TOP 5 uncompromising 17-inch laptops for gamers

Models of the Nitro series Acer has gained fame for well-made gaming laptops with correctly placed priorities and adequate price tags. The Acer Nitro 5 AN517-52, which came to our test, confirms this status: it is a fairly powerful laptop with an excellent gaming display, a noisy but efficient cooling system, a convenient keyboard and a performant filling.

Traditionally, the laptop's design is completely old-school and literally screams about the gaming breed of the model: the frames are thick, the lines are chopped, the air ducts are huge, ventilation slots are scattered all over the keyboard, and the WASD keys and arrows are highlighted in red. By the way, unlike previous generations of Nitro, this one has got a full-fledged zonal RGB backlight, instead of a solid red one. Plus, the body itself is assembled like a tank, so you can kill it. I was also pleased with the little things: a comfortable keyboard with a touchpad, a Wi-Fi 6 module and a thick case that allowed me to provide a laptop with a normal cooling system.

Inside the Acer Nitro 5, the GTX 1650 Ti card with 4 GB of video memory, a 12-stream Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB NVMe SSD, which can be "increased" due to an additional M slot, is not the most performant by current standards, but still allows you to play normally.2. In general, there is enough power here to play on the "maximum", and the amount of memory will allow you to store a collection of 8-10 favorite games. The display matches the filling: a 17-inch IPS display with FullHD resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which gives the picture additional smoothness. The matrix shows a soft and not oversaturated image with excellent viewing angles. It's a pity that the colour rendering was a little under―twisted, 59% of sRGB coverage is quite modest.

Let's not go against the truth by loudly stating that the new Omen is one of the most stylish gaming laptops that we have tested in 2020. We have already seen the unusual mounting of the display, the beveled edges of the case, the neat aggressive grilles and the red backlight more than once, but in the case of Omen everything looks so appropriate and neat that there is nothing to additional Apparently, laptop manufacturers have come to the conclusion that 2-3K dollars are spent on a laptop not by children, but by adult men with high salaries. The case itself is a combination of black plastic and metal. The inner surface is made of aluminium, the frame around the screen and part of the lid is made of plastic.

The 17-inch IPS display has become one of the main reasons for pride. It is colorful (100% coverage of the sRGB colour space), bright and fast, it has almost no highlights, and a refresh rate of 144 Hz is the optimal choice for games. To combat the gap of dynamic frames, not everyone uses the familiar AMD Freesync, but a rarer feature NVIDIA G-Sync. However, there is nothing surprising here, because a graphics card from the same manufacturer RTX 2070 Super is installed in the case. In a company with a fast SSD, 16 GB of RAM and a six-core Core i7, the graphics card does not experience any problems with any modern game in Full HD and the maximum possible graphics settings. From 60 to 90 FPS in any demanding projects for him ― this is the norm. The main thing is to connect to the outlet so that the battery saving mode does not turn on. Last but not least, at maximum load, the laptop does not throttle and remains moderately cold, and the overall noise level rarely exceeds 50 dB. In the browser-social network-YouTube mode, it is generally silent.

Now about everything else. The Wi-Fi module 6, fast charging, an additional SSD slot and a USB port with Thunderbolt support are immediately recorded as advantages. A pair of speakers from Bang & Olufsen give out a pretty good sound, coping well with the sound of music and gameplay when there are no speakers at hand. I also liked the large full-size premium keyboard with zonal RGB backlight and a separate block of macros. But the touchpad, on the contrary, was made tiny and uncomfortable. It is clear that most gamers will use a mouse, but in a device for several thousand dollars I would like to get a large and convenient touchpad of the MacBook level. After all, it's not only possible to play on it. And this is almost the only negative. Of course, you could ask for a thinner case, and a more powerful battery, but then where will you stick the RTX 2070? It's either checkers or go.

The HP gaming division has always adhered to a clear positioning: within the Omen series usually, uncompromising gaming laptops were released, and Pavilion Gaming models were chosen by more economical gamers who did not seek to get everything at once. Released in the fall of 2020, the HP Pavilion Gaming 17-cd1000 model confused all the cards. Thanks to the unusual mounting of the display, sharp air intakes and beveled edges, it very much resembles the stylish OMEN 17-cb1000. Only instead of the red backlight, green is used.

The same is true with hardware: the laptop has a brand new 12-stream Core i7, 16 GB of RAM with increased frequencies of 2933 MHz and an RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics card. There is a 1000 GB HDD and a 256 GB fast NVMe SSD for storing the game library. If you are not a gaming journalist with a professional deformity or a gaming maniac who even plays 2K on a smartphone, then this filling is enough for you to squeeze textbook 60 FPS at high graphics settings in almost any toy that has already been released, or will be released in the next year and a half.

Otherwise, everything is a little simpler than Omen. This is the reason for the difference in price. The keyboard is identical to last year's HP Pavilion models. However, the keys now have a higher profile and a more elastic recoil. Typing was just as convenient as playing. The touchpad is as small, narrow and uncomfortable as the Omen. Apparently, HP recognizes only working with a mouse. The 17-inch display with anti-glare coating and thin frames boasts excellent colour reproduction and a refresh rate of 144 Hz. The cooling system even in stress tests did not allow the graphics card to heat up above 80, and in normal mode the coolers were almost inaudible. Of the other buns, fast charging, Wi-Fi 6 and a modern set of ports stand out. In the cons, we will write down the branded plastic and dimensions, the case turned out to be slightly wider than usual, which is why the laptop will not fit into every bag.

Initially, Dell considered the G gaming laptop line as an inexpensive alternative to expensive and powerful Alienware laptops. But the further away, the more this difference blurs. For example, in the new Dell G7 17 7700, it is difficult not to notice the borrowing in the design of literally the entire body ― starting from the branded narrowed hinge and ending with aggressive air intakes behind the body, which resemble the design of Italian sports cars of the 80s.

Inside the laptop, we will see a 12-stream Core i7 of the tenth generation, 16 GB of RAM with a frequency increased to 2933 MHz and a fast NVMe SSD with a volume of 1024 GB. The GTX 1660 Ti video adapter is responsible for performance in games, which, although it looks somewhat outdated after the release of two generations of GeForce RTX, still confidently handles with almost any games on ultra and Full HD resolution. Only a few games of the caliber of Cyberpunk 2077 or Assassin's Creed Valhalla can make the counter drop below the coveted 60 FPS. There you will have to play on high graphics settings. Rather, it's worth regretting that for $2000 (which is how much the Dell G7 17 7700 costs) Dell could install a more recent RTX 2060 graphics card with DLSS supersampling support in the case. Unlike the advertised ray tracing, this thing really works, and it works well.

We're moving on. The 17-inch laptop display has a Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels) and is made using WVA technology. The screen has good colour reproduction and contrast, as well as a high refresh rate (144 Hz), but not the highest response rate. The built-in keyboard with a touchpad is quite good, the only thing is that the touchpad is traditionally shifted to the left and during the skating it can be accidentally hooked with the left hand. Unlike last year's G-series models, this one has got a full-fledged zonal RGB backlight like modern gaming keyboards. On all other fronts, there is also order: the built-in speakers play loudly and expressively, the set of ports includes several USB, one USB-C with Power Delivery and Thunderbolt of the latest version, the wireless module supports Wi-Fi 6, and the built-in LAN controller Killer E2500v2 is able to scatter the traffic of the home network in accordance with the requirements of the player.

A couple of years ago, a wonderful MSI Thin laptop arrived in our test room, which was impressive by the fact that MSI engineers managed to cram the advanced hardware into an ultra-thin case and at the same time minimize overheating and throttling. Since then, the gaming division of the company has been forging iron without departing from the cash register, releasing Stealth game lines that look very similar to each other,Leopard, GF Thin and Raider. This time, the 2020 model MSI GS75 Stealth 9SF came to us for a test.

With some joy, the guys from MSI recorded it in the ranks of optimal gaming laptops. In fact, it costs more than 2K dollars and is an uncompromising gaming machine with almost no weaknesses. The RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics card with 8 GB of video memory will produce 60+ FPS in almost any game today and in a year and a half (if it's not Borderlands 3) in native display resolution. The power of the six-core Core i7 is rather excessive for today's games, so many turn off the turbo boost to prolong the life of the battery. Well, an SSD with a volume of 1 TB will allow you not to worry too much because of the constant lack of space. The gaming keyboard with individual RGB illumination of each key was made by masters fromSteelSeries. And an excellent IPS panel provides a high level of contrast, sufficient brightness and a refresh rate of 240 Hz. However the colour rendering here is at the level of conventional IPS monitors, so the inscription on the box "Made For Creators" should be approached with a fair amount of skepticism. There are better options for graphics and coloristics.

In fact, all the claims that can be made to the MSI GS75 Stealth 9SF relate more to personal wishlist. For example, coolers could be quieter. Especially against the background of 2020 models, which for the most part pleasantly surprise with low heat generation and noise level. Branded speakers from Dynaudio play loudly, but not to say that they amaze the imagination with unprecedented quality. But there is a slot for memory cards, a Thunderbolt port, an excellent glass touchpad and a proprietary command control centre for the Dragon Centre laptop. Well, it's great that the company's engineers left room for manoeuvre, allowing them to add RAM.