The best thin and light gaming laptops 2021
The best thin and light gaming laptops can ensure that you’ll never have to choose between raw power and portability ever again. Thanks to the efforts by Nvidia, Intel, and AMD, mobile components are getting smaller yet more powerful and energy-efficient, making these gaming machines possible.
With the best thin and light gaming laptops, you can game on the go without lugging around a heavy load. In fact, many of these gaming laptops can rival the best laptops and even the best Ultrabooks.
Some even have such long battery life you can opt to leave the charger at home so you can travel even lighter. What’s more, many of these portables are more affordable than ever. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, for example, delivers impressive performance and a beautiful, lightweight chassis while also being less expensive than its rivals.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 may be missing a webcam and a Thunderbolt 3 port, but it’s damn near close to perfection, garnering our coveted yet rarely given five-star rating. This is an absolute beast of a gaming laptop, delivering an incredible performance with its AMD Ryzen 4000 processors and Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card while touting best-in-class battery life that will last you all day long, a fast display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a lightweight, ultrathin design. This is definitely the best thin and light gaming laptop in 2021. For a laptop this impressive, we’re surprised Asus isn’t asking for more.
Read the full review: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
2. MSI GS65 Stealth
Thin. Beautiful. Powerful.
Specifications
CPU: Intel Core i7
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5X VRAM, Max-Q)
RAM: 16GB
Screen: 15.6-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080) anti-glare, wide-view 144Hz panel
Storage: 512GB M.2 SSD
Dimensions: 14.1 x 0.7 x 9.8-inches (358.1 x 17.8 x 248.9mm)
Weight: 1.9kg
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Reasons to buy
+Beautiful, subtle design +Excellent performance
Reasons to avoid
–Underside gets very hot
At just .7 inches thick and featuring beefy Coffee Lake processors, the MSI GS65 Stealth isn’t just one of the best thin and light gaming laptops ever made, it’s one of the best devices you can currently game on full stop. It features an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics, which gives you plenty of power for playing the latest games with the graphical settings set to ‘high’, and it all comes in a brilliantly thin and gorgeously-designed body.
Read the full review: MSI GS65 Stealth
The latest Razer Blade Stealth is an absolutely brilliant thin and light gaming PC. It’s a brilliant demonstration of just how far gaming laptop technology has come, with Razer fitting some seriously impressive components into the slimline body of the Blade Stealth. The 2018 version comes with some of the most up-to-date hardware money can buy, and it benefits from a brighter (and larger) display and a new, more subtle, design.
Read the full review: Razer Blade Stealth
4. Razer Blade 15 (2020)
Gaming in style
Specifications
CPU: 10th-generation Intel Core i7
Graphics: up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super
RAM: 16GB DDR4
Screen: 144Hz FHD Matte or OLED 4K – 300Hz FHD Matte or OLED 4K Touch
Storage: Up to 1TB PCIe
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Reasons to buy
+Powerful+Plenty of ports+Top-mounted speakers
Reasons to avoid
–Expensive–Short battery life
Expensive though it may be – as is usual with the Razer Blade line – this installment of the Razer Blade 15 is staggeringly powerful, more than capable of annihilating any PC game you throw at it. With up to an RTX 2080 Super in the GPU department, there’s no doubt of its extra oomph, which makes it an excellent candidate for creative professionals as well, especially with that design that keeps things classy and a trackpad that’s among the best we’ve tested on a gaming laptop. If you’ve got deep pockets and you like to keep things stylish, this is the best thin and light gaming laptop for you.
Read the full review: Razer Blade 15 (2020)
5. Gigabyte Aero 15
Another thin and light gaming beast
Specifications
CPU: Intel Core i7 8750H
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5)
RAM: 8GB – 16GB
Screen: 15.6-inch, FHD (1,920 x 1,080) LCD anti-glare
Storage: 512GB SSD
Dimensions: 14 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches (35.6 x 25 x 1.8 cm)
Weight: 4.4 pounds (2kg)
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
Reasons to buy
+Super thin bezels+Deceptively thin and light
Reasons to avoid
–Unfortunate webcam placement
The Gigabyte Aero 15 proves that you don’t need to be big and bulky to be a brilliant gaming laptop. It packs a 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7 CPU and a GTX 1060 into a slimline body that you’d expect from an Ultrabook. And, thanks to that beefy processor, the Gigabyte Aero 15 isn’t just one of the best gaming laptops – it’s just as good when you need to get some work done.
Read the full review: Gigabyte Aero 15
Okay, so the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 isn’t billed as a gaming laptop, but within its thin and light frame are components that will give you a brilliant gaming experience. Packed with an Intel Kaby Lake G-series processor, this gaming laptop can keep up with its competitors. While you may not be able to play the very latest games at the highest graphical settings, with a bit of tweaking you’ll find that this thin-and-light laptop is brilliant for gaming. Plus, it has a gorgeously-thin design from Dell that makes it stand out from the crowd.
Read the full review: Dell XPS 15 2-in-1
