Best Laptop Buying Guide – An entry-level gaming laptop under €1,000: a surprisingly good deal

Do you want a fast multi-talented gamer for €1,000? Then there are currently some good offers. For example, nowadays you can buy a laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 video card, a powerful 45Whr processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for that amount. Those were the requirements we also looked for a gaming laptop for this month’s Best Buy guide in December, but then the budget was €1,400.

Medion has messed it up a bit for other manufacturers, because if you don’t care about a fast CPU and can live with 8GB of RAM, you can even buy an RTX 3060 laptop for €700, as mentioned on the previous page. The Erazer Defender P10 is better in terms of screen than one of the $1,000 models in the list of alternatives on this page.

Our recommendation below also comes from Medion: the Erazer Major X10. It was 1,700 euros a few months ago, when we reviewed the device extensively. According to Medion, the laptop will still be available in the Netherlands in the near future at the current bid price of €999. The azerty version is unfortunately much more expensive. You may be wondering how the system can be so discounted so quickly. This may be due to the fact that the manufacturer has chosen an unusual GPU: not Nvidia or AMD, but an Arc A730M card from Intel. Even for the average tweaker, when buying a new gaming laptop, this brand just won’t do it Top of mind We are. Medion isn’t the most attractive laptop brand out there either. Perhaps that’s why the brand wants to get rid of it for gaming laptops; They will soon be known only as Erazer.

As we saw in our previous review, the Erazer Major X10 can run just as well as a laptop with an Nvidia RTX 3070 thanks to the Arc A730M. Laptops with this card now start at just €1,400. The Intel Arc GPUs also offer relatively good ray tracing performance, if you want to use that, and feature advanced video encoding. The caveat is that driver support for Arc cards is not yet on the same level as Nvidia or AMD. This is especially reflected in older titles, in variable performance, with the Major X10 underperforming an RTX 3060 laptop at worst, but also having problems when running certain titles: think crashes or artifacts. Therefore, if you want to know where you stand, it is better to buy a laptop with an Nvidia video card, for example, one of the list of alternatives.

The Erazer Major X10 has a casing made largely of black plastic, and it feels solid for the most part. Only the back of the screen cover is made of metal. The keyboard features crisp tactility and four-zone adjustable RGB lighting. There are also colored lights on the corners of the housing. The connections are not only on the sides, but also on the back, so there’s room for plenty of ports. There are no fewer than five USB ports, two of which are Type C and three are Type A, as well as an HDMI 2.0 output and a Gbit Ethernet port. You’ll also find HDMI 2.1 and 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet on some of the fancier laptops, but for €1,000 we don’t take that seriously, let alone the lack of Wi-Fi 6E.

Besides the video card, the Erazer Major X10 also has other hardware that you don’t find often for this price. The processor is an Intel Core i7-12700H with fourteen cores, and it is still one of the fastest processors at the moment. Only the 55W HX series semi-desktop processors from Intel and AMD are much faster. Considering the 45W H CPUs, the i7-12700H’s single and multi-core performance outperforms AMD’s Ryzen alternative. 1TB SSD is PCIe 4.0 model with excellent read and write performance. Optionally, you can put a second M. 2 SSD, and the 16GB DDR4 RAM can also be expanded. The Erazer Major X10 didn’t save on screen either, as many inexpensive gaming laptops are. The Major X10 has a large 16-inch panel with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, which results in a good 16:10 aspect ratio. And the refresh rate is 165 Hz. Screen brightness is nice and high, and colors accurately match the sRGB-gamut. Color adjustment could have been better, but the screen’s response times aren’t disappointing.

When it comes to sound production, the Major X10 performs well when playing games, but during light work the noise level is relatively loud. Battery life is about six hours with light use. Also given its size and weight, this is not a suitable model for on the go.

alternatives

The Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58-56BL will also remain on offer for €999 in the near future. This model is equipped with an RTX 3060 video card, which reduces driver problems. Compared to the Erazer Defender P10, which is much cheaper, especially in the Netherlands, the Nitro 5 has a faster CPU, a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, and is about as powerful per core as the i7 in the X10 Major. With this CPU, the Nitro 5 achieves slightly higher frame rates, with newer connections. At the same time, the Acer laptop is much more expensive, and the screen is much worse, with slower response times and disappointing sRGB coverage. At 15.6 inches, the laptop is also much smaller than Medion alternatives, although it’s no lighter. The azerty alternative is linked below. This also has the RTX 3060, but paired with the Ryzen 7 5800H.

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Full reviewAzureti alternative

If you are more of a creator than a gamer, or someone who uses a laptop for creative tasks and therefore also needs a good screen, this ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 is interesting. Like the Vivobook 15X from the previous series, it has a 15.6-inch OLED display with perfect contrast and a wide color gamut, but in this premium model, it has a full HD resolution of 2880 x 1620 and a 120Hz refresh rate. The Pro model also has better connections, including HDMI 2.1, a card reader, and a discrete video card. The RTX 3050 isn’t that fast compared to the other laptops on this page. The Ryzen 7 6800HS CPU is powerful, with 16GB of RAM, unfortunately not expandable, and there’s a 512GB SSD. At 1.8kg, the laptop is much lighter than the alternatives, and the associated azerty model is Below has exactly the same specs as the Dutch model, and at the time of writing, the price is the same as well.

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azirite variable

This alternative for our Belgian readers: the Erazer Defender P10 also on the previous page. The Dutch model costs less than 700 euros, but for the azerty variant you are now paying 900 peak. Even with this hefty price tag, it’s still a good deal if you’re looking for an RTX 3060 gaming laptop with a good, big 17.3-inch screen. Colors, brightness, and response times are better than what we usually see in this category. The heavy case feels rugged, but isn’t luxurious, and has a backlit keyboard, plenty of connections and expansion options, but a small battery.

Rating: 4(1 review)