Top Gaming Laptops Blown Out For Labor Day Back To School Savings
One of the best times to splurge on a gaming laptop without any guilt is when heading back to school. For one, these days you pretty much need a laptop (or at minimum, a capable tablet) for the school season, at least for college classes. And two, there are often timely deals as the summer season winds down. We've studied the landscape so you can ace your back-to-school laptop shopping with a handful of bargains.
Case in point, you can bag this Alienware x14 R2 gaming laptop for $1,499.99 at Amazon (save $500). The bad news is, this isn't an all-time low price, and it was selling for a hundred dollars less earlier this month. However, the good news is, this is a still a 25% discount over MSRP and also the second-lowest price to date, as just prior to this sale, it was selling for the full asking price.
As configured, the Alienware x14 R2 features a 14-inch QHD+ (2560x1600 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio) display with a 165Hz refresh rate and NVIDIA G-SYNC support, powered by an Intel Core i7-13620H processor (10C/16T, 3.6GHz to 4.9GHz, 24MB L3 cache), 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, GeForce RTX 4060 8GB GPU, and 1TB solid state drive (SSD).
Even more tantalizing is this ASUS ROG Strix G16 (2024) with similar specs but at a much cheaper price—it's on sale for $1,164.99 at Amazon (save $235). That's a smaller 17% discount, but it's more affordable and also an all-time low price on this model.
This is a physically bigger laptop with a 16-inch IPS display with a 1920x1200 resolution (WUXGA), 165Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision support, 100% coverage of the sRGB color space, and G-SYNC support. Underneath the hood, it's packing an Intel Core i7-13650HX processor (14C/20T, up to 4.9GHz, 24MB L3 cache) based on Raptor Lake, 16GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, and 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD.
For connectivity, you're looking at a single Thunderbolt 4 port, RJ45 LAN, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 3.5mm combo audio jack, and an HDMI 2.1 output.
Need to set aside a bigger chunk of your money for books, parking, a backpack, and whatever else? Then one of the more affordable gaming laptops worth checking out is this Acer Nitro V for $649.99 at Amazon (save $130). It's 17% off the list price and, like the ASUS model above, is currently selling for an all-time low price as a 'limited time' deal.
While not as fast or feature rich as the other two models highlighted, the Nitro V offers up a respectable config for the money. It features a 15.6-inch IPS display with a 1920x1080 resolution and 144Hz refresh rate, powered by an Intel Core i5-13420H processor (8C/12T, up to 4.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache), 8GB of DDR5 memory, GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD.
The first thing we'd do is upgrade the RAM, but even after doing that, this would still very much fall into affordable pricing territory.
Here are some more gaming laptop deals...
