Do’s and Don’ts When Shopping for a Budget Gaming Laptop

Gaming laptops can get ridiculously expensive, and, if you want to enjoy most games with reasonable settings, then you have to be ready to pay no matter what. With that being said, there are tons of machines in the high hundreds to low thousands that will give you a pretty decent experience. You have to be careful when looking at budget laptops for gaming, however, as you could easily end up with a largely unusable machine. Let’s take a look at some of the do’s and don’ts when looking for a budget gaming laptop.

Do – Spend on a Good GPU

The only area where you can’t compromise with any gaming laptop is when it comes to GPU. So, this is the first thing you have to focus on. Any machine with an RTX 30 GPU or better will be more than enough for those on a budget. If you’re partial to AMD, then you might have to wait until you have more money since machines with good Radeon cards tend to be more on the expensive side.

Don’t – Obsess Over Clock Speed

Most games can run on small CPUs, so this isn’t something you should think about a lot when looking for budget gaming laptops. If the machine has a good CPU, then it will have the infrastructure to support it. A 4 core 2.50 GHz processor might not sound like much, but it will be more than enough to handle most games. Even a dual-core processor will do the job most of the time. So, if we were you, we wouldn’t give the processor too much mind as long as it’s over the 2 GHz mark.

Do – Choose the Right Brand

Some brands do budget laptops better, and you should know who these brands are before you start shopping. Lenovo, for instance, is one of the best manufacturers of budget laptops and are known for the impressive build of their machines even at lower prices. If you want to see what they have to offer, you can check out these budget Lenovo gaming laptops.

One of the things Lenovo is known for is the quality of their keyboards, which is very important when gaming. Most of their keyboards have great travel and feel great to the touch. You won’t get the same level of enjoyability as with a mechanical keyboard, but you’ll be able to play for hours without discomfort and the keyboard action will be very satisfying.

Don’t – Look for Advanced Features

You will have to forget snazzy features like the OLED displays of a fully lit keyboard when looking for a gaming laptop. You also shouldn’t think too much about the look of the machine. Who needs a machine that looks good when you’re going to spend most of your time looking at the screen? Don’t fall for marketing and branding tricks and go for the most barebone-looking machine you can get, as long as it has the specs you need and a pretty decent build.

Conclusion

Now that you know a bit more about how to pick a gaming laptop, you can start your search. The most important thing is knowing what you need at the minimum and considering spending more on the areas that matter the most to you.