Best Laptops for Programming and Gaming

I am a developer by profession and then started blogging just for the fun of it. One of the things I've realized is that there is a lack of good blogs that suggest the best gaming laptops and here I am with a list of the best laptops for programming and gaming.

Developers sit in front of their computers for long hours and most of them are gamers. Gaming gives you a certain relief from all the frustration you had by squishing bugs all day long.

So here's a list of the best laptops which are suitable for both programming and gaming.

Acer Aspire 7

Processor: 9th Gen Intel Core i5 processor
RAM: 8GB DDR4
Graphics Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1650 Ti GPU
Storage: 512GB SSD
Display: 15.6-inch, FHD (1920 x 1080)

Link to Amazon

Acer is not a company that is known to make laptops that are built for gaming, but then when it releases one for gaming you should take a look because it is from the most unexpected places that most good things come from.

Power and Performance

The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i5 - 9300H. The processor is a 9th generation processor and has enough power to game and code at the same time. Maybe you feel like switching between coding and gaming.

The processor is a quad-core processor with support for multithreading. It has a base clock speed of 2.40 GHz and a maximum turbo speed of 4.10 GHz.

The graphics card on this is an Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti graphics card. The graphics card comes with 4GB of built-in memory. This extra video memory ensures that there is enough memory while gaming with high-end games.

Storage and RAM

The laptop comes with 8GB of DDR4 RAM. The RAM will be enough for both programming and gaming but if the need arises where you want to increase the RAM, you can do so.

The storage on the laptop is 512GB. The storage is SSD and not HDD which makes the laptop blazingly fast. Loading times are low due to the SSD.

Display

The laptop comes with a 15.6" FHD display. This means it has a resolution of 1920x1080. The bezels on the sides of the screen are extremely thin.

The display has a screen-to-body ratio of 81.6% which means most of the laptop is the display. The display has multiple features such as Acer Color Intelligence and Acer ExaColor features that helps in making the display appear more vivid giving you a liver gaming experience.

Ports

  • 1 x USB 2.0 port
  • 2 x USB 3.2 (1st Gen) ports
  • 1 x USB Type-C port
  • HDMI port
  • 1 x RJ45 port

Miscellaneous

The laptop comes with the latest WiFi 6 technology which makes the laptop pretty fast. The WiFi is three times faster than the older technology and also reduces latency by 75% when compared to WiFi 5.

Verdict

Overall a great purchase as a budget gaming laptop good for programming as well.

Lenovo Legion Y540

Processor: 9th Gen Intel Core i5-9300HF Processor
RAM: 8GB DDR4
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5 Dedicated Graphics
Storage: 512GB SSD
Display: 15.6-inch, FHD (1920 x 1080)

Link to Amazon

Power and Performance

The laptop is powered by a 9th generation Intel Core i5 processor. More specifically, the laptop is powered by an Intel Core i5 - 9300HF processor. This is a processor designed specifically for laptops so that they remain cool even after pushing the processor to its limits.

The processor has a base speed of 2.4GHz and a maximum clock speed of 4.1GHz. The processor is a quad-core processor which helps the laptop to do multitasking. In addition to having multiple cores, the processor also has a feature called multi-threading. Multithreading is when each core in the laptop can behave like multiple cores thereby handling multiple programs at the same time.

The graphics card in the laptop is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. The card comes with 4GB of dedicated GDDR5 graphics memory. This helps in handling the games at a high setting without losing frame rate.

Storage and RAM

The laptop has a 512 GB SSD. I would have preferred the laptop to have 1TB of storage but, considering it is an SSD and not a traditional HDD, 500GB sounds fine. The SSD is fast so boot times are considerably low in comparison to laptops with traditional hard disks.

The laptop has 8GB of DDR4 memory for RAM. This can be upgraded to up to 32GB. But 32GB is a bit too much and 8GB strikes the right balance for the current configuration.

Display

The display on the laptop is a 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) display. It has an IPS display which increases the clarity of the display drastically. While gaming this will give you a better experience.

The display has an anti-glare coating to help you with better visibility in high light conditions.

With a refresh rate of 60Hz, the laptop display is excellent for gaming.

Ports

  • 2 x USB 3.1  
  • 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C
  • Headphone/Mic combo jack
  • 1 x HDMI 2.0
  • 1 x Ethernet (RJ-45)
  • 1 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4

Miscellaneous

The laptop comes with a ton of other features.

The keyboard on the laptop is a full-size backlit keyboard. It has anti-ghosting and soft landing switches. The keyboard has a response time of less than 1ms which makes it faster during gaming.

The audio system in the laptop is a 2 x 2W Harman Stereo speaker. This has Dolby Atmos for gaming with extreme reality.

The laptop is great at cooling with Coldfront 2.0 with a Dual Channel thermal mechanism

Verdict

A great laptop at a great price that mixes gaming and programming needs. Fully functional and portable.

ASUS TUF Gaming A15

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Processor
RAM: 16GB DDR4
Graphics Card: GeForce RTX 3060 6GB Graphics
Storage: 512GB SSD
Display: 15.6-inch, FHD (1920 x 1080)

Link to Amazon

I was writing this article and reloaded the amazon page to find that this went out of stock. I sincerely do hope that this laptop comes back in stock while you are reading this.

Power and Performance

Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 5800 the laptop is powerful enough to play the most advanced of the latest games at Ultra settings.

The Ryzen 7 is an 8 core processor and that is a lot of cores for a processor. The even better part is it has multi-threading and that takes the overall thread count to 16. What this means is it does handle multi-tasking with extreme ease and can handle any program you throw at it.

The processor has a 16MB cache and a base clock speed of 3.2 GhHz and a maximum clock speed of 4.4GHz. This makes the laptop buttery smooth and fast.

The graphics card on the laptop is, drumroll please, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060. The card comes with 6GB of GDDR6 video RAM. The graphics card gets ROG to boost up to perform beyond

Storage and RAM

The Lenovo laptop comes with a 512GB SSD for storage. This high-speed storage helps in accessing data faster. This means, lower load times for applications and large files. Load times for games are also hugely reduced due to the faster data access on SSDs.

The SSD is NVMe and is really fast. The laptop also has an additional M2 slot so you can buy another SSD and pop it in if you feel a bit low on storage.

It has 16GB (2 x 8GB) of DDR4 RAM which can be upgraded. The RAM has a refresh rate of 3200MHz.

Display

The display on the laptop is a 15.6" FHD (1920x1080) display.  The display has a ratio of 16:9 and a refresh rate of 144Hz. This is the higher end of the spectrum and helps in keeping the visuals smooth during gaming.

The display also has adaptive sync technology. This is the technology by which the refresh rate of the monitor is kept in sync with the refresh rate of the laptop. This prevents glitches such as tearing while gaming.

Ports

  • 1x RJ45 LAN port
  • 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
  • 3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
  • 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
  • 1x HDMI 2.0b

Miscellaneous

The laptop has great cooling due to the self-cleaning cooling 2.0 technology used in the laptop. It has Liquid crystal polymer fan blades to keep the laptop cool.

The keyboard in the laptop is a backlit chiclet keyboard with RGB lighting. The travel distance for each key is 1.8mm which gives a great experience during both typing code and gaming

Verdict

A great laptop especially with RTX 3060 graphics card. The graphics card features AI technology that can improve the frame rate without compromising the quality of the images which is great.

If you have the budget, a must-buy.

OMEN by HP

Processor: 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10870H Processor
RAM: 16GB DDR4
Graphics Card: NVIDIA RTX 3060 6GB
Storage: 512GB SSD
Display: 15.6-inch, FHD (1920 x 1080)

Link to Amazon

Omen is a great offering from HP. These are fundamentally gaming laptops at a decent price.

Power and Performance

The laptop is powered by a 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor. If you're geeky, the processor is i7 - 10870H processor. The processor is an octa-core processor and has a base clock speed of 2.2GHz. The maximum clock speed that the processor can attain with a turbo boost is 5.0GHz.

This processor can run on this higher clock speed only intermittently otherwise the processor will overheat.

In the graphics department, the laptop comes with an RTX 3060 graphics card. This is a really powerful graphics card and the graphics card can play all the latest titles without breaking a sweat

Storage and RAM

The laptop comes with a 512GB SSD to store all those games and important files. The SSD is a PCIe NVMe M2 SSD. In addition to this, the laptop features 32GB of Intel Optane memory.

So what is Intel Optane memory? Intel Optane memory is the technology by which your most used data is stored in the most accessible place. It remembers the files, applications, and games that you use most frequently and provides speedy access to those files. As your habits change the memory adapts to use the newly used files.

The laptop has 16GB of DDR4 RAM (2 x 8GB) which can be upgraded to up to 32GB.

Display

The laptop features a 15.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1920x1080. The display is a full HD display and has an anti-glare coating to make sure light doesn't reflect from the background and ruin your laptop experience.

It covers 72% NTSC and has a refresh rate of 144 Hz. The high refresh rate helps in making the images flow on your screen. It won't face any stutter while playing games.

A brightness of 300 nits ensures the display is amply lit at all times.

Ports

  • 2x USB 3.0 port
  • 1x USB 2.0 port
  • 1x HDMI port
  • 1x audio jack
  • 1x mini display port

Miscellaneous

The laptop has a sturdy build and the backlighting on the keyboard is great for all time.

The laptop supports dual 5k displays and can connect up to 3 external monitors.

The immersive display experience makes the laptop bezels extremely thin and the gaming experience better.

Verdict

If you are looking for a laptop to do both programming and gaming, this is one of the best laptops available. It can handle any game or application you throw at it and it will get the job done for you.

In short this laptop is a great laptop at a great price.

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