PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best gaming laptop of 2025
Check out more of the year's best tech in our PC Gamer Hardware Awards 2025 coverage.
I've spent an awful lot of time testing, using, and benchmarking gaming laptops this year, and we've had a bumper crop, too. With Nvidia releasing a whole new generation of graphics chips (and you can bet I've been testing a ton of those as well...), the best gaming laptop manufacturers have been hard at work either respinning their old machines to make way for the new GPU silicon, or completely redesigning their laptop chassis for a new year.
And the very first one to land in my lap this year was definitely the latter, with the Razer Blade 16 popping up with a new design intent on taking the crown back from Asus. The ROG Zephyrus G16 was the hands-down winner last year, with a mix of stylish, slimline chassis and impressive gaming performance, while Razer's finest of 2024 looked bloated by comparison. Not so this year, as the Blade 16 is our first nomination for the best notebook of 2025.
If you'd have told me that an MSI gaming laptop would be a nominee in our best gaming laptop of the year listing, I would have thought you were struggling with reality. Mind, if you'd also told me you could bag an RTX 50-series notebook for the same price as a 64 GB DDR5 kit, I'd probably have the same reaction. And yet, both have come to pass. The MSI Vector 16 HX AI is at least deserving of its fate, as an endearingly anachronistic, but impressively affordable gaming machine.
Then we have the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, another big ol' gaming laptop, but one with a neat trick up its sleeve: genuinely useful software. That is unprecedented, and even if it wasn't the quickest RTX 5080 gaming laptop we've tested, that alone would win it the nomination right here.
So, three great laptops stand before me. These are the nominees, and we'll announce the winner on New Year's Eve. Which is your favourite?
Best gaming laptop 2025: the nominees
Razer Blade 16 (2025)
I was not a big fan of the previous version of the Blade 16. In order to cope with the demands of the RTX 40-series and a desire on Razer's behalf to have them running at top speeds, the company expanded its laptop chassis to accommodate more cooling potential. And with that went the classic sleek Razer design ethos.
But it's back in force with the new Blade 16, however, as Razer was determined to hit back against Asus' impressively slim Zephyrus G16 machines. The updated design is wonderfully slim, but keeps a wee bulge under the CPU/GPU area to aid with cooling. It still cannot run an RTX 5090 at full chat inside such a slender chassis, but that's not what this do-everything machine is about.
This is a gaming laptop that can be your work partner through the day and your gaming buddy into the evenings. But it's also capable of delivering outstanding on-battery gaming performance, too. A great little device.
Read our full Razer Blade 16 review.
MSI Vector 16 HX AI
It's certainly not the prettiest gaming laptop around, nor is it the slimmest, either, but there is an anachronistic charm about the Vector 16 which I cannot help but admire. Basically, it's chonky, but it delivers a level of gaming performance that justifies that extra heft. And that extra scale means it can run its fans at a lower (read: quieter) level while still gaming faster than louder, more expensive lappies.
And the fact that it's regularly available on discount means that it's often the cheapest way of getting hold of an RTX 5080 gaming laptop with few compromises.
Well, okay, taking it out and about might be a bit tricky given its bulk, but if you want a desktop replacement, it's a great option. A genuinely impressive MSI machine.
Read our full MSI Vector 16 HX AI review.
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen10
While I love the Razer Blade 16 for its new svelte aesthetic, I can still appreciate a proper big gaming laptop designed purely for speed. That's what the Legion Pro 7i is, and it absolutely delivers, offering the fastest system you can jam an RTX 5080 into, which will, in some instances, beat out more expensive RTX 5090 systems in terms of gaming frame rates.
But though it is a chonker, it's still a rather stylish system, especially with those LEDs on the rear as though ringing street racer twin exhausts.
Obviously, as a Lenovo, it has an excellent keyboard, and the OLED panel is glorious, but honestly, it's the software that really separates it from the pack for me. The LegionSpace app is certainly no bloatware as it's entirely responsible for getting the most out of your laptop, but it also trusts the user more than any gaming notebook on the market.
The custom settings in the app allow you to dial back the regular fan roar you get from all gaming laptops at full speed by restricting the CPU, but still giving the GPU the full beans. This means you get great performance without the accompanying headache of excessive fan noise. It's seriously impressive stuff.
Read our full Lenovo Legion Pro 7i review.
The winner of the PC Gamer Hardware Award for the best gaming laptop will be announced on New Year's Eve. And while it seems obvious from the guide block below ????, honestly, any of these three would be a worthy winner as they each offer something slightly different from each other and from any other gaming laptop on the market today.