The Best Thin and Light Gaming Laptops in 2021

he Best Thin and Light Gaming Laptops in 2021

The Best Thin and Light Gaming Laptops in 2021

The best thin and light gaming laptops can ensure that you’ll never have to choose between raw power and portability ever again. Thanks to the efforts by Nvidia, Intel, and AMD, mobile components are getting smaller yet more powerful and energy-efficient, making these gaming machines possible.

With the best thin and light gaming laptops, you can game on the go without lugging around a heavy load. In fact, many of these gaming laptops can rival the best laptops and even the best Ultrabooks.

Some even have such long battery life you can opt to leave the charger at home so you can travel even lighter. What’s more, many of these portables are more affordable than ever. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, for example, delivers impressive performance and a beautiful, lightweight chassis while also being less expensive than its rivals.

The Best Thin and Light Gaming Laptops in 2021 1

(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.

Read the full review: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14

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2. MSI GS65 Stealth

Thin. Beautiful. Powerful.

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
The 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.

Read the full review: MSI GS65 Stealth

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3. Razer Blade Stealth

Thin, light, powerful

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 insight

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.

Read the full review: Razer Blade Stealth

Razer Blade 15 (2020)

(Image credit: Razer)

4. Razer Blade 15 (2020)

Gaming in style

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.

Read the full review: Razer Blade 15 (2020)

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5. Gigabyte Aero 15

Another thin and light gaming beast

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.

Read the full review: Gigabyte Aero 15

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6. Dell XPS 15 2-in-1

Making power portable

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.

Read the full review: Dell XPS 15 2-in-1