Category: Reviews

HP is one of the leading brands in laptop manufacturing. The brand is a front-runner when it comes to affordable business laptops. But, the problem is, the brand could not become a leading runner in the gaming laptop world.

With the release of the HP Omen series, the laptop became one of the top-selling gaming line-ups. The Hp Omen series was released in 2014, and ever since the line-up has enticed novice and pro gamers alike.

The most captivating feature of the line-up is its thin bezel, crispy display, enhanced refresher rates, powerful graphics card and above all affordable price range.

This laptop features the latest NVidia Graphics card, a whopping 240 Hz refresh rates with 4 ms response time and looks better than previous models.

So, with that said, let’s review the latest HP Omen 15 gaming laptop, and have a detailed insight.

Design

Sometimes you see, gaming laptop designers put some much flair and décor that it becomes hard to distinguish between a gaming laptop or a Christmas tree.

On the other side, some designers just throw away a barebones structure and make you believe us that a gaming laptop. With the HP Omen 15, nothing of the kind happens; it sits in between the two situations and comes with subtle aesthetics.

The gaming laptop boasts a black chassis with a metal lid and makes a statement in style. It looks both edge and premium and may outcast many even premium gaming laptop from the competition. On the front lid, you get to see a red HP emblem, enough flair to make it attractive without overdoing.

Like most of today’s gaming laptops, the HP Omen 15 bolsters an ultra-slime-bezel. On the rear flank, you get to see a cooling fan that reduces the risk of getting it too hot to reach thermal throttling.

The gaming laptop thickness falls at 1.02 inches, with weight around 5-pounds. It is not included in the ultra-light or lightweight gaming laptop bracket, neither the brand claimed it.

Still, it is a portable gaming laptop and slips into the bag easily. Bear in mind, the laptop comes with GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card and a 512GB SSD storage, so the weight mentioned is the lowest possible with the specs on board.

Display

One of the common features that are sacrificed in the race of hitting the lowest possible price is the display. The feature though should be the most sought-after and plays a big role in making a machine stand-out, is now neglected.

We have seen it in Dell G5 gaming laptop, in a bid to come up highest possible specification with respect to gaming, features like this are being slaughtered.

Same goes with the HP Omen 15; a dull display with lackluster performance, the maximum brightness the gaming laptop showcases are 300 nits with 965:1 contrast ration. Still, the display is better than Dell G5 and at the price mentioned, you got the right thing.

The display integrates IPS panels with 144 Hz refresh rates; the anti-glare coating is at its best. Still, the display seems faded away when exposed to sunlight, but not at that extent to Dell G5.

The viewing angle is good to go, you are going to see screen identical from any angle, meaning you can watch a movie on the laptop from any angle in the room.

Keyboard & Trackpad

The HP Omen 15 comes with an incredible keyboard, with smooth keys that offer impressive click speed and satisfying typing experience.

Moreover, it also comes with anti-ghost technology that lets you roll hands and press more than one key in one time, so you would not be missing out tabs during combat.

The WASD keys are highlighted, to make your gaming and accessing to the most used keys easily. The laptop surely comes with backlight keys. One step ahead, it also features chrome lighting.

It comes with an Omen Command center key on the top-right corner to let you adjust the performance level of the keyboard lighting. It lets you adjust the color glowing across the keyboard and allows you to change the colors for the keyboard’s different zone.

Audio

If you have been using an HP laptop before, you would be aware of the quality of the audio their system produces. It comes with a B&O speaker that is the hallmark feature of HP. Almost all premium series laptop of HP are integrated with this mighty feature.

The speakers are tuned nicely and produce a great voice, enough loud to fill up a small conference room.

Ports & Connection

The HP Omen 15 gaming laptop comes with a good range of port selection. It comes with all connectivity options gaming or casual computing would require.

It has three USB 3.1 Ports, one USB Type-c, an Ethernet socket for wired connection, an HDMI port, and separate headphone and microphone jacks.

The ports are well laid, all have been put on the back of the system rather protect you from cable mess up. As long as wireless connectivity is concerned, the laptop incorporated with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2.

You would not feel lag-behind, connect everything that comes across your ways and enjoy your gaming and computing experience with HP Omen 15 Laptop onboard.

CPU, RAM & Storage

The gaming laptop designed by HP is powered with a super-fast processor. The Intel i7-9750H processor with six cores and clock speed up to 4.5 GHz is superior for gaming and computing. You are going to enjoy playing gaming, doing computing and rendering videos at blazing speed.

The memory and storage are 32 GB and 512GB SSD consecutively. The extra lots for up-gradation are there, to help you extend the memory and storage as per your pocket size.

This top-notch hardware system is enough powerful for seamless gaming and computing. You can easily roll hands-on multimedia projects, rendering video projects and other much more in the row.

Graphics Card

The trackpad comes with the left and right-clicks button. It might not be the best touchpad you would experience, but enough good to suit the price.

From the specification and hardware we mentioned, it is evident that this is a beast when it comes to computing and gaming performance. The icing on the cake is its graphics card.

To be honest, we did not expect the RTX series laptop at this price; it is the best CPU+GPU combination and helps you get a boosted gaming as well as other computing performances.

With GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card onboard, the laptop certainly maintain parity in performance, even outshine others in frame rates per second when you roll hands onto some latest titles. The best thing about the GPU is that it does not get hot at high RPMs

Battery-life

The battery runtime has always been an issue for HP laptops. We had experienced the same damn alarming issue with Original HP Omen and the same size and specs battery is also added to this HP Omen 15.

The laptop comes with a 4-cell 70WHr battery that manages to crack a maximum of two hours of power at non-stop gaming, and around 4-5 hours for productivity and other tasks.

It is really a black-mark for such a superior gaming system; we had expected a much better battery runtime than this.

In original, the battery runtime is always an issue for a gaming system. Though the trend is being reversed now, some system is coming up with impressive battery runtime.

Guru’s Verdict

If you are a pro gamer and are after a gaming laptop that runs and last AAA blockbusters at 1080P and 60 FPS, with average to high settings, this laptop makes a good device. You should go and buy this gaming system, to enjoy gaming at the full.

The system features a great range of hardware specifications, from its latest 9th generation processor to 32-GB RAM and RTX-2070 GPU. These all specs join hands and bring forth stellar gaming performance without any rendering and freezing issue.

The only drawback of the system is its dull display and battery. The dull display might not haunt the gamer, as they play games rather watching movies.

The battery performance is something hard to cover, and it makes it more like a desktop. So, if you could live-up with such a drastic battery performance, that system is not going to let you down with its performance.

Whenever it comes to purchasing a budget gaming laptop, a picture of a fancy looking laptop with all the lights and color combination comes in our mind. Yes, proper gaming laptops should be powered such features and it looks good as well.

The flip side is that they cannot be used as a regular computing laptop. In schools, colleges and offices they get unwanted attention. Other than that, these extra accessories come at a price and you pay through your nose.

Now, have a deep sigh of relief, because Dell has come up with a subtle solution to the problem. This simplest looking, minimalist design Dell G3 laptop is coming to you with all the extra powers to make you victorious in gaming.

A laptop is a good option for entry-level gaming and packs all the essential features an entry-level gamer would ever require. Without further ado lets a detailed insight of the gaming laptop and see what dell has put into it.

Built & Design

If you love shiny, vibrant and fancy looking machines, that’s not the product for you. There is nothing particularly striking for an avid gamer, neither from the looks nor the way it constructed. But, I have cleared this in our starting line that, dell saves the cost by cutting the design and powering the hardware components.

The laptop shares a 15.6 inches screen with matt finish plastic. The sturdy plastic construction is reliable and would not slip away, with impressive hard-wearing.

The laptop shares good grips, enough you can hold it from any angle. Yes, the weight is around 5.6 pounds, and it would require muscles to carry it around. The bezels on the screen are thicker but would have been better if they had an edge-to-edge screen.

You will be impressed that the lid can be opened with a single-hand. The area around the keyboard and touchpad is neatly designed. The letters and symbols on the keys are great, the blue-accented thick border around the trackpad stands out against the dark black shade of the body.

In a nutshell, the built is sturdy with impressive gripping. The laptop is bulky no doubt, that’s because of its 15.6 inches display.

Display

The laptop comes with a 15.6 inches Full HD IPS and an anti-glare display. IPS panels integration helps it to produce seamless image production but it seems the images and colors on the screen are often faded out.

The display produces only 67 percent of the color in sRGB color scale, which is quite disappointing. The matt finish helps you to have a good display with no glaring still it allows lots of light reflection which makes it hard to watch movies even disappointing for gaming.

The laptop offers 60 Hz refresh rates which are good to go at $600; still, it does not meet the criteria a pro gamer would require. The brand even did not mention the response time, as per the unofficial testing, they are around 220 nits.

The display makes a good option for indoor gaming, movies watching, do your engineering work and computing, hard for outdoor. It could have been a bit brighter than this, the display, in a nutshell, is on average and does not on par for avid gamers.

Audio

The audio production from the two down speakers is crispy, clear but lacks the base that an avid music freak would require. The volume is enough loud to fill an average size conference room.

The audio quality is impressive for gamers, as gaming often carried out in a closed space, you would not require to put headphones on. The audio is enough to catch the attention of the nearby students and mates.

Ports & Connection

The Dell G3 is quite a big and bulky product wide enough to house all ports and connection requirements.

On the left side, it has a full-sized HDMI port, an Ethernet port, two  USB 3.1 ports, and an audio jack for headphones. On the right side of it, there is a USB 3.1 PORT, one SD card reader, and a laptop lock slot.

Yes, you might have been looking for a USB Type-C port on either sides, but you would not get to see it, as the brand did not provide the option. That’s because of the low costs or keeping the price low.

Keyboard & Touchpad

The laptop comes with a thick base and a shallow keyboard. The keys are good and provide great travel speed when pressed. You will enjoy typing at the core as they offer a comfortable typing experience.

You would not make a single mistake due to the impressive size and speed of the keyboard. The avid typist might find the travel speed good enough, and making mistakes. The keyboard comes with a dedicated Numpad and dedicated keys for page up and down, home and end function.

The keyboard is a backlit enabled in blue, but no RGB backlit customization available. The laptop also offers dedicated WASD keys with thick color and blue borer around them. Intensive gaming would not let you make simple and abrupt mistakes due to the WASD thick color, you could easily locate them.

In a sum-up, the touchpad and keyboard work well. The professional typist might find the keyboard little shaky with low key travel speed. The shortcoming in the keyboard is not that noticeable to the gamers. Punching WASD keys would be a joy and an easy affair.

CPU & RAM

The Dell G3 gaming laptop is powered with 8th Generation Intel Core i5 8300H that runs at up to 3.9 gigahertz and turbo boost option. And the pair of the CPU with an 8GB DDR4 RAM offers a breathtaking experience. The Cpu can be pushed up to 3.9 GHz using Intel’s turbo boost technology.

As per the benchmark scores, the Dell gaming laptop is capable of providing a hundred raw images in less than ten minutes using adobe lightroom.

Running lots of applications, with dozens of tabs opened in chrome and several virtual desktops cause no issue to the Dell processor. In a nutshell, you would not face any delays while launching, running and installing application or browsing.

Graphics Card

The graphics on the dell g3 gaming laptop are taken care of by a Nivida GeForce GTX 1060 of dedicated memory 4GB. You do not have any right to ask dell to upgrade the graphics card to the next generation, as price does not let you utter such things.

The dell G3 fair really well with someone who is just in love to play PC gaming or just wanted to go one notch up to the PC gaming. You can play games such as Doom, metro, Fortnite, and PUBG without any rendering issue, freezing or lagging behind.

It allows you to play AA titles, not AAA titles. Some AAA titles can be a deal but with low to average settings not in high settings.

In a nutshell, the gaming performance of the product is above average. The games fold up quickly well and offer superior run experience without glitches.

Battery

Dell products battery runtime is always phenomenal. The laptop in our tests performed really well and lasts around 4 hours and 30 minutes. You can count on the gaming laptop when getting out of your home for gaming or other casual computing tasks.

Storage

The storage section of the laptop is taken care of with 1TB HDD storage and 128GB SSD. A storage department is a great option for gamers to go with. Especially at the price under 600 dollars, having a dual-storage option is amazing.

For pro gamers who love to store a range of games, the option is great.  With lots of storage capacity available, you would be able to store other files other than bulky games. So, having a good storage size is always an added benefit of a gaming laptop.

Guru’s Verdict

Dell G3 is a subtle looking gaming laptop for those who do not want to get into high-graphics gaming. The gaming laptop comes in hands under $600, the range is affordable and everyone can afford the price range.

If you compare the specs and performance of the gaming machine with the rivals, it stands heads and shoulders above. Yes, the laptop is a little heavier than its competitors but offer sturdy gripping.

All things considered, the Dell G3 offers acceptable gaming and computing experience without costing arms and legs.

If you are looking for an entry-level gaming laptop with mid-range to high-end features at an affordable price range, HP has come up with something out of the box and offers an HP Pavilion gaming laptop.

The gaming laptop handles all old to modern games with ease on its high-definition 1080P display due to powerful and high-performance rendering hardware.

The laptop can make you touch 144 refresh rates while being comparatively on the quieter side too. The added 8GB dual-channel memory keeps the system running without getting it slowed, the same does with the added 256GB modern SSD storage.

This upgraded and refreshed HP gaming laptop offers a better value for your hard-earned money, a great bang on your buck indeed.

If you are planning to buy a mid-range gaming laptop that could also offer you computing power, with no cumbersome in carrying, just roll hands onto this, and you would not regret the decision.

Let’s have an insightful review of the refreshed gaming laptop, and behold why gaming machine is ranking well.

Design & Construction

The HP pavilion 15 gaming laptop comes with an irregular design and construction. The laptop does not follow the pattern of Pavilion laptops; still, there are some resemblances to its predecessors having a matte, black plastic chassis.

The overall look of the gaming laptop is altogether different, that would be because the laptop is designed to be a gaming rig. HP calls its black chassis as shadow black with contrasts with the body including the keyboard area.

The most striking and impressive design feature is its air outlet on the back, this is our opinion, and many buyers also reviewed it.

The laptop does not come with a maintenance cover nor is the battery removable. Accessing the battery or the internal parts would require removing the bottom case; the maintenance is a bit difficult along with up-gradation of the different vital components.

The laptop shares a sturdy construction, the bottom edges display lid are bit more sharpy, they could injure someone if drops. The hinges are firms and would not shake on typing.

In a sum-up, the HP gaming laptop is compact, sleek and light compare to the older version. The weight is around 5.29, and 23.mm thick. Yes, it is thinner and lighter than most of the $600 gaming laptops that share the same identical specs.

Connectivity

The HP gaming laptop comes with a good range of ports selection. It comes with four USB ports including one USB Type-C and three USB Type-A ports.

It also features an HDMI port with a 3.5 mm combined headphone and microphone jack, a gigabyte ethernet port and a cable lock slot. Hp positioned all the ports on the left and right-hand side of the device.

The only downside as long as connectivity option is concerned; the laptop does not come with thunderbolt 3 port. Thunderbolt has become a standard among modern gaming devices; living up a gaming life without it would be rather odd.

Keyboard & Trackpad

The HP gaming laptop comes with a six-row chiclet keyboard and one Numpad. The primary keys measure 15 x 15 mm and are nicely spaced from each other. The keys offer smooth action and come medium lift with a clear pressure point.

The keyboard typing experience is good, but some of the buyers also mentioned that the keyboard deck is a bit gives away type. Though our test did not find this overly disturbing issue, a hard-core typist could identify these minor issues better than us.

The laptop shares a multitouch touchpad with a measurement of 11.4 x 5 cm. The smooth finish rendering touchpad is a breeze to perform and it responds precisely to inputs even from the corners of the surface too. The trackpad also shares two mouse buttons that provide tactical pressure points with an audible click.

Display

As the name suggests, the gaming laptop shares a 15.6 inches Full HD IPS display. The IPS panels offer 1920×1080 and have a 144 refresh rate.

The laptop as per the reviews and many benchmark scores ranks above most of the laptop at the price tag when it comes to the brightness of the screen. The brighter screen renders impressive performance, better image production, clearer, and vibrant video production.

The matte finish diffuses the display nicely, the laptop is a great gear to use outdoor, but direct sunlight at some level can wash out the shining. It is a brighter display laptop, but no enough to overcome the sun direct light, a little washed out and difficult to read in those situations.

The panel offers a stable viewing angle, the display is readable from any angle, you would not face any issue in reading and viewing images from any angle at all.

CPU, RAM & Storage

The processor of the gaming laptop is quite impressive. At least enough power to make you play any game you wish without any disturbance. The AMD Ryzen 5 3550H processor with 6 MB cache runs at a base speed of 2.1 GHz up to 3.7 GHz with turbo boost function.

The processor shares a benchmark score of 8328 in our test which is considered quite a high number. It is no doubt a high-end processor and will sweep you through all types of gaming.

With 8GB DDR4 dual-channel memory, the laptop offers a great multitasking experience. You would not behold any delays, can easily manage anything comes across your ways.

The laptop also comes with an additional RAM slot and you can add another 8GB DDR4 memory can extend it up to 16GB. The upgrade option though is a little difficult due to its removable casing. You will have to remove the bottom entire section to upgrade RAM and storage.

It comes with a 256GB SSD storage. The size is good enough for an average gamer to store favorite games at high speed than a regular SATA drive. The shorter loading time, boosted reading/writing time will help you load games, apps and much more.

Graphics Card

The gaming laptop is equipped with an NVidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card. The graphics card section does not suit the upper middle class of the games. Only suitable for old PC games or some fewer graphic relying games.

In my opinion, avid gamers might not seem to agree to take this laptop onboard, just because it is not for them. It would not make them run AAA titles, for them, at least GTX 1060 or 1660Ti configuration should be there.

The reason for the GTX 1050 graphics card inclusion is the price range. The laptop falls under 500 dollar gaming laptop, how on the earth a gaming laptop could be powered with a 1660-Ti graphics card at this price.

You should bear in mind that, this GPU is practically designed to run esports such as Overwatch, counterstrike, PUBG, and Fortnite. You should not expect a high-ended gaming performance from a gaming machine like this. Yes, you can play league of legends on the go, and really cannot go wrong.

Battery Life

The HP gaming laptop comes with a 52.2 WH battery, which lasts around 5-hours in the WI-FI battery life test. The tests have been taken while using the internet constantly and opening media files, and running heavy applications.

The battery obviously can last longer than this, if you could properly manage the work. You would not be putting this much of burned simultaneously on a mid-range gaming laptop.

In a nutshell, if you are browsing, it can last around 6-hours; on media the expectations could be little on the high-side.

Guru’s Verdict 

The gaming laptop shares a modern look, and weight is around 4.96 pounds, which is good to go for frequent-traveler or office goers. The laptop features a backlight keyboard, the display is also great that can support 144 Hz refresh rates; the vital specification exceeds our expectations.

Yes, there are few downsides, and we must not overlook the price range the laptop has to offer. It is a great grab beyond any shadow of a doubt and comes in hands at an affordable price range.

Yes, if you are a casual gamer and want to roll hands onto old PC games and some fewer graphics-oriented latest games, must by this HP gaming machine.

If you are looking for a gaming laptop under $800 options chances are you will stumble upon many options. At this price, you will behold more than one gaming laptop with different features, specifications, and performance.

The gaming laptop introduced by MSI encompasses performance, specs, good-looking and sturdy built into one chassis. The laptop in the form of MSI GF63 Thin 9RCX is going to fill the bill at a reasonable price and going to cater to a variety of the game’s needs.

If you prefer a flashy looking machine and performance as well, do not pass the gaming laptop. This machine offers the best of both worlds; performance and looks without cutting corners.

The gaming laptop performs in the real world not just in paper, and you gotta behold it with your eyes on the head.

In this post we are going to have an insightful review of MSI GF63 introduced a budget gaming laptop, do not roam around, stick to the article and read this to the end.

Design & Construction

The core concept behind coming up with a light-weight model is to offer hard-core gamers an option that is thin enough to carry around without a second thought.

The laptop weighs 1.8KG weight, that makes it carrying around easier than a regular laptop. The slim chassis helps it to slip into a backpack easily without any trouble.

An ultra-lightweight does not mean you have to compromise on the looks. Being an MSI machine, the laptop gets a clean and classy design. The top of the lid is made of brushed metal aluminum that adds aesthetics to this machine.

On the lid, there is only a red MSI logo that adds appeal to the gamers. The clean, classy and fancy looking design is really a treat to the eyes, without spending arms and legs, you are going to get a top-notch looking machine.

The sides show some nice busywork with grips towards the front but real ones at the back. The vents are position to put heat out of the chassis, ensure smooth air-flow. The laptop integrates one USB Type-C port, three USB Type-A, an Ethernet port, and a microphone jack.

You can open the lid with one hand, minimum forced applied. With the lid opened, neatly laid Keyboard with red accents and well-spaced keys greets you.

The only sign of it being a gaming laptop is its red accents; the rest of the area around Keyboard is of brushed aluminum, sleek, neat and classy look.

A big and well-responsive smooth trackpads are something impressive, the display has thin bezels from the sides and big from the down. On the upper side of the display, a top sporting welcome welcomes you.

In a nutshell, MSI GF63 is a nicely designed gaming laptop, the blend of class and style is coming to offer you a smooth gaming experience without making a big dent on your pocket.

Display

No doubt, the premium top-notch gaming laptops are adorned with an impressive screen with high-refresh rates, IPS panels, and other bells and whistles. When it comes to buying an affordable gaming laptop, you will have to give up some of the features in order to keep the price low.

The brand cuts the corner in refresh rates still provides a good display compare to others at the same price with a 15.6 inches Full HD display with a 60 Hz refresh rate.

The screen is very vibrant, renders clearer full of life images without skipping a single color. The screen might look ordinary on the papers, but in reality, it is impressive and provides a seamless gaming experience. Whether you watch movies, play games the display always produces vivid colors.

The laptop’s wide view angles are just on par. You get the right view of the screen from any angle without distorting the screen, images, or videos.

The anti-glare coating helps it to retain the display to the highest extent when exposed to the sun-light. The display would not be washed out, nor fade away, binge watch movies and enjoy the next Web series you are desired to watch this weekend.

Processor, RAM & Storage

The MSI GF63 gaming laptop comes with oozing powers within. The serious power helps you go through any amount of task without giving a second thought.

The laptop is a powerhouse and brings excellent performance due to its highly powerful Intel core i7 Intel Core i7 9750H CPU. The processor pairs with a 16GB RAM going to overthrow any level of processing and help you ease down with gaming.

The laptop would not sweat when you open two dozen tabs on chrome, watched a high-definition video on YouTube and open Microsoft excel at the same time. The gaming laptop ranks better than many at the same price bracket, even expensive than this.

I loved the storage section; it comes incorporated with a 512 GB SSD storage to help you store games you like. Having an extra-large storage section always help, you would be freely storing stuff without giving a second thought.

And, both the memory options come with expandable features. The RAM and storage option can be extended as per your pocket size. You can have RAM extended up to 64 GB and Storage with another 1TB HDD or SSD as per your liking.

Graphics & Gaming

The NVidia GeForce Gtx 1650 graphics card encompasses in the GF63 chassis lets you roll hands-on modern games at medium to high settings. The entire experience would be disrupted the time you try to switch to ultra-settings.

Your experience will be shaken the time you increase the graphics quality. The gaming laptop though designed to render 60 frame rates, at ultra settings comes a little more down and offers 23 frames to 30 frames which are abuse for a hard-core gamer.

This is what happens when I tried to play Shadow of Tomb Rider at the ultra settings. I tried to play Grand Theft Auto V, and frame rates were around 35 per second, the experience was smoother than I expected.

We tested this gaming laptop for dozens of other AAA titles, the results were revolving around the 30-40 fps with highest settings, no rendering or freezing happened though.

The laptop struggles at high frame rates but goes seamlessly at low to medium settings. The gain is, you can have it for low-end gaming, do not expect it an over-the-roof gaming performance from this slim looking GFI designed machine.

Heating & Temperature

The laptop stayed pretty cool when you get it on board for binge-watching HD movies even live to stream. The things get started when you take it on board for playing AAA titles.

During the video watching, the bottom of it crawls from 95-degree to the 99 degree, touchpad 77-degrees, keyboard 86-degrees.

With the time you switch for hard-core gaming, things start melting, your hands start feeling warm and the bottom even scorches up to 123-degrees which is quite disappointing.

Audio

The MSI designed GF63 comes with two bottom speakers. The bottom-firing speakers are not the most powerful ones, the sound produced is somewhat overloaded and voice distort when reaches to the maximum.

The speakers produce high audios, enough to fill up a small conference room. Still, the audio is not clearer, the base is not on par, in a sum-up, and we are quite disappointed with the speaker’s quality.

Battery Life

Gaming laptops more than often does not last long on the charge. The same goes for the MSI designed GF63. It stays awake as long as 3 hours and 30 minutes when you get on continuous WI-FI internet, browsing, watching movies.

The average runtime with hard-core gaming is around one hour or if you could extend it up to 2 hour and 30 minutes.

Guru’s Verdict

As I mentioned in my intro lines, if your search criteria are having a powerful yet fancy-looking gaming laptop, the machine checks the right box. And in the last lines as well, I am standing with my comments and call it a good grab under the price tag mentioned.

This is a reasonably priced gaming laptop, adorns a pretty impressive display, good graphics card, power CPU. The battery life is not that impressive, and there is enough room to improve it, the same goes for some other portions we mentioned above.

The design is the star of the show, hands-down feature, lures and captivates the eyes of most gamers and makes you purchase even if you are not come to. This can serve other arrays of jobs other than gaming, a hands-down option for college-goers, a seamless option as a business machine, and cannot gon wrong for a school-goer.

 

ASUS TUF gaming line has always been a great name for entry-level gamers. The line-up offers a pretty solid deal at a reasonable price.

You might have been using the older version of the ASUS TUF FX505DT, but now the refreshed version is going to blow you away with its performance and new graphics card addition.

It is no doubt an affordable unit, the reason behind the price lowering down is its shift from Intel core i5 processor to Ryzen 5 R5-3550H processor. The up-gradation also helped it house one notch higher NVidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card.

The combo of Ryzen 5 R5-3550H processor and GTX 1650 is considered a gold-standard for gaming, and entry-level gamers love to play the latest games with such a powerful gaming system onboard.

So, in this post, we are going to have an insightful review of ASUS TUF FX505DT gaming laptop, and explore its different section and behold what makes this cheap gaming laptop stands out.

The budget gaming laptop gets a lot of things right, offers 1080P gaming experience, better-refreshed rates and much more. Without further ado let’s get started.

Design & Construction

The ASUS gaming brand has always been conscious of how their laptops look. That’s why; their products are never too out there with fancy looking, nor too shy to show off their beauty. It boasts a clean, fine and familiar design that will surely go to catch your eyeballs.

The outer lid shares a nice matte black finish with the ASUS logo in the golden-yellow accent. This time, ASUS comes up with a different emblem shade, put off the red accent logo and carved a golden-yellow logo that looks better than before.

The entire outer chassis of the gaming laptop does not come up with any lighting. That’s really something that RGB lovers would not like, but it makes the whole look neat and nicer and makes it suitable for not for gaming but casual computing and office use. You can take the gaming machine onboard without shying out in meetings and official works.

The lid opens with a tiny force; a 15.6 inches Full HD display would be on the face of you. The laptop has minimal bezels on the sides; yes huge bezels on the bottom with carved ASUS emblem.

The opening of the lid will put lots of different lights on your face, thanks to its RGB lighting keyboard. The keyboard looks great; you will have a comfortable and clean typing experience.

Yes, you would not make a difference from other ASUS keyboards, it also comes with a transparent WASD key for easier access from the rest of the keys.

The gaming laptop, in a nutshell, shares a robust and sturdy construction along with pretty catchy design. It conforms to the US military-grade test and handles drops, high-temperature, humidity, and roughness.

It works flawlessly, good gripping and you would not have to worry about accident slipping at all.

Display

The ASUS TUF refreshed gaming laptop boasts a 15.6 inches IPS display and supports refresh rates of 120 Hz. The enhanced refresh rates support with IPS panels onboard aids everything on the screen looks more natural, fluid and true to life.

Watching high definition movies, playing games, animations would look nice and you would not face any lagging, freezing or rendering issue at all.

The anti-glare coating makes the gaming laptop useful even outdoor. The display is pretty bright and can go dim as well if you want it so. The display would not wash out even when the direct sunlight alls, and you can also use it a late-night without putting your eyes into harm.

The viewing angles are pretty awesome, but I do not think you would love to watch a movie from the sides. The color production is great; you would not see it skipping out any color due to the bright panels.

Overall, the display is great; you can count it on for playing high-ended games and high-definition video watching. The display might not be able to separate the color shades at best, but it stands out overall.

Processor, RAM & Storage

The ASUS entry-level gaming laptop is powered with Quad-core AMD Ryzen 5 r5-3550h Processor. The processor is considered best grab for gamers, as it helps in visual processing and makes your gaming experience seamless without any hiccup.

The processor combined with the GTX 1650 is considered a gold standard for power gaming. If you compare the processor, the benchmark scores support that the processor is a direct competitor to Intel’s Core i5-8300 hexacore CPU.

With the power gaming device onboard, you can outshoot, outrun and outplay your rivals easily. Here, where the moments of reaction matters, a minor glitch can shove you aside from the competitive gaming.

The gaming beast comes with an 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB SSD storage. Both the memory options are considered standard, you would not feel left behind at all.

All these components make it an ideal grab for overall productivity and performance. The powerhouse gaming system will let you open as many as dozens of taps on Chrome, stream live YouTube videos and maybe few spreadsheets opened.

If you want to enhance its multi-tasking, you can have the memory option extended using the extra slot. The slot will let you enhance the RAM up to 64GB.

Gaming & Graphics

The gaming powerhouse integrates a GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB dedicated memory. The gaming laptop stands out in gaming performance and lets you roll hands onto modern titles at 1080P at medium to high settings.

The GPU has considered the low-end version of the NVidia latest released gaming GPU, now the RTX 20 series graphics card is blowing the gaming world and not getting slow as the time of writing this post.

Still, at the $700 price considered, the gaming laptop exceeds your expectation and lets you play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey at around 60 frames per second. The display supports around 120 frames per second, but you will start facing pixel lose issues as you move towards an upward trajectory.

Keyboard and touchpad

The laptop comes powered with RGB backlighting. The option is really helpful for avid and casual gamers, as it will let you engage in gaming in a low light environment.

The chiclet feedback keyboard lets you type at a good speed with good key spring back. The keys are well-spaced, and you would not feel exhausted after typing continuously.

The WASD keys are thicker than normal keys for better visibility, the spacebar is little outward to render more space for your left thumb.

The touchpad is not on par with the keyboard performance, it is small and plain, a typical cheap gaming laptop trackpad. But, in gaming, you would rarely use the trackpad and tether mouse to engage in gaming.

Ports & Connections

In terms of ports and connection, the gaming laptop comes with all ports what a casual gamer would require. It comes with 3 USB 3 ports, 1 USB 2 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, an RF-45 Ethernet port and one 3.5 mm headphone jack and mic combo.

This is a good range of port selection, and you would have any external device connected to it without any worry. But, the absence of USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 port is really missed and make it slightly less future proof, but at the price mentioned, you cannot buy better than this.

Audio

Yes, while gaming, gamers love to wear headphones on. And you might be considered the feature useless as you would wear the headphones at any cost. But, that’s not what we are going to mention.

Watching movies, listening to the songs, and catching live streams on YouTube sometime without headphones can be dis-heartening experience if the audio is not good.

The laptop comes with a clearer and decent audio that would not distort at maximum volumes. The base is not that great, the overall audio quality is on par and you will have a seamless experience without any hiccup.

Battery life

The gaming laptop is incorporated with the same 3-cell 48Whr battery as its predecessor. The battery runtime is pretty awesome and you can easily have 4 to 5 hours of runtime on regular usage. The range of battery runtime is pretty good and makes it a hands-down option for a gaming laptop.

In extended gaming hours, the battery may drain faster due to boosted consumption. In regular usage, like editing, typing, browsing and watching movies with headphones on, the battery runtime may exceed this number and touch 6-hours.

Guru’s Verdict

All things considered the gaming laptop really a good replica of your money. It brings quite a good range of specs onboard, impressive performance, sturdily built and extra-ordinary keyboard.

The Ryzen processor combined with the 1650 GPU is awesome, the keyboard is pretty seamless, the design is subtle and built is solid.

Ports selection is above average and could have been improved, audio is clear and would not distort at higher volume, these all things sum up and make the gaming laptop a worth purchasing at the price mentioned.

For the last few years, Acer as a brand has been on fire. Their products were among top-selling units, and their Predator line-up was setting the new records of success.

Over time, the mild need for modification into the design turned into a dire need, and with Acer Predator Helios 300, they almost created a gaming laptop from scratch.

The mid-range gaming laptop integrates the latest generation hardware, modern features for the potential gamers, the smaller form factor for easier carrying and much more in the row.

Though there are some drawbacks, like lacks in the IO and battery life, or some mild issues with the display can steer the potential buyers away. I do not think, you can buy all the equipment in a gaming laptop on par, so these quirks can be compensated at an affordable price.

In this post, we are going to have an insightful review of the Acer Predator Helios 300. If you are interested in buying this affordable gaming laptop under $1000, the guide could help you better decide. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Design & Construction

The latest Acer Predator Helios is a completely redesigned model of the previous generation laptop. There are very few in common, such as signature predator aesthetics and some branding elements.

The gaming laptop is much more compact than other and its thinner bezels around the screen enhance its look. The laptop is smaller than the main competitors like ASUS ROG Scar II, Lenovo Legion Y740, MSI GE63 raider, and others.

Yes, it is hefty and weighs around 5.3 pounds, same as the other gaming machine on the same price bracket, but high-specced configuration it is bolstered with.

However, the weight is backed by sturdy construction; the top lid possesses a sturdy look and barely bulges when putting pressure on. The screen shows some flexes, a little bit. The flexes would be unnoticeable when typing, so do not worry about that.

As long as aesthetics are concerned, the Helios 300 is cleaner than we expected. It shows a black and blues them, while the interior is completely dark.

The laptop’s surface is softly coated and does not show the fingerprint and smudges sign, you should still clean it up after a couple of days.

The large and grippy rubber grips keep the laptop rightly anchored on the desk, with smooth and firm hinges. You would not see slipping it off the table or from the hands more often, it offers enhanced grips to help you carry it around.

The laptop’s front lid easily lift up with one hand, can push it about 165-degree on the back. The speakers are integrated underneath and bounce the sound off. The laptop has a slightly inclined angle to increase the gap of the surface, good for air-flow, but difficult to hold it up on the lap.

Display

The display of the Acer Predator Helios 300 is a mixed bag. It is not very bright, yet it comes with enhanced frame rates. The display of the machine is boon and bane, as it offers good frame rates but due to lack of brightness, you would not enjoy the performance to the core.

The laptop comes incorporated with 15.6 inches IPS LCD panels. The IPS panel’s integration ensured superior performance, anti-glare coating onboard protects it from extra reflection when outdoor.

The display is impressive as long as you play games, binge watches indoor, for outdoor in sun-light, the display washed-off. The viewing angle is great, but at distance, you might find it difficult getting the right angle, it extends back up to 165-degree.

The display of the gaming laptop is better-optimized than most of the gaming laptop at the price bracket. It is a good replica of the money you are going to spend, a hands-down addition to an entry-level gaming laptop.

Did we mention the display supports 144Hz refresh rates? Ok, the refresh rates help you have most games run smoothly without any issue, as long as GPU is supporting them.

In a nutshell, the display is good for gaming indoor, little shaky, washed-off performance outdoor, with above-average viewing angle, and on par anti-glare coating.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The gaming laptop showcases a standard chiclet-style keyboard layout. The keys are well-placed and maintain the standard size. With a separate Numpad and backlight illumination, you are going to enjoy its performance even in low light conditions.

The keys travel speed is a little short, but the addition of the pressure point increases their effectiveness. The keys, as well as the entire keyboard, might take some time to get used to, once you get addicted to using, you will have spell-bound typing experience.

Yes, Acer has cut down some keys and it would have been better if volume controls and brightness could have their separate control arrow keys. These keys could have been easily placed on the place of Fn keys, or some other page, down, home, page up keys.

The Red backlighting lives up to the gaming expectation, and they are enough bright to visible under dim light ambiance. It would have been better if Acer had added an RFB backlight to the keyboard.

Again, at the $1000 price, it could not be possible. The edge of the keyboard deck is a bit sharp and can disrupt your typing experience, as long as I noticed that.

CPU, RAM & Storage

On the paper, the laptop incorporate everything a gamer would ever require. The hardware it comes integrated satisfies the gamer’s need and demand. At least to the extent the price bracket allows the brand.

The laptop is powered with a 9th generation Intel i7-9750H Hexa-core processor to skyrocket your gaming and casual computing needs.

The laptop also comes with a 16GB DDR4 RAM that is way bigger than you could ask at the price, and also holds your multitasking.

The added Storage size 256GB SSD is above average, though gamers always seek for enhanced storage size, having even this range is difficult in an affordable price bracket range.

These all specs join hands and deliver outstanding gaming performance and help you emerged victorious in online gaming battles.

If you feel that the laptop is power lacking, you can overclock the GPU a bit and Acer also managed it using the Sense app. Do not have to manually indulge into overclocking, just get the right use of the app and increase frame rates as per graphics performance.

Graphics card

The system comes integrates with a GTX 1660 Ti graphics card with a 6GB dedicated memory. The graphics card as per the stats and benchmark performs equitant to RTX 2060 graphics card and even in some cases lags the latter behind.

You can enjoy gaming performance using this, and outshoot, outrun and outplay other competitors in gaming. The laptop ensures buttery frame rates as much as 144 HZ, but playing games at 1080 at the mentioned frame rates would not be possible.

In a nutshell, with the added graphics card, you can enjoy playing any game you wish with average to high game settings.

Battery life

The battery portion of the gaming laptop has always been a point to ponder. From top-notch premium 2 grand gaming laptop to affordable mid-range 1000 dollar gaming laptop, users seem unhappy with the power drains.

The same goes with the Acer predator Helios gaming laptop, it lasts around 3-4 hours on the heavy amount of work-load such as gaming. For casual computing, office work, and other things, you can have as long as 6-7 hours without any big hiccup.

Do not expect too high battery performance with the laptop, it comes with a small 48whr battery, with which you can play games like Dota 2, limbo,  PUBG and many others.

Guru’s Verdict

In a nutshell, the laptop makes a good entry-level gaming laptop. You cannot award it with the best gaming laptop, as budget constraints did not let the brand go up one step ahead.

At the price it comes in hands, it is a good purchase and all features are on par. Yes, the display is not that good, ports selection is not that decent and at 1080P gaming, Still, the laptop is a good grab and worth the price.