YOU KNOW WHAT’S AMAZING in 2025? The fact that even now, we have so many laptops that are massively mismatched. Not from a competitive level, but rather from a pure hardware level. We’ve tested an absolute ton of gaming laptops over these hallowed pages in the last 12 months, and without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest problem they all have is that the graphics card in particular doesn’t match the screen. It just doesn’t. Let’s list the ones that this journalist has personally looked at: Acer Predator Helios Neo 14, RTX 4060 120W, 3,072x1920 @ 165 Hz screen. Acer Nitro 14, RTX 4060 100W 2560x1600 120 Hz display. Lenovo Legion Slim 5, RTX 4060 2880x1800 120 Hz OLED panel. You get the idea —at the $1,000-$2,000 price bracket, apparently everything is purely mismatched.
The notion from manufacturers is simple: ‘Just game at a lower resolution, it’s fine.’ It’s such a well-engrained premise now that if you go to any hardware reviewer worth their salt, when it comes to reviewing these pesky things, they’ll almost always test at 1080p as the de facto benchmark resolution, rather than native. We know what you’re thinking, though; how did we even get here? Simply put, screens developed faster than graphics card prices dropped. Grabbing a nice, entry-level notebook with an OLED panel in it today is cheaper than you might think. Although that’s great for the desktop experience and our wallets, it’s less ideal when you want to actually use it for its intended purpose: gaming.
The Nitro V 15 is an absolute breath of fresh air. Why? RTX 4060 75W, 1920x1080 IPS display at 165Hz. Finally, someone did it. They paired the right GPU with the right screen, and all for $900, too. That’s the real treat for this thing. It’s a remarkably well-paired device. You get 16GB of DDR5, RTX 4060, Ryzen 7 7735HS processor, a 1TB Kingston PCIe 4.0 SSD, and a (not massive, but comfortable) 59 WHr battery to boot. As a result of that, it operates as a seriously slick machine. Gaming at 1080p Ultra, in Cyberpunk with DLSS, delivers 73fps; Total War: Warhammer 3 nets 71, F1 23 a passable 40 (without DLSS), and the CPU performance is no slouch, too.
It’s a simple yet well-built design, too. There’s no guff here, no gimmicky gamer nonsense, or special bright red illuminated hyper-sensitive, super-response, chicken-dinner-winning trackpad—just a simple backlit keyboard, some subtle branding, and a slick bezel. All fun and games, then? Well, sort of. Connectivity is a little old-school—WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0—but you do get a dedicated Ethernet port, plus three USB Type A and one USB-C, too, meaning that you’re seriously well equipped. Plus, that understatement on the looks might be a bit of a buzzkill for you. But if you’re after the best bang-for-the-buck laptop that you can buy, that just works in a nice, simple 15-inch form factor, then the Nitro V 15 is a ridiculously good candidate for it.