Why You Can Trust CNET Save up to $500 on a gaming laptop from Amazon
Models from Acer, Asus and Razer are marked down.
Stuck at home this summer? If the coronavirus pandemic has canceled your summer plans, you could pivot and use your vacation funds on a new gaming laptop. If you want to get into PC gaming or upgrade your aging setup, a new gaming laptop can certainly help fill the hours during those long summer days and hot summer nights.
Read more: Best laptops of 2020
Here are four gaming laptops at or near their all-time low prices on Amazon. The Acer Predator Helios model features Nvidia's older GeForce GTX graphics, while the other three systems from Asus and Razer boast current GeForce RTX graphics that support real-time ray tracing, which reproduces how light behaves in the real world to give games a more photorealistic look.
Let's get to the deals.
This mobile gamer features a 15.6-inch display with a 1080p resolution and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate powered by a ninth-gen Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, 16GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce 1660 Ti graphics. A roomy 512GB SSD provides ample space to store games and other data, and Acer's patented AeroBlade fan should keep thermals in check without sounding like a jet engine. It was released at the end of last year for $1,500 and is now selling for only $20 more than its lowest price ever. We liked the larger, 17-inch version of this laptop for its aggressive styling and superthin cooling fan.
This Asus ROG gaming laptop delivers RTX 2070 graphics at a lower price than the Razer Blade 15 below, and it does so in a new and not refurbished system. The Zephyrus M is impressively thin and light for a gaming laptop but I don't think it's quite as sleek as the Razer Blade 15. It's hard to argue, however, with its component lineup: ninth-gen Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics. The 15.6-inch display has a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution along with a speedy 240Hz refresh rate. It's currently selling for $500 less than its list price.
If you ask me, this is the sleekest, best-looking gaming laptop on the market. This refurbished model features the eighth-gen Intel Core i7-8750H, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive and Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics. You usually find the entry-level RTX 2060 GPU at this price, so getting the midrange RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU here is a boon. You also get Razer's sleek, aluminum unibody enclosure, thin screen bezels and customizable RGB keyboard backlighting. The 15.6-inch display features a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate. This model was released last year for $2,150 and has been hovering around the $2,000 mark for most of the year. This refurbished system saves you $350 from the list price or $200 if you bought it new this year.
This beast from Asus delivers GeForce RTX 2070 graphics, an insanely fast 240Hz display and per-key RGB lighting. A ninth-gen Intel Core i7-9750H powers the 15.6-inch, 1080p display, and you get ample RAM (16GB) and storage (1TB SSD). It's not as thin and compact as the Asus ROG Zephyrus M or Razer Blade 15, but its larger chassis means thermals are more easily kept in check and allows for full-power RTX 2070 graphics and not the throttled-back Max-Q version. It's not a cheap date at $2,000, but that's $300 less than its MSRP and about $104 above its lowest price ever.