The CHEAPEST Legit Gaming Laptop By Linus Tech Tips

- A little while back, Walmart tried to get into making gaming computers which was basically only good for giving reviewers like us a good laugh. (laughs) That died and their second even cheaper foray was even worse. I've used $150 phones that perform better than this. But today, that changes. This is the Gateway 15.6 inch performance notebook GWTN156-3BK. And sure, it might not sound like much, and it might not look like much, but it also doesn't cost much.

It's currently on sale at Walmart for 700 bucks while packing an RTX 2060. That means, this could very well be the cheapest gaming laptop that's able to deliver a proper AAA high frame rate gaming experience. But does it also deliver a good laptop experience? Well, it depends. Just like I depend on reliable sponsor segues like this one. Today's video is brought to you by GlassWire.

Instantly see your current and past network activity, detect malware and block badly behaving apps on your pc or Android device with GlassWire. Use offer code Linus and get 25% off at the link below. (upbeat music) Rocking a core i5-10300H and an Nvidia RTX 2060 this thing should on paper be flippin capable as a gaming machine. So then let's get right into it. Can it run Cyberpunk 2077? Oh, heck yeah, it can.

Here we are on medium settings running at about 60 frames per second, which for a game like this, is about what you need to have a good time. And it still looks really good. Even if the sliders in the game aren't all cranked to the right. Now you might be concerned that the RTX 2060 we have in here is gonna be last gen very soon. But remember guys, this is a good thing.

This laptop is compelling because of the $700 promo price. And with new hardware just around the corner, we can expect this promo price to stick around, well, not for that long, probably until they're all sold out. Back to games then. It also delivered very reasonable frame rates in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and in Rainbow Six Siege, we easily got over 120 frames per second on ultra, which is good because yes, pleasant surprise. It also has a high refresh rate display.

More on that later though. Now we would have run some more benchmarks but, this thing only comes with a 256 Gig SSD. So after installing those three games, she was full. So I think at this point, we gotta open it up and find out if the storage and RAM for that matter are easily upgradeable. 'Cause if they aren't, it's gonna be pretty hard to recommend it.

After just 10 Phillips screws, good news everyone, two easily accessible SO-DIMM slots and two M.2 slots each only half full. This means over the first year or so with a little bit of saving, it would be simple to turn this thing into an even more capable machine. Just like you'll be a capable machine if you wear the LTT Beanie. lttstore. com.

I like it. So performance wise then, the performance notebook 15.6 inch is checking all the boxes. But, I wasn't really concerned about that. What was more of a concern for me was all of the other things that make a laptop good, like the keyboard, the screen and the trackpad. To compare then, we brought in the HP Omen 15.

On paper, the specs here are the same, but, when on sale, the Omen 15 is still $300 more so, where did Gateway find $300 of cost cutting? Well, in a few places. First of all, build quality. Both of these laptops do have plastic chassis, but HP wrapped the top half in aluminum leading to quite a bit more stiffness and generally a more premium feel everywhere your hands make contact with it. With that said, the Gateway isn't terrible in this regard either. With a solid, acceptable C plus.

For IO, they're shockingly similar even sharing the exact same Intel Wi-Fi 6 networking card. That's an area that lots of other companies have cheaped out on in the past with their budget offerings. Though the HP does gain a couple of points for including Thunderbolt 3. Moving on to the display. Previously, some cheap high refresh rate panels would have either been TN or only support 6-bit color.

And I'm happy to report that the Gateway has a proper IPS type 120 Hz panel with 8-bit color. The high refresh rate display simply means that you will be more competitive in multiplayer games than someone with a 60 Hz screen. And at 1080p resolution the RTX 2060 will be running just about everything above 120 FPS to really take advantage of it. In a vacuum then looks really good. But then side by side with the HP, it's just no competition.

The brightness and colors on The Omen just blow the Gateway machine out of the water. It's not gonna be a huge problem if you only plan on gaming or you sit in the dark a lot, but if you're doing any photo or video editing, I would save up for something with a better display. Another area Gateway could have cheaped out is the cooling. Good cooling means a lot of copper and copper is very expensive. And running FurMark for half an hour confirmed that, sure the HP does have better cooling, its GPU leveled out at just 67 degrees while the Gateway was at 72.

But, given that both managed basically the same clock speeds and ended up being constrained by power, not thermals, I was pretty happy. Although the HP did end up with a two to three FPS lead. Both of them are also similarly loud. But the fans in the Gateway had a bit more of that high pitched whine that makes them more annoying. Truthfully though, with either of them, you'll probably wanna stay away from open back headphones while you're gaming.

This general trend of this being good and this being better continues for the keyboard, trackpad, and speakers. The HP wins, but only just. And the Gateway remains good enough such that you won't be complaining while using any of those things. Bringing us then to our first real problem, battery life. In PCMark 10s modern office benchmark the Omen 15 put up a respectable six hours and 14 minutes.

In the same benchmark with the same settings and screen brightness, our gateway managed just an hour and a half. That is a big oof right there. If you catch my drift. An hour and a half isn't just bad. Like, it's way worse than what made sense to us.

So we started the test again and realized, Oh, good old Norton Antivirus was chewing up 90% of the CPU scanning every part of the test that opened. By using the best piece of software Norton makes we were able to increase the battery life of this thing to nearly six hours. Freaking wow! At least it wasn't a hardware problem, right? Now it should be mentioned that HP did still deliver more performance on battery and has a much bigger battery. So if you plan on doing anything away from the wall besides watching videos or using Word, it will be a better choice. But the Gateway wasn't nearly as bad as it seemed out of the box.

I do still have a question though, I keep calling this a Gateway. But who the heck actually made this laptop? Gateway has been basically a dead company for the last 10 years with its owner Acer letting it slowly rot. At first I thought maybe it was just like a rebadged Nitro 5 packaged up for Walmart. But looking at the Nitro 5 and the performance notebook side by side. They're clearly not the same machine at all.

My next guest then was Clevo. But I couldn't find any matches and it also wasn't Bmorn technology who makes Gateway's other Walmart exclusive laptops. We actually looked at one of those a little while back, so go watch that video if you wanna see what a slow motion dumpster fire looks like. No, this was made by Tongfang, the GK5NR0O to be exact. Is that right? - Yup! - The zero-oh, wow, unbelievable.

Which is good to know if you wanna find some upgrades for it off of sites like AliExpress. For example, this much juicier 62.3 watt hour battery can be had for just $68. Almost a nice price. Basically then from this comparison, the HP Omen 15 is a better laptop in every single way. And if you find it on sale, it's the one you should get out of the two.

But, the Gateway performance notebook 15.6 inch also doesn't have any brutal flaws. At $700 the performance notebook gives you everything you need and over the next year or two it can easily become a fair bit better as you upgrade the RAM, storage and maybe even the battery. So, it's certified cheapskate legit. What's just certified legit though, is the segue to our sponsor, Vessi. Thanks to Vessi for sponsoring today's video.

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If you guys aren't even bigger cheapskate by the way, we also checked out a $250 laptop from Walmart a while back that was shockingly good. Thanks to the power of AMDs! Return to competition! Thank you AMD! Thank you AMD for blessing us with competition in the CPU market. Praise be to AMD.

Source : Linus Tech Tips