Best Gaming Laptop under 2000 [Top 10 Guide]

Best Gaming Laptop under 2000: The main task of the laptop is, of course, to meet the demands placed on it smoothly. At the same time, a gaming laptop should create a pleasant gaming atmosphere.

In this article, we show you some points in which laptops differ. Then you can find yourself the best gaming laptop for your desires and requirements.
We give some recommendations but there are so many laptops out there, so your final choice might be a completely different model since there are many sibling models for every laptop model with differences in CPU, RAM, or SSD equipment.

Bestseller on Amazon

The easiest option is to look at the number one best seller on Amazon for gaming laptops under 2000. This laptop changes continuously depending on what most people buy at the time.

Last update on 2024-03-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Considerations before you buy a gaming laptop

• How large should the display be?
• Do you need a touch screen or other special display features?
• How long should the battery life be?
• Should the notebook have already an operating system pre-installed or do you have a windows license?
• Do you have any wishes regarding design, workmanship, material or colour?
• Are there any other special requirements that have not been queried?
• How much money are you willing to spend?

3 gaming Laptop recommendations around 1000

In the following we give you three recommendations for gaming laptops under 1000. Maybe these notebooks already serves your purpose even if you have budget of 2000.

Acer Predator Helios 300

The Acer Predator Helios 300 has over 500 customer reviews. Therefore it is quite a popular gaming laptop.

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Dell G5

The Dell G5 has over 50 customer reviews.

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

ASUS TUF

The ASUS TUF only has about 20 customer reviews.

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

3 gaming laptop recommendations around 1500

The Lenovo Legion Y7000

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Razer Blade 15

Displays with a particularly slim frame not only look sexy, but they are also very popular with gaming notebooks. The Razer Blade 15 offers an edge-to-edge screen. In general, the stylish metal body is one of the highest-quality and best-manufactured cases currently available on the market. Keyboard, touchpad and display (144 Hz) don’t have to hide behind the competition either.

Despite its compact dimensions, the 15-inch laptop comes with plenty of high-end technology. Be it the Core i7-8750H, the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q or the NVMe SSD. Razer Synapse allows you to extensively adjust software and hardware (e.g. RGB lighting). Thanks to the successful cooling system, the notebook doesn’t get particularly noisy or warm. The connectivity could be better. However, travel and design-oriented gamers won’t go wrong with the purchase.

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

The Alienware m15

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

3 gaming laptop recommendations around 2000

Dell XPS

The ASUS TUF only has about 20 customer reviews.

Last update on 2024-03-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

MSI GE75 Raider

While the GT75 looks rather bulky, the MSI GE75 is a good compromise between height and performance. For example, the top-of-the-range 17-inch sprout not only includes an Intel eight-core processor but also Nvidia’s lightning-fast GeForce RTX 2080. Their images are transferred to a matt 144 Hz panel that is surprisingly bright and true to colour. The battery life (Optimus technology) and the sound also don’t give much to complain about.

Fortunately, we are missing a Thunderbolt 3 port and a fast card reader. The background noise in 3D mode could also be better.

Last update on 2024-03-21 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Acer Predator Triton 700

The ASUS TUF only has about 20 customer reviews.

Last update on 2024-03-21 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Focus points for gaming laptops

Size and weight

For size and weight there are basically two approaches:

1. A large display is more important for me than weight. Also, I want a number pad on the keyboard. Weight, therefore, plays rather a secondary role.
2. Mobility is important to me in the first place. I can live better with a smaller display than with too much weight – if that’s the case, I choose notebooks up to 14″.

The display size is only the first criterion about how big and heavy the laptop will be. The same display size can lead to different sizes and weights. As a rule, a more compact and lighter device with the same display size has to be purchased at a considerable surcharge. (Best Gaming Laptop under 2000)

Screen: speed or resolution

Best Gaming Laptop under 2000: Fortunately, matt displays are now standard and there are fewer and fewer laptops with glossy displays (with the exception of touch displays). Nevertheless, it is recommended that the display of an office laptop should be matt. When it comes to a laptop in professional use, a matt (“glare-free”) screen is even mandatory by the Workplace Ordinance for VDU workstations.

This is the only way to ensure that it is possible to work even under difficult lighting conditions. Light reflection, as with a glossy display, is often annoying. The brightness of the display is also important when working outdoors. Nowadays, the resolution should not be below FHD (1920×1080) in the datasheet.

Basically, it has to be said that it is very difficult (or expensive) to get a very good display that meets all the criteria. The quality of the displays serves the manufacturers as an essential instrument to determine the costs in manufacturing, as well as to demand higher prices from the customer for higher models.

Often you have to look very closely into the test results of laptop models and their displays to see what the actual quality of the display is. Advertising slogans such as “IPS Display” can be an indicator for a good display, but they alone are not a quality criterion. Or to put it another way: a good TN display can be better than a miserable IPS display.

The fastest 144Hz displays only come at 1920 x 1080 resolution right now, so a 4K screen will be slower.

Keyboard and Mouse

For frequent typists, the keyboard must be just as robust as the case and guarantee a good typing feel. There are very individual ideas and preferences for things such as the pressure point of the individual keys.

Therefore the keyboard should be tried out before the purchase, if possible, to find out whether it fits you. The necessity of a number pad must be decided for itself. However, models with a numeric keypad are always 15.6″ and larger. Alternatively, a numeric keypad is also available externally via USB for little money.

On some models, the keyboards are splash-proof. This means that the keyboard is encapsulated from the rest of its inner workings so that liquids are drained to a limited extent to the outside and cannot get inside.

Most important for gaming: GPU

Most games are GPU-dependent, and you can’t upgrade these in laptops. A good GPU will ensure your laptop plays games at high settings for a few years.

If you don’t need to play on the highest settings, you can go for a GTX 1650, which will let you play most games, albeit on middling settings. A GTX 1660 Ti will give you a bit more power, and we generally think it’s noticeable and worth the investment. A laptop with these cards will roughly cost you between $800 (£700) and $1,100 (£900).

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2060 is a good middle-of-the-road card that will let you play most games on high settings. It’s also considered the minimum standard for virtual reality, so it’s the lowest you should go for your Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Expect laptops with these cards to fall between $1,100 (£1,000) and $1,500 (£1,350).

An RTX 2070 will let you play through just about anything on high settings, while the RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti are the most powerful 20-series cards out there and will allow for smoother VR and special effects. These are the cards that will let you start pumping up effects like Nvidia Gameworks. Laptops like this can start in the high 1K $/£ range, and, depending on what other specs you need, go over $3,000 (£2,700). But with the new RTX series, you can play ray-traced video games and get faster frame rates. An RTX 2070 or RTX 2080 may even be enough for you to play games in 4K.

Battery Life

Battery life will probably be bad: Very few gaming notebooks get 8 hours or more on a charge, and you need the power supply to get the best performance anyway.

The running times advertised in advertising are often not measured realistically with very darkened displays. I.e. real battery life and occasional CPU load and bright display are usually significantly lower. Battery runtimes under full load are again significantly lower. The more important the battery life is for the personal application, the more accurate the tests with actual battery life under different load conditions have to be. If you want long battery life, it is also advisable to pay attention to an externally replaceable battery. So one can work with exchange batteries or if necessary with special particularly large batteries.

Upgrading possible?

In the course of a laptop life there will be in most cases the necessity to get to the inner life. Be it you want to upgrade the RAM or the SSD/HDD, or you want to clean the fan after a few years of hard work. Also the renewal of the heat conducting paste can be helpful after some years.

A laptop with good maintenance accessibility is characterized by the fact that the battery is removable from the outside, that there are separate maintenance flaps for RAM and SSD/HDD, or that the base plate is easy to remove and fastened with only a few standard screws.
A laptop with poor maintenance accessibility is characterized by the fact that there is usually a base plate that has to be completely removed to get inside. The base plate is often fixed by screws (if necessary by special screws for which not everyone has a screwdriver), but also by additional plastic clips. Depending on the model, you need a lot of intuition and the right tools for non-destructive loosening of the plastic clips. In addition, there are laptops without any possibility to get to the inside and are therefore not recommended from the point of view of maintainability.

CPU

Depending on your budget, you can get a very powerful Core i7 CPU or even one that you can overclock such as the Intel Core i9-8950HK. You can also find laptops with desktop CPUs. However, most games benefit more from a quality GPU than a CPU so you can definitely get by with a Core i5 processor. If you see something older than the most current Intel 8th Gen Core (model numbers begin with 8) or with less power, consider saving a bit for the latest quad-core or hexa-core processor. CPUs usually aren’t upgradeable, so you’re making this choice once.

RAM

Even though the size of 4GB will suffice in many cases, most models are already sold with at least 8Gb. Here one should also access and only to 4GB models reach if it arrives around each €. Disadvantageous is soldered RAMs. This makes upgrading more difficult or even impossible. And secondly, RAM is one of the electronic components that can break down and should be easy to replace.

Storage

It’s no longer a secret that SSDs can deliver an enormous increase in performance when it comes to working speed. Advantages of an SSD in a notebook are:

• Significantly better access times and transfer rates
• More economical than a hard drive – favours longer battery life
• Silent as electronic and not mechanical
• Less susceptible to interference, i.e. it is not susceptible to shocks/falls. This means increased data security.
• Therefore, no laptop should be purchased without a system SSD. Here the size of 256GB has established itself and should be sufficient in many cases. If more storage capacity is needed, this can be achieved by a larger system SSD or the combination of smaller system SSD and extra HDD.