Top 3 Cheap Gaming Laptops (2026): Tested and Certified by WIRED


Most gaming laptops have a lot in common. They are all typically between 0.8 and 1 inch thick and tend to have capable gaming devices. Here are some key specifications to look for:

an offer: 15 inch or 16 inch screen. Depending on the aspect ratio, they will have basic displays with a standard resolution of 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200. You won’t find high-resolution panels on gaming laptops under $1,000. Also, take a look at Refresh rate. 144Hz is the standard, but the higher the better for reduced motion blur and smoother animations. While OLED and mini-LED are more common in high-end gaming laptops, the budget-oriented options all use LED IPS.

CPU: The latest processors from Intel and AMD will all be here, and in the budget category, the differences are not as large as in the higher-end options. For AMD, this is usually either the Ryzen 5 220 or Ryzen 7 250. Intel’s latest gaming chipsets in this price range are the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H or Core Ultra 7 240H. While Intel has announced its next-generation Core Ultra Series 3 chips, they haven’t been released yet.

GPU: We’re currently on Nvidia’s RTX 50-series graphics cards, which will be released at the beginning of 2025. In sub-$1,000 gaming laptops, you’ll be stuck with either the RTX 5050 or 5060. They likely won’t be replaced until at least 2027, so it’s safe to buy them for now.

memory: You want at least 16GB of RAM, and that’s usually what you’ll encounter in budget gaming laptops. Many gaming laptops let you upgrade the RAM yourself later, but through… Independent memory price These days, configuring it with 32GB upfront might not be a bad idea.

storageGaming laptops start at 512GB, which will be enough for most. However, upgrading to 1TB isn’t a bad idea, whether configured beforehand or doing it yourself later. You can always store games on External hard diskbut with the volume of games these days, the more storage space you have, the better.

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