The best thin and light gaming laptops are no longer the stuff of legends. Components are getting smaller and thinner while becoming more powerful and energy-efficient, thanks to the efforts by Nvidia, Intel, and AMD. Thanks to them, choosing between portability and performance is no longer something you’d have to make, especially if you have the budget. These components have allowed gaming laptops to acquire impressively portable bodies while staying powerful enough to deliver a smooth gaming experience.
With components like Nvidia's Max-Q GPUs, the best thin and light gaming laptops, many of which are just as svelte as the best laptops of 2021, won’t have to compromise on performance just to keep things slim or sacrifice a svelte body for power. Playing the latest AAA PC games one of these is a cinch. So, while they are going to cost a bit more than the regular-sized gaming counterparts, they’re more than worth the dough.
Especially if you want to game while on the go, only one of the best thin and light gaming laptops on this list will do. Consider our top choices, and be sure to check out our price comparison tool for the best deal available.
(Image credit: Future)
1. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
The best thin and light gaming laptop
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS – 9 4900HS | Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 | RAM: Up to 32GB | Screen: 14-inch Non-glare Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS-level panel, 120Hz – 14-inch Non-glare WQHD (2560 x 1440) IPS-level panel, 60Hz | Storage: 512GB / 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 | Dimensions: 12.76 x 8.74 x 0.7 inches (32.4 x 22.2 x 1.79cm; W x D x H) | Weight: 3.75 pounds (1.7kg)
Best battery life in a gaming laptop
Excellent performance
Thin and light
No webcam
Fans can get loud
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 may be missing a webcam and a Thunderbolt 3 port, but it’s damn near close to perfection, garnering our coveted yet rarely given five-star rating. This is an absolute beast of a gaming laptop, delivering an incredible performance with its AMD Ryzen 4000 processors and Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card while touting best-in-class battery life that will last you all day long, a fast display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a lightweight, ultrathin design. This is definitely the best thin and light gaming laptop in 2021. For a laptop this impressive, we’re surprised Asus isn’t asking for more.
CPU: Intel Core i7 | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5X VRAM, Max-Q) | RAM: 16GB | Screen: 15.6-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080) anti-glare, wide-view 144Hz panel | Storage: 512GB M.2 SSD | Dimensions: 14.1 x 0.7 x 9.8-inches (358.1 x 17.8 x 248.9mm) | Weight: 1.9kg
Beautiful, subtle design
Excellent performance
Underside gets very hot
At just .7 inches thick and featuring beefy Coffee Lake processors, the MSI GS65 Stealth isn't just one of the best thin and light gaming laptops ever made, it's one of the best devices you can currently game on full stop. It features an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics, which gives you plenty of power for playing the latest games with the graphical settings set to 'high', and it all comes in a brilliantly thin and gorgeously-designed body.
CPU: Intel Core i7 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620 – Intel UHD Graphics 620 | RAM: 16GB | Screen: 12.5-inch UHD (3,840 x 2,160) – 13.3-inch QHD+ (3,200 x 1,800) | Storage: 256GB – 1TB PCIe SSD | Dimensions: 2.6 x 8.1 x 0.54 inches (32.1 x 20.6 x 1.38cm) | Weight: 2.98 pounds (1.35kg)
Larger, brighter display
Subtler aesthetics on gunmetal version
Shorter and shorter battery life
No 4K display option in sight
The latest Razer Blade Stealth is an absolutely brilliant thin and light gaming PC. It's a brilliant demonstration of just how far gaming laptop technology has come, with Razer fitting some seriously impressive components into the slimline body of the Blade Stealth. The 2018 version comes with some of the most up-to-date hardware money can buy, and it benefits from a brighter (and larger) display and a new, more subtle, design.
CPU: 10th-generation Intel Core i7 | Graphics: up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super | RAM: 16GB DDR4 | Screen: 144Hz FHD Matte or OLED 4K – 300Hz FHD Matte or OLED 4K Touch | Storage: Up to 1TB PCIe
Powerful
Plenty of ports
Top-mounted speakers
Expensive
Short battery life
Expensive though it may be – as is usual with the Razer Blade line – this installment of the Razer Blade 15 is staggeringly powerful, more than capable of annihilating any PC game you throw at it. With up to an RTX 2080 Super in the GPU department, there’s no doubt of its extra oomph, which makes it an excellent candidate for creative professionals as well, especially with that design that keeps things classy and a trackpad that’s among the best we’ve tested on a gaming laptop. If you’ve got deep pockets and you like to keep things stylish, this is the best thin and light gaming laptop for you.
CPU: Intel Core i7 8750H | Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5) | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Screen: 15.6-inch, FHD (1,920 x 1,080) LCD anti-glare | Storage: 512GB SSD | Dimensions: 14 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches (35.6 x 25 x 1.8 cm) | Weight: 4.4 pounds (2kg)
Super thin bezels
Deceptively thin and light
Unfortunate webcam placement
The Gigabyte Aero 15 proves that you don't need to be big and bulky to be a brilliant gaming laptop. It packs a 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7 CPU and a GTX 1060 into a slimline body that you'd expect from an Ultrabook. And, thanks to that beefy processor, the Gigabyte Aero 15 isn’t just one of the best gaming laptops – it’s just as good when you need to get some work done.
CPU: Intel Core i5-i7 | Graphics: Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics with 4GB HMB2 Graphics Memory | RAM: 8GB | Screen: 15.6-inch, 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge anti-reflective touch display | Storage: 512GB PCIe SSD | Dimensions: 13.9 x 9.2 x 0.36-0.63 inches (35.4 x 23.5 x 0.9-0.6cm) | Weight: 4.36 pounds (2kg)
Impressive power
Ultra-thin design
Kind of expensive
Okay, so the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 isn't billed as a gaming laptop, but within its thin and light frame are components that will give you a brilliant gaming experience. Packed with an Intel Kaby Lake G-series processor, this gaming laptop can keep up with its competitors. While you may not be able to play the very latest games at the highest graphical settings, with a bit of tweaking you'll find that this thin-and-light laptop is brilliant for gaming. Plus, it has a gorgeously-thin design from Dell that makes it stand out from the crowd.
Chrome on Mac is apparently now faster than Safari
Google has announced that the latest version of its Chrome browser is faster than ever for Mac users.
The company says that its new Chrome M99 release for Mac has achieved greater speeds than ever before as it looks to streak ahead of its rivals.
A raft of improvements and optimizations now means that Chrome is 7% faster than the current builds of Safari, the company claims, alongside a 15% difference in graphics performance.
Chrome vs Safari
Among the changes to Chrome is ThinLTO, a build optimization technique that inlines speed-critical parts of the code base, even when they span multiple files or libraries.
When it comes to graphics performance, Google highlighted the effect of pass-through decoder and out-of-process rasterization technologies in giving Chrome a boost.
It also mentioned the use of Sparkplug, a new JavaScript compiler that offers a particular boost for Apple M1-based Macs thanks to its ability to generate efficient code with low compilation overhead, and short builtin calls, which are used by JavaScript to optimize the placement of generated code inside the device’s memory.
Overall, Google says the cumulative effect of all these changes is that Chrome is now 43% faster than it was when it was first launched on M1-based Macs in late 2020.
"We go deep on every platform where Chrome runs to provide the fastest possible experience," Google's Max Christoff, Senior Director, Chrome Engineering, said in a blog post announcing the news.
"Every day, billions of people around the world turn to Chrome to get things done quickly on their devices, whether shopping for a new pair of headphones or pulling together a sales report for work. Nothing is more frustrating than having a slow experience while browsing the web. That’s why Chrome has always been focused on building the fastest possible browser since its launch in 2008, without compromising on feature functionality or security."
Google added that Chrome Android users should also be enjoying a speed boost, with the browser up to 15% faster according to its data due to new optimized navigation technology that prioritizes critical navigation moments.
