Playing games is a guilty pleasure for most students. Especially in 2023, when there’s multiple gaming sources to cater to them, it becomes important to students to learn how to balance both study and gaming. Hence, a gaming laptop is often a popular choice for students. They offer a perfect balance between gaming and studies, without the student having to give up one or the other.
Unfortunately, most students are not rich. Hence, they don’t have a huge budget to blow on gaming laptops. So we’re making this guide to help you choose which is the best gaming laptop in 2023 that is affordable and delivers in performance.
List of requirements
Before we begin, here is a common list of requirements that most students would look out for in a gaming laptop:
- Portability
- Price
- Keyboard feel
- Display screen quality
- Port selection
As such, we will be rating our picks accordingly to the requirement list. We will be rating these laptops out of 5 stars per requirement stated above. Our lineup consists of laptops from ASUS, Dell and Gigabyte, all of them unique in their own ways. Plus, you can find some of those listed in the Volta PC website, so do check it out!
1. Gigabyte G5 Gaming Laptop – Most value-for-money option
Price: SGD $1,514 | Specs: 144 Hz display, i5-12500H, RTX 3050, 512GB SSD
The Gigabyte G5 gaming laptop was released in late December 2022, and remains as one of the most popular choices amongst students in 2023. While it might not have the most amount of RGB, its sleek and minimalistic design allows students to easily blend into the lecture hall without getting too many stares.
Portability (2 / 5 stars)
At around 1.9 kg (4.19lbs), the Gigabyte G5 gaming laptop is not exactly the lightest laptop to carry around. This may be a drawback for those who plan to carry their laptops around with them for a full day. Even so, there are many more heavier gaming laptops out there, and 1.9 kg is not significantly heavy for a gaming laptop. In fact, it is considered to be on the lighter side for most gaming laptops, according to ProductNation. If you want to play games anywhere you go, then portability is a sacrifice that you have to make. Hence, 2 stars.
Price (4 / 5 stars)
The laptop is sold at SGD $1,514 here at Volta PC, which is considered as a good price for most gaming laptops. For this price, you get an Intel 12th Generation processor; the i5-12500H, and Nvidia’s RTX 3050. With these specifications, most popular games can be run at 60 FPS and above very easily. According to Gaming Gorilla, titles such as Fortnite and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (CODMW) are super popular with students nowadays. They can run very smoothly on the Gigabyte G5 with much ease. The laptop will be able to handle AAA games such as The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2), the Resident Evil series pretty well too. Furthermore, ray-tracing is also supported on this laptop, so for students who are looking to play games with beautiful graphics, this laptop is a good choice.
Storage
Moreover, you are also getting 512GB worth of storage. Students tend to use up a lot of storage, either by downloading games or files and articles needed for their classes and papers, so having 512GB worth of it is more than plenty! At this price point, this is a very generous amount of storage. But if you find that 512GB is not enough for your needs, there is the option of either replacing the laptop’s SSD (see our article here for more details on the customizability of laptops) or purchasing an external storage device. Volta PC has recently restocked our Samsung portable SSDs, so do check it out here if you are interested! With this price, you are getting a lot of worth from the gaming laptop, hence we rate it 4 stars.
Keyboard feel (5 / 5 stars)
According to tech youtubers such as ProductNation, the keyboard has adequate spacing between the keys, making it for a good typing experience. The keycaps are big enough such that they are easy to type on, but small enough such that you will not accidentally press some while going for the keys next to them. The feedback that you get from it is also good and it does not feel mushy when you type on them, unlike certain laptops out there. For students who deal with numbers often, there is a numpad at the right-hand-side of the laptop. It is quite impressive how the overall typing experience is comfortable and not cramped when there is a numpad attached to the side. Few laptops can achieve this, even at higher price points. Hence, we rate this 5 stars for the great typing experience that you get with this laptop.
Display Screen Quality (4 / 5 stars)
The Gigabyte G5 has a stunning 144 Hz screen display, which is adequate for most, if not all, games. It is a FHD display as well, with presumably 1920 x 1080 resolution. Shooter games, such as Fortnite, CODMW, Valorant etc. will be very smooth on the display, allowing you to react accordingly to enemies hidden behind walls and structures. Given the good resolution, games with beautiful graphics, such as The Witcher 3 and Genshin Impact, will look amazing too. Again, at this price point, this is a very good benefit of the gaming laptop. Hence, 4 stars.
Port Selection (5 / 5 stars)
Ports are very important to most students, for they use thumbdrives, external hardware and the like pretty often for schoolwork. Hence, laptops that feature a great selection of ports are often really popular and the Gigabyte G5 is no joke! The laptop features 2 USB-A ports, 1 USB-C port, 1 HDMI port (very useful for presentations), 1 LAN port (good for online activities such as gaming) and 1 micro-SD card reader (for creative work). Overall, the Gigabyte G5 boasts a wonderful selection of ports for you to choose from, so we gave it 5 stars.
2. Dell Inspiron I7559 Gaming Laptop – Best budget option
Image taken from Gadget Review.
Price: USD $799.99 (SGD $1079.36) | Specs: Nvidia GTX 960M 4GB, 256GB SSD
The Dell Inspiron I7559 might have been released 7 years ago in September 2016, but this gaming laptop can still hold its own after so many years and against many new competitors in the ring. While it might look slightly bulky, this just means that the port selection on it is bound to be plentiful!
Portability (1 / 5 stars)
As mentioned earlier, the Dell Inspiron I7559 is on the bulkier side of most gaming laptops, weighing in at a hefty 2.58 kg (5.68 lbs). But as you’ve probably noticed from the previous pick, gaming laptops tend to be heavy, making it undesirable to be carrying around on a full day of school. This is just a sacrifice that most student gamers will need to make, for the affordable gaming laptops tend to be heavier than higher-end ones for less thought is placed into design engineering for the former. This makes sense, given the cheaper prices. As such, we rate this as 1 star.
Price (3 / 5 stars)
CPU
It is debatable for whether the Dell Inspiron I7559 gaming laptop fetches a ‘good’ price (by good, we mean value-for-money). Even though the processor is an Intel 6th Gen i5-6500HQ (or you could upgrade it to an i7 if you wish), it can still play many modern games at a respectable framerate. Shooter games such as Valorant and Fortnite will run at a smooth 60 FPS minimum, while slightly more demanding games such as CODMW might just hit the bare 60 FPS. This might seem shocking to some, as the Intel 6th Gen chip line is so old, but modern games tend to rely on the power of the GPU rather than the CPU.
GPU
Speaking of which, the Dell Inspiron I7559 contains a GTX 960M which Gadget Review called ‘massive’. This might be a reason why the laptop is so hefty. While the GTX 960M might have been considered powerful in the past, it is no secret that current GPUs might have a significant leap over it in terms of graphical capabilities. Still, it is able to play the aforementioned games with relative ease, and that is good enough for its price.
Keyboard feel (1 / 5 stars)
It is no secret that Dell laptop keyboards are always faulty after some use. The Dell Inspiron I7559, unfortunately, is not spared. While doing research for this article, we stumbled across a whole Google search page detailing keyboard replacements, where to buy it, how to install it etc. This much carnage has not been seen since the Macbook butterfly keyboard disaster period.
This is made even worse when the problem applies to gaming laptops. Gamers require good, functional keyboards to react quickly in games, and faulty keyboards certainly do not help. Furthermore, as students, you would be required to type up long essays, notes for schoolwork, and again, faulty keyboards do not help. No one likes to bring along a spare keyboard in addition to the already-heavy laptop that they have to carry. So, we gave this a 1-star.
Display Screen Quality (3 / 5 stars)
You can select 3 screen types when purchasing the laptop, the HD non-touch screen, the FHD non-touch screen and the UHD touch screen. Each screen type provides a different level of resolutions to be enjoyed. We recommend the FHD non-touch screen as it provides a beautiful 1920 x 1080p resolution, which would be enough for most games. The UHD touch screen is slightly better, as it offers a 4k resolution, but at a higher price point. Unless you do creative work, the 4k resolution is unnecessary, especially when you have a tight budget. It is quite rare for gaming laptops at this price point to offer screen selections, so we rate it 3 stars.
Port selection (5 /5 stars)
The port selection on the Dell Inspiron I7559 gaming laptop is nothing to laugh at, however. This laptop boasts a wide selection of ports, which can be seen here. Having both the HDMI and LAN ports are very helpful for presentations and stable internet connection when gaming respectively. The various USB ports are also useful in allowing you to insert any thumbdrives or external sources as needed for school or gaming. Lastly, the presence of a media card slot is helpful for students who do creative work on the side. Overall, the port selection for the Dell Inspiron I7559 is impressive, so 5 stars.
3. ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 Gaming Laptop – Best high-end option
Price: SGD $3,998 | Specs: i9-13900H, RTX 4070, 1TB SSD
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 is a sight to behold, being released in May 2021, not too long ago. Not only does it look much slimmer than the other 2 picks, its sleek, black design is also beautiful to look at. This makes it an item on most students’ wishlists.
Portability (3 / 5 stars)
At 2.30 kg (5.07 lbs), the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 gaming laptop is not considered the heaviest in its league, nor is it the lightest. However, with its sleek design, you can fit it into most bags without it taking up much space, unlike the Dell Inspiron I7559, since it has a thick bottom. With this, we rate portability to be 3 stars.
Price (2 / 5 stars)
So you might be wondering why we rated this $3,998 machine to be 2 stars. This is because we decide based on value, which is the price-to-performance ratio, and not just price. With this high price, this gaming laptop sure brings out the performance!
CPU
Containing the Intel 13th Generation i9-13900H, one of the most powerful chips in the market right now, there is no games that this laptop cannot handle. You can enjoy smooth gameplay on the most demanding games such as Cyberpunk 2077 with much ease.
GPU
Furthermore, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 also comes with Nvidia’s RTX 4070, which means that graphics will flow very beautifully and smoothly in games. You can activate ray-tracing as well, should you wish to. Overall, this laptop will bring to you an amazing gaming experience that only few can have. For this price point, the laptop promises to deliver performance, and it has.
Storage
Furthermore, it comes with 1TB worth of storage. That is a lot of storage for you to use. Normal students would not need this much storage just for schoolwork, but when combined with games, you’ll be glad for the additional storage that the laptop offers. For this price point, we would expect this much, frankly. Still, it does not disappoint.
However, we note that the price is indeed too high for most students to afford, which is why we gave it 2 stars (a low rating). For most students, this laptop is out of their reach. For the lucky few, you will have nothing short to complain of when using it for games and schoolwork. It can do both exemplarily well, and that is to be expected, for the price.
Keyboard feel (2 / 5 stars)
Most ASUS gaming laptops have decent keyboards, which are what gamers need. However, for this particular laptop, there are complaints about sets of keys not working on the keyboard, which is a cause for concern. You certainly would not want to be playing Valorant halfway, only to realise that your movement keys (WASD) stopped working. This leaves you as a main target for the opponent team. Furthermore, as a student, if the keyboard malfunctions as you are typing up your last-minute homework, then you are in for a treat. Hence, with this issue, it is impossible for us to truly rate this section highly.
We still decided to give it a 2-star rating, given that without the issue, the typing experience is a comfortable one. The keys are appropriately spaced out, there is a large right ‘Shift’ button (If you’re anything like Dave2D, you will need that button). Most importantly, the keys do not feel mushy and are comfortable to type on, with great response. Luckily, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 (2023) has recently released in January 2023, a few months ago. There have been significant improvements made, not just to the keyboard, according to ASUS and various tech youtubers, but that is an article for another time.
Port selection (4 / 5 stars)
Compared to our other picks, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 does not have the greatest port selection. However, we still decided to give it 4 stars. The laptop lacks a media card slot, unlike the Dell Inspiron I7559, but frankly, this is not very important for most students, unless you do creative work. Other than that, the gaming laptop has 3 USB slots, which fits student needs. It also has a Thunderbolt 4 port for you to connect it to an external GPU for better graphics and overall gaming experience. In that, it is a true gaming laptop. This is also something lacking in our other 2 picks, but at this price point, it would be lacking if the ASUS gaming laptop did not have it.
Conclusion
So, that are our picks for you. Your choice would ultimately depend on your priorities and budget. Keep in mind that these are not all the good gaming laptops for students, so do your research properly, recognise what you need in a laptop before purchase. Should you wish to, you can check out our catalogue for gaming laptops and more. Happy gaming!
