Wait a few weeks
Intel and AMD just released new laptop chips, in the form on Meteor Lake (Core Ultra) and Hawk Point (Ryzen 8000) chips respectively at CES 2024. A bunch of laptop manufacturers debuted or announced laptops with these chips at CES, but most of them either aren't out yet, aren't widely available, or target a higher end price point then you're looking.
As such, in the coming weeks, I'd expect there to be two classes of laptops that work well for you:
- New releases, mostly based on Meteor Lake, that you can pick up for the latest and greatest experience. These will probably come with the better battery life of Meteor Lake, and several generational improvements, but will still feature the same GPUs as "last generation" laptops.
- Discounted "previous generation" laptops, mostly based on Raptor Lake. These laptops will probably outperform the new laptops on a $/performance basis at your price point, but will be less power efficient in doing so, especially with multithreaded, CPU-bound tasks. Meteor Lake currently tops out at the 185H with 6P/8E/2LP-E cores, where most gaming laptops in your price point went for chips with 8P/12-16E cores last generation. Since the GPUs are the same for both the previous generation and the current generation, your performance in most games should be about the same for a given model of GPU.
Many of the former category just aren't available yet—especially in the UK. Conversely, getting a good deal in the second category may take a little deal-hunting with your local retailers, as they try to clear out stock to make way for new models.
Alright, with that said, let's get into some of the contenders. This really isn't an exhaustive list just due to the fluid nature of the market at the moment, but I'll go over a few that I think are worth looking at.
New releases
- Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (6P/8E/2LP-E cores @ up to 4.80 GHz on the P cores)
- RTX 4070 (mobile)
- 2x8 GB of DDR5-5600 (socketed, so it is upgradable)
- 1 TB M.2 NVME
- 16.0" 2560x1600 @ 240Hz IPS panel
- Intel BE202 Wi-Fi 7 2x2 and Bluetooth 5.4
- 90 Wh battery with 240W barrel-jack power adapter
Compared to some of the other offerings we've seen in the past year or so from other vendors, the m16 R2 isn't anything crazy. It's using a solid display, but not an OLED; it's not huge, but not small; it's not bad looking, but it's not sleek (IMO.) Still, it's a nice step forward, bring a much reduced footprint compared to the previous generation m16. And, for the price, it's pretty good value for the latest Dell has to offer... except, that as far as I can tell, it's not available in the UK yet. I'd expect it to come soon, but I don't have a definitive timeline.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024) GU605 - ???
- (Up to) Intel Core Ultra 7 185H (6P/8E/2LP-E cores @ up to 5.10 GHz on the P cores)
- (Up to) RTX 4090 (mobile)
- (Up to) 32 GB of LPDDR5-7467 (soldered, non-upgradable)
- Unknown, includes two M.2 NVME slots
- 16.0" 2560x1600 @ 240Hz OLED or IPS panel
- Wi-Fi 6E 2x2 and Bluetooth 5.3
- 90 Wh battery with 240W barrel-jack power adapter
Asus's refresh of their popular G16 is looking pretty good. While it strangely lacks Wi-Fi 7, it's a minor oversight in an otherwise compelling device. I personally find the refreshed look to be quite aesthetically pleasing, especially in white. However, the OLED panel here is the real star of the show, and it's got good reviews so far. The big sticking point is the price. The device isn't actually out yet, so we have no idea how much it'll cost... and I wouldn't be surprised if it's out of budget, unfortunately.
Out of budget, but worth a mention.
Honorable mention: Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9
There's very little info available on this laptop (Lenovo doesn't even have a page up yet for it, only the Pro 7i Gen 9), but given the lack of an OLED screen, I struggle to see it being more compelling than the Zephyrus G16 unless you care deeply about Lenovo's keyboards or it's priced very competitively. In any case, it's not out yet.
Previous generation
Honorable mention - Gigabyte Aero 16 OLED - £1800
Still out of budget, but this deal from Curry's is pretty compelling. I do have a bit of a personal aversion to Gigabyte due to their... less than stellar... support staff if something goes wrong, but the hardware is reasonably solid.
Honorable mention - Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (K6604) - £2200
It's a great laptop, but for whatever reason, it seems to be weirdly expensive in the UK; an identically spec'd version of this laptop was $2179 (about £1700) in the US before CES 2024, yet it's somehow more expensive now. Don't ask me how. If it happens to come up on a steep sale, I'd recommend it, but otherwise you'd probably be better off waiting on the new G16.
