What is the Best Gaming Laptop under 3000 Dollars in 2023?

Alienware M15 Gaming Laptop

Here comes the Alienware M15 laptop, packing both style and power in a compact package, designed for playing even the most demanding games at the best resolutions. As a matter of fact, the M15 is a younger sibling of the Alienware Area 51M, and the difference between the two is quite narrow in terms of performance anyways.

Our review unit is a 15.6″ laptop with, an Intel Core i7-9750H processor, the graphics card is an NVIDIA RTX 2060 with 6GB VRAM, a 512GB SSD, and 16GB RAM.

Design

Now in terms of design, this machine scores a strong point, especially in keeping with the Alienware reputation of making uniquely designed gaming laptops. This unit comes in two colors – white and grey-black. The lid has the iconic Alienware logo and “15” etched into the non-flexible metallic material built from magnesium alloy, copper, and steel that provides a premium lightweight, and performance-driven gaming machine.

On the keyboard deck, the hexagonal-shaped cooling vents are somewhat classy and prominent. The keyboard and touchpad also stand out, with the screen housed in a thin bezel.

This machine is fairly lightweight, weighing just 4.9 lbs. the ports are spread on both left and right sides of the machine. One of the high points of this machine’s display is the ubiquitous LED lighting colors it sports. We totally love it. The chassis also has a rubbery feel to it, it’s not a slick plastic like most laptops. This makes it really comfortable to hold and carry around without the fear of it slipping out of your hand.

Keyboard/Trackpad

The M15 keyboard is comfortable to work on and relatively silent. It lights up with a pleasant spectrum of colors repeatedly, after which it turns into a lovely teal. It’s also customizable; you can choose from four different presents to match your mood, or you can turn it off completely, which we doubt anyone would do.

Though the keyboard doesn’t feature a full-sized layout, what it lacks in size, it manages to compensate for with style and ease of use. Alienware laptop keyboards are specially designed for silence, comfort, and ease of use. The keys are quick, shallow, and comfortable to type with. However, Alienware found a way to incorporate the arrow keys, without the number pad. The trackpad is made of high-grade glassy material, scrolls smoothly, and is also equally beautiful and fully functional.

Display

The display features a 1920×1080 IPS panel, 144hz screen with zero flicker, and rock solid graphics and color reproduction. The colors are vivid, clear, and crisp. Then there’s the thin bezel design, which is equally sexy. Well, to say the least, the graphics and colors on this machine are stunning.

The 144Hz refresh rate helps a lot in intense gaming, being able to handle tough and difficult motion scenes fluidly and smoothly.

Audio

The side-mounted audio speakers do a great job in sound reproduction, and this is quite obvious when playing intense games. As usual, laptops generally have more mid and high frequencies quite prominent, leaving the lower bass frequencies not well represented. The Alienware Command Center can be used to choose a sound preset from a total of six, for different playback scenarios. The presets Alienware and Music are the best presets to use because they produce a balanced sound.

Battery Life

The M15 doesn’t have exceptional battery life. We would consider the battery life of just 3 hours 50 minutes on regular use and 1.30 hours of steady gaming average. This is one area the R&D team over at Dell has to work on.

The power brick is quite unusually heavy, and it refills the M15’s 6-cell battery in 1.5 to 2 hours.

Temps

This laptop can get fairly hot when running intensive games, with the CPU and GPU temperatures getting up to 98^oC and 80^oC, and you’ll experience warmth at the top row of the keyboard with temps up to 50^oC. The machine has a well-designed cooling sub-system, but it seems this is inadequate.

Gameplay/Performance

This machine destroys everything thrown at it, even the most demanding games. The combination of the RTX 2070 Max-Q and 144Hz display makes this laptop a formidable gaming machine. Games that support HDR also play nicely, and you can even overclock the graphics card and RAM using the Alienware Command Center.

Here are some benchmarks and how this laptop fared.

GAME	FPS	SETTINGS
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	73	High
Control	37.5	High
Middle-earth: Shadow of War	98	High
Gears 5	88.5	High
The Witcher 3	65	High

The boot time of this laptop is blazing fast, at just 5 seconds it boots to the desktop. Also, file transfer is speedy with the NVMe SSD, topping out at 3,108MB/s sequential read, and 1,139MB/s sequential write speeds.

Connectivity

The M15 has plenty of connectivity options including Bluetooth 5, HDMI, Thunderbolt, USB 3 Type A and C, Gigabit Ethernet, and RJ-45. The Wi-Fi is great, with speeds peaking at 2.5Gb/s, thanks to the Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller which delivers breakneck speeds in streaming and online gaming. See the table below for specifications.  

Upgradability

The M15’s upgradability is limited, as only the storage can be upgraded. The RAM is hard-wired into the system board and cannot be upgraded.

Specifications of the Alienware M15 Gaming Laptop

Display	15.6 inch 16:9, FHD, OLED, glossy: yes, HDR
CPU	Intel Core i7-8750H 6 x 2.2 – 4.1 GHz, Coffee Lake-H
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q – 8GB, GDDR6, Optimus
RAM	16384 MB, DDR4-2666,  Dual-Channel
SSD	Toshiba 512 GB
HDD	No
Additional Features	Speakers: Stereo, Keyboard: Chiclet, AlienFX, Keyboard Light: yes, AlienwareFX, Mobile Connect, Command Center, OnScreen Display, 12 Months Warranty
Networking	Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (up to 5000MBit/s), Killer Wireless-AC 1550 Wireless Network Adapter (a/b/g/h/n/ac),  Bluetooth 5
Ports	4 USB 3.0 / 3.1 Gen1, 1 USB 3.1 Gen2, 1 Thunderbolt, 1 HDMI, 1 DisplayPort, 1 Kensington Lock, Audio: 3.5 mm combo
Soundcard	NVIDIA TU106 – High Definition Audio Controller
Audio	4x 2W speakers, 1x subwoofer, 1x headphone jack, 1x microphone jack, 1x line-in, 1x line out
Camera	1080p webcam
Battery	90 Whr Lithium-Polymer
Power Adapter	330W
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64 Bit
Dimensions (WxDxH)	Height x Width x Depth (in mm): 21 x 363 x 275 (0.83 x 14.29 x 10.83 in)
Weight	2.16 kg (76.19 oz / 4.76 pounds), Power Supply: 970 g (34.22 oz / 2.14 pounds)

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Lenovo Legion Y540

From the guys over at Lenovo comes the Lenovo Legion Y540, a mid-range gaming laptop with decent specs enough to play your favorite games at 1080p with max settings. The Legion Y540 has other siblings like the Y740, and Y530. They may also come in 15.6” or 17.3” sizes. This model is a 15.6” gaming laptop with a six-core Intel Core i7 9750H and GTX 1650 GPU.

Design

This laptop has a solid and compact design. The chassis is made from sturdy plastic, with a little flexibility on the lid. The main deck houses the keyboard and touchpad, while the lid cover is bare except for the LEGION etched into the chassis. This machine doesn’t have much of the light show that the Razer laptops are endowed with, but then, both machines are unique in their own rights.

The weight come in at just 4.8lbs, which is light by standards. The hinges are quite firm and allow the lid to be opened and closed up to 180^o.

Keyboard/Trackpad

It has a backlit keyboard, though you can’t customize the lighting like the other brands in this review. However, it has 2 settings that allow you to increase or reduce the brightness. The keys are soft, large, and very quiet, which makes typing with this laptop a smooth and hassle-free exercise.

The number pad keys are placed on top of the arrow keys, while the HOME, END, PAGE UP, and PAGE DOWN keys were moved into the arrow keys. The number pad keys also function as media playback controllers.

The touchpad is the classic type with two buttons attached and offers smooth cursor control.

Display

The Legion’s 15.6” 1080p IPS display does a judicious job of rendering graphics and videos on this machine. The display is rated at 290 nits, and is evenly lit. The colors are also bright enough, and the matte display does a good job of diffusing incident light on the panel.

The IPS panel works quite well, with the screen being viewable from practically any angle. Gaming on this machine is also smooth, thanks to the 144Hz refresh rate. The screen has thin bezels, which is quite cool, except for the bottom part, which is quite large with LENOVO in large lettering.

Audio

The Lenovo Legion Y540 is equipped with good stereo speakers, producing clean and loud-enough sound for everyday activities, including gaming. But then, the bass frequencies are not well-represented, as is common with most laptops.

If you want to enjoy the full spectrum of sounds, then an external speaker or good-quality headphones are indispensable.

Battery Life

The 57Wh battery installed on this laptop enables it to last up to 2 hours 20 minutes on standard battery tests, and a little over 1 hour under load. This is abysmally poor by standards. It is important to note that the integrated graphics on this laptop is switched off by default, but can be enabled via the BIOS.

Running games on the dedicated GTX 1650 consumes more power, whereas the integrated GPU elongates the battery life. The battery recharges in 2:30 hours with the power brick.

Temps

As with laptops in this category, the Y540 can crank out quite some heat, though much of the heat output is confined to the underside, with temperatures getting up to 40^oC. Surprisingly, the palm rests remain relatively cooler than the underside during load.

It is recommended to place this laptop on a table during prolonged gaming sessions to avoid burning your laps with the heat. On the keyboard deck, much of the heat is restricted to the upper areas above the keyboard.

Gameplay/Performance of the Lenovo Legion Y540

The GTX 1650 provides decent performance in most triple-A games at 1080p. Here are some gaming benchmarks for the Legion Y540.

GAME	FPS	SETTINGS
Death Stranding	58.8/57.3	High/Ultra
GTA V	124/68	High/Ultra
Escape from Tarkov	63.15/54	High/Ultra
Doom Eternal	68	High/Ultra
Red Dead Redemption 2	32.6/22	High/Ultra
Call of Duty Modern Warfare	60/49.5	High/Ultra

The laptop also does quite well in several benchmarks, including file transfer of 2927.09MB/s sequential read, and 2148.72MB/MBs sequential write. It also achieved a total of 1155 points on Cinebench CPU Multi 64-bit.

Connectivity

There are plenty of options for connectivity, including USB 3 Type-A and C, DisplayPort, HDMI, Gigabit LAN, Bluetooth 5, and Wi-Fi. Most of the ports are situated at the back of the unit, with the left and right sides having just minimal connectors. The front side has no connectors.

Upgradability

In order to upgrade the machine, you have to unscrew the bottom screws totally before the innards can be accessed. This ensures that upgrades don’t leave you in the cold.

Specifications of the Lenovo Legion Y540

Display	15.6 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 141 PPI, BOE 084D, IPS, 144 Hz
CPU	Intel Core i7-9750H 6 x 2.6 – 4.5 GHz, Coffee Lake-H
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB, Core: 1455 MHz, Memory: 1500 MHz, GDDR6, (Optimus),  Intel UHD Graphics 630
RAM	16384 MB, Dual-Channel, DDR4 SDRAM
SSD	WDC 512 GB, 1x M.2-2280 (occupied), 1x SATA (free), 454 GB free
Additional Features	Speakers: Harman-branded stereo speakers, Keyboard: chiclet, Keyboard Light: yes, 24 Months Warranty
Mainboard	Intel Cannon Lake HM370
Networking	Realtek RTL8168/8111 Gigabit-LAN (up to 5000MBit/s), Intel Wireless-AC 9560 (a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 5.0
Ports	4 USB 3.0 / 3.1 Gen1, 1 HDMI, 1 DisplayPort, 1 Kensington Lock, Audio: combined 3.5 mm mic and headphone jack
USB Ports	3x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C
Soundcard	Intel Cannon Lake-H/S – cAVS (Audio, Voice, Speech)
Camera	Webcam: 0.9 MP, 16:9 HD
Battery	57 Whr, 4955 mAh Lithium-Ion
Power Adapter	330W
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro x64
Dimensions (WxDxH)	Height x width x depth (in mm): 26 x 365 x 260 (1.02 x 14.37 x 10.24 in)
Weight	2.2 kg (77.6 oz / 4.85 pounds), Power Supply: 963 g (33.97 oz / 2.12 pounds)