Indian Gadget Awards 2022 – Best Gaming Laptop nominees: ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15, ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE, and more

The world of gaming laptops is constantly evolving, with new models and features being released every year. In 2022, we’ve seen a wide range of options, from slim and portable systems to powerful and high-performance machines. Features such as a display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 1080p webcams have been some notable upgrades this year. The following list includes some of the top gaming laptops of 2022 that stood out as nominees for the Indian Gadget Awards due to their remarkable functionality, aesthetics, and features. So, without further delay, let’s dive in!

Mainstream category (under Rs 1 lakh)

Lenovo Legion 5i 2022

The Lenovo Legion 5i is undoubtedly one of the first picks for this category. Primarily because Lenovo has basically stuck with almost the same design language since 2020, using the “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it approach”. The Legion 5i has a metal lid on the top, and the keyboard deck is made out of plastic. Its Truestrike keyboard is undoubtedly one of the better options and feels really good when typing. It is backlit as well.

The Legion 5i comes with up to 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H processor, which is a beast having a total of 14 cores for an uninterrupted gaming experience. The GPU can be configured up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 with 6GB of VRAM and a TDP of 130W giving you the full power of the RTX 3060. 

You need an equally good display to enjoy gaming as well. For this, the company has two options, you can either configure the display up to a 1080p 60Hz IPS display with a brightness of 300 nits or go full turbo and upgrade to a WQHD+ display with a refresh rate of 165Hz and has a brightness of 300 nits. The latter is also Dolby Vision certified. Both screens come in a single size of 15.6 inches and can open fully up to 180 degrees for sharing.

The laptop can be configured with up to 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a storage of 512GB, which is user expandable. You will get an 80Wh battery pack inside the laptop, which should last you around 4-5 hours of medium use. One USP is that the webcam on the laptop is a 1080p webcam, giving you better clarity compared to other laptops. 

HP Victus 15 fa0354TX

Next up on the list is the HP Victus 15. This is an affordable laptop from HP which sits below the Omen series. This particular model has some nice design cues and is made entirely out of plastic. The laptop is well-built, and has some impressive specs. The machine can be powered up to an Intel Core i7-12650H with 10 cores, and an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM and a TDP of 75W, which is as expected. 

The display is decent too. You will get a 15.6-inch 1080p Micro-Edge IPS display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz and 250 nits of brightness. The response is also fairly low at 9ms. You can configure this laptop with up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM and 512 GB of internal storage, which is user upgradeable. The keyboard is a single-zone keyboard with blue backlighting.

The laptop comes with a 70 Wh battery pack, and the company claims you can use it for up to 10 hours on video playback. All in all, this is a pretty solid choice if you are on a budget.

Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3i Gen 7

Moving on, we have another budget offering from Lenovo. This is the IdeaPad Gaming 3i and has some quite notable changes compared to last year. The laptop can be customised on Lenovo’s official website and packs up to an Intel Core i7-12700H with 14 cores, an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM, and 85W of TDP. Storage may be customised up to 1TB, and the RAM can be configured up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM.

The display is pretty good for the price. You can configure it with a 15.6-inch FHD IPS display with a refresh rate of 165Hz and brightness of up to 300 nits. You can also configure the laptop with a 4-zone RGB keyboard for lighting up your gaming sessions.

The battery is slightly smaller in size with a capacity of 60Wh. This will last you around 4 hours of medium use.

Acer Aspire 7 Gaming 12th Gen

This is the most unconventional gaming laptop that you can find on this list. The Acer Aspire 7 looks very much like a traditional laptop without any flare, yet it packs a punch when it comes to performance. The laptop can be configured up to an Intel Core i5-1240P processor with 12 cores and an Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU with 4GB of VRAM and 80W of TDP. The display is a pretty basic affair with a 15.6-inch 1080p LCD display having a brightness of 250 nits and a refresh rate of 60Hz.

In this variant, you will get up to 8GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of SSD which is user upgradeable. The battery capacity is around 50Wh but considering that this is a P-series chip, you can expect pretty good battery life.

On the keyboard, you get a single-zone backlit keyboard with a fingerprint scanner on the bottom of the trackpad. The top of the laptop has a metal lid, whereas the interior is made out of plastic. This laptop is ideally suited for professionals who like casual gaming at work.

Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R8CM Gaming Notebook

The Acer Nitro 5 is one of the most popular gaming laptops made by the company and this generation, it got a lot better. This is one of the first laptops in this list powered by an AMD CPU. You can get up to a Ryzen 5600H which has 6 cores with up to an RTX 3060 GPU and 6GB of VRAM along with a TDP of 95W. The display is also pretty decent having a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display along with a refresh rate of 144Hz and 3ms of response time. Regarding RAM and storage, in this variant, you will get 8GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of SSD, which is expandable.

The battery capacity of the Acer Nitro 5 stands at 57.5 Wh, and the company claims it is enough to last around 10 hours. One good addition is that you can add an internal HDD too with the given installation kit, in addition to two SSD slots, so you are pretty much covered in terms of storage. The keyboard is a single-zone red backlit keyboard.

ASUS TUF Gaming F15 (2022) FX507ZE-HN038W

The Asus TUF F15 series is also quite popular in the Indian market. This particular model boasts some good specifications at this price segment. This machine is powered by Intel Core i7-12700H with 14 cores, and an RTX 3050 Ti GPU that has 4GB of VRAM and a TDP of 95W. In terms of display, the laptop has a 15.6-inch IPS LCD display with a refresh rate of 144Hz. 

In this variant, you can get up to 16GB of DDR5 RAM and up to 512 GB of SSD, both of which are user upgradeable. The keyboard is a chiclet keyboard with a single zone RGB backlighting. The top lid is made of metal, whereas the rest of the body is made out of plastic. The highlighting feature of this laptop is that you get a 90 Wh battery in this model, which should last you easily up to 6 hours on medium usage.

Dell G15 Gaming

The Dell G15 is a powerful laptop that you can configure as per your budget. It has up to an Intel Core i9 12900H CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti GPU with 8GB of VRAM, and a TDP of 125W. You can configure the DDR5 RAM to up to 16GB, and the storage to up to 1TB, both of which are expandable down the line. 

The display is a 15.6-inch QHD display with a refresh rate of 240Hz and 400 nits of brightness. You get a 4-zone RGB keyboard with backlighting and a numeric keypad. On the battery front, you get an 86 Wh battery.

Premium category (budget no bar)

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) GA402

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is one of the most compact laptops on this list. Its 14-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, QHD+ resolution, and 120Hz refresh rate is one of the best screens you can find on the market.

It is no slouch either. You can configure the laptop up to an AMD Ryzen 6900HS CPU and an RX 6700HS GPU with 8GB of VRAM and 100W of TDP. The laptop comes with up to 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of SSD, both of which are upgradeable. Another unique feature of this laptop is that you can charge the laptop with a USB Type-C charger with up to 100W of power.

The laptop itself is made of a magnesium alloy, and the lid has an Anime Matrix display which has thousands of LEDs that light up in white colour. The keyboard is a single zone RGB keyboard, and Asus has finally brought the webcam to the Zephyrus G14. It’s nothing to write home about, except that it now supports Windows Hello login, and having a webcam is better than no webcam. The battery capacity is about 76Wh and should last you around 6-8 hours on light use.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 (2022) GA503

If you are impressed with the G14, but the size seems a bit small, don’t worry we have you covered. The Zephyrus G15 is the bigger brother of the G14 with a bigger 15.6-inch IPS LCD display. You can configure the laptop with up to an AMD Ryzen 6900HS CPU and an RTX 3070 Ti GPU with 8GB of VRAM and a TDP of 120W.

The display isn’t just bigger, it’s faster too, with a refresh rate of 240Hz and a response time of 3ms. The rest of the specifications are similar to the Zephyrus G14. You get up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of Gen 4 SSD, which is upgradable.

A bigger chassis comes with a bigger battery. The Zephyrus G15 comes with a 90Wh battery, which should offer better battery life.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE (2022) G733

The ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 Special Edition is the most powerful laptop released by the company. This laptop has desktop-level components fitted into a laptop form factor. You can spec this monster with up to an Intel Core i9- 12950HX that has 16 cores and breaches the 5GHz barrier, an RTX 3080 Ti GPU along with 16GB of VRAM, and a TDP of 175W.

The display is a massive 17.3-inch IPS display with QHD resolution and 240Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time and Adaptive Sync. You can spec up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2 TB of SSD, which can be even upgraded further.

There is a 1080p@60fps webcam on the top, along with per-key RGB lighting on the keyboard. The top lid has a unique design which is revealed by a UV light (supplied in the box). If you want some additional RGB, there is even a light bar below the keyboard deck for extra performance :p

MSI Raider GE77 HX – 12U

MSI also has a trick up its sleeve. The GE77 Raider is one of their flagship offerings boasting an impressive spec sheet. The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i9-12900HX CPU and an RTX 3080 Ti GPU with a TDP of 175W and 16GB of VRAM. The display is pretty impressive too, you can get either a 4K display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, 2K display with a 240Hz refresh rate, or a 1080p display with an insane 360Hz refresh rate! All come in the same size of 17.3 inches.

You can get up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB SSD. There is a 1080p webcam, along with a per-key RGB backlit keyboard. This laptop also has the biggest battery in its segment, with a capacity of 99.9 Wh.

MSI Titan GT77 – 12U

This is one of the laptops that we can justify as a true desktop replacement. The MSI Titan has some crazy specs for a size of this calibre. First up, it has not two, but four memory slots so that you can expand your RAM up to 128GB! Think that’s not enough? Well, you also get four SSD slots to expand your storage up to 4TB!

The CPU is an Intel Core i9 12900HX, with an RTX 3080 Ti GPU 16GB of VRAM and a TDP of 175W. The keyboard is a Per-Key RGB Gaming Keyboard by Steelseries. The display is a 17.3-inch 4K display with a refresh rate of 120Hz. In terms of battery capacity, you get a 99 Wh battery.

Dell Alienware x15 R2

The Dell Alienware x15 R2 is one of the thinnest 15-inch gaming laptops on the market and is packing a lot of power. The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i9-12900H CPU and an RTX 3080 Ti GPU with 16GB of VRAM and 175W of TDP. 

The display is one of the fastest you can get, with a 1080p 360 Hz display and a 1ms response time. There is G-Sync support too. You get a per-key RGB keyboard. You also get up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD, both of which are upgradeable. The top of the laptop has a soft lunar finish which feels premium to the touch.

Regarding battery capacity, you get an 87Wh battery which should last you around 4-5 hours on a single charge.

Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 7

The Lenovo Legion 7i is the flagship offering from Lenovo. You get a top-of-the-line CPU (Intel Core i9-12900H), GPU (Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti with 16GB of VRAM and 175W of TDP) and RGB (a lot of it!). 

The RAM can be upgraded up to 32GB DDR5 and the SSD can be configured up to 2 TB. The display is a 16-inch 2K display with up to 500 nits of brightness and a refresh of 165 Hz. The battery capacity is also the biggest at 99.9 Wh.

The webcam is an upgraded one with a 1080p sensor, along with Lenovo’s Truestrike keyboard with RGB backlight.

ASUS ROG Flow X16

Did you ever dream of a laptop that is powerful enough to game, and portable enough to carry anywhere at the same time? Well, the ROG Flow X16 is just that one. This 2-in-1 laptop is fairly powerful having up to a Ryzen 9 6900HS GPU and Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti GPU with a TDP of 125W and a VRAM of 8GB. The display is a 16-inch QHD+ 16:10 Mini LED panel with a 165Hz refresh rate and supports touch response. There is also a stylus included in the box.

You can configure the laptop with up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of SSD. The keyboard is a single zone RGB keyboard with chiclet keys. The battery capacity is fairly big at 90 Wh and supports 100W USB-PD in addition to regular wall-powered charging.

HP OMEN 17

The HP Omen 17 is one of the top-end laptops from HP. This laptop boasts an Intel Core i9- 12900H CPU along with an RTX 3080 GPU with a VRAM of 16GB and TDP of 175W.

The display is a 17.3-inch 2K IPS display with a refresh rate of 165Hz and a response time of 3ms. You get up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of SSD storage, both of which are upgradeable. On the battery front, you get an 83 Wh battery, which should be enough, and a full-size keyboard with per-key RGB lighting. 

These laptops really do stand out when it comes to providing the best user experience in their respective price points, be it gaming, productivity or battery life. Do check out the winners once they are revealed a few days later.