Working remotely allows you to travel for a much longer period of time than it does when visiting a country as a standard tourist for only two weeks.
When traveling for a long period of time, some of us may not always be outside doing tours, training or simply going out for a drink. Some of us are nerds. And we may enjoy playing a few games after our working sessions.
To do so we need laptops with the right configuration. Finding a great laptop with the best specs to play is kind of easy, and there are plenty of websites listing what are the best laptops for that. Finding the best light laptop to travel and play video games may be a bit more difficult.
You need a laptop powerful enough indeed, but you also need a laptop that will not come with the usual aspects of a gaming laptop such as the exaggerated design or the multi-color keyboard so you can still go to all sorts of places to work remotely without looking too much like a nerd.
How much should you spend for your gaming laptop?
If you landed on this article it is because you are searching for the best laptop to play with while traveling. But the reason why you are searching for such answers is probably that you do not want to spend too much on it.
I would say that you should not hope for anything below $1,500. Unless of course if you find a reconditioned laptop.
With $1,500 you can get a laptop that will launch most of the games. It won’t have the best screen nor the best batteries though. It will probably overheat a little. But you will get the opportunity to play on your PC the latest games while traveling!
With a $2,000 budget you will have plenty of choice, however you will get a mid-range type of laptop. Usually, I always recommend to my friends or my family to either go big or go to the cheap option. What’s in between is usually disappointing. Unless of course if you manage to find the gold nugget!
With a $3,000 budget, you will be able to play anywhere, even in the daylight, to easily move your laptop from one place to another easily, and to look cool while working remotely from the a cafe.
1 – HP OMEN 15 ek1013dx 15
The previous version of the HP Omen 15.3 had a really cool feature. It was possible to get rid of the multicolour backlight that we see on the keyword. On the latest version it is no longer possible.
Still the design of this laptop is quite discrete.
For $1,500, it comes with 16Gb of RAM memory, an Intel Core i7-10750H processor and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphic card.
With this configuration you can aim to play games like:
- GTA V
- Valorant
- Elden Ring
- Fifa 22
Now the screen of this laptop won’t allow you to work outside easily. With only 300 nits, the sunlight will make you completely blind.
The battery, taking in consideration the specs of the laptop, and the size of the screen, won’t last long. You will have to stay plugged in for long working sessions. Of course, with a good battery management you will be able to push your machine for a couple of hours. But you should not expect too much from this HP Omen 15.3 device in terms of mobility.
Check out this laptop on Amazon here (if you decide to get one for yourself I may get a commission as this is an affiliation link)
You can also watch this great review video to get someone else’s opinion on this laptop:
For the same configuration (RAM, Processor and graphic card) but made out of better materials, you could get a Razer Blade 15. It would cost you between $2,199 and $2,500.
But again, if you are looking at getting a quality gaming & traveling laptop you should probably aim for a better configuration.
The great thing about the Razer Blade 15 is that the configuration can be customized almost entirely. See here all the versions available.
The most expensive Razer Blade 15 is currently trading at $3,990 and is equiped with an Intel 14-Core i9 CPU, a 4K UHD 144Hz screen, and 32GB DDR5 of RAM. A much more robust laptop.
The Razer has a better baterry than the HP Omen. It is also made out of Aluminium while the HP Omen 15 is made of plastic.
The screen brightness has been measured between 300 and 400 nits depending on the screen you decide to go for. The 4k one would be the one with the 400 nits.
If you want to know more about this laptop, there is nothing better than a good Youtube video:
3 – Asus Rog Zephyrus G14
The Asus Rog Zephyrus is the best laptop to play games while traveling on the market, at least at this price.
For $1,500 you will get a laptop that will be able to run all sorts of games, with a descrete design, and loaded with a great configuration:
- Nvidia Geforce RTX 3960
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
- 16 GB of RAM
But the most important aspect of this laptop is that it comes with a battery that will last a long period of time. The tests say that it can last 8 hours with a standard use. If you are hoping to play unplugged, do not expect to play more than one hour with this laptop though.
On the cons side of things, the Asus Rog Zphyrus will warm up your hotel room, and it will sound as how it has been called, as a strong wind.
Get all the insights from this video below:
If gaming is not too important to you and you are more interested in finding a light laptop to travel with, you can check my suggestions in this article: The best laptops for digital nomads.
