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What are the best laptops for light gaming and general web browsing around $1200?

11

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Considered

55

User
Recs.

Feb 7, 2022

Last
Updated

7 Options Considered

Best laptops for light gaming and general web browsing around $1200	Price	RAM	GPU
36 Lenovo Legion Y520	$929	8GB	GTX 1050Ti
-- Apple Macbook Pro	$1299+	8/16GB	Apple M1 8 core
-- HP Envy 13-ab016nr	$899.99	16GB	Intel HD Graphics 520
-- Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming (7577)	$949	8GB up to 32GB	NVidia GeForce GTX 1060
-- MacBook	$1,299	8GB	Intel HD Graphics 5300

Lenovo Legion Y520

Top Pro

The keyboard manages to stay cooler than most gaming laptops

The keyboard and especially the WASD keys stay relatively cool even when playing demanding games that increase the inside temperature of the laptop to a high degree. After 30 minutes of playing The Witcher 3, the WASD keys measure a comfortable 30 °C. This is quite low compared to other gaming laptops, budget or no which reach at least 37 °C where it starts to become quite uncomfortable to keep playing. See More

Top Con

Images displayed on the screen are not very colorful

The 1080p IPS display manages to reproduce only 65% of the RGB color gamut which is a little low for gaming laptops and for laptops in this price range. See More

Specs

CPU:7th Gen Intel Core i5/i7

Storage:256GB SSD

Top Pro

The chassis can withstand some abuse

The Legion Y250 has a great build quality and the chassis is very sturdy and can survive a few years of being tossed around in a backpack. See More

Top Con

Cannot be kept on the lap while gaming

The underside of the laptop gets very hot when playing games, after 30 minutes of The Witcher 3, the underside reached a temperature of 55 °C which is very uncomfortable and almost impossible to endure for a relatively long time. See More

Top Pro

Best performance for the price

One of the most important considerations to make when choosing a gaming laptop is the graphics card. The Legion Y520 uses a GTX 1050Ti GPU which is the best GPU as far as price-to-performance ratio goes. Having a slightly cheaper GPU would decrease gaming performance by quite a large margin, and using a more powerful GPU would increase the price by at least $200 with relatively small performance increases. With the 1050Ti, the Legion Y520 hits that sweet spot just about right. See More

Apple Macbook Pro

Top Pro

The default macOS is very developer friendly since it's a Unix

OSX is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on OS X. There's a large selection of great development tools available for OSX. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing OSX and iOS software, for free. See More

Top Con

You need dongles or a dock to connect USB-A devices

There are no USB-A ports, so you'll need a dongle or a dock to use things like webcams. See More

Specs

GPU:Apple M1 8 core

Ports:2/4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports, Headphone jack

Screen size:13.3inch / 15.4inch

Top Pro

The OS is exceptionally easy to use

Macbooks are famous for working out of the box. The default operating system (macOS) is also exceptionally easy to use even for people who have never used it before. Most people will not need to customize or change anything since all the apps just work out of the box. The people who like to customize things and tinker with their systems will also find it pretty easy to do so, considering the fact that macOS is a Unix and allows varying degrees of control to users. See More

Top Con

The keyboard is unique in how it feels and some people may need some time to get used to it

The keyboard on the Macbook has a unique feeling with the keys having relatively short travel distance. See More

Top Pro

Amazing build quality

The MacBook Pro has an all-aluminum body that looks great and is sturdy enough that worries of accidentally damaging are mostly alleviated. It has a robust lid, well-spaced back-lit keyboard with speakers on each side of the keyboard and an excellent button-less trackpad. See More

Top Con

Requires the use of proprietary firmware

The source code of the firmware isn't available for users to audit or modify. See More

Top Pro

Both the hardware and software are designed in-house

Both the operating system and the hardware are designed by Apple and are made to be as compatible as possible from the get-go. Any drawback that the hardware might have compared to competitors, is made up by the great compatibility between the hardware and OS. Furthermore, because Apple controls the hardware that goes inside their laptops, they can be sure that every OS release will be fully compatible even with their older hardware, ensuring software compatibility for many years after the laptop is released. See More

Top Con

Hard to repair or upgrade the hardware

The battery and other components are glued in, and the battery blocks access to other parts. The battery will wear out eventually, and the fact that it's glued in means that Apple prevents you from easily repairing or upgrading a MacBook Pro. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

The MacBook pro offers great performance both for day-to-day stuff and more niche graphic-related activities. The latest model also has had an update in hardware specs where both the CPU and GPU have been upgraded to their respective latest generations. The 16GB to 32GB help with performance as well and the SSD speeds are unmatched in the laptop market which also helps with general performance. See More

Top Con

Limited gaming performance

The Macbook lacks a dedicated GPU, so gaming performance will be limited. That said it comes with the best integrated graphics on the market and will be able to play modern games on low settings well. See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

The latest Macbook Pro has a trimmed down design compared to predecessors. It's 0.61 inches (15.5 mm) thick and and weighs 4.02 pounds. It's thinner than Macbook Air even. See More

Top Con

Glossy screen

Apple has removed the matte-screen option from its lineup, an unfortunate decision that reduces the usability of the computers and means you get less work done. You won't realize how much time you spend moving your head around to get reflections off whatever you're trying to see until you switch to a matte screen. Those "deep blacks" and "rich colors" that you were supposed to get from a glossy screen are not present, since they're buried behind a sheen of reflection under all lighting conditions. See More

Top Pro

Good customer support

Apple offers support over the phone worldwide, provides support in Apple retail stores and in stores of authorized resellers and has community forums where users can help users. See More

Top Pro

One of the best SSDs that can be found on a laptop

With read speeds at 3.1Gbps and write speeds at around 4.7Gbps, the SSD used in the Macbook Pro is the best in the market by far. This doesn't just mean opening/saving files is quicker, but it also has a pretty huge impact on general application performance. See More

Top Pro

One of the best trackpads around

The Macbooks are renowned for having the best trackpad out of any laptop. It has full gesture support, you can configure in the software how much pressure you want before it physically clicks and the finger tracking is perfect. See More

Top Pro

One of the best trackpads around

The Macbooks are renowned for having the best trackpad out of any laptop. It has full gesture support, you can configure in the software how much pressure you want before it physically clicks and the finger tracking is perfect. See More

Top Pro

Fantastic display

The MacBook Pro has a sharp, color accurate 2560 x 1600 IPS display. It's bright at 500 nits, has great viewing angles (viewable at up to 178 degrees) and capable of displaying 87.3% of sRGB color gamut. See More

Top Pro

Can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K

With 2 Thunderbolt (DisplayPort) plugs and 1 HDMI, MBP can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K over HDMI. See More

Top Pro

The default macOS is relatively developer friendly since it's a Unix

OSX is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on OS X. There's a large selection of great development tools available for OSX. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing OSX and iOS software, for free. See More

Top Pro

Good battery life

The battery drains in about 9 hours of typical use. See More

Top Pro

Very portable

The latest MacBook Pro has a trimmed down design compared to predecessors. It's 0.61 inches (15.5 mm) thick and weighs 4.02 pounds. It's even thinner than MacBook Air. See More

Top Pro

New OSX updates run on older models for quite a long time

Even older MacBooks are updated for a very long duration. Your MacBook won't get deprecated for quite a while. See More

Top Pro

OSX/macOS and most software apps have great HiDPI support

Top Pro

Good stability

Mac OS is very stable. It can run for multiple days without even needing a reboot, and the system is very crash proof. See More

Top Pro

Plenty of RAM for multitasking

The MacBook Pro has up to 16 GB of RAM. That much RAM is perfect for running IDEs, emulators, and virtual machines. See More

Top Pro

Great keyboard

The 2017 Macbook uses the second generation of the "butterfly" keyboards first introduced in 2015. They feel different to use than most laptop keyboards as they are very shallow, but most people report really enjoying the keyboard after getting used to it. See More

Top Pro

USB C Thunderbolt 3

On MacBook Pro, the ports support Thunderbolt data transfer at up to 40Gbps and USB data-transfer at up to 10 Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 2). See More

Top Pro

Radeon graphics, which enables basic gamedev

Radeon is not exactly ideal for gamedev, but is certainly a viable option (unlike some of the competition with onboard Intel). See More

Top Pro

Availability of Xcode

Xcode is an program with which iOS applications are made. Xcode is exclusively available for Macs. You can download it in the Mac App Store. See More

Top Pro

Distraction free OS

Unlike Windows, macOS has no bloatware pre-installed, does not attack you with popups, does not force you to reboot and install updates, etc. See More

Top Pro

OS aesthetics

The simplicity and aesthetics of the macOS is next to none. Neither Windows or any Linux distribution is anywhere near when it comes to UI design. See More

HP Envy 13-ab016nr

Top Con

No touchscreen version

HP does not provide a touchscreen version of this laptop. See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

The HP Envy 13 is one of the thinnest laptops on the market at just 12.9mm thick. This detail, coupled with the fact that it weighs just above 1.3kg make the Envy 13 one of the lightest and most portable laptops on the market. See More

Specs

GPU:Intel HD Graphics 520

CPU: 7th Generation Intel Core i5-7200U

Storage:512GB SSD

Top Con

The touchpad may be unreliable

Sometimes while dragging the cursor to select text, the touchpad will not interpret the input correctly and may start zooming in or zooming out. See More

Top Pro

People who usually use their laptop on a desk will feel very comfortable with this

The Envy 13 has a hinge on the back which gives the laptop a slight extra boost in keyboard height. This puts the keyboard at a much more comfortable typing position and reduces RSI and finger-fatigue from extensive periods of typing. See More

Top Con

Poor battery life

The Envy 13 has a relatively poor battery life. You may get about 9 hours out of it if you use it for general web browsing and some productivity work, but anything more than that (watching videos, light gaming) and you will start noticing that the battery life is considerably lower. See More

Top Pro

Good performance for the price

The HP Envy 13 offers good performance for its price. It can handle up to 16 Chrome tabs open simultaneously without even a bit of lag. Daily mainstream activities such as web browsing, editing files and even development work can be done on this laptop without any particular issues. See More

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming (7577)

Top Pro

Best price-performance ratio

At $900 the Dell Inspiron 15 700 Gaming comes with a GTX 1060, a 7th generation i7 and with 8GBs of RAM. It provides the best gaming performance out of all laptops at this price range, performing better than even some more expensive models. In more detail, the GTX 1060 lets you run VR games and can handle even the most graphic-intensive video-games at 1920x1080 without any big problems. See More

Top Con

Extremely loud fans

Being one of the coolest gaming laptops comes at the price of it being one of the loudest laptops as well. Under heavy load the GPU and chassis fans start working at an extremely high rate which produces noise loud enough to drown dialogues in games unless you use headphones. See More

Specs

RAM:8GB up to 32GB

GPU:NVidia GeForce GTX 1060

CPU:7th generation Intel Core i7

Storage:256GB SSD

Top Pro

Good looking design

While this is a gaming laptop, it isn't super gaudy. The Dell logo is red, and there are red accents angled away from direct sight (also the keyboard backlight is red). It's made entirely out of soft-touch plastic, and ends up looking pretty sleek overall. See More

Top Con

Not very portable

Even though it's a gaming laptop, at 6.3 pounds the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming is a bit heavier than most gaming laptops out there. See More

Top Pro

Does not become hot enough to be uncomfortable

This laptop's WASD keys—the ones that control movement in most games, and as a result the ones you touch the most—get warm during demanding games or longer sessions, hitting 38 °C after half an hour of The Witcher 3 and 36 °C (100 °F) after playing Overwatch for the same amount of time. Those temperatures feel warm to the touch but are not uncomfortable even after long play sessions. See More

Top Pro

Very easy to upgrade on your own

There's just one screw on the bottom that allows the user to replace/upgrade the HDD, SSD, and RAM. The base model has a 256GB SSD but you can easily add your own to increase the storage size if you wish. It can also support up to 32GB of RAM, and uses a single 8GB stick. See More

MacBook

Top Pro

Extremely portable

The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around. See More

Top Con

Not very powerful

With an Intel Core M processor, the Macbook isn't a serious development laptop. While it will get the job done for lighter tasks, it will struggle with heavier jobs. See More

Specs

GPU:Intel HD Graphics 5300

CPU:1.1GHz Intel Core M Turbo Boost 2.4GHz / 1.2GHz Intel Core M Turbo Boost 2.6GHz

Storage:256GB / 512GB PCIe SSD

Top Pro

macOS is developer-friendly

macOS is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's a certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on macOS. There's a large selection of great development tools available for macOS. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing macOS and iOS software, for free. You can also install Homebrew, an extremely useful package manager. See More

Top Con

It's a bit hard to get used to the keyboard

The keys are pretty shallow, with a travel length of just 0.5mm. They still provide good feedback and the writing experience itself is not bad, but it's just a bit hard getting used to, especially if you are coming from a laptop that's not a MacBook. See More

Top Pro

Amazing display

Everything about the display is very good - from its high resolution (2304x1440) to the brightness (325 nitts), uniform brightness distribution (90%), and high contrast ratio (1000:1) with over 95% of the sRGB spectrum. Overall, a great display which will come in handy for people who work with visual arts. See More

Top Con

Connecting more than one thing requires a hub

The laptop comes with a single USB-C port that's used for charging as well as any other peripherals or external storage devices. Connecting more than one thing at a time requires using a USB hub. See More

Top Pro

Decent battery life

The battery lasts around 7h30m of continuous web browsing which is about average for this class of laptops. Where this laptop's battery truly shines though is under heavy stress where it manages to last an impressive 2h35m under a total stress test (maxed out brightness and processor usage - circumstances that you are likely never going to encounter in the real world). See More

Top Pro

Available in 4 colors

The laptop is available in space gray, gold, silver and rose gold (pink) finishes. See More

Top Pro

Completely silent operation

Thanks to the Core M processor (which doesn't require a fan) and the SSD storage, there are no moving parts the in MacBook. It will operate in complete silence. See More

Top Pro

Decent keyboard

Top Pro

Excellent trackpad

The MacBook has a large 4.4 x 2.7-inch Force Touch trackpad with a Taptic Engine that delivers haptic feedback whenever the user taps on it to give them the impression that they are actually clicking on it. It also supports gestures and multi-finger swiping. The accuracy is almost perfect and there's virtually no lag or stutter when using the trackpad. See More

Top Pro

Very good speakers

The speakers, found above the keyboard produce loud and clear sound with minimal to no distortion whatsoever. They can be used for both listening to music and watching movies with no problem at all. See More

Acer Aspire V15 Nitro VN7-592G-71ZL

Top Pro

Quality case materials

The soft-touch plastic build may not be metal - neither is the silver bar by the hinges, but it feels solid nonetheless with little flex. See More

Top Con

Mediocre gaming performanace

On high settings, the Aspire V15 Nitro can only achieve 26 FPS on Evolve, 43 FPS on Dirt Rally, and 31 FPS on Metal Gear Solid V. These are playable, but this is only on high settings (not ultra). Gaming performance won't be the best, however other aspects of this laptop (speakers, display, build quality) give it an edge over other similarly priced options. See More

Top Pro

Thinner and lighter than most gaming laptops

At 5.1 pounds and just under an inch thick, it's a bit thinner and lighter than most gaming laptops. See More

Top Con

Poor battery life

2.5-3 hours of regular use and less than an hour of game time is fairly lackluster, even for a gaming computer. See More

Top Pro

Awesome display

Good brightness, rich colors, and no glare - Acer nailed the display. See More

Top Con

Poor thermals

The fans get loud, and even at peak performance the keyboard can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature you won't be damaging any internals, but using the keyboard will be uncomfortable. See More

Top Pro

Good speakers

The speakers get loud, and retain most of their quality even at max volume. See More

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