Getting into portable PC gaming isn’t cheap. Cheap gaming laptops with the discrete graphics needed to play games usually start around $800 to $1000 and only go up—way up—from there. But right now, you can get an entry-level Lenovo gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 for a ridiculous $500 at GameStop. This is an ideal notebook for a budding gamer on a budget, or for someone who wants just enough oomph to run games, but doesn’t want to pay through the nose to run them at maximum visual settings.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 3i should be an excellent laptop for both work and play. It doesn’t have a ton of storage, but there’s still a lot of value here. The laptop has a 15.6-inch 1080p display with a maxmimum refresh rate of 120Hz.
As for the GTX 1650, this is admittedly an older GPU, but it’ll play newer games at low to medium graphics settings at 1080p. Older games, meanwhile, can be bumped up higher depending on their resource demands. Turning the display resolution down to 720p to achieve higher gaming frame rates is also a viable option.
The CPU is Intel’s “Tiger Lake” Core i5-11300H with four cores, eight threads and a boost to 4.4Ghz. This is an excellent processor for gaming, and it’s also good for productivity if you’re slinging spreadsheets during the day.
For RAM you get 8GB, which is ecceptable for gaming and onboard storage is 256GB. Lenovo’s also added Wi-Fi 6 to the clamshell.
But really, the star of the show here is the price. You almost never see a gaming laptop with a discrete GPU selling for this little. Hop on this deal before it disappears.
[Today’s deal: Lenovo IdeaPad 3i with a GTX 1650 for $500 at GameStop.]
