If you’re a gamer on the go, you need one of the best thin and light gaming laptops so you can play anywhere, any time. There was a time a few years ago when a lightweight and slim gaming laptop was a thing of fiction, but technological advancements have made it reality. Interior hardware components have continually shrunk and become more energy-efficient, yet also more powerful thanks to intense competition between Nvidia, AMD and Intel.
Gaming laptops of the past used to be big, bulky, and heavy and while some still are, it’s become increasingly easier to find a thin and light gaming laptop that won’t cause you back pain during travel. There are plenty of gaming laptops out there on par with the best laptops in terms of thinness and weight - a few of them are even as portable as the best Ultrabooks.
The best thin and light gaming laptops aren’t just impressive because of their portability - they can also have stellar battery life. You’ll be able to work all day and play all night with a slim and lightweight gaming notebook - and only need to charge it at night thanks to its all day battery. You can complete your setup with the best gaming mouse for even easier on-the-go gaming.
When you think of gaming laptops, it wouldn’t be incorrect to assume they have high price tags and might be out of budget for you. However, prices have continued to decrease while still offering incredible pieces of tech, so it may not be as out of reach as you think. If you have a strict budget to stick to though, you may want to check out a Chromebook instead.
There are tons of great slim gaming laptops available, but we’ve made the search easier by compiling our top picks for the best thin and light gaming laptops. These notebooks are powerful, portable, and might just be perfect for you. We’ve even included a price comparison tool to make sure you find a great gaming laptop deal.
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 2022. For a laptop this impressive, we’re surprised Asus isn’t asking for more.
Read the full review: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
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
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)
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
How does TechRadar review gaming laptops?
Much like our regular laptop reviews, we have a standard process of judging the price, design, performance, and battery life of gaming laptops. In this case performance is not only in reference to how well they perform standard benchmark tests, but also noting how fast it loads up the best PC games and how smoothly they run.
When it comes to thin and light gaming laptops, we made sure the laptops truly deliver on their promise of being slim and easy to transport. We also run the laptops all day to test their battery life to make sure you really can game throughout the day without issue. Price will vary per gaming laptop, but we don’t hesitate to let you know if an item is more expensive than its competition.
- Don't care about the size? Here's the best gaming laptops of 2022
