This week’s CES trade show saw the announcement of dozens of new gaming laptops, many with brand-new AMD Ryzen 5000 processors, RTX 30-series graphics cards or both. This makes it a perfect time to pick up a gaming laptop, as you’ll know that you’re getting the latest specs that will make PC games look and play their best.
The first models are set to arrive on January 26th, so take a look at our roundup of the most exciting announcements from the show floor – we’ve got highlights from all the major manufacturers including Asus, Lenovo, MSI, Razer and more. We’ve also broken down the biggest gaming laptop trends for 2021, so you’ll know the specs and features to look out for.
Just move down the page to get started, or use the quick links below to jump to the model you’re most interested in.
Acer Nitro 5: the best value propositionAsus Zephyrus G14: the king of 2020 returnsDell Alienware m17 R4: a throughly premium affairGigabyte Aorus 15P: all about the cooling capacityLenovo Legion 7: powerful, professional, pretty irreproachableMSI GE76 Raider Dragon Edition Tiamat: the name says it allRazer Blade 15 Advanced: more options, plus one unique display
The Nitro 5 was likely Acer’s most popular gaming notebook in 2020, thanks to its low cost of entry on the most modestly equipped models and respectable performance throughout the stack. The 2021 version looks even stronger, with Ryzen 5000 series processors in most units and anything from a GTX 1650 to RTX 3080 available depending on how much you spend – with the base model costing $750 and the most expensive $2300. If Acer is able to beat its competitors on price while maintaining performance, it could well be onto another winner. We wouldn’t mind a fresh design on its 2022 models, though…
The Triton 300 SE looks delightfully over the top for a 14-inch laptop, with a sleek anodised aluminium body, other models updated for 2021 include the Helios 300, Aspire 5 and Aspire 7.
We picked the ultra-portable Flow X13 and its tiny XG Mobile RTX 3080 external GPU as the coolest tech announced at CES 2021, but we’re going for something a little more traditional here. The Zephyrus G14 was the surprise laptop hit of 2020, thanks to its blend of a genuinely cool and classy design and an unexpectedly powerful Ryzen 4000 processor. Now more laptop vendors have caught onto the strength of AMD’s Ryzen platform, with many shifting a majority of machines to the new Ryzen 5000 chips, but the updated Zephyrus G14 still holds some unique charm.