almost as if its hiding something special here. In particular, a 3-step ultrawide panel that you can adjust to the requirements of the game you’re playing.

So for example, something like a simple card game or titles only, you can keep to that 16:9 aspect ratio. Stage two takes you to 21:9, and then you can go all the way to 24:9 for that uber immersive gameplay.

Say you’ve got a sim racing rig (shout-out to my racers) and you don’t have your tower near you. This is an ideal replacement with that wide screen. Plus, if you really want to establish dominance at a table in a cafe, you can just stretch that panel.

And this is all done with a mechanism that’s been tested for 25,000 expands and contracts to deliver top reliability too.

Outlook

Of course, this is just a concept, but that doesn’t make it any less heart breaking. I want to use this thing in my day-to-day. The gaming and productivity potential is huge for that massive panel.

But alas, it’s only a prototype, and all I can do is sit here and setup a prayer circle that this becomes a real thing. It’s so OP in the best way.

More from Tom's Guide

• The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo is so overkill and I love it — like if a Nintendo DS got freaky with an RTX 5090
• Intel Panther Lake vs Snapdragon X2 Elite vs AMD Gorgon Point — one chip is already pulling ahead in 2026's CPU war
• I think 2026 will be a breakout year for laptops and a brutal one for buyers

I wanted to love the 2025 Asus TUF Gaming A14, but it’s complicated. For the small uplift in performance courtesy of that RTX 5060, there was a significant price hike and power efficiency took a hit because of it. What was my personal favorite gaming laptop had become a let down, and I moved onto the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10.

But at CES 2026, Asus pulled out a boombox outside my window and serenaded me with a new generation Tuf A14 that ditches the Nvidia altogether and gives me AMD Strix Halo. You know the one — that chip that blew my mind in the Asus ROG Flow Z13.

Can it win back my heart? I can’t say for sure until we’ve got it in the lab, but I’m ready to open my bedroom window and listen to what this system has to say… OK this “Say Anything” metaphor has gone on for too long! Let’s just get into it.

Asus TUF Gaming A14 (2026) specs

When the going gets TUF, the TUF goes integrated

At first glance, you’re getting the same great-looking system — with the same sleek lightweight chassis that feels durable and premium to the touch, the same 14-inch 2.5K IPS panel with 165Hz refresh rate, and the same great keyboard and glass trackpad. All-in-all, the same notebook that captured my heart back in 2024.

But the real glow-up is happening on the inside, courtesy of new AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chips. With these, Team Red wanted to bring that same beefy 40-core GPU you find in the AI Max+ 395 to mid-range laptops like this. That means one of two chips available to you:

• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392: 12 cores/24 threads on the CPU
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388: 8 cores/16 threads on the CPU

Both are still capable of that 60 Teraflops of RDNA 3.5 GPU performance, which as I’ve seen in testing the 395 is near-RTX 4070 levels of gaming performance (1.6x faster gaming performance than M5 MacBook Pro in Cyberpunk 2077) — all on integrated graphics consuming a lot less power than a dedicated Nvidia card.

That is an insane premise for a system that is (hopefully) kept at the mid-range prices Asus has in mind for the machine.

Outlook

Integrated graphics are key to 2026 being the year of the laptop. Here I was thinking I’d moved on — the TUF Gaming A14 had its time in the sun as my significant other, but I was doing better with the Legion.

But Asus is back with flowers, saying “I’ve changed,” and I’m so stoked to give the new A14 a proper test when it launches soon.

More from Tom's Guide

• I’m calling it now: Asus’ new Zephyrus G14 shows where gaming laptops are headed
• I went hands-on with the redesigned MSI Stealth 16 AI+ — it’s actually stealthy now, and gunning for the MacBook Pro
• Intel Panther Lake vs Snapdragon X2 Elite vs AMD Gorgon Point — one chip is already pulling ahead in 2026's CPU war

The Alienware 16 Area-51 has returned to invade Earth in 2026. Unlike the new Dell XPS laptops, Dell’s main gaming division isn’t messing with success, as the new Alienware laptop is a whole lot like the previous model I reviewed. While the Alienware 16 Area-51 might not be an astronomical upgrade, it has something many have asked for — an OLED display!

During a CES 2026 preview event where I also saw the brand-new Dell XPS 14, I briefly went hands-on with this year’s Alienware 16 Area-51. This laptop didn’t have to do much to win me over since the original Alienware 16 Area-51 was my favorite gaming laptop of 2025. However, with the inclusion of a 240Hz OLED panel, lower latency, and improved cooling, it has a strong shot at being one of the best gaming laptops full stop.

Here’s everything we know about the new Alienware 16 Area-51, along with my hands-on impressions of the Alienware 16 Area-51.

Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026) hands-on review: Specs

Alienware 16 Area-51 hands-on review: Price & availability

We don’t yet have a concrete release date for the Alienware 16 Area-51 (2026), but expect it sometime in the first quarter of this year.

Alienware says it will share pricing for this upcoming gaming laptop close to launch.

Alienware 16 Area-51 hands-on review: Display

The biggest upgrade for the Alienware 16 Area-51 is its new OLED panel. Though I didn’t get to test any games, I was impressed by how the desktop background image appeared. There’s a deep contrast between dark and light elements, which serves to make colors appear bolder.

Performance-wise, we get the same fast 240Hz refresh rate as before. However, the response time has gone from 3ms all the way down to 0.2ms. You and I probably won’t feel the difference there, but I’m sure a professional gamer will. Regardless, games should run as smoothly as possible on this display.

We’ll have a better sense of the display once we’ve tested it, but I expect said results to floor me.

Alienware 16 Area-51 hands-on review: Specs and performance

The Alienware 16 Area-51 will pack up to an RTX 5090 laptop GPU, up to an Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU, up to 64GB of RAM and up to 12TB of storage. In other words, there’s not much new on the component front.

That said, we could see better benchmark results since Alienware says it has upgraded the laptop’s Cryo-Chamber cooling tech, which reportedly results in up to 35% improved airflow and 15% lower acoustics (i.e. less noise).

As with the display, we’ll see what the new Alienware 16 Area-51 can do when we put it through our benchmark tests.

Alienware 16 Area-51 hands-on review: Design

I’m a fan of the Alienware 16 Area-51’s otherworldly design, so I’m glad the team decided not to mess with this aspect. The Liquid Teal finish and curved edges provide a distinct look that’s unlike other gaming laptops. The chassis’ color shifts under different lighting conditions, and the RGB lighting on the back mimics the motions of the aurora borealis.

Like with the unit I reviewed, you can equip this laptop with a Cherry MX ultra-low-profile mechanical keyboard. If you’re a mechanical keyboard fan like me, then you’ll love the clicky keys and short travel distance. The touchpad still isn’t all that large, but it has RGB lighting, which kind of makes up for that.

One of my complaints with the original was that it was very heavy, and the same is true since the new Alienware 16 Area-51 also weighs 7.49 pounds. You might want to mostly use this laptop at home since traveling with it could be a pain.

Alienware 16 Area-51 hands-on review: Outlook

While the Alienware 16 Area-51 isn’t receiving a major overhaul, the inclusion of an OLED panel could be enough to win people over.

We’ll have to see if this otherworldly gaming laptop has what it takes when it releases later this year.

Alienware has plenty to show off at CES 2026, including all-new gaming laptops boasting OLED displays and more. Now, it's just introduced one of its slimmest machine to date — and it comes close to a MacBook Air.

Later this year, we can now expect an Alienware ultra-slim gaming laptop, coming in at just 0.66 inches (17mm) thin, while aiming to deliver the performance we expect from Alienware's lineup of laptops. Compared to the sturdy Alienware 16 Area-51 at 1.12 inches, the new model is set to be 50% smaller. I've seen it up close, and it's just the laptop gamers and creators after a portable machine will want (me included).

The ultra-slim gaming laptop is set to arrive in both 14- and 16-inch sizes, all while keeping the design aesthetic of its premium Area-51 counterparts, including a light-up RGB touchpad. Alienware notes that the compact design means ths model won't reach the heights of its flagship laptops, but it will still offer high-performance CPUs. (Think Intel Core Ultra 300, and Nvidia discrete GPUs (RTX 50-series is surely in the cards.)

"We set out to build a laptop that delivers features that appeal to gamers first and foremost, but also excels for people who need a powerful device for creative projects, productivity and everything in between," Alienware states.

Compared to Apple's MacBook Air M4, which comes in at 0.44 inches, the all-new ultra-slim is still slightly thicker. However, you can expect the Alienware model to be around the same size as the portable Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 at 0.6 inches — and that's one of the best gaming laptops you can grab for portability.

As for how it looks? It's not like your usual Alienware Aurora or Area-51 models. Expect a sleek, minimalist design with a subtle Alienware logo right on the back. It's a laptop that fits into an office setting or at a coffee shop, as well as on any gaming desk.

The official release date, pricing and specs are still up in the air, but the ultra-slim will make its debut later on in 2026 at the earliest.

A more affordable option

Along with the ultra-slim model, Alienware also announced an entry-level gaming laptop that it will add to its lineup this year.

It's slim pickings for details for now, as we have yet to know the official price of this model and its specs, but expect a step down from the Alienware 16 Aurora laptops at a more affordable price point. So, think an RTX 5050 and possibly an RTX 5060.

At the very least, Alienware promises "strong gaming performance at our most accessible price point yet." That will be a big win considering RAM price hikes.

It may be a while before we see these laptops on the market, but in the meantime, check out what else is in store in our CES 2026 live blog.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just held the world's thinnest tablet at CES 2026 — and it makes the iPad Pro look bloated
• Intel Panther Lake vs Snapdragon X2 Elite vs AMD Gorgon Point — one chip is already pulling ahead in 2026's CPU war
• I saw Samsung’s 2026 flagship OLED and Micro RGB TVs side by side — here's the one I like more

Alienware's goal for CES 2026 is to "push the boundaries of what’s possible in PC gaming." And it's certainly looking to do so with its entry-to-mid-level gaming laptop that now packs an OLED display.

As announced at the world's biggest tech event today (January 5), the Alienware 16X Aurora will come equipped with an OLED display, being one of the first (along with its mighty Alienware 16 Area-51 sibling) to feature a 16-inch premium anti-glare OLED panel.

Not only will this panel reduce gloss by 32%, which keeps glare and reflections to a minimum, but you can also expect a wicked-fast 0.2ms response time for fast-paced gameplay, 620 nits peak HDR brightness and HDR True Black 500 support.

Otherwise, this is the same laptop that stole the show in many sales events, boasting Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 GPUs for the latest in gaming performance (DLSS 4 included). What's more, we can expect more Intel Core Ultra 200HX CPU options, although current models are also available with Core Ultra 7 255HX and Core Ultra 9 275HX on Dell's store.

When I tested the Alienware 16X Aurora, I was impressed by the performance it offered (especially at a discount) and its sizeable 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS display with a 240Hz refresh rate. With the all-new anti-glare OLED panel it's getting, it moves the needle into becoming a proper mid-range machine.

Deeper blacks, brighter colors and getting rid of reflections boost visuals to make those stunning single-player titles shine. We'll have to see it in action, as we have yet to see if this laptop will still deliver its high 240Hz refresh rate with OLED now onboard. But it's a welcome upgrade nevertheless.

For a taste of the performance you can expect in this laptop, check out the benchmarks I tested below (equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX CPU, an RTX 5060 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD).

The Alienware 16X Aurora with OLED will be available in the first three months of 2026, with pricing yet to be announced. I was already impressed with this laptop last year, and the anti-glare OLED upgrade is sure to see this machine push more affordable gaming even further (we'll see about that price first).

For more of the latest announcements from Las Vegas, we've got it all in our CES 2026 live blog.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just held the world's thinnest tablet at CES 2026 — and it makes the iPad Pro look bloated
• Intel Panther Lake vs Snapdragon X2 Elite vs AMD Gorgon Point — one chip is already pulling ahead in 2026's CPU war
• I saw Samsung’s 2026 flagship OLED and Micro RGB TVs side by side — here's the one I like more

The Asus ROG Flow Z13 didn’t need a glow up. It is already a Tom’s Guide Award winner for its sleek design and mighty gaming performance. But Kojima Productions gave it one anyway, and it’s one of the most striking 2-in-1s I’ve ever seen.

Every angle tells a new story, while giving away clues to that awesome performance inside, courtesy of that AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chipset. Not only that, but the collab extends to a whole suite of peripherals and accessories, too, giving your desk a real “Death Stranding” makeover.

Nothing quite like it visually

Combining the Ludens of Kojima with the gaming motif of Asus ROG, this is a bold, challenging design that comes along once in a while in a sea of aluminum shells. The dynamic edges paired with the bold colors and use of angularity across this CNC-milled chassis paired with carbon fiber gives it a unique aesthetic on any desk.

“I wanted to create a gadget that belongs to Ludens, and I integrated that into this PC design,” artist Yoji Shinkawa commented. “Parts and designs are inspired by Ludens and has its essence.”

This leads to cheeky nods to Kojima Productions and “Death Stranding” over the ROG Flow Z13 — making it look like something you’d see Sam Porter-Bridges deliver across many hundreds of miles.

A bold digitized typeface identifying several key elements across the system like the battery and heat vent, and the keyboard keys reading both English and Japanese letters with WASD keys that are designed to stand out.

There’s nothing quite like this, not just because of those monstrous integrated graphics of AMD’s Strix Halo chip that could hang with the likes of the RTX 4070 dedicated GPU, but also the looks that are sure to catch your gaze.

Not just a new laptop

But this extends into a headset, gaming pad and mouse, too — all of which pack these same concept art sketches from Shinkawa and bring together the worlds of ROG and Kojima nicely.

There may be some times when you look at a Kojima game and think “wait…what’s going on?” but the beautiful artistry really makes sense on physical devices like these. Now if we could get something similar on the ROG Zephyrus G14…please!

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• I went hands-on with the redesigned MSI Stealth 16 AI+ — it’s actually stealthy now, and gunning for the MacBook Pro
• Gaming on Snapdragon X Elite laptops just got a whole lot better — I tested the latest update and saw 40% faster gameplay
• Intel Panther Lake vs Snapdragon X2 Elite vs AMD Gorgon Point — one chip is already pulling ahead in 2026's CPU war

Asus has come into CES 2026 swinging with the (frankly) bonkers ROG Zephyrus Duo — the world’s first dual-screen 16-inch gaming laptop that gives you a wall of OLED for all your gaming.

The Duos of old focused on offering a letterbox display on the keyboard deck that could be used as a secondary panel for Spotify playlists and a web browser showing a gameplay tutorial. But clearly copying the Zenbook Duo’s homework, Asus has taken the concept and turned it up to 11. Let’s look closer.

A premium build

Yes, that headline is a little provocative, but…I mean just look at it. Those two 16-inch 3K OLED displays are drop-dead gorgeous, running at a buttery smooth 120Hz and sporting HDR support.

Both displays are attached onto a hinge that can bend back a full 320-degrees too, and are protected by that CNC-milled aluminum chassis with a strong, wide kickstand to keep it all stable. The keyboard and touchpad feels good (no more squished touchpad because of the second panel), and it feels premium and powerful to the touch.

And yes, I checked: that super versatile hinge does unlock several gameplay modes, including (most importantly) tent mode. While that does make the idea of local multiplayer on a laptop an interesting possibility (especially if playing sports titles like EA Sports FC), split-screen games cannot be split across panels. It’s a small frustration that Asus will have to sort out with developers.

A monstrous spec list

For this to be a Zephyrus laptop, this machine needs the crazy good spec list. It should come as absolutely no surprise that Asus delivers on that front, with an Intel Core Ultra Series 3 CPU, up to RTX 5090 laptop GPU, 64GB LPDDR5X RAM and a 2TB SSD — pumping 135W through that GPU. You also get plenty of I/O including Thunderbolt 4, and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity to boot.

Cooling is maintained with a vapor chamber, graphite sheet and Liquid Metal to maintain optimal temperatures for sustained performance and reduced fan noise. And those ROG Nebula HDR OLED displays? They’re Pantone-verified and come packed with Nvidia G-Sync.

Everything has been considered here. Asus has taken the dual-screen laptop concept and thrown the kitchen sink at it to make the next-gen ROG Zephyrus Duo. And while I’m sure the price will be truly ludicrous, I can’t help but hold a soft spot for this as one of the coolest laptops I’ve seen so far this decade.

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• Intel Panther Lake could power the future of handheld gaming — here's why AMD should be nervous
• Intel Panther Lake vs Snapdragon X2 Elite vs AMD Gorgon Point — one chip is already pulling ahead in 2026's CPU war
• I think 2026 will be a breakout year for laptops and a brutal one for buyers

MSI’s addressing the subtlety of a premium gaming laptop with the Stealth 16, but what about for those who don’t care about stealthiness? What if you just want the most powerful system on the planet?

That’s where the new MSI Raider 16 Max HX comes in — just announced at CES 2026. I got an early look at the laptop, and yes, it is very “in your face” about its gaming looks, but with a massive 300 watts of total system power pumping through its veins, a tasty display upgrade to OLED, a beefy cooling tune-up and a 10% smaller build, this could very the beefiest system you see in 2026.

MSI Raider 16 Max MX specs

Sleeker than you’d expect

• 10% smaller in size than the previous Raider, while being 25% more power efficient.
• Huge cooling system with triple fans and a five-exhaust heatsink design allows for insane wattage.
• RGB everywhere, increased I/O in all the right places, and fast access to upgrading your SSD and RAM.

The re-engineered Raider 16 Max HX is all about the small details coming together to provide serious speed boosts where it matters. In these tweaks, MSI has been able to make it 10% smaller in size while providing more bang for your buck in the performance and ergonomics department.

For example, there’s much more flare courtesy of a strip of RGB across the bottom lip, and per-key RGB provided by Steelseries on the keyboard, which feels great to use. Throw in a tasty improvement in I/O with an SD card reader, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, all the USB-A you’d need, and HDMI 2.1 placed tactically on the back for better cable management and you’re onto a winner here.

Then there’s what’s happening on the inside. First off, you’ve got super easy upgradeability of RAM and SSD storage (provided the prices aren’t too crazy in the future) with a two-screw door to get to all the slots you need for it.

And second, there’s a monstrous cooling system here — consisting of an all-new Cooler Boost Trinity with Intra Flow thermal system to be specific. Put simply, take the back off and you’ll find three fans, six heat pipes, five exhaust vents and a phase-change thermal compound (safer to use than liquid metal), which allows for much more power to be pumped through the system.

The number? Up to 300 watts of total system power. That is insane for a gaming laptop and ensures this is the most powerful system in the world right now, while also quietening the fans from the jumbo jets you found in the last generation model.

Insane horsepower

• Refreshed Intel Core Ultra 200HX CPU with up to RTX 5090 GPU.
• Gorgeous 240Hz OLED display, up to 128GB DDR5 RAM and 2x NVMe SSD slots.

And with all that power potential, you need the chips that will take full advantage of it. Here, MSI has (obviously) gone for the top of the range RTX 5090 (other options are available) alongside the refreshed Intel Core Ultra 200HX chipset or AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX.

Power efficiency is not the biggest concern here, so focusing on the CPU that has the highest performance potential is critical. No need for Panther Lake's slow sipping of power here.

Alongside that, you can spec it out with up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM and you’ve got two PCIe SSD slots (one Gen 4 and the other Gen 5) for zippy SSD loading speeds.

All of this together will surely lead to monstrous gaming performance that pushes the max 240Hz of that mesmerizing 16-inch QHD+ OLED display (available in the Intel model only).

Outlook

This is part of MSI’s revived efforts in the gaming laptop space — simplifying the product lineup and listening to what customers want here. That involves more I/O, better displays, a slimmer chassis and an improved portable experience all around.

I didn’t even get to mention the loud-yet-clear Nahimic 3-enhanced speakers with surprisingly good bass from the woofers, or the great tactility from that keyboard and touchpad. But as it all came together in my hands, it began to make sense.

Up until this point, every super pricey MSI gaming system like the Titan 18 HX I tested last year always went hard on the performance, but also fell shy on the usability portion of it. Now, the team’s elevating all the elements, and while it will be expensive (the company’s not mentioned a price yet), you’re much more likely to feel that value on the day-to-day.

More from Tom's Guide

• I tested MSI’s redesigned Prestige laptops and they’re dangerously close to being my default recommendation
• I just switched to a 2-in-1 laptop with real aura — here's how the Lenovo Yoga 9i Aura Edition gave my workflow a glow up
• The Framework Laptop 16 is my favorite laptop of the year — here's why

Over the years, I’ve really wanted to love the MSI Stealth 16 — it’s the premium notebook packed with power that doesn't ignore the utilitarian check boxes that make for a good laptop.

Only one problem: it was never really stealthy. It still screamed gaming laptop from afar and never really fit the bill as something you concealed its true performance.

Well, MSI’s gone back to the drawing board and announced a fully redesigned Stealth 16 AI+ at CES 2026. And after going hands-on with the system, well, it looks awfully MacBook Pro-ish.

But it’s a lot more than just a facelift, as it checks off a lot of the things I noted in saying 2026 will be the year of the laptop, and with its impressive horsepower concealed, it has a solid chance of gunning for Apple’s top spot. Let me explain.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ specs

Fresh looks

• Full aluminum chassis in a deep gray finish that looks (and feels) super premium.
• Great-feeling keyboard, huge touchpad, plenty of well-placed I/O.

So where do you begin in making a laptop stealthy? Well you go for a stealthy construction, which the 16 AI+ delivers on with its full-aluminum chassis that comes in at just 16.6mm thin and weighs just under 4.4 pounds. Yes, that sounds hefty when you think about ultraportables, but this is a fully-featured gaming system — through that lens this is super lightweight.

The dynamic lines on the lid give it a subtle edginess, and the slim, sharp side profile gives a serious professional vibe while only whispering “gamer” with that subtle RGB keyboard. Speaking of the board, those keys feel seriously good here for working with a nice tactility and a comfortable landing for each press.

Then further south, you’ll find that ocean of a touchpad — a properly massive canvas to make huge sweeping multitouch gestures across your work, with a satisfying mechanical click to it too. Then along the sides, you’ll find all the I/O you could ever need for work and play, including Thunderbolt 4, USB-A, HDMI 2.1 and Gigabit Ethernet.

Boosted internals

• Gorgeous 16-inch QHD+ OLED display up top, running at 240Hz refresh rate.
• Specs up to Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU and RTX 5090 laptop GPU.
• Up to 128GB RAM and two SSD slots — both easily accessible for upgradeability.
• Massive 90Wh battery and upgraded cooling gives you massive wattage potential.

Then we turn our attention to the horsepower inside. To step up to the MacBook Pro, you need some facemelting speeds, while also providing strong power efficiency. And while I can’t guarantee the latter, there’s definitely going to be that peak prosumer performance with the combination of Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU (Panther Lake) and RTX 5090 GPU.

This is a dynamite gaming duo, which will make any titles flow beautifully on that mesmerizing QHD+ OLED panel’s 240Hz refresh rate. Laying my eyes on the screen, I was immediately hypnotized by the flash flood of color.

But what’s also important here is the 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and SGS Eye Care. That means it’s not just a display you can game on, it’s one you can get stuff done on too — like advanced 4K video edits and RAW Photoshop grading.

Now, one common trap a lot of these premium gaming laptops (think Asus ROG Zephyrus G14) fall into is in its mission to keep everything luxurious, thermal management is often demoted and we’re left with powerful components not getting enough watts pumped through them.

Well, flip over the Stealth 16 AI+, there’s a hint that MSI’s not playing around with that huge vent across the back. This is part of the upgraded Cooler Boost with more fans and a multi-directional exhaust design — including these subtle vents above the keyboard. That increases the power pumped through that GPU by 20W to 125W if you have an RTX 5090/5080/5070Ti, or 115W if you have anything lower than that.

Top it off with a 90Wh battery that is sure to give you decent stamina in day-to-day productivity, and you’ve got a mighty system here!

Outlook

MSI came in with one mission with the Stealth 16 AI+ — give us a gaming laptop that doesn’t scream “gaming laptop,” and the team nailed it with this seriously sleek-looking system that feels premium to the touch, great to work on, but just so happens to pack a whole lot of horsepower and a delicious display to boot.

I’m really excited to get this into Tom’s Guide’s testing lab to really put it through its paces, and see whether the promise does live up to the expectations. But from early impressions of my time with it, there’s a lot to be excited about.

More from Tom's Guide

• I tested MSI’s redesigned Prestige laptops and they’re dangerously close to being my default recommendation
• I just switched to a 2-in-1 laptop with real aura — here's how the Lenovo Yoga 9i Aura Edition gave my workflow a glow up
• The Framework Laptop 16 is my favorite laptop of the year — here's why

It's been a monumental year for laptops. First, Nvidia kicked off the year by releasing its next-gen GeForce RTX 50-series mobile GPUs, then we got an all-new range of Intel Core Ultra series 2 CPUs and just recently, AMD launched FSR Redstone for AI-powered resolution scaling, ray tracing and frame generation.

What does that all translate to? Many of the fastest and most powerful gaming laptops that the Tom's Guide team and I have tested. It's been eye-opening watching numbers skyrocket in the suite of benchmarks and real-world tests we've been putting the latest systems of 2025 through, so trust me when I say we're at the peak of gaming on laptops right now.

But just how far has the bar been raised in PC gaming on portable systems? Well, it comes down to three gaming laptops we've tested this year: the Razer Blade 18 (2025), Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) and MSI Titan 18 HX.

As tested, these are among the most powerful mobile machines on the market, but that doesn't necessarily mean these are the best gaming laptops for everyone. It isn't just about performance, after all, as other key factors such as their display, design, battery life and, most importantly right now, price play a vital role in our testing.

Right now, though, this is all about raw power, and 2025 has seen some monstrous systems to play the demanding, AAA titles with settings cranked up to max and power through productivity apps for video editing, 3D modeling and more.

For today's cutting-edge performance in a laptop, these are the finest examples of the most powerful laptops we've tested. So, let's get into the numbers.

Specs

For context, here's a look at the top-grade components under the hood of each of the laptops. Each follows a familiar pattern: Intel Core Ultra 9 processors, top-of-the-line RTX 5090 GPUs, 64GB of DDR5 RAM and massive 18-inch displays. With the power they hold, you bet these don't come cheap — they're all over $5,000.

These are the specs we tested them with, but of course, you can configure them to keep the price down.

I've also added our top pick from 2024, the Alienware M18 R2, which rocks the same type of premium specs but just from the previous generation. That includes an Intel Core i9 14900HX CPU, RTX 4090 GPU, 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. This is to show the gap between today's gaming laptops and some of the best high-end performance from the previous year.

Gaming performance

As you can imagine, all of these laptops come packed with the latest specs, including Intel Core Ultra 9 CPUs and RTX 5090 GPUs. So, no matter the machine, expect high frame rates at maximum settings across the board.

That said, you'll find a couple that eke out more performance to deliver even stronger results. In our lab tests, we perform benchmarks in a number of popular PC titles, including Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong and Assassin's Creed Shadows. These are heavy hitters on systems, and give us a good idea of the power a gaming laptop can dish out.

Using a baseline resolution of 1920 x 1080 and turning off Nvidia's DLSS 4 to get raw performance benchmarks over AI-enhanced frame generation, here are the results.

Take note, the games here are at max settings, so they're being pushed to the limit at 1080p resolution. Coming out on top, the Razer Blade 18 and Alienware 18 Area-51 are nearly neck-and-neck, depending on the title, while the MSI Titan 18 HX falls a tad behind, despite still bringing powerful results.

In pretty much all games, though, you can expect each laptop to be near or surpass 60 FPS, which is an incredibly mighty benchmark to achieve. That's especially true when comparing it to the Alienware m18 R2, which just manages 60 FPS but can reach the heights of the 70+ FPS the rest of this year's laptops deliver in Cyberpunk 2077.

Now, when turning on DLSS 4, expect frame rates to jump to well over 200 FPS, and that even includes when using the incredibly demanding path tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077. Of course, frame rates will drop the higher the resolution is, but you can still expect ridiculously high numbers at 1440p, 1600p and 4K resolution (if the laptop allows it).

I mean, there's a reason why the Razer Blade 18 with its dual-resolution 18-inch display hits 240Hz at 4K. Either way, no matter what game you throw at these beasts, they'll run remarkably smoothly.

General performance

It isn't just the RTX 5090 GPUs pulling the weight, as these laptops also come with premium specs like the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 HX series CPUs, an incredible 64GB of DDR5 RAM and up to a whopping 6TB for storage. The standard is high, and the numbers reflect this.

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX processor in the MSI Titan 18 HX is Team Blue's fastest mobile chip, but the Core Ultra 9 275HX is still one of the top dogs. Interestingly, according to Geekbench 6 benchmarks, the 285HX slightly falls behind the 275HX silicon. Still, MSI's fittingly named Titan gaming laptop has an edge.

From the multicore performance to our Handbrake test, which measures how long a laptop takes to transcode a specific 4K video file to 1080p resolution, the MSI Titan 18 HX offers some of the highest numbers we've seen. CPUs have clearly seen a boost in performance over the past generation, as you can see with the Intel Core i9-14900HX chip in the Alienware m18 R2, leading to faster multitasking and handling demanding apps.

All that said, the Razer Blade 18 takes the crown as being the laptop with the most potential to handle AI tasks. Despite each machine holding the same mobile graphics card, the Geekbench AI GPU benchmark that measures AI performance shows the RTX 5090 in the Blade 18 wins.

These are no doubt powerful results, but you know what laptop offers similar benchmarks? MacBooks. Specifically, the MacBook Pro M5 and MacBook Pro M4 Pro. These aren't made for gaming (although they can), but thanks to Apple's mighty M-series silicon, these chips are already catching up or surpassing the results on these gaming laptops. Take a look at our MacBook Pro M5 benchmarks, and you'll find the M5 offers a Geekbench single-core score of 4288 and a multicore result of 17926, while the M4 Pro delivers 3910 and 22822, respectively.

Regardless, this also shows just how far gaming laptops have come, and we'll soon see even higher results in 2026 once we get our hands on Intel Panther Lake and Snapdragon X2 Elite CPUs in laptops.

Editor's pick

For the ultimate gaming experience (and productivity performance) a laptop can offer right now, each of these laptops we tested in 2025 will do the trick. They offer more than enough performance for power users, and thanks to their premium internals, it's safe to say these machines will keep up with the latest tech for years to come.

But if I had to choose one out of them all, it would have to be the Razer Blade 18 (2025). Yes, it's big and chunky, but its gaming performance is through the roof even compared to its competition, it boasts a dual-resolution 18-inch display with 4K at 240Hz and 1200p at 440Hz, it's uniquely upgradeable for RAM and storage (not that you'll need it at its highest configuration) and it's actually quite compact considering its size-class.

Now, this is all for top-end performance, and you'll be paying an absolute premium for it. At 5,199, this gaming laptop will be putting a massive dent in anyone's wallet. This one is for the power users who require the highest power in a desktop replacement-like laptop, and not everyone needs that kind of performance to play the latest PC games at high frame rates.

That's why we rate other laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) and Lenovo Legion 5i among the best laptops to get, as they're far more affordable while still bringing high-end performance. At the very least, you can get the Razer Blade 18 for a whole lot less if you opt for more affordable specs.

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I penned my first article for Tom’s Guide entitled ‘I’ve been building PCs for 20 years — now I’d just buy a gaming laptop instead’. Though it may not have quite set the interwebs fully on fire, it certainly got certain folks hot enough to burn their eyebrows off.

That was two-and-a-half years ago. A lifetime, I know. My current opinion on the ‘desktop vs laptop’ debate? They both massively have their merits depending on your budget/gaming habits/how much space you have in your home to commit to your hobby.

In terms of my favorite PC product/device/piece of tech in 2025 for the purposes of this article, I find myself very much in one camp. And it’s not one fans of the best gaming PCs will be overly smitten with. Enter the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025). What. A. Laptop. Actually, screw that. What. A. Piece of Technology. Full stop.

I paid an eye-watering sum for what we currently consider to be the best gaming laptop money can buy right now. Well, I say ‘paid’. What I actually mean is ‘bought on interest-free finance'… providing you pay said wallet-obliterating amount off within 12 months. Pray for my battered bank balance come May 2026.

Forget my perilous financial situation in spring of next year, though. All I know is that Current Me has derived more joy out of the latest Zephyrus G14 than pretty much any gaming device of the past five years.

Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely adore the fact I built the coolest gaming PC ever. Still, there’s no getting around the fact my RTX 5090-powered rig weighs roughly that of a svelte sumo wrestler. If I want to lug this mid-tower monster into my living room to enjoy playing my favorite Steam titles on one of the best TVs for gaming, I risk shattering my 40-year-old knees.

Pretty and performant

By contrast, the latest Zephyrus G14 is the perfect companion to my inner couch potato gamer. Weighing in at just 3.5 pounds, this gorgeous gaming laptop is perfect for… well, plunking directly on your lap for hours at a time.

The amount of great gaming memories I’ve amassed thanks to the G14 this year are borderline head-spinning. A spectacular third playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 at the Zephyrus’ native 2.8K pixel count (2880 x 1800) with full path-tracing at frame rates that usually dovetail around 90 FPS. Hot. Damn. Thank you very much, Nvidia DLSS.

Team Green’s DLSS frame-gen tech has proven to be — and apologies for the cliché — an actual game-changer. Though my G14 sports a mighty respectable mobile RTX 5080, if it wasn’t for Nvidia's latest form of AI-bolstered super sampling, there’s no way I could play Doom: The Dark Ages or Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with path-tracing at comfortably PS5 Pro-beating frame rates if I was relying purely on my Zephyrus’ hardware grunt.

It’s also a fabulous looking laptop. That brazed metallic aesthetic is straight from a certain cyborg Arnie action franchise. Appropriate, seeing as I’m currently running and gunning my way through old school 16-bit throwback Terminator 2D: No Fate on Asus’ top-tier laptop.

Though it’s undeniably a head-turner, its carb-free 12.2 x 8.7 x 0.6 inch form factor inevitably leads to a couple of big old downsides.

Howdy does it get loud and toasty.

A gaming goliath

Boot up Alan Wake 2 on this puppy, and unless you’re wearing some of the best gaming headsets, your eardrums may well implode. And as for temperatures under heavy load, the area under the 2025’s Zephyrus’ sumptuous OLED screen gets so hot, you could comfortably cook an omelette on it.

Still, such downsides/sacrifices that come with high-end gaming laptops are hardly unique to the Zephyrus G14 2014. I can easily look past heat/fan noise issues when I sit my beloved 14-inch gaming device on a laptop tray with the excellent Sony Inzone H5 wrapped around my cranium.

Such is the quality of that pin-sharp 2.8K OLED screen, some of the best experiences I’ve actually had with the G14 don’t involve gaming at all. Thanks to its effortlessly inky black levels and surprisingly robust speakers, Asus’ stunning laptop also proves to be an astounding Netflix machine... or if you’re not a fan of the Big N, insert Disney Plus, Amazon Prime TV, Apple TV Plus at your pleasure.

Even though I own one of the best OLED TVs around — a 77-inch LG G3 — there always comes a lazy Sunday where I’d rather not drag my carcass out of bed. Under those circumstances, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) and its immaculately calibrated OLED display is the perfect tonic for my ‘doesn’t want to get out of bed’ soul.

Stream machine

Whether watching the best Netflix shows amped up to eye-arousing degrees thanks to the peerless black levels OLED brings to the table, or savoring every last second of Vince ‘Mr Breaking Bad’ Gilligan’s latest show ‘Pluribus’, the G14 is an incredible device to watch both silver and small screen content on.

And yes, I’m sure silver screen obsessive Quentin Tarantino will now file me in the same category as Paul “weak sauce” Dano. Myself and The Riddler can live with the scorn once you have the pleasure of watching the superbly creepy actor in Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ on the G14’s sensational screen.

Circling back to gaming, it’s really the previously mentioned Nvidia DLSS 4 that makes the Asus ROG G14 (2025) such a compelling device for fans of the best Steam games. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was a mess when it first launched on PC, but thanks to diligent patches, it’s now a web-spinning wonder. With Nvidia frame-gen enabled, it’s easy to lock to around the Zephyrus G14’s max refresh rate of 120Hz with minimal graphical sacrifices.

The biggest compliment I can pay the greatest gaming laptop Asus has ever made? I’ve had precisely zero crashes since the day it arrived on my doorstep. Not a single Blue Screen of Death. Zero weird technical glitches. And not a single case of overheating that has stopped this elite laptop from functioning as its best.

Considering my RTX 5090-powered desktop gives me technical headaches at least once a month, there’s so much to be said for the latest Zephyrus G14’s near unflappable consistency.

With all of those gushing words out of the way, it’s no wonder the Asus Zephyrus G14 is my favorite PC product of the year. Brilliant to game, binge watch and type on (thanks to its superbly tactile keyboard), this laptop has made this dyed in the wool desktop acolyte do a complete 180°.

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I tested many of the best gaming laptops in 2025. These machines were equipped with the latest CPUs and GPUs, providing them with sufficient power to run the best PC games. Such machines include the sleek Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and enormous Alienware 18 Area-51. Choosing a favorite was difficult, but there was one that’s still on my mind.

That gaming laptop is the Alienware 16 Area-51. As I said in my Alienware 16 Area-51 review, this laptop makes a bold statement thanks to its (inter)stellar design, powerful RTX 50-series performance and vibrant 16-inch display. Though it’s expensive and heavy to carry, it delivers an out-of-this-world gaming experience.

Read on to find out why the Alienware 16 Area-51 is my favorite gaming laptop of 2025 and why I think you should consider checking it out if you’re looking for a premium gaming experience.

Otherworldly design

Alienware resurrected the “Area-51” moniker for its gaming laptops, which is appropriate given this notebook’s otherworldly design. The Liquid Teal finish and curved edges provide a distinct look that’s unlike other gaming laptops. The chassis’ color shifts under different lighting conditions, and the RGB lighting on the back mimics the motions of the aurora borealis. It all makes for a machine that commands attention.

The unit I reviewed was configured with a Cherry MX ultra-low-profile mechanical keyboard that is a dream to type on. I’m a mechanical keyboard enthusiast (to say the least), so I enjoy the clicky keys and short travel distance. I wish the touchpad was a tad larger, but it works well enough and is very smooth and responsive.

My only complaint is that the Alienware 16 Area-51 is big and heavy at 14.37 x 11.41 x 1.12 inches and 7.92 pounds. Since the laptop is so bulky, you might want to mostly use it at home. This could be a potential deal-breaker, depending on whether you’re looking for a desktop replacement or a portable PC.

Strong gaming performance

The Alienware 16 Area-51 I reviewed packed an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, an RTX 5080 GPU and 32GB of RAM. Thanks to those components, I enjoyed a superlative gaming experience.

I got Doom: The Dark Ages to run at 108-120 frames per second with DLSS 4 disabled on Ultra Nightmare graphical settings. With the frame-boosting DLSS, the game ran at 240 fps, which matches the display’s refresh rate. The graphically demanding Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 70fps with DLSS off and a blistering 240 fps with DLSS on.

The Alienware 16 Area-51 also performed well in our lab tests, where we run games through their respective built-in benchmarking tools with graphics and resolution cranked to the max. You likely won't be running every game at ultra settings, so you'll certainly get better results than what you see above, even with DLSS off.

As configured, the Alienware 16 Area-51 I reviewed could run games at buttery smooth frame rates with graphical settings cranked to max and with DLSS 4 enabled. That’s a testament to this rig’s power. However, if you get a configuration with an RTX 5070 Ti or lower, DLSS 4 will be crucial for getting higher frame rates.

Vivid 16-inch display

Games look as great as they run, thanks to the Alienware 16 Area-51’s 16-inch display. While there’s no OLED option, the sharp 1600p resolution, aforementioned 240Hz refresh rate, and overall vibrant image quality help draw you into whatever game you’re playing.

As you can see from our display benchmark results above, the Alienware 16 Area-51 doesn’t have oversaturated color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3). Color accuracy (Delta-E) is slightly better than on competing laptops like the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i and HP Omen Max 16. The latter two produce bolder colors, but Alienware’s colors are more naturalistic.

I should note that the 3ms response time isn’t as low as on other gaming laptops or gaming monitors I’ve tested. However, unless you’re a professional gamer, you’re probably not going to notice any input lag. I certainly didn’t!

Bottom line

2025 was a very good year for gaming laptops, thanks to the introduction of Nvidia’s 50-series GPUs and Intel’s second-generation Core Ultra CPUs. With CES 2026 happening soon, I’m eager to see the laptops we have in store for next year. Will any of them match or beat the Alienware 16 Area-51? I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

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Since I get to work with such a talented bunch of nerds who have the opportunity to test dozens of devices every year, I thought it might be fun to check in with the Tom's Guide computing team and ask: what's your favorite gadget of 2025?

The responses I got were intriguing and I think they're all great devices, so I figured I'd share these suggestions from the team. If you have your own suggestions for the best gadget of 2025, why not shout it out in the comment section below?

Asus ROG Flow Z13

Something changed in PC gaming in 2025. Up until this year, the only real way to play was with a power-hungry dedicated GPU strapped to your system. But integrated graphics took a huge step forward this year (something I predicted right at the beginning of this year), and the perfect embodiment of this is the Asus ROG Flow Z13.

Packed with AMD’s Strix Halo, you’re getting up to RTX 4070 levels of performance without the power drain of dedicated graphics — all in a slim, sleek 2-in-1. It’s basically a Surface Pro if you gave it steroids, and it brings serious versatility to AAA gaming wherever you are.

The Flow Z13 is the starting pistol being shot on integrated graphics beginning to creep more and more into the gaming laptop space. I’ve seen this first hand in AMD’s chips, Intel’s upcoming Panther Lake, and even the Snapdragon X2 Elite is seeing some solid gaming performance. We’re now at a time where you can get an ultra thin-and-light notebook that can just so happen to play games really well too.

Even Realities G2

I know. Despite Mark Zuckerberg making a grand reveal of the Meta Ray-Ban Display this year (with an on-stage hiccup), pushing the future of smart glasses to new heights, those weren’t the specs that really blew me away. Actually, it was the ones that don’t look like smart glasses at all: the Even Realities G2.

No cameras, no speakers and no high-detail Micro-OLED displays offering 150-inch virtual screens here. So what makes them the only pair of smart glasses I’d wear on a daily basis? Well, just that. Stripping down all the latest features this category of devices has to offer has not only jump-started a new era of wearable smart tech, but also one that’s a necessity for those who wear glasses in their everyday lives. To me, that's what makes the G2 one of the best smart glasses around today.

That, and they boast advanced Even AI and features that are actually useful, including the cheat sheet-like Conversate that offers context to conversations in real time, along with a wickedly sharp dot matrix green display (for both lenses) with a layered effect that makes navigating menus and reading text a breeze.

All that wrapped up in a subtle, stylish-looking pair of specs? The Even Realities G2 are the day-to-day smart specs done right, and that’s not even mentioning the Even R1 smart ring that takes these glasses even further.

Amazon's new Kindle Scribe

This could be recency bias since it’s one of the last products I reviewed this year, but my favorite product of 2025 is the new Kindle Scribe. I’ve been an avid Kindle user for years, and credit Amazon’s e-reader for helping me read more books in the past seven years than I have in the decade prior. I’m very familiar with the Kindle experience, but the Kindle Scribe just provided me with a new way to enjoy my favorite line of e-readers.

While the main draw (no pun intended) of the Kindle Scribe is that you can take notes or write on its display, this feature is all but superfluous to me since I don’t like writing by hand. The real magic of the Kindle Scribe is its 11-inch e-paper display that makes me feel like I’m reading a real paperback book. Unlike with the basic Kindle or Kindle Paperwhite, I don’t have to adjust the font or margins to get a comfortable reading experience. It’s practically perfect out of the box! The tablet’s lightweight design and auto-brightness are also highlights.

It will be hard going back to the Kindle Paperwhite after experiencing the Kindle Scribe. I predict I’ll be doing a lot more reading thanks to this device. And not just novels, as the new Scribe is also excellent for black and white comics and manga. If you’re a bookworm with an extensive collection of digital books from Amazon like I am, then you should consider checking out the new Kindle Scribe. It’s my favorite product of the year, and I think it could become your fave as well.

Bambu Lab A1 Combo

I’ve been on the outside looking in at the exciting world of 3D printers since the first models hit the market. Sure, I wanted to try one, but it just didn’t seem like a necessary purchase. Now, I’ve finally got my hands on the Bambu Labs A1 Combo, and I can’t stop making stuff and things. Functional, useless, pretty, ugly — I’m printing it all.

Not only am I having fun printing Minecraft characters and other fun doohickeys for my step-son, but I’ve printed a couple of useful items for my favorite hobby: golf. I have a full golf simulator setup in my living room from Carl’s Place, and I printed a ball dispenser that tees up the balls for you and a tee holder that keeps the simulator’s tees right where you need them (with the help of some cheap elastics). It felt great to print these instead of ordering a more expensive version from someone else who probably would just use their own 3D printer to make them.

The main reason I like the Bambu Labs A1 Combo is the value proposition. It’s a competent printer once you add the Multi-Color Printing that comes with the Combo. Its 256x256x256 build volume is enough to print all kinds of projects, and the $559 price tag is highly competitive in the 3D printer space (it’s usually on sale for less, and it’s $399 right now).

At the end of the day, choosing a 3D printer is no easy task, and our best 3D printer guide will help, but if you’re just getting started like I was, the Bambu Labs A1 Combo is my go-to recommendation as it’ll grow with you even as you turn into a 3D printing expert.

Framework Laptop 16

We reviewed over 100 laptops in 2025, but for my money there's one that stands head and shoulders above the others. It wasn't the lightest, the fastest or the longest-lasting, but if I had to buy one laptop this year it would be the new Framework Laptop 16.

If you missed my original Framework Laptop 16 (2025) review, just know that the 2025 edition updates the ultra-configurable Framework Laptop 16 with optional Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series laptop graphics cards. It's the first time this Framework has been available with an Nvidia GPU, and the upgrade to RTX 50-series power (not to mention access to Nvidia's DLSS upscaling tech) unlocks new heights of power for the Framework Laptop 16.

I love that because the Framework Laptop 16 was already the most customizable gaming laptop you can buy, and now it has the muscle to compete with the best gaming laptops toe-for-toe. And while I wish the screen got a little brighter, the fact that you can open up the laptop to upgrade the RAM or swap in a new CPU when you need to is an unbeatable value. Factor in the fact that the six-slot Expansion Card system gives you plenty of room to mix and match your favorite ports as you need to, and you start to appreciate why the Framework Laptop 16 is my favorite laptop of 2025.

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As CES 2025 approaches, we're preparing for the expected launch of next-gen Intel Panther Lake-equipped laptops. And so are brands like HP and MSI, as the first Core Ultra series 3 machines have now appeared at retailers — including their prices.

The first laptops with Intel Panther Lake CPUs are now listed at multiple stores, including Walmart. As spotted by tipster @momomo_us on X, there's now an HP OmniBook X Flip 16 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355 CPU, and it's priced at $999.

Since Intel has yet to officially launch its upcoming chips, the laptop isn't available to purchase yet. This is just a placeholder as the retailer prepares a new lineup of next-gen notebooks, but for now, it gives us an idea of the cost we can expect. And, as it turns out, it's not the major price bump we'd expect.

With every new generation of laptops sporting the latest specs, prices are always expected to be set at a premium, especially over last-gen products. Plus, the RAM crisis will only see costs soar higher. According to this listing, though, this Intel Panther Lake laptop is at the same price as the previous-gen model.

You can find the HP OmniBook X Flip 16 with an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V CPU priced at $999 over on the HP Store, even though it's currently reduced to $649 thanks to a sale. Arguably, the latest OmniBook with a Core Ultra 7 processor is the better deal at full price.

Along with its Core Ultra 7 355 CPU, the next-gen model of HP's OmniBook X Flip 16 also comes with Intel integrated graphics, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, 512GB of storage and a 16-inch (1920 x 1200) LED touchscreen (not the 2K the listing mentions).

Since this is a listing that's published before the official launch of the laptop, pricing may change. But it's a good indication of costs to come, especially on machines sporting the upgraded Intel Core Ultra 300 processors.

Gaming laptops with Intel are a little high...

It's not unheard of to see MSI laptops set at premium prices, with the monstrous MSI Titan 18 HX priced from a whopping $5,000. But these new Intel Panther Lake laptops appearing on EU retailer sites (via Wccftech) seem a tad overpriced. Or at least, hopefully.

For example, there's an MSI 16I with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355 (same as the HP OmniBook) priced at €2,611 at French retailer PC21, so around $3,061. Despite it also boasting a 2.8K resolution OLED display and 32GB of DDR5 RAM, that seems awfully expensive.

There's also an MSI 16I with a much stronger Intel Core Ultra X9 388H CPU for €3,006 at PC21, making it around $3,524. There's no GPU in sight here, with this chip coming with Xe3 graphics architecture to deliver onboard graphics performance for gaming, albeit not to the level of a discrete RTX 50-series GPU.

Those prices seem strangely high for these kinds of laptops, even with next-gen Intel CPUs inside. These could be random placeholder numbers for these retailers, as again, these laptops aren't available to purchase yet.

We've seen how Intel Panther Lake has the gaming chops to power the future of handheld gaming, and that's also a good sign for thin, lightweight laptops to play the latest AAA games with just an Intel chip. The question is, how pricey will these machines be? For now, if Walmart's listing price on the HP OmniBook X Flip 16 is accurate, it may not be at such a high price.

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After the Asus TUF Gaming A14 broke my heart, I’ve been left floundering — looking for a new favorite gaming laptop. Well, that time has now come, and after testing the OLED-laden value for money greatness of the Lenovo Legion 5i, I’ve found my new favorite gaming laptop.

If I were told that for $1,249/£1,151, you can get an RTX 5060 gaming laptop with an OLED display, impressive all-round performance, zippy frame rates and a properly good utilitarian build, I’d have thought you were mental. But here we are, at a time when gaming laptop affordability is becoming a bit of a running joke, with something that offers pure value for money.

And of course, it’s Lenovo, so you’re not just getting a good gaming experience. The strong thermal (sometimes to its own detriment with loud fans) and stellar keyboard ergonomics make this laptop a great workhorse too.

That’s not to say it’s completely without fault. The battery life is…well…there isn’t really battery life. Off the charger, you can get an hour of gaming. For general productivity, you do get better endurance for sure, but it kind of feels like if I ever looked at the laptop funny, it would go to zero. But in the world of gaming laptops, you already know the key rule: always be plugged in.

And through that lens, and for what you get for the money, this is a problem that quickly fades away. This is one of the best gaming laptops you can buy to extract maximum bang for your buck.

Lenovo Legion 5i: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? This is a mid-range gaming laptop.
• Who is it for? It’s for those who want a good quality gaming experience, but also care about value for money and a well-rounded system.
• What does it cost? You can pick one up for $1,249/£1,151.
• What do we like? For the price you pay, this system overdelivers with stronger RTX 5060 performance than its competitors, a gorgeous OLED display, stellar ergonomics and a nice amount of I/O for play and productivity.
• What don’t we like? But battery life is a letdown, and the fans can sound a bit like a jet engine under pressure.

Lenovo Legion 5i: Specs

Lenovo Legion 5i: The ups

Over the past few months of reviewing gaming laptops, I’m normally left thinking “wait, they expect me to spend HOW much for it!?” For the Legion 5i, it's the same situation, but the opposite intonation.

Real attention to detail

When you go for cheaper gaming laptops, there’s always a baked-in expectation of some serious compromises here and there — normally the build quality, the display and ergonomics. Turns out Lenovo didn’t get that memo with the Legion 5i, because this is a sleek system from all angles.

Sure, it does have some junk in the trunk (that lip proves as much), but with an aluminum lid and a durable plastic casing, this is a refined, utilitarian aesthetic that doesn’t give off gaming laptop vibes. It works well as both a system for play and a productivity powerhouse, too.

Then, you open it up, and you’re greeted by a mesmerizing 15.1-inch OLED display, which turns any game or content you’re looking at into a flash flood of color. It gets impressively bright at up to 500 nits, keeps it crispy with a WQXGA resolution, and buttery smooth at 165Hz.

Whether it’s blasting through the vivid streets of Mexico on Forza Horizon 5, or plunging to the dark depths to really see that HDR in action in Silksong, this is a gorgeous screen, and a real value driver of this system.

But then, there’s the other laptop-y things that a lot of budget systems forget. The keyboard deck itself is strong with minimal flex, and the typing ergonomics are finely balanced — every key press has a nice tactile thump with a comfortable landing. And that touchpad has none of that weird softness that can come with other lower-cost systems. It’s nice and snappy with every click.

Impressive performance across the board

Let’s tear it open. Of course, I’m testing a UK-only model here with the Intel Core i7-13650HX. But given that in the U.S., you’re getting Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX, expect the numbers to either be practically the same or slightly better on this newer chip.

Even for the older silicon I had, paired with the RTX 5060 and 16GB DDR5 RAM, you’re getting a solid mid-range workhorse for the price.

This completes the picture of being able to use this system for productivity, too. But the party’s just beginning for gaming, as the patented Coldfront cooling allows for upwards of 100W to be pushed through that GPU — making for some tasty performance.

Applying it to the games themselves, you’re getting solid 1080p 60+ FPS across the board of games that you play on this machine. Then, of course, you’ve got DLSS 4 to ramp things up even further with AI trickery. Latency is low with frame gen, and there’s practically zero ghosting around any fast-moving objects.

So what you’re left with at the end of the day is a decently powerful system for all purposes. Top job for something at this price.

Real value for money

I never thought I’d see the day in 2025 when I’d find a new gaming laptop that was fully worth the money you pay for it. There’s normally a sting of an upcharge here and there, but no. This package is worth every cent of that $1,249.

For context, the Asus TUF Gaming A14 with RTX 5060 is $1,699, and the RTX 5050-armed Alienware Aurora 16 is $1,199.

It’s one of the cheapest OLED gaming laptops you can buy, and one of the cheapest RTX 5060 systems, while continuing to take care of those ergonomic details and ensuring the configuration gets enough wattage through effective thermal management to be one of the fastest 5060 laptops you can snag.

Lenovo Legion 5i: The downs

But while the Legion 5i avoids some of the budget laptop stereotypes, there are two it does stumble on.

Bit of a jet engine

It all started when I fired up Cyberpunk 2077 for a play session, and the fans kicked up an absolute storm. I don’t have a microphone to give you exact numbers here, but for context, it’s about twice as loud as the TUF Gaming A14.

That’s surprising given that both of these systems have about the same total graphics power pumping through their veins, which to me indicates a cheaper cooling solution on Lenovo’s system. Just make sure that if you’re AAA gaming, you pick up the best gaming headset to counteract it.

Battery life = lol

Yes, I know that battery life is probably one of your lowest concerns when buying a gaming laptop. Horsepower is the critical element to the price you pay, but it’s still worth noting that in the PCMark10 gaming performance test, this didn’t do so great.

It’s gaming laptop 101 to always plug in a charger. And given the budget build, a low life on battery isn’t the most surprising thing to see from my tests. For general productivity, that goes up to about 3-4 hours. But if you do go down this route, just keep in mind that you are going to be spending long amounts of time away from an outlet.

Lenovo Legion 5i: Verdict

Finding an affordable gaming laptop is like clearing a Soulsborne boss on your first try — which can be nearly impossible. But then, by gum, Lenovo pulled it off with a real value package that goes the extra mile in paying attention to the details.

The Legion 5i is a phenomenally well-rounded package that gives you mesmerizing OLED gaming, a sleek system with plenty of I/O, solid mid-range performance and a real focus on good ergonomics.

And these override the cracks in fan noise and battery life to make this my new favorite — and a tough one to beat at that.

Gaming laptops have had quite the year in 2025. With Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series mobile GPUs paving the way for substantial gains in gaming performance, Intel and AMD delivering the latest in CPU power and the improvements in OLED display tech reaching sky-high frame rates, the best gaming laptops got a whole lot more enticing.

Two fine examples of how far gaming laptops have come? The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) and Razer Blade 14 (2025). Every time I look for a sleek, ultraportable machine made for gaming that also powers through workloads, these are the laptops that come to mind.

Gorgeous, svelte designs packing astounding OLED displays that will make the likes of the MacBook Pro jealous, with the kind of performance that gamers need to play the latest AAA games with cranked up settings — all in portable, 14-inch packages. They're at the peak of their standards, but only one can belong on your desk (unless you've got the money, but I wouldn't say that's a wise investment).

Now, these laptops have been butting heads with each new iteration for years, and there's good reason behind this. Both are compact powerhouses that make for ideal laptops for work and play, but there are clear differences between these machines, too.

For anyone considering buying an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 or Razer Blade 14 before the RAM crisis makes laptop prices surge, but can't decide between the two, I'm here to help you make the right choice for your needs.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Specs

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Price

Being premium, lightweight machines boasting mighty internals for their size, it hardly comes as a surprise that these laptops are priced highly.

At their base price, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 5060 will set you back $1,799 at Best Buy, coming with an AMD Ryzen 9 270, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. On the other hand, the Razer Blade 14 with an RTX 5060 starts at $2,299 at Razer, sporting an AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

That's a $500 difference between laptops that essentially share similar specs, including the 14-inch QHD+ (2880 x 1800) OLED displays with a 120Hz refresh rate that both notebooks come equipped with. Even though the Blade 14 comes with a higher performing processor over the Zephyrus G14, it's clear Asus offers the more affordable option.

But when there's a deal, the Razer Blade 14 finally drops to a price that catches the eye. The otherwise pricey gaming laptop has been seen at $1,449, well below what you can get the G14 for. Plus, Razer usually has a discount of some kind on its lineup of gaming laptops, so not exactly one for the

Similarly, though, I've seen the ROG Zephyrus G14 crash to around $1,299, and using some of my quick maths (which I've been told not to use at school, seeing as my answers, erm, weren't the numbers I wanted), even I can tell this is a hugely more favorable price.

It's the same case for the higher-spec models, although you'll find the Razer Blade 14 with an RTX 5070 has hit a low of $1,699 during the sales season, and that's a hefty $1,000 off. That's a great deal for this mighty beast, but at the same time, the Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 5070 Ti (the Blade 14 doesn't reach those heights) for $2,399 is actually more affordable when both are at full retail price, dropping to $1,999 at its lowest.

Razer offers decent discounts for its Blade 14, and when it drops, that's the time when you should buy. However, no matter what way you look at it, the Asus Zephyrus G14 has the value that's hard to ignore.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Design

Time and time again, Razer has nailed the design of its sleek, ultraportable Blade 14. I've always thought of Razer's fleet of laptops as the "MacBooks" of gaming laptops. To this day, this rings true. But over the years, Asus has refined the design of its Zephyrus G14 lineage, turning it into one of the best-looking laptops, period.

Both make for amazing portable machines for gaming and productivity, with MacBook Pro-esque flair that will be just as happy sitting on a desk in an office as they would be in a fine-tuned gaming setup at home. Plus, both are compact and light enough to slip into a laptop bag.

There's barely any difference between the two when it comes to size and weight, with the Zephyrus G14 coming in at 12.2 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches and weighing 3.5 pounds, while the Blade 14 comes in at 12.2 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches and weighs exactly the same. For the Blade 14 2025, in particular, Razer made it lighter and thinner to match its competition, and even revamped its internals to deliver a cooler laptop under pressure.

Each is super slick, but I'd prefer the Razer Blade 14 in its signature Black colorway over its Mercury. On the other hand, the ROG Zephyrus G14 shines in Moonlight White, more so than in Eclipse Gray. But hey, that's just my personal opinion.

No matter the laptop you choose, expect one of the swankiest laptops around; ones that are easy to carry around for travel and clean up quite nicely on any desk you put them on.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Display

One of the finest ways to cruise through Night City in Cyberpunk 2077, spot the jaw-dropping artistry of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and tear through demons in Doom: The Dark Ages is in glorious OLED. Fortunately, both the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14 offer up OLED at its finest.

These offer (strangely) similar displays: 14-inch QHD+ (2880 x 1800) OLED panels with up to a 120Hz refresh rate and 0.2ms response time. And both knock it out of the park when it comes to color accuracy and smoothness, whether it be for single-player hits or fast-paced multiplayer games.

While both aren't the most ideal for esports levels of refresh rates (anything beyond 120Hz, really), it's still enough to gain smooth visuals across the board. What's more, the 0.2ms response times mean wicked-fast reaction to gain the upperhand (with headshots galore).

It isn't just for gaming, though, as these screens are well-sized and finely tuned for productivity and creative work, too. That includes photo and video editing, as the color reproduction these screens offer makes images pop.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Performance

The benchmarks say it all, sort of.

Our computing team has done the tests on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 sporting an RTX 5080 and the Razer Blade 14 equipped with an RTX 5070. Immediately, there will be a clear winner here, considering the jump between the two GPUs.

However, it's important to note that these are the two most powerful configurations of each gaming laptop. Yes, the Razer Blade 14 can only go as high as an RTX 5070 with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 CPU, while the Zephyrus G14 steps it up to an RTX 5080 with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU.

Also take note: Razer's laptops are higher in price. So, think of the RTX 5070 Razer Blade 14 being closer in price to the RTX 5080 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (as of writing, it's down to $2,549 at Best Buy, making it slightly more affordable than the Blade 14 at its full $2,699 price).

Regardless, each machine offers mighty performance with the internals they pack, and can handle AAA gaming and demanding creative apps without breaking much of a sweat. When it does come to gaming, though, the Zephyrus G14 pulls ahead.

As mentioned, these results are hardly shocking. The Blade 14 still offers strong performance, even when graphics are maxed out. And this only continues to soar to around 130 frames per second (FPS) thanks to Nvidia's DLSS 4 and multi-frame generation.

It's hard to deny the sheer might of the Zephyrus G14, though. With Cyberpunk 2077 with Ray Tracing at Ultra settings and seeing frame rates at nearly 50 FPS? That's a strong achievement, and it's only made better with DLSS 4 switched on, boosting to an eye-watering 150 FPS.

Then there's the AMD offerings, taking the place of the CPU in both gaming laptops — and doing a fine job at that. While Intel's Core Ultra 9 chips swoop in with higher results, as in the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, these compact machines still stand testament as being the strongest 14-inch notebooks out there.

Of course, seeing as the Zephyrus G14 comes equipped with the slightly higher-powered AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, it beats out the Razer Blade 14's HX 365 chip. Not by much, mind you, but enough to handle multitasking easier. The handbrake test also shows how much faster the Zephyrus G14 is over the Blade 14, though, being nearly a full minute. And both these models came with the same SSD.

Both are mighty compact machines, but when it comes to price to performance, the Zephyrus G14 takes the crown here.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Battery life

As with all gaming laptops, the Asus Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14 were never meant to make it onto our list of the best laptops for battery life. That's to be expected, though, as you'll still get a few hours out of these machines for work and play.

Not quite a full workday, but enough to have them untethered to a cable for a few hours. In fact, in real-world testing, the Blade 14 could last nearly eight hours before shutting off, while the Zephyrus G14 could last between five and six hours.

However, when it comes to our Tom's Guide battery test, the Zephyrus G14 and Blade 14 offer similar results. When it comes to gaming, though, the Blade 14 takes a 30-minute advantage.

In the grand scheme of gaming on a laptop, battery life isn't exactly a priority. It goes without saying that plugging them in will deliver greater performance when playing highly graphically demanding games, so I wouldn't rely on these to get you through a long-haul flight while gaming.

But for work, these laptops will just about get you through the day. That said, not nearly as far as a MacBook or Dell XPS 13.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) vs Razer Blade 14 (2025): Verdict

The rivalry between the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14 continues, and much like last year when I pitted the two together, the Zephyrus G14 comes out on top. Purely from the price and power you get out of the laptop, no matter the configuration, Asus offers the better deal.

But it's hard to deny the strengths of the Razer Blade 14, too. Look, it's a fine-looking machine with powerful specs in a compact chassis, and if that appeals to you more, then it won't disappoint.

When it comes to value for the power you get, especially in a time when prices are skyrocketing, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is the more affordable shout.

There's always next year for Razer to take its laptop up a notch, and, unless another strong contender enters the ring, the battle between these 14-inch powerhouses will rage on as each manufacturer continues to upgrade its laptops. For now, though, there's good reason the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 has made its mark as one of the best laptops of the year.

More from Tom's Guide

• RAM prices are exploding — here's why and everything you need to know about surviving RAMageddon
• The great CPU war of 2026 is already erupting — Intel Panther Lake vs. Snapdragon X2 Elite vs. AMD Gorgon Point
• AMD’s FSR Redstone is finally here to take on Nvidia’s DLSS 4 — here’s everything you need to know

Prepare for ultra-wide screen gaming on laptops, as Lenovo is now confirmed to debut a Legion Pro rollable gaming laptop as early as 2026 — and yes, it's OLED.

As revealed by Windows Latest, Lenovo is set to release a Legion Pro Rollable gaming laptop with a flexible OLED panel that expands to a 21:9 aspect ratio. It's expected to come equipped with an Intel Panther Lake CPU and an Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU, and we could see it as soon as CES 2026.

Lenovo is no stranger to rollable laptops, introducing the first rollable laptop at CES 2025. With the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, the laptop’s display rolls vertically, extending its 120Hz OLED panel from 14 to 16.7 inches. With the Legion Pro Rollable, however, this would extend vertically instead.

A rollable device uses a flexible display that allows the screen to be extended or retracted by rolling it in and out of a housing, usually through a motorized mechanism. The Lenovo Legion Pro "Rollable" is expected to act in the same way, but there are currently no details on the size of the expandable display.

As with the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, the laptop is rumored to come with at least a 120Hz refresh rate, with a possible 14-inch screen size that rolls out to a 16-inch ultra-wide display. To put that into perspective, the ThinkBook features a 14-inch display at standard with a 2000 x 1600 resolution and a 5:4 aspect ratio. In extended mode, the screen is 16.7 inches with a 2000 x 2350 resolution with an 8:9 aspect ratio.

Otherwise, its design is similar to other laptops in the Legion lineup, such as the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i. Since the Legion Pro "Rollable" also features a number pad, we could see the same 16-inch (2560 x 1600) OLED panel as the Legion Pro 7i.

Is rollable the future?

Lenovo has a solid track record of releasing out-of-the-box laptop concepts, including the 18-inch ThinkBook Flip foldable OLED laptop and its solar-powered laptop. However, we're now seeing a continuation of its now-released rollable concept, and this time it's all for gaming.

Gaining a portable ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio on a gaming laptop is exciting, considering that this is usually reserved for the best gaming monitors. We'll have to go hands-on with the laptop to see how it works, but considering the Legion Pro series delivers some of the best gaming laptops, this rollable version is already looking enticing.

Of course, pricing is still up in the air, and it's not looking to come cheap, considering the ThinkBook Rollable costs over $3,000. That's not even mentioning the rising prices of laptops, thanks to the RAM crisis. If rollable gaming laptops take off, I expect these devices to cost a premium.

Since the first Intel Panther Lake laptops are set to be unveiled during CES 2026, it's likely we'll see the latest Intel Core Ultra 3 series chip set inside the Legion Pro "Rollable." According to leaked benchmarks, this will make for one powerful machine.

The new rollable gaming laptop is tipped to launch in early 2026, according to the report, meaning it's possible we'll see it debut during CES 2026. We'll be on the ground to check it out if it does appear.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just switched to a 2-in-1 laptop with real aura — here's how the Lenovo Yoga 9i Aura Edition gave my workflow a glow up
• The great CPU war of 2026 is already erupting — Intel Panther Lake vs. Snapdragon X2 Elite vs. AMD Gorgon Point
• How to get Xbox Full Screen Experience on any Windows 11 PC — even if you don't have the option in settings

Out of all the laptop brands around, I wouldn't have thought Alienware, known for its premium machines like the $2,999 Alienware 16 Area-51, would be dishing out serious value on its latest gaming rigs. But here we are with its RTX 5060 laptop that's by far the best deal you'll find right now.

The Alienware 16 Aurora just got a $350 price cut at Best Buy, making it one of the cheapest RTX 50-series gaming laptops you can grab at $1,149. But it isn't just about that GPU, as it also boasts an Intel Core 7 240H CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD that pushes its entry-level gaming laptop status to new heights.

Considering the latest Asus TUF Gaming A14 with an RTX 5060 will set you back a whopping $1,699, you can already tell this gaming machine is a steal. If you're looking for quality AAA gaming at sky-high frame rates (thanks to DLSS 4) but don't want to spend a fortune, put this Alienware 16 Aurora on your radar.

With the specs it comes with under the hood, I'm amazed the Alienware 16 Aurora has dropped to a price this low. I've seen it cheaper during big sales, but only by $50, and seeing as the latest gaming laptops coming on the market with similar specs (and less) cost over $1,500, and even this RTX 4060 laptop is more expensive at $1,199, it goes to show the value this machine offers.

During my testing of the Alienware 16X Aurora, its slightly specced-up sibling that also comes equipped with an RTX 5060, I was playing games like Cyberpunk 2077 at high settings with ray tracing, Doom: The Dark Ages on Ultra Nightmare with DLSS Super Resolution and Black Myth: Wukong at high settings with frame rates at over 160 frames per second (FPS). This Aurora 16 won't be much different.

That's superb performance at this price, and for those competitive multiplayer titles, I was getting nearly 300 FPS with Marvel Rivals at Ultra settings at 1080p resolution and 240 FPS at Epic settings with DLSS 4, even with 1600p resolution, in my personal favorite, The Finals.

While its fantastic 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) LED display is an incredible deal for the price, take note that it only comes with a 120Hz refresh rate. That's the sweet spot for a vast majority of titles, but if you're after even higher frame rates for competitive games, you'll want to check out the best gaming monitors.

I know, an RTX 5060 only coming with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM isn't much for playing games at their highest settings (I got Doom running at 7 FPS with settings cranked up). But that's not what the 16 Aurora was made for. Even still, it could pull off an applaudable 82 FPS at max settings with Nvidia's Multi Frame Gen at x4 in Cyberpunk 2077.

The Alienware 16 Aurora may be on the thicker side when it comes to portable gaming laptops, but that doesn't stop it from being an exceptional deal for anyone after RTX 50-series power that goes well past entry-level gaming performance. This is quality performance for less, and is a deal well worth jumping on.

One year ago, I called the first Asus TUF Gaming A14 my personal favorite gaming laptop of the year. And with the 2025 model sporting an RTX 5060, that is still the case…ish. Look, can we talk for a second? Because gaming laptops are heading in the wrong direction.

Because yes, in terms of what you get, this is pound-for-pound one of the best ultraportable gaming machines I’ve used. The body still feels nice and premium, the CPU may have been downgraded but not enough to feel any overt hit to performance, the GPU unlocks all the DLSS 4 goodness including multi-frame gen.

But prices have been creeping up across the board. In the UK, the retail price is £1,599 — that’s £300 more than the RRP of last year’s model. Luckily, it’s regularly on sale for around the £1,300 mark, so this just feels like a number that Asus uses to make the actual price feel like a discount.

But in America? No such discount. That price has gone up by $200 to $1,699. To Asus’ credit, this doesn’t seem like an issue only this company is facing, as others have seen relatively mid-range models shoot up in cost like this.

That being said, it doesn’t make things any less frustrating to know that the gaming laptop market is moving in the wrong direction rather than staying still — especially at a time when we’re having to really look after the dollars and cents.

So when I say “ish,” I mean that fundamentally it’s a great laptop. But when the RTX 4060 model can be found for $1,199 nowadays, and the performance difference is definitely much more iterative when I faced it off against RTX 5060, those extra frames are definitely not worth an extra $500.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? This is a mid-range 14-inch gaming laptop
• Who is it for? It’s ideal for portable PC gamers who want a solid 1080p/1440p system without looking for something gigantic.
• What does it cost? Retail prices come in at $1,699 in the U.S., and £1,349 in UK (discounted from £1,599).
• What’s good about it? RTX 5060 power brings some nice iterative uplifts in performance over the 4060 of the 2024 model, while sporting that same slimline, sleek durable construction with great ergonomics I fell in love with last year.
• What’s not so good? There’s only one, and it’s a big one. Price hikes across the board.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: Specs

Asus TUF Gaming A14: The ups

Let’s start with the positives. Like I said, this was my favorite laptop of 2025, and my favorite just got that little bit better.

Mid-range gaming tune-up

What impressed me the most about the 2024 A14 is the solid mid-range performance paired with some pretty impressive power efficiency. With the move to RTX 5060, it’s more of the same but with an uplift to both of them.

Yes, moving to the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU is technically a downgrade to the AI 9 HX 370 you found in last year’s grand debut of the A14. However, as you’ll see in CPU testing, the differences are pretty small (aside from creative pro work), and there is zero bottlenecking of that RTX 5060’s GPU prowess. Also, shoutout to the nice SSD speed bump too!

Moving on over to the GPU itself, in terms of raw performance, the uplifts are iterative between this and the 4060 in last year’s system. But as I’ll explain, that’s by design.

Because to catch you up, Nvidia is an AI company now with some gaming work on the side (which explains its $4.2T valuation). But Team Green has brought the two together with DLSS 4, multi-frame generation and a whole load of neural rendering tech that takes the RTX 5060 to a different level.

I understand the frustration with AI trickery when you’re buying a monster RTX 5090 or 5080 — at those prices, you understandably want these increases to be seen through actual rendering rather than inserting AI frames. But in something mid-range like this, it’s become a real value unlocker in what you can do with a gaming laptop.

Battery life is a different story, but not something you'll notice in day-to-day.

I have a theory for why this is the case, as Asus has been able to up the wattage going to these components (more on why later).

Same great display and design with some tweaks

And they’ve kept arguably my favorite elements of this 14-inch beauty — the looks and the works of it all. The TUF Gaming A14’s built quality feels premium to the touch with a metallic top and bottom. And on top of that, the ventilation has been re-engineered to take air in through the keyboard deck to keep those internals cool.

Now, I know the main thing you’re thinking here: it’s actually warmer in some circumstances. But basically, the new thermal management means Asus has been able to turn up the wattage on components to extract more performance from them in the heat of gaming.

Looking elsewhere, that display is just as bright (393.6 nits average) and colorful (80.8% DCI-P3 color gamut) as last year’s model, and nicely smooth with that 165Hz refresh rate. And the keyboard and that touchpad still have that same tasty tactile feel to them. It’s a gaming laptop that doesn’t forget about the laptop elements of it all.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: The downs

Last year’s Asus TUF Gaming A14 posed real value for money. Now, the situation is just murky.

Very awkward pricing

Looking back to 2024, we had a stellar gaming laptop with real attention paid to the laptop aspects of it. But the real killer aspect was the value for money of it all — $1,500 in the U.S. and £1,300 in the U.K.

But for 2025, prices have gone up by quite a margin. My fellow Americans are paying $200 more, and unless you get a deal, the RRP in the U.K. is up £300. I’m not going to say its price gouging a big seller in the lineup, but I can’t help but admit it feels like that.

It was that lower price that made last year’s model a must-buy in my eyes for anyone looking for a lower-price gaming laptop that isn’t bad. But in this economy, every penny matters, and you can get the same (and sometimes more) for less.

For example, the Acer Nitro V with near-identical specs but a 16-inch 180Hz display is $400 less at $1,299. Meanwhile looking to my homeland, while the A14 has been cut to £1,349 luckily (at that price, I’d recommend it), that doesn’t excuse it. The impressive Lenovo LOQ 15 with 5060 is £1,179 right now.

Gaming laptops are getting a bad rep recently for not offering anywhere near as good price-to-performance as they did 12 months ago (and earlier). This is not helping things.

Asus TUF Gaming A14: Outlook

Gripes aside, I can’t deny this is a fundamentally great gaming laptop with iterative upgrades across the board. It still sort of is my favorite gaming laptop, but it’s just the price that’s wrong for what you get, and that’s a heartbreaker.

I know that companies have been upping prices in anticipation of tariff impact, but I can’t say for sure whether that’s happened here. And at the end of the day, none of that matters — what actually matters in gaming laptops is that you’re getting bang for your buck.

And at this cost, you’re getting something equivalent to Mentos in Coca-Cola rather than a stick of dynamite. Still a decent bang, but not enough for the buck Asus is asking for.

Amazon's big Prime Day sale is officially over, but imagine my surprise when I woke up and found these 15 gaming laptop deals were still running! Even better, some of these are actually cheaper than they were during the big event.

For instance, Amazon is offering some of the best gaming laptops for hundreds of dollars off, like the Lenovo Legion 5i with an RTX 5060 that's nearly $450 off, and the HP Omen 17 with an RTX 5070 that's 20% off. Not only are these portable gaming rigs affordable, but they’re also powerful enough to play the best PC games at high resolutions and with smooth frame rates.

I've spotted plenty of U.K. gaming laptop deals, too, including this HP Omen 16 with an RTX 5070 that's now £400 off, making it one of the most affordable RTX 5070 gaming laptops around.

Now, let's dive into the best post-Prime Day gaming laptop deals you can get right now!

Quick links

• Shop all post-Prime Day Deal right now!
• Acer Nitro V (2024): was $799 now $751 @ Amazon
• MSI Thin 15 (2025): was $923 now $759 @ Amazon
• Asus TUF Gaming F16: was $1,099 now $829 @ Amazon
• Alienware 16 Aurora (2025): was $1,399 now $1,049 @ Amazon
• ASUS ROG Strix G16 (2025): was $1,499 now $1,199 @ Amazon
• MSI Vector 16 HX AI (2025): was $1,799 now $1,499 @ Amazon
• Lenovo Legion 5i (2025): was $1,999 now $1,555 @ Amazon
• Asus ROG Strix G18 (2025): $1,999 now $1,699 @ Amazon
• Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10: was $3,699 now $2,956 @ Amazon
• Asus ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2025): was $3,399 now $3,129 @ Amazon

October Prime Day US: Gaming laptop deals

October Prime Day UK: Gaming laptop deals

For more great discounts be sure to check out our Amazon Prime Day deals live blog right now.

I'm a sucker for major discounts, especially when it comes to the best gaming laptops. I mean, who isn't? Gaining high-end performance to play the latest PC games with settings cranked up for a fraction of the price is money well spent. But it isn't every day that happens — unless we're talking about the Alienware 16X Aurora.

Launched earlier this year, Alienware's refreshed Aurora gaming laptop lineup already impressed with its slight design change (dropping the thermal shelf) and more wallet-friendly pricing, especially compared to its premium-class Alienware 16 Area-51 starting at $2,999. But then, the deals started pouring in.

Despite only just launching at the time, I spotted the Alienware 16X Aurora for over $400 off during a Prime Day sale. It was a steal, considering its Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a sizable 2TB SSD.

Was there something wrong with the laptop to be this heavily discounted while just being launched? Apparently not, with customers rating it a high 4.8 stars on Best Buy and stating it's the "perfect mid-level gaming PC" with "excellent value." Even the RTX 5060 model, which crashed to $1,399 in the summer, boasted an incredibly worthwhile offer.

Well, I finally got my hands on the Alienware 16X Aurora with an RTX 5060 and put it to the test. At full price, this laptop still soars with the performance it offers and high frame rates it delivers. But during a sale, this gaming laptop becomes a bargain beast.

Throughout the year, I've been keeping tabs on this Alienware 16X Aurora gaming laptop, and it's seen numerous discounts nearly every month. Now, with arguably the biggest sales event of the year coming soon, you can bet this gaming laptop will see a major discount that I'm a sucker for during Black Friday.

Is it a gaming laptop to keep on your radar? With the price cuts it frequently gets, I say yes. Now, let's dive into the performance you can expect.

Quality performance for less

Now, an RTX 5060 laptop GPU can only go so far. With its 8GB GDDR7 video memory (VRAM), this is mainly delivering entry-level gaming performance for popular multiplayer PC games that don't require the most demanding graphics (games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle can munch through a lot of VRAM).

But that doesn't mean it can't run these types of games, anyway, and much of that has to do with DLSS 4. With Nvidia's multi-frame gen boosting frame rates, it pushes what the Alienware 16X Aurora can otherwise deliver. It can play the best PC games at more than acceptable frame rates, even with settings cranked to max, albeit not as well as the premium machines we've seen.

Whether it's Black Myth: Wukong at Cinematic settings, Cyberpunk 2077 with Ray Tracing Ultra or Doom: The Dark Ages at Ultra Nightmare, this Alienware machine could handle it. Well, sort of.

Check out the results I got below when running against a high-end machine like the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI with an RTX 5080.

I know. Only 7 FPS on Doom: The Dark Ages? Yeah, I could barely get out of the settings menu. But realistically, I wouldn't ever dream of turning on path tracing with an RTX 5060 gaming laptop, and, to be real, it's not exactly needed.

Of course, the Alienware 16X Aurora with its RTX 5060 wouldn't compete against a laptop of the Predator Helios 18 AI's caliber, but it's not meant to. That laptop will set you back $3,099, while you can get Alienware's for over half the price.

Also, that benchmark is running games at max potential, and that's not what the 16X Aurora is made for. By tinkering with settings, like changing DLSS Super Resolution to Ultra Performance in Doom and switching to High settings in Wukong, I was easily seeing frame rates boost to well over 150 FPS during real-time gameplay. What's more, I got over 160 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at high settings!

Being able to play these games with smooth, detailed visuals already makes for a great gaming laptop, but the Alienware 16X Aurora stands out for the discounted prices it's going for.

As for what the 16X Aurora was best at, I tried playing Marvel Rivals and The Finals (a favorite of mine). Here, I was seeing 240 FPS at Epic settings with DLSS 4, even with 1600p resolution in The Finals, and nearly 300 FPS with Marvel Rivals at Ultra settings (at 1080p, though). It can more than manage fast-paced gameplay, especially with its commendable display,

Speaking of, sporting a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) display with a 240Hz refresh rate is a boon. For some titles, that can be a tad demanding, but having the option to bolster resolution in a gaming laptop like this is amazing value.

Coupled with the Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX CPU, a whopping 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB SSD, that's a rare sight for a sub-$1,500 laptop. Well, when it's on sale, that is.

On the thicker side

Despite the impressive performance-to-price ratio the Alienware 16X Aurora boasts, it does still remind me of the gaming laptops of yesteryear. That isn't such a bad thing, but don't expect a super-sleek gaming laptop on the same level as, say, an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 or Razer Blade 14 (2025).

Even for a 16-inch gaming laptop, this is one chunky machine. That works in its favor for the most part, with its base being slightly elevated to make room for a cooler on the bottom that sucks cool air in from under the laptop and pushes it from the back and sides.

This does keep fans on the quieter side, even when I pushed it to its limits when trying out path tracing in Doom: The Dark Ages. But, at 5.6 pounds, this is on the heavier side compared to other lightweight laptops (the Zephyrus G14 comes in at 3.5 pounds). Let me put it this way: I would find it on my desk more so than in my backpack.

But this isn't entirely surprising for a laptop that's been seen for as low as $1,399. It's making sacrifices in the right places, delivering as much performance as it can in a sturdy, well-built design.

Is the Alienware 16X Aurora worth it?

At full price, the Alienware 16X Aurora comes in at around $1,649 at Dell, and now at $1,799 at Best Buy. That's a steep ask, especially for a system that comes with an RTX 5060, while you could get the Asus TUF Gaming A18 with an RTX 5070 for the same price.

However, when its price is cut down to well under $1,500, I can now see why this machine has got the praise that it has from its customers. Being able to play the latest games at frame rates that far surpass entry-level performance I've seen in previous rigs, like an RTX 4050 gaming laptop, is outstanding.

After using this laptop to play everything from demanding PC titles to fast-paced multiplayer shooters, I'm sure that when it comes to Black Friday, this laptop is one to keep on your radar.

More from Tom's Guide

• I asked Google AI mode to recommend the best gaming laptop under $2,000 — you're wasting your money if you trust AI search
• I tested the Razer Blade 14 (2025) — and it may be the perfect on-the-go gaming laptop
• I swapped a gaming desktop for a gaming laptop — here's how they stack up in 2025

So it’s looking like Google AI Mode may become the default option of searching — replacing the traditional search model with generative AI search that scrapes a whole host of webpages to craft an answer.

Yes, Google lead product manager Logan Kilpatrick did walk this back a little, saying that "more AI Mode responses and functionality" are coming to AI Overviews — rather than a straight up replacement. But given how this experiment continues to expand at a lightning pace, it wouldn't surprise me if this was the ultimate mission.

Of course, I could go into the huge risk this poses to the ways people find information online, or how this could severely damage the amount of traffic websites that rely on Google search get (using tactics known as SEO).

But I want to look at it a different way and ask one simple question: if this is to be the way people search for product recommendations, how good are Google AI mode’s recommendations really?

So, ignoring the advice I normally give people, which is to go to buying guides like our best gaming laptops list for authentic recommendations, what happens when you just use AI?

And what follows is a cautionary tale — if you trust Google’s AI mode to help you pick consumer tech, you’re probably wasting your money. Let me explain.

This isn’t sour grapes

Am I annoyed that generative AI search is taking traffic away from consumer tech news sites like our own? More than a little, yeah. But this is about me, and this isn’t why I’m running this experiment over the next few weeks.

The reason why I’m running it is that more and more, this is becoming the way people are searching for information, and I’m disappointed with the recommendations it gives. Our life’s work is to make sure you have all the information, hard-tested advice and know-how to make the best buying decisions.

The test

I gave Google AI mode a simple prompt: “Recommend the best gaming laptop for…” To give it a price position, I aimed for “under $1,000” and “under $2,000.” Hitting enter, it all looks pretty official — nicely laid out too.

This is what I’ll be doing for other key categories in computing too. New laptops, desktops and peripherals can get expensive, especially if you want anything particularly good that will last you a long time. So AI mode has to get this right…right!?

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. It fumbles the ball in a big way.

The (somewhat) good

As you know, it’s perfectly possible to get the latest RTX 50-series gaming laptops for less than $2,000. For less than $1,000, there are some pretty impressive 40-series options — I’ll go into all of these later.

Well, let’s start at below a thousand bucks, and in all honesty, Google AI mode has made some good decisions here. Typically, this constrained price point puts you in this realm of specs: an RTX 4050, 13th Gen Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Both the Acer Nitro V 15 and Lenovo LOQ 15 are solid options sporting these specs. Personally, I’d push you towards the LOQ, as Lenovo has always made better laptop keyboards, and it really shows here.

However, this is where we run into the first issue. Google AI is good and all, but it doesn’t seem to be too great at keeping up with recent developments, cross-referencing information from different sources or finding savings that satisfy the criteria.

For example, RTX 4060 laptops are regularly available for less than $1,000. I’d point you to the MSI Sword 16 for this for example, which with $200 off means you can get much more for your money. AI mode didn’t spot this, which means it may be good at finding editorial answers to your questions, but not that great at spotting savings to get you more bang for your buck.

The ugly

Then I turn my attention to the less-than $2,000 option. This is plenty of headroom to get something packing an RTX 5070, and maybe even an RTX 5080 if you look hard enough. So why on earth is Google AI mode recommending the Asus ROG Strix G16 with RTX 4070!?

Not only that, but a casual (and traditional) Google search will show this option actually blows past the $2,000 budget. Some hallucination has clearly happened here. That’s not to say the G16 is a bad laptop, but we’ve moved forward significantly since this came out last year. The recency context seems to be way off in what is sourced — highlighted by the fact a key source used in its search was a best laptops guide from April 2025.

But most concerningly, where did the Alienware M16 R2 come from? I mean, it’s fine, but not something to write home about with a cheap chassis, loud fans and a dull display. Well, as it turns out, Google AI mode sourced this information directly from Dell’s website.

It scraped the retailer’s website and presented this (clearly biased) information as a straight-up recommendation. This is incredibly problematic as you’re being told to buy a laptop based on marketing materials alone.

I’m sure this could get better over time, but with AI mode essentially being a black box that has to be coerced over time, and given Dell built a page called “best gaming laptops” that this is being sourced from, it’s not been weighted towards real editorial expertise vs marketing tactics.

What is the fix?

How do we tackle this? Well, there are two key options to make sure you see us and other trusted outlets in your search results:

• Follow Tom’s Guide on Google News: While Google search becomes increasingly AI-fied, Google News continues to be a good place to follow publications with a direct feed of news stories.
• Add Tom’s Guide as a preferred source: Google recently launched a feature to let you set your preferred sources. This maintains visibility of your trusted publications, and we’ve got the step-by-step on how to do it.

If you are in AI mode, just make sure you check the sources Google’s pulling its answer from on the side column — it pays (literally) to be careful that you’re not being hoodwinked by marketing messaging that has just been assumed to be trustworthy.

What you should actually buy

But I don’t want this to end on me ranting, without actually giving you advice. If you came here after being disappointed with the Google AI mode recommendations, let me point you in the right direction of what you actually should purchase at these prices.

Best gaming laptop under $1,000

Best gaming laptop under $2,000

More from Tom's Guide

• I tested the Razer Blade 14 (2025) — and it may be the perfect on-the-go gaming laptop
• Framework’s New Laptop 16 With RTX 5070 Just Solved My Biggest Problem With Gaming Laptops
• Acer just revealed a new gaming laptop with RTX 5090 power — and an absolutely obscene 192GB of RAM

If you're waiting for Black Friday to pick up an all-new gaming laptop sporting the latest specs, there's no need. You can now find an RTX 5070 machine with a massive discount, making it cheaper than an RTX 5060 laptop — and it's now even less than the last time I spotted it.

In what is the best deal I've seen on an RTX 5070 gaming laptop all year, the Gigabyte Aero 16X is now $450 off at Best Buy. That's down from its usual $1,649 cost, taking it all the way down to $1,199. You'd be hard-pressed to find a laptop of this caliber this cheap, and it even beats a deal on one of the best gaming laptops on the market with an RTX 5060: the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 now at $1,349.

This Aero 16X was already a steal when it was last discounted for $350, but it's now a real bargain for those after a gaming laptop upgrade featuring RTX 50-series power. Along with its other impressive specs, including an AMD Ryzen Al 7, 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, this deal is hard to miss out on.

Finding an RTX 50-series gaming laptop for a great value price doesn't come often, especially when it boasts an RTX 5070. Previously, I've seen the Alienware 16X Aurora drop to an (at the time) incredible $1,649 during Prime Day sales, but this Gigabyte Aero 16X has knocked that price down way further.

This mid-ranger bumps up its performance with some powerful specs under the hood, too. With its AMD Ryzen Al 7 350 CPU for snappy, power-efficient performance, a gamer-ready 32GB of DDR5 RAM and good space on its 1TB SSD, this gaming laptop packs plenty of heat to crank up graphics and still achieve high frame rates.

That's also thanks to Nvidia's DLSS 4 and multi-frame gen tech, which pushes the system even further in games like Cyberpunk 2077, Doom: The Dark Ages and even the very demanding Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. You can even expect frame rates to jump close to 200 FPS at 1440p with high settings with DLSS turned on.

Now, I'd like to have more video memory than the 8GB VRAM the RTX 5070 laptop GPU delivers, but at this price, you're still getting a gaming rig that can handle demanding titles. In fact, customers for this Gigabyte Aero 16X have noted that it's "an excellent gaming laptop hindered in performance by Nvidia's lack of VRAM."

That said, it still "has a ton of gaming power," and I'd agree, considering my time with the Asus TUF Gaming A18 with an RTX 5070. With that machine (that also came with less RAM at 16GB), while running the benchmark test in Cyberpunk 2077, with Nvidia DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation x4 and High settings with ray tracing turned on, the A18 achieved an average of 200 FPS.

This Gigabyte Aero 16X looks to be no different, and with its 4.6-star customer rating, this gaming laptop with an RTX 5070 is a steal now that it's down to just $1,199. If you're after even more gaming laptop deals, check out this Razer Blade 14 with an RTX 5070 that's now $400 off.

Unlike its larger brethren, the Razer Blade 14 (2025) is a small, refined workhorse of a gaming laptop that attempts to justify its high price with sleek design and high-end performance. Coupled with the latest hardware from AMD and Nvidia, the Razer Blade 14 does not disappoint when gaming. It's also great for productivity with a slim, lightweight profile and MacBook Pro-esque design made to move about the cabin.

The 2025 edition sports some upgrades that can be felt and seen, including a slimmed-down chassis and a new fan layout that makes it run cooler. All of that makes the Razer Blade 14 a contender for our list of the best gaming laptops of the year.

It’s a stiff competitor to our current favorite, Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14. Did Razer do enough to compete with the G14? Read my review of the Razer Blade 14 (2025) to find out.

Razer Blade 14 (2025) gaming laptop review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Razer Blade 14 (2025) is a premium 14-inch gaming laptop featuring AMD and Nvidia components.
• Who is it for? Razer's latest thin gaming notebook is for those seeking powerful gaming in a smaller footprint.
• What does it cost? The Razer Blade 14 (2025) starts at $2,299 when ordered direct from Razer. As configured, our review unit costs $2,649. The top-tier package goes up to $2,999.
• What do we like? We like the lightweight chassis, powerful performance and sharp 14-inch display.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like the high asking price, especially compared to rival laptops.

Razer Blade 14 (2025) gaming laptop review: Specs

Razer Blade 14 (2025) gaming laptop review: The ups

For the last couple of years I've been chained to a desktop gaming PC, and the Razer Blade 14 made me miss gaming laptops with its stellar design, incredible display and smooth performance.

Great gaming experience

I have not yet tested out an RTX 50-series PC, but thanks to rave reviews from my colleagues I had high expectations.

The RTX 5070 GPU in our Razer Blade 14 review unit, coupled with AMD's Ryzen AI 9 365 and 16GB of RAM, provided a smooth experience during my testing. For most games, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I'm an FPS fan at heart, so my personal play put Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 to the test with various settings at both the highest and lowest levels. I've found Valorant to be pretty optimized, so even with the settings cranked up it was running pretty smoothly.

In our lab tests, we run a number of games through their respective built-in benchmark tools. As you can see in the table above, the Razer Blade 14 runs games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong around 35 frames per second at 1080p resolution with max graphical settings.

It's comparable to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which we reviewed with a slightly more powerful RTX 5080. Stacking up with the better GPU bodes well for Blade 14.

I can't OLED you go

Beyond gameplay running smoothly, games and media look great on the Blade’s 14-inch OLED display. As they say, once you go OLED, you don't go back to any other screen.

The display is a 3K OLED 120Hz screen with a 2ms response time. It won't hit the high refresh rates that wannabe esports gamers want, but games still look excellent.

With Calman verified color profiles I was able to use the Razer Blade 14 for creative work as well, including some photo editing. I felt the colors were represented well. With Razer positioning the Blade 14 as both a gaming PC and a work laptop, you should be able to transition seamlessly between work and play.

Lighter, thinner and cooler

It's impressive that Razer has managed to cut some millimeters and weight off the Blade 14 while still maintaining pretty good battery life and cooling.

The 2024 model weighed just over four pounds, and the 2023 edition was just under at 3.92 pounds. This year's edition comes in at a fluffy 3.59 pounds by comparison. Plus, Razer shaved off about 0.8 inches of thickness and width.

I like the way our review unit looks with its Mercury (silver) color scheme, and the overall smaller design gives it a sleeker MacBook-esque feel.

With a completely redesigned interior which moves the hottest components underneath the vapor cooling chamber and a refined dual-fan system, Razer claims the Blade 14 runs cooler than its predecessor—and our testing proves that’s true.

In our testing lab the underside of the laptop hit 96 degrees Fahrenheit while gaming and 94.9 degrees during non-gaming tests. Last year's mode ran a lot hotter in the same trials, climbing up to a balmy 133 degrees while gaming. That said, we consider anything over 95 degrees to be uncomfortable for most people.

Still, if you're like me and use a cooling pad out of habit, the heat shouldn't bother you.

Razer Blade 14 (2025) gaming laptop review: The downs

The Razer Blade 14 is unquestionably a great gaming laptop. However, it does have some obvious flaws.

Price

This isn't a new complaint about Razer's laptops; I'm certain you could read every review we've ever written, and one of the cons would always be the price. And this despite Razer's talk about "aggressive pricing" for this year's model.

This year's iteration of the Blade 14 is no exception, with a starting price of $2,300; our review unit maxes out at $2,700. Which is slightly more than the 2024 iteration, costing between $2,199 and $2,699. To be fair, the 2023 model started at $2,400, so it is cheaper than that.

Additionally, both numbers are higher than laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which costs $200 less with a similar build to the Blade 14 version I tested. Even bumping up to the Asus ROG Zephyrus 16 will get you boosted specs and a larger display for around the same price.

And if price is a sticking point, remember you have other alternatives, including the budget MSI Cyborg 15 (one of the best gaming laptops of 2025) which comes in around $1,000.

Which leads into the next flaw.

Volatile battery life

I am in the midst of a move and was really able to put the Razer Blade 14 to the battery test outside of my usual desk setup. For a normal workday, I found the Razer Blade 14 battery just about enough to get through nearly eight hours without needing to plug in until the late afternoon.

Our battery tests would disagree with me, though. With the display set at 150 nits of brightness and continually surfing the web, the Blade 14 averaged about 5 hours of battery life. That's worse than both the 2023 and 2024 versions, which managed 8.5 hours and 6.5 hours respectively. Razer promises up to 11 hours of life, but even on my best days our Blade 14 review unit never made it through an 8-hour workday.

When gaming it died even faster, lasting roughly 2 hours and 14 minutes on average. That’s better than the 2023 and 2024 models, which each lasted around 90 minutes while gaming on battery. My personal testing lined up with those numbers, and I kept the laptop plugged in or the power cord close by while gaming.

Weaker Specs

For the price you're paying, there are laptops at a similar or even lower price that offer more for your money.

Razer does cap the Blade 14 GPU at a 5070, which I think is to its benefit as it's not chugging along trying to make a 5080 or 5090 work without overheating the small chassis.

I'm harping on the comparison to Asus' G14 but it's the best comparison we have at this size with similar specs. And the comparison does not favor Razer's laptop on specs or price.

Razer Blade 14 (2025) gaming laptop review: Verdict

Razer has made one of the best 14-inch gaming laptops this year, though you have to pay for the privilege of owning one. Still, despite the price and comparisons to some of the best gaming laptops, the sleek design and great OLED display make the Razer worth considering.

And it's not just the specs that Razer got correct here. The redesigned cooling system makes it a cooler laptop than its predecessors. The RGB keyboard is fun, and I can't deny that the Blade 14 just looks good.

If you want a gaming laptop with comparable performance, the Legion Go 7i Pro and HP Omen Max 16 are great options, as well as the aforementioned Asus G14.

Acer may have just unleashed one of the most powerful gaming laptops to come to the market, and if its RTX 5090 GPU isn't telling enough, perhaps its 192GB of RAM will get you on board.

For IFA 2025, Acer has announced its Predator Helios 18P AI, an 18-inch machine that's a gaming laptop and workstation fitted into one. How so? It boasts an Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU, a whopping 6TB for storage and an even more impressive 192GB of ECC RAM.

What exactly is ECC memory? It actively detects and corrects common types of data corruption, meaning it reduces the risk of system crashes, data corruption and the like. That's what makes it more than just a gaming laptop, as the Helios 18P is targeted at AI developers and content creators, too.

If you thought the MSI Titan 18 HX was a powerful machine, the Helios 18P AI takes that might and runs with it. While its specs alone beat many of the best gaming laptops, this kind of power is reflected in its price tag.

The Acer Predator Helios 18P AI will be available in the U.S., with pricing and release dates yet to be announced. However, we do know it's starting at €4,499, so you can imagine this will be one pricey machine.

Acer Predator Helios 18P AI: Specs

Acer Predator Helios 18P AI: What you need to know

While I've found desktop replacement laptops still can't quite match the power of a gaming PC, the Predator Helios 18P AI aims to close that gap. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX processor paired with an RTX 5090 laptop GPU alone makes for a monster machine, especially when playing the best PC games, video editing, graphic design and coding.

But it takes it all a step further with its 192GB of ECC memory, which is a wild amount of RAM. The most RAM that general users need is 32GB, and that's already for gaming or editing and rendering 4K videos. Top that off with its up to 6TB PCIe Gen 5 SSD for storage, two Thunderbolt 5 ports (along with three USB-A, HDMI 2.1 and SD card reader), Killer Ethernet E5000B and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity, and this laptop aims to do it all on the go.

Cooling it all is Acer's AeroBlade metal fans, which are the "world's thinnest" cooling fan blades at 0.05mm, liquid metal thermal grease and vector heat pipes.

More from Tom's Guide

• Framework’s new Laptop 16 with RTX 5070 just solved my biggest problem with gaming laptops
• I swapped a gaming desktop for a gaming laptop — here's how they stack up in 2025
• Reddit recommends these gaming laptops — here are my thoughts as a reviewer of 5+ years

There's one problem I've had with the best gaming laptops since reviewing them over the years: upgradeability. But Framework has just fixed that issue with the announcement of its new modular laptop.

As announced, the Framework Laptop 16 has arrived, sporting the latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPUs and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU. That's already a substantial upgrade over the previous Framework Laptop 16, but the real kicker is that the new graphics module with RTX 5070 power is backwards compatible with the older laptop model.

While the new Laptop 16 comes with its own pool of upgrades, including a revamped thermal system, a new hot-swappable modular input system, an updated 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) 165Hz display now with Nvidia G-Sync and a new 240W USB-C power adapter, Framework has now solidified itself as the de facto laptop brand for upgradeable graphics.

With key components for performance being upgradeable, even for those who own the previous Laptop 16, Framework's latest Laptop 16 shows that this is the only gaming laptop I'll ever need to buy. It's the customization of the best gaming PCs now in a mobile device.

Pre-orders for the Framework Laptop 16, along with upgraded modules, are available to pre-order now, and shipments are expected to arrive by November and December. Otherwise, let's have a look at what's under the hood.

Upgradeable graphics

The biggest upgrades to come with the new Framework Laptop 16 are the default CPU and GPU module upgrades. That includes AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 options, along with the Expansion Bay Module now offering an RTX 5070 graphics module.

That takes the price up to $2,149, and that's without other additions, including two slots of DDR5 memory for up to 96GB and two M.2 slots, going up to a whopping 10TB for storage. However, the AMD Radeon RX 7700S is still available to keep that price down, and that will come with the updated thermal system.

Over the original Laptop 16's Radeon RX 7700S module, the new RTX 5070 edition is set to deliver up to a 40% increase in frame rates. Considering the performance I've seen in the RTX 5070-equipped Asus TUF Gaming A18, expect a huge boost in gaming (with DLSS 4 there to help, no less).

To power it all, Framework now offers a new default 240W USB-C power adapter with support for USB-PD (Power Delivery) 3.1. Plus, it should (hopefully) run cooler, as the Laptop 16 will use a "Honeywell phase change thermal interface material," along with "reoptimizing the fan blade geometry and controller IC for reduced noise."

Framework goes deeper into details on its new graphics module and more below, and even takes a dig at the Windows Copilot Key: "for all of you people that want that, for some reason."

There are some other updates Framework is bringing, including an upgraded webcam as found on the Framework Laptop 13, a reinforced CNC aluminum top cover and keyboard artwork from the recent Framework Laptop 12 (which we were also impressed with). Moreover, a firmware update will stop the laptop from waking up if keys are triggered while the lid is closed.

Further upgrades down the line?

More from Tom's Guide

• I took the Framework Desktop out to my living room — and I can’t believe I’m actually gaming in 4K on an iGPU
• I swapped a gaming desktop for a gaming laptop — here's how they stack up in 2025
• Reddit recommends these gaming laptops — here are my thoughts as a reviewer of 5+ years

A gaming desktop or laptop, which to get? It's an age-old question I've been pondering lately, especially now that the best gaming laptops come fitted with the latest peak hardware, pushing CPU and GPU power even further.

To many, it's an easy choice. The best gaming PCs easily deliver a higher bar for performance, with soaring power output and larger components that can be customized to one's liking. But desktop-class laptops exist for good reason, as they show just how much power can be packed into a mobile device — and it's hard not to be impressed by the performance they dish out.

Nothing says that more than the recent Acer Predator Helios 18 AI I've tested. This machine boasts an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 mobile GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB SSD. It's a monster, and as far as desktop replacements go, it fits the bill.

But then there's the juggernaut that is the Acer Predator Orion 7000 I also recently tried out, equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF CPU, RTX 5080 desktop GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB SSD. Now this is a beast, capable of delivering 4K gaming with frame rates as high as 160 FPS (thanks to Nvidia DLSS 4).

Two mighty gaming machines, one similar price. The Helios 18 AI can be found for $3,099/£3,099, while the Orion 7000 for around £3,299 (no U.S. pricing yet, but I can imagine it being around a similar $3,299). As you can tell, these are premium investments, so I'd be making sure my wallet is happy with my choices.

Can both gaming PCs crank up settings to max in the best PC games? You bet your GPU they can, but the real matter here is the difference in performance they deliver. And so, I put the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI to the test — all to see if it really can measure up to the levels of a gaming desktop. Let's dive into the numbers.

Impressive comparisons... sort of

Look, even a high-end gaming laptop would never be able to beat a tower with desktop-equivalent specs. So realistically, the Predator Helios 18 AI doesn't stand a chance against the Predator Orion 7000, as they're two different classes of gaming machines.

As you'll find, the benchmarks say it all. With its sizeably impressive 18-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) mini-LED panel with a 250Hz refresh rate, the Helios 18 AI can't deliver 4K (3840 x 2160) visuals on its own, so the Orion 7000 already had to put up with a heavier load when I tested its 4K performance.

But despite the gap in resolutions, the Helios 18 AI is still stunning to play on during real-time gameplay. And if the extra per-pixel count isn't a huge concern, you'll find it can pull off commendable frame rates.