best laptops gaming

best laptops gaming Gigabyte P34G

The Gigabyte P34G (starting at $1,399, about £819, AU$1,649) might not look or feel all that luxurious, but after a week with this power-packed gaming laptop, I felt spoiled by its performance. When it comes down to parts for pennies, this system goes uncontested. And that the P34G can play Titanfall at the highest settings with no problem makes me confident in its lasting power.

While you won't get the flashy lights of the Alienware 14 or the slick build of the Razer Blade, you'll pay less for the same gaming experience and then some, framerate wise. You'll want to use a mouse, even when you're just poking around the web, and having a nice mechanical keyboard waiting for it on your desk wouldn't hurt either.

This notebook offers great portability without sacrificing power or ports. All considered, the Gigabyte P34G is an amazing value and a portable beast of a gaming rig.

best laptops gaming Alienware 17

Make no mistake, this is undoubtedly the complete package and then some, offering the glitz and glamor of a boutique gaming PC in the laptop form factor. Not to mention that this AMD graphics chip inches dangerously close to desktop-level performance.

Save for some nagging (but ultimately fixable) problems, the Alienware 17 (starting at $1,499, £1,199, AU$2,499) is one of the best gaming laptops money can buy. From its sharp metallic and soft-touch build to a host of powerful components, this is a one-stop shop for getting into PC gaming with a single click.

best laptops gaming MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K

MSI and Nvidia have together proven that 3K gaming is possible on mobile setups, albeit with a few conceits to texture detail and other settings. Is it worth it? That's up to how much stock you put in resolution. What's important is that it can be done, and within reason.

This gaming laptop is a great value even at the high end, but starting at just $1,699 for the 1080p version with a GTX 860M is a steal in comparison. At the moment, the Ghost Pro is no doubt one of the 15-inch gaming notebooks to beat.

The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K (starting at $1,699, £1,399, AU$2,549)is not only a beauty to behold, it offers more hardware in nearly as premium a package as the big boys. But unless you're seriously intent on getting into post-HD gaming right now, save yourself a few hundred bucks and opt for the 1080p version.

best laptops gaming Origin EON17-S

Hands down, the Origin EON17-S (starting at $1,576, about £939, AU$1,630) is a superior value in face of the competition, despite it's seemingly enormous price. If you lack the time or patience to pore over power supplies, cases, monitors and more, this is a solid starting point and a more mobile solution.

It will always be more cost-effective to build your own gaming PC, but the service and support that Origin provides is impossible to replicate going that route. Plus, the extra niceties included in that price, namely the bundled mouse, could leave you set with this gaming laptop for a while.

best laptops gaming MSI GS70 Stealth

The MSI GS70 Stealth (starting at $1,599, £1,699, AU$2,899) breaks away from familiar desktop replacement conventions: instead of being bulky, heavy and ugly, it's little thicker than an Ultrabook and half the weight of some rivals – and it's one of the best-looking laptops we've seen for quite some time.

The GS70 is only 22mm thick, but it includes an Intel Haswell processor, current-generation Nvidia graphics card and two SSDs. The high-end specification and superb design means that the GS70 isn't cheap, but it'll be well worth your money.

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best laptops Chromebooks

best laptops Chromebooks  Dell Chromebook 11

The Dell Chromebook 11 (starting at $299, £179, about AU$317) is an affordable machine that does not feel or look like it was made on a budget. Compared to its competitors, this Dell falls in line with the specs already set by other Chrome laptops on the market.

At the same time, it also has two USB 3.0 ports. What sets it apart, though, is its impressive longevity, which makes it perfect for anyone who wants to get away from the outlet with a mobile hotspot in tow.

We even recommend checking out what Dell has on offer before the Acer or HP offerings. For school and/or leisure, the Dell Chromebook 11 is a no brainer. For now, Dell leads the Chromebook class with the best-looking and longest-lasting Chrome laptop yet.



best laptops Chromebooks  Toshiba Chromebook
This laptop isn't super stylish, nor is it the portable powerhouse you're looking for. But what Toshiba managed to accomplish in style and build for under 300 bucks is undoubtedly impressive.

Even for such a low-power system, 6 to 7 hours of endurance is longer than most Windows laptops can claim. Another plus is how quickly the Toshiba Chromebook (starting at $299, £207, AU$399) charges, meaning less time tethered to an outlet overall.

This is the perfect Baby Boomer laptop, not to mention the mileage students would get out of this machine. Looking for an incredibly affordable mobile computer that does, well, what you do most on the computer? This Chromebook is a wise choice.

best laptops Chromebooks  Acer C720P Chromebook
Even at under 300 smackers, the Acer C720P Chromebook (starting at $299, £249, AU$499) costs way less than most budget laptops, and looks as good as a notebook twice its price. As an affordable laptop, the C720P has a lot to offer: A thin and light design, a snappy keyboard and touchpad, and impressive lasting power.

The notebook's dual-core processor provides more than enough oomph for heavy browsing. Plus, you can browse, write and stream to your heart's content, thanks to a seven-hour battery life. If you want a laptop with a touchscreen and don't use your computer for more than streaming movies, composing documents and browsing the web, the C720P is a fine choice.

best laptops Chromebooks  HP Chromebook 11
The HP Chromebook 11 (starting at $279, £179, AU$399) is smooth and usable. While Chrome OS is limited by definition, between us growing more comfortable in web apps and those apps growing in power – and Chrome OS maturing – we're bumping into those limitations far less often.

This laptop is punchy enough to make the experience slick, cheap enough for anyone on a budget (or an impulse buy for the well-off), but something that still feels solid. It is a delight to own and use.

Apple and the other premium manufacturers should look at this little gem of a computer and applaud what has been achieved. The Chromebook 11 shows that it's possible to create a product with a little bit of the magic and joy you get from an Apple laptop without charging four figures for it.

best laptops Chromebooks  Acer C720 Chromebook
In terms of power and endurance, you can't argue with the Acer C720 Chromebook (starting at $199, £199, AU$399). When you just want to get on the web quickly to answer emails or look something up, the C720 is ideal. For parents, it's also a perfect "homework machine," as long as you can get a printer hooked up.

This is a true web appliance, a fine system for families. The Google account log-in gives each user a personalized interface, and just a few keystrokes completely wipe the system. That limits the risk substantially in sharing the system with others.

One key criterion we use in evaluating a device is whether we'd actually want to use it every day. Even taking this laptop's flaws into account, it's something we definitely would want to use, for the price.

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best laptops Ultrabooks

Acer Aspire S7

Acer has updated it's luxury laptop with a super sharp QHD display. This 2560 x 1440 panel is prepared for the day when hyper-HD content is finally viable to watch over wireless internet. In the now, text looks gorgeous, as do images – thus adding to the near-future feel of this device. 

The build quality on display here, from the Aspire S7's aluminum and Gorilla Glass frame is palpable. That goes for the snappy keyboard, with its fancy electroluminescent lighting, too. 

 The Acer Aspire S7 (starting at $1,349, £1,199, AU$2,599) truly feels like a machine built for the now, 2014, and one that you won't mind using well into 2016, possibly longer. So, love the Aspire S7 for its cutting edge build, fine typing experience and premium specs.

Dell XPS 13

Dell has really got serious with the internals of the Dell XPS 13 (starting at $1,299, £1,099, AU$1,699). Haswell (4th generation) Intel Core processors, at least 8GB of RAM, an SSD for fast performance and a snappy keyboard all combine to make this an attractive laptop. It's brilliantly thin and light, and 13-inch screen still gives you room to work.

This time around, Dell offers a 1080p touchscreen to keep up with the competition. The Dell XPS 13 remains one of the best laptops you can buy, offering top-notch performance and excellent build quality. 

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro

The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (starting at $1,099, £999, AU$1,599) is a winner of a laptop, pure and simple. At the $1,000 price point, you could put the Yoga 2 Pro in just about anyone's hands and make them feel quite pleased. Some of Lenovo's pre-loaded software borders on bloat, and we struggled to find more than handful of uses for half of the Yoga's operating modes.

It's also a shame that the battery life is so low, for Haswell as least, but you are getting that gorgeous 3200 x 1800 display as a trade off. For what you're paying, you're getting your money's worth.

Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus

Samsung was one of the very first PC manufacturers to jump on the Ultrabook bandwagon. It's done a fine job of representing Intel's baby ever since, with some stunning offerings, including the Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch and, more recently, the top-of-the-line Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D. Samsung's new Ultrabook: the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus (starting at $1,399, £1,412, AU$2,259), might keep the company ahead of the game for a while, at least if its on-paper abilities are anything to go by. 

It's a wonderful-looking unit. It's thin and carefully crafted, with shiny, chamfered edges lining its all-aluminium chassis. But its plain black exterior might lend some clues as to its intent: This is premium-priced Ultrabook focused as much on the business user as the coffee shop regular.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (starting at $1,186, £1,198, AU$1,699) is a business laptop that straddles the line between form and function more than ever after this update. For those with a penchant for aesthetics, here's a brand new design with some fantastic new features. And to keep the no-nonsense business user happy, this is a plenty powerful piece of hardware. 

The connectivity on offer through this Ultrabook's super slim design profile alone is impressive. And the adaptive keys, while divisive, add a ton of function in a limited amount of space and an attractive presentation. Look out, MacBook Pro, you're no longer the only thin and light business option on the block.

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best laptops The Acer Aspire S7-392-5410

The Acer Aspire S7-392-5410 ($1,399.99) is one of the few ultrabooks that matches or even exceed the thin and flashy design of the Apple MacBook Air laptops. It has all-day battery life, a new Intel Core i5 processor, a full HD screen, and yet it still weighs less than three pounds. Bucking the 2-in-1 trend, the Aspire S7-392-5410$1,149.99 at Amazon is unabashedly a laptop without any of the part-time tablet or laptop affectations of systems like the Lenovo Yoga 2 13$1,049.99 at Lenovo or the Microsoft Surface Pro 3$1,299.00 at Microsoft Store.

Design and Features
The S7-392-5410's chassis is essentially identical to that of last year's Editors' Choice for ultrabooks, the Acer Aspire S7-392-6411$957.98 at Amazon. It measures about 0.51 by 12.75 by 9 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.88 pounds. That makes it one of the thinnest and lightest touch-screen laptops on the scene. It's still lighter and thinner than the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch$949.00 at ABT, and less than a half-pound heavier than the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with its optional Type Cover. The screen's electronics are sandwiched between two panes of Gorilla Glass 2, which helps make the lid strong, yet thin.
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A 13.3-inch, 1,920-by-1,080-resolution, 10-point touch screen is a highlight of this ultrabook. It uses In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, so you'll have no problem viewing the screen from a multitude of angles. A dual-friction hinge lets you use the laptop from a standing or seated position, and also shared between colleagues on a table when fully opened at 180 degrees. The hinge requires more force to move the lid beyond the 100-degree mark or so, which helps keep the touch screen steady when in use.

Acer Aspire S7-392-5410
The touch screen is quick and accurate, encouraging you to use the touch-optimized versions of Windows 8 apps. We are less enamored of the touchpad, as it seems a bit too sensitive to stray palm touches. You can, however, tweak the sensitivity settings in the control panel or shut the touchpad completely off with a Fn-T key combo.

The backlit keyboard has an odd layout compared with rivals. The Caps Lock key is tiny and shares an opening with the relocated Tilde key. The F1-F12 keys share space with the number keys at the top of the keyboard, but the other keys are where you'd expect them. Acer did this to streamline construction processes, by sharing key openings in the aluminum keyboard deck with its international Aspire S7 models. For the most part, it works fine.

Port selection is very good, especially considering Acer only has a half-inch vertically to work with. The laptop has two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and an Acer Converter Port. The Acer Converter Port is physically a mini DisplayPort, and works as one, but it also can be connected to an Acer-sourced combination dongle $34.99 to work with Ethernet, USB, and VGA. For wireless connectivity, there is dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi.

The spacious 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) can hold plenty of apps, files, and the Windows 8.1 operating system. This is double the storage space of last year's Acer S7-392-6411, at a lower price. Unfortunately, that lower price also comes with a drawback. There is quite a bit of bloatware installed on the system. While not all pre-installed programs are useless, we can't imagine that you'll actively use all of them. The list this time includes Amazon, Booking.com, Chacha, eBay, Diddlr, Evernote Touch, Hulu Plus, iCookbook, Netflix, Newsxpresso, Next Issue, Spotify, Stumble Upon, Wild Tangent games, and Zinio. The Aspire S7 comes with a one-year warranty.

Performance
Acer Aspire S7-392-5410 The Aspire S7-392-5410 is configured with an Intel Core i5-4210U processor with Intel HD Graphics 4400, 8GB of memory, and the aforementioned 256GB SSD. Booting up takes only a few seconds, and waking from sleep is even faster. The system did very well on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test (2,708 points), which measures performance during office tasks, video conferencing, and Web browsing. It was on pace with the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (2,704), though both were edged out by the Samsung ATIV Book 9 2014 EditionBest Price at Amazon (2,733).

Multimedia performance was good, though not stellar, on our tests. The Toshiba Kirabook 13 i7s Touch$1,419.00 at Amazon, our current Editors' Choice for high-end ultrabooks, was understandably faster due to its Core i7 processor.

On the 3D and gaming tests, the S7-392-5410 garnered 12 frames per second (fps) on Heaven and 11fps on Valley, both at medium quality settings. This is on par with the Toshiba Kirabook 13 i7s Touch and the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. All would be fine playing a less strenuous game like World of Warcraft or Diablo III, but you'll need a system with a stronger discrete graphics solution for AAA first person shooters like Destiny or Titanfall.

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Battery life is a high point. The Aspire S7-392-5410 managed a healthy 8 hours 22 minutes on our battery rundown test. This qualifies the system for all-day computing, and it will certainly power through a cross-country flight, with time to spare. The Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (8:55), the Dell XPS 13 Touch$1,299.99 at Dell (9:31), and the Samsung ATIV Book 9 2014 Edition (11:26) had even more battery life on the same test. It's notable that the Samsung ATIV Book 9 2014 Edition and the Toshiba 13 i7s Touch (8:44) outlasted the S7-392-5410, even though both have higher-resolution screens, which mean bigger power drains. Both the Samsung and Toshiba systems are thicker, with more space for larger battery packs, which contributes to their longer battery lives.

Overall, the Acer Aspire S7-392-5410 is an great high-end ultrabook that simply has a lot of competition. There are a few drawbacks, like bloatware, the odd keyboard layout, and the overly sensitive trackpad. We figure that the majority of users who can spend $1,400 on a laptop will be happy with the S7-392-5410, especially those who need a full-fledged laptop rather than a tablet with an optional keyboard, like the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. The Toshiba Kirabook 13 i7s Touch holds on as our top pick for high-end ultrabooks, due to its 2,560-by-1,440-resolution touch screen, higher-performing Core i7 processor, slightly better selection of I/O ports, and a longer two-year warranty.

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