Upcoming 2020 Gaming Laptops Impressions
CES 2020 happened a while ago and I’ve been salivating over all the laptops they showed there ever since, especially the gamer ones. Let me specify. The gamer ones that aren’t super cringe. You may get this vibe from the site overall, but the gamer fuel, MOUNTAIN DEW, ostentatious, consumerist XTREME doritos scene is not really what this site is about. I have Alan Watts quotes on here and I post Yvette Young songs. Get real. But if you’ve been following the site you came here for a reason, so I suspect you probably have similar taste to me. So, here are the top 2020 upcoming gaming laptops I’m looking forward to in 2020.
Also, real quick, before I start, I’m not going to give you a super detailed rundown of all the specs in each of these machines. I’m a pretty big laptop guy and even I don’t really care. Suffice to say, their specs are all almost identical. If it costs more, it usually has better specs. If it’s super thin, you’re probably trading some specs for that. Still, if there’s something actually notable, I’ll mention it. Let me save you some time on the specs: incrementally better than last year.
Dell G5 SE – Gaming Laptops 2020
If you would have asked me last year if I’d ever say I was looking forward to the next big Dell release, I would have laughed you right out the door. But that all changed with the Dell G5 SE set to come out next month. This thing is awesome. We’ll have to wait and see if it still has a major overheating problem like last year’s Dell G5 which we’ll call, uh, G5 classic. I don’t know why they kept the same model name for this thing, it’s a totally different machine. It’s all AMD, it looks cool as hell, it’s got the chroma keyboard, it looks nice and sturdy, like a reliable beater laptop you can cover with stickers. The internals are very good on paper, and the whole system is sub-$800. This thing is on my watchlist for sure. That price tag for what you get is really, really nice. Am I a Dell fan now?
It’s not out yet, but here’s last year’s model.
MSI GS66 Stealth
I’ve had MSI machines before and I really like them. It’s like, if you want a Razer, but you don’t want to be that guy with the Razer, and you want similar specs but you don’t want to pay through the nose for them, that’s what the MSI GS series is for. They’re great, and the upcoming GS66 looks like a great place to jump in. I have a GS63 and it’s a great machine but the speakers are terrible, the battery fully died within 2 years, its fans are whack and keys are popping off the keyboard. The 66 fixed all this stuff. It’s got higher quality speakers now that are front-facing, it’s got all new fans, the steelseries keyboard is a lot better now (I hear), and, coolest of all, it’s got a fat 99 watt-hour battery which I’m pretty sure was on a press release in big bold letters somewhere because everyone who says anything about this laptop online uses this phrase in bold. As an aside, to be honest with you, I’m 99% sure most laptop reviewers at CES go on YouTube and just read the press release like they’re delivering some kind of unique insight.
It’s not out yet, but here’s last year’s model.
Razer Blade 15 – Gaming Laptops 2020
It’s yet another Razer Blade. They’re good. They’re cool and all. But, I mean, we kind of get it at this point. In 2014 or whatever, Razer sought to make a Windows-based laptop that could compete with Apple’s form factor and build quality. Well, other laptop manufacturers have stepped up by now, tons of laptops have really cool form factors and build quality, and Razer is just kind of super expensive for no reason. I guess you get the glowing green logo on everything but… That logo is ugly. There, I said it. Who likes all this neon? This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about when I mentioned in the intro that I don’t like that GAMER FUEL ostentatious corporate cringe gamer style. If you buy a Razer laptop what you’re basically saying to the world is “I play league of legends bro”. Pass. People who use Razer Blades can often be spotted in the wild wearing a blazer over a t-shirt.
It’s not out yet, but here’s last year’s model.
Asus Zephyrus G14 – Gaming Laptops 2020
This thing is so cool. It has an LED matrix on the back of the screen where you can put a little gif and it’ll play and annoy the shit out of whatever coffee shop, Panera or library you decide to invade with your awesome gear. You could probably make friends with this thing. Make it say like, “HI NEW FRIENDS” or have a gif of a cute squirrel or a vomiting dog or something.
Perfect conversation starters. It also doesn’t have any of that weird, useless second screen tech Asus has been trying to shove into all its laptops for the last few years. Score.
It’s not out yet, but here’s last year’s model.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold
This thing isn’t a gaming laptop at all but it is super cool. I mean, I’m not going to buy one, but I’ll probably buy something like this in 3-4 years when I feel like all the kinks are hammered out. It’s not a tablet. It’s not a laptop. It’s like a little moleskin journal that you carry around. That’s the form factor. They’re pitching it mostly on the versatility angle, but I mostly like it because it looks like a book. I like writing in journals. It feels good. The way it rests between your fingers, the weight distribution. Every tablet should move toward being this thing.
The fact is that at CES a bunch of manufacturers had products trying to show off some way to make use of the emerging bendable screen technology, but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. You ever fold a credit card? That’s the vibe all these things give off. It may hold up to a day of use at a trade show, but if you repeatedly fold this thing it’s very obviously going to have a crease. You can even see it developing in some of the videos online, when they try to transition it to “desktop monitor mode”. I also think the keyboard is superfluous. I don’t care about having a little jack of all trades device that’s bad at everything. Lean into the journal aspect of it. That, I’d buy.
Gigabyte Aero – Gaming Laptops 2020
This thing looks good. I mean, it looks standard. It’s pretty much the same target audience as the GS66 and the Razer Blade. Probably about the same price as the GS66 and the Blade while being a little less… notable. But I thought I’d include it. Standard doesn’t mean bad. This thing looks like a pretty cool, solid laptop overall. If you were thinking about buying a Razer Blade and bought this thing instead, my silent judgment of you would probably be kinder, if only because you dared to be different.
It’s not out yet, but here’s last year’s model.
Wrapup
That about does it for my impressions of the gaming laptops they showed off at CES 2020. Why am I posting this now, several months late? Well, a bunch of these are supposedly right around the corner for their release date and I’m binge-watching all the videos and accidentally hyping myself up over them. So now I’m spreading the hype out to you guys. Hope you enjoyed taking a look at some of these upcoming gaming laptops for 2020.
If you think I’m not a real gamer because I like these upcoming 2020 gaming laptops a lot and I don’t like any of those hulking monstrosities they market for the “gamer” demographic, feel free to check out the hundreds of articles I’ve written about games on this site. My “gamer” cred is beyond question. Actually, scrap that. I’m just a normal person. A normal person who doesn’t want a 40-pound laptop with 20 minutes of battery life that sets off red alerts in the power grid whenever you turn it on and turns heads at Starbucks for all the wrong reasons. That may sound confrontational, but this whole paragraph was just an excuse to link to other game articles and it was the first transition that came to mind.
