The 5 Best Gaming Laptops Under $700 Reviewed
Everybody needs a little escapism in their lives. We all need a way to flee the overbearing mundanity of the dreary nine to five cubicle existence.
Whether you’re on a manufacturing line, repeating the same boring tasks over and over again, or sitting in an office filling out endless forms and entering reams of useless data into a system that’s never satiated, the need to flee from that reality becomes overbearing.
While the idea of being able to permanently opt-out of the rat race is an idle, unachievable fantasy, we have discovered increasingly creative methods to use the modicum of free time that we do have to leave our drab realities behind.
In the world of cyberspace and computer-based gaming, there is a universe of endless possibilities in which we can briefly take flight and become who we always wanted to be.
You are not your job and your identity isn’t determined by the role that society has cast you in. The multiverse of video and computer gaming, allows you to break free of the shackles that the rest of the world expects you to wear, and you can reach the pinnacle of whatever dream your imagination desires.
All you need to start finding out who you really are is a game and a computer that’ll allow you to play it and experience all of the highs and lows and triumphs and losses that it’s creators intended.
But finding the right laptop to play that game on isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially in a world where money is becoming increasingly tight and budgets don’t stretch as far as they used to.
That’s why we took it upon ourselves to find five of the best laptops that’ll help you to find your gaming freedom and thrive online for less than seven hundred dollars.
Are you ready player one? Then let the games begin…
Best Gaming Laptops Under $700
1. Acer Swift 3
Trust us, we know. When it comes to gaming Acer isn’t a name that’s exactly high on any die-hard video thrills and spills and online savant’s list of machines that’ll make you go weak at the knees.
They may well be the computers that you use every single day when you clock into the office, but the tool of your working week subjugation will also provide the key to your online freedom.
While it may not have the most powerful graphics card, the Radeon model it uses is more than capable of carrying you away to distant realms and faraway kingdoms at the touch of a button.
With eight gigabytes of Ram (Random Access Memory), a five hundred and twelve gigabytes of hard drive, and a Ryzen 7 CPU (central processing unit), the Acer Swift 3 is fast enough to cater to all of the demands that the latest games will make of it and quick enough to keep up with you as you plunge deeper and deeper into them.
It isn’t the biggest laptop you’ll ever lay your hands-on, but its fourteen-inch screen is bright, colorful, dynamic, and sharp and won’t let you miss a beat of whatever game you’re playing or a minute of the action as it unfolds around you.
And when you’ve finished playing, you can depend on the stable operating platform, Windows 10, that comes as standard with all Acer laptops.
The real beauty of the Acer 3 though, is that all of its technology and processing power comes in a super-sleek, slimline aluminum and magnesium chassis, which makes it tough, durable, and strong.
And best of all? It weighs in just two and a half pounds, which means you can easily carry it with you wherever you want to go without having to even give it a second thought. The Acer 3 is a light, portable, and powerful machine that’ll double up as a work, design, and study friendly laptop.
However, all of the fun and power that’s packed into the Acer 3 can make it slow and laborious, and some users have complained that it isn’t up to doing the job that Acer says it can comfortably do.
Speed, despite its relatively high specifications, doesn’t seem to be its forte, and Cortana isn’t exactly reliable when it’s running on the Acer 3, which when coupled with Acer’s apparently less than perfect customer service, can be a problem.
All of which leaves you in the driving seat, because while it has all of the gaming power that you’ll need, the Acer 3 might slow the rest of your computer-based life to crawl.
- Aspect Ratio:16:9
- AMD Ryzen 7 4700U Octa-Core Mobile Processor (Up to 4.1 GHz) with Radeon Graphics; 8GB LPDDR4 Memory; 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD
- 14" Full HD Widescreen IPS LED-backlit display (1920 x 1080 resolution; 16:9 aspect ratio)
- Intel wireless Wi-Fi 6 AX200 802.11ax; HD webcam (1280 x 720); Backlit keyboard; Fingerprint reader
- 1 - USB Type-C port USB 3. 2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps) DisplayPort over USB Type-C and USB Charging, 1- USB 3. 2 Gen 1 port (featuring power-off charging), 1 - USB 2. 0 port and 1 - HDMI port
2. HP Pavilion Gaming
If you’re anything like us, as soon as you hear the name Hewlett-Packard, you’ll start thinking about printers and all of the external hardware that your clunky old desktop used to run.
But don’t get weighed down by the memories of yesterday as the Pavilion Gaming laptops that Hewlitt-Packard make provide a staggering amount of gaming power and reliability at a price point that isn’t as daunting as most of its competition.
Its fifteen-inch screen delivers the sort of clean, crisp and super sharp images that are the trademark of its GeForce GTX graphics card and thanks to being powered by a ninth-generation two hundred and fifty gigabyte Intel hard drive and eight gigabytes of upgradeable RAM, the Pavilion Gaming is a super-fast, incredibly responsive machine.
Favored by the online gaming community, it’s an ideal machine to play ‘Fortnite’, ‘Sims’ and multiplayer online RPGs (role-playing games) like ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘World of Tanks’ on. The Pavilion Gaming system that HP (that’s Hewlett-Packard for the benefit of those who maybe aren’t quite as savvy with the world of computer wizardry as the rest of us) has based this machine on is simply staggering.
With around ten hours of battery life and an advanced thermal management system that keeps both the keyboard and CPU cool in even the most demanding of gaming situations, the Pavilion Gaming is a laptop that easily lends itself to a multitude of applications.
Running off a Windows 10 platform, the HP also uses Bios recovery and protection which constantly manages the health of the PC, protects against unwanted intruders and hackers, and prevents any boot-up issues that might slow your gaming experience down.
With a backlit keyboard to help you keep going long into the hours of darkness, the HP weighs in at around four and a half pounds, which means it’s light enough for you to carry it from room to room or wherever it is you’re going without missing a beat of whatever game it is you’re focused on.
That said, while the Bios recovery it uses might stop boot-up being an issue, it doesn’t prevent it from taking it a while, so you’ll be sat around twiddling your thumbs while you’re waiting for the HP to warm up, and those minutes ticking away while it gets ready are precious moments that you could be using to vanquish your enemies and all who would challenge you in the gaming world.
And even though HP claims its battery will give you ten full hours of unfettered play, when you’re caught in the heat of battle and the CPU is galloping to keep up, you can easily shave a couple of hours off of the battery life. Just because they say it’s so in the laboratory, it very rarely works out that way in the gaming world.
- Fast and easy multitasking: experience high-grade Graphics and processing power that meets your gaming and multitasking needs for the latest games including Fortnight, PUBG, and Overwatch
- Advanced thermal Management: optimized thermal design and IR sensor keeps your laptop cool to the touch, without affecting acoustics.
- Bios recovery and protection: automatically checks the health of your PC, protects against unauthorized access, secures local storage and recovers itself from boot-up issues
- Fast Processor: 9th Generation intel(r) core(tm) i5-9300h Processor, quad-core, 2.4GHz up to 4.1GHz with Intel's) Turbo Boost
- Realistic graphics: nvidia(r) geforce(r) GTX 1050 (3 GB GDDR5 dedicated). enjoy NVIDIA Pascal) architecture for amazing speed and power efficiency. Vr/mr ready. 15.6-Inch diagonal FHD IPS Anti-Glare micro-edge WLED-backlit Display (1920x1080) with 60Hz refresh rate
3. Dell Inspiron 15 5000
Now we’re cooking with gaming gas, as we’re heading into Dell territory and as any avid computer gamer will tell you, Dell land isn’t a bad place to be.
Dell has been at the forefront of laptop technology since the advent of the twenty-first century, and while they keep making machines like the Inspiron 15, they’re not likely to give up their position anytime soon.
Powered by a tenth generation two hundred and fifty-six-gigabyte hard drive and eight gigabytes of RAM, this fifteen and half-inch quick processing beast also has a backlit keyboard so you don’t have to stop playing when the lights go out.
Just like the previous machines on our list, Dell uses the latest Microsoft operating platform, so it’s stable and dependable and won’t let you down when it matters most. And, being a Dell and having all of the technological reliability that comes with that name, it’ll switch between the gaming and more traditional computing worlds in the blink of an eye.
It uses an inbuilt Dell UHD graphics card and has an anti-glare screen, so no matter where you take your laptop, you’ll always be able to use it to play what you want when you want.
And thanks to its twelve-hour battery life, it’ll never run out of charge before you do. It may look sweet and innocent, but the 15 5000 packs more gaming punch than even Dell would like to admit.
Or it would do if it had a DVD drive, which it doesn’t, so you’ll have to be content to play everything that you want to, online. This may not be a problem for the gamer raised in the shadow of the internet, but for those who were brought up on more traditional methods of play, who prefer to use physical media whenever possible, it could certainly prove to be a burden.
While Dell might be ready to move everything into cyberspace, some elements of the gaming world still have one foot planted firmly in the land of physical media.
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4. ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop
If ASUS says that this laptop was made for gaming, then we’re not going to argue with them. If that’s what they say it was made to do, then that’s what it was made to do.
Although, as we’re somewhat familiar with what they do, we’re also pretty sure that as well as being a Dragonslayer in the gaming world, it’ll also be a veritable beast of a home-based, one machine can, and will, conquer all laptop too.
With a two hundred and fifty-six gigabyte hard drive, eight gigabytes of RAM, and a lighting in a bottle Ryzen 5 CPU (central processing until), the ASUS isn’t just quick, it’s faster than the Flash racing to save Central City.
It’s even got four gigabytes of specifically designated RAM to back up its GeForce GTX graphics card, which means you’ll never miss a moment of the action on it’s fifteen and a half-inch screen. The ASUS TUF was made to help you battle monsters and that’s exactly what it does, transporting you to far-off worlds to confront all manner of creatures and save the universe.
Using a dual-fan to keep its backlit keyboard and jaw-droppingly powerful CPU cool, the ASUS also uses digital surround sound, in order to fully immerse you in the gaming world. It’s more than just a laptop, it’s an enthralling gaming machine that you’ll never want to leave or walk away from, no matter how hard you try.
And it’s probably just as well that you won’t want to walk away from the ASUS, because you’ll find it more difficult to take it with you than the other machines on our list.
It’s heavy for a gaming laptop and has a pound or two on most of its competition. Which, in the real world isn’t all that much when you consider the amount of technology that it’s packing under its hood, but might make all the difference to gamers who are constantly on the go. ‘
However, if being a little bit chunky in the looks and carrying department are all the ASUS has to worry about, which by all accounts it is, then it’s almost certainly got the numero uno gaming laptop competition all sewn up.
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5. Acer Aspire 5
In fact, if it wasn’t for the Acer Aspire 5, we’d almost certainly be ready to hand the laptop gaming crown over to the ASUS without hesitation.
But the Aspire 5 is a gaming thing and it’s more than just a contender to the ASUS’s undisputed heavyweight gaming belt, it’s a thoroughbred challenger that could easily knock it off its top spot.
The Inspire 5 is a gaming leviathan, that’s fueled by twelve gigabytes of RAM, a one terabyte hard drive, a Ryzen 5 CPU (central processing unit), and an AMD Radeon Eight Vega graphics card.
It’s right at the top of every gamers laptop Christmas list, and with a full, fifteen and half-inch HD screen, all of that power is readily available in fast and furious gaming action.
Running off Windows 10 means that it’s stable, and all of that ravenous power that it hosts means that it boots up quickly and efficiently and doesn’t stumble, stutter or falter as it drives you to your gaming destination.
With a backlit keyboard, full digital surround sound, and more ports and connectivity than anyone will ever need or want to use, the only thing that the Acer Aspire 5 won’t do is sit up and beg.
And it doesn’t need to, because when a laptop is this good, it can safely rest on its laurels and let its stunning functionality speak for itself.
When something seems too good to be true, like the Aspire 5 does, there’s almost always a catch. However, this time, there isn’t one. It even comes with a year-long warranty that covers just about every mishap and misfortune that could befall it.
The Acer Aspire 5 really is as good as it seems to be, and is ready to claim it’s alpha position as the head of the laptop gaming pack.
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Gaming Laptops Under $700 Buyers Guide
What Is A Laptop?
A laptop is a portable, personal computer that has a screen that can be folded into place and is usually lightweight and powerful enough to be easily carried from place to place by its user and able to handle any, and all demands placed on it.
The idea of a portable, personal computer was first mooted in the early seventies by Alan Kay and was referred to by its creator as a “Dynabook”.
However, the first widely acknowledged laptop to make it to market was the Epson HX-20, which was invented in nineteen eighty and finally appeared in nineteen eighty-one.
But it wasn’t until the early years of the twenty-first century that laptops finally began to find their audience and started to replace the more traditional, tower-based home computer.
What Do I Need To Look For In A Good Gaming Laptop?
There are certain things that make some laptops better than others for gaming, and any good gaming laptop should have a combination of all these things.
Ideally, a good gaming laptop needs a significant amount of RAM (random access memory), a fast CPU (central processing unit), and a fairly large hard drive, which is measured in gigabytes and sometimes even terabytes.
A good gaming laptop should also have a high specification graphics card, a good quality screen, and great sound – preferably digital surround. Most laptops also have headphone and microphone sockets which can be another added advantage if you intend to join an online gaming community.
For more information on what to look for in a gaming laptop, watch this video:
Which Gaming Laptop Under Seven Hundred Dollars Is The Right One For Me?
That’s like asking when is the sky blue or why the ocean is wet, there really isn’t an answer to it. It’s entirely dependent on personal taste, what your budget is, and if you want a laptop solely for gaming, or if you also want it to perform a more traditional computing role.
However, if you wanted to know which gaming laptop we recommend, then without hesitation or even pausing for breath, we’d always point you in the direction of the Acer Aspire 5.
It’s a gaming monster and also has all of the conventional computing power that a Windows-based machine will ever need and you’ll ever want.
Would you like to play a game? Of course, you would, that’s why you’re here. So, choose your weapon of choice and we’ll see you online.