If you need a lightweight laptop with some gaming chops, last year’s model of the Asus TUF Gaming A14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is currently marked down to just $900 at Walmart. This budget-friendly laptop was already a good choice at its original price, and is even more appealing when it’s discounted to under $1,000.
This gaming laptop is a particularly good choice if you’re concerned about size and weight. Coming in at just 3.22 pounds, it’s easy to toss into your backpack to take on a trip or just down to the local coffee shop.
Our reviewer Daniel Thorp-Lancaster was overall impressed with the screen, a matte IPS display that gets nice and bright for outdoor use, and comes with G-Sync support. The adaptive sync tech will help ensure games look nice and smooth on the 165 Hz display, particularly since you may have trouble running at ultra settings at the 2,560 x 1,600 native resolution.
That’s because this laptop is rocking a previous-generation mobile RTX 4060, but it still managed to break 30 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077 with the settings cranked up, and around 90 frames per second in Doom Eternal. That should be satisfying for most people looking to sneak in a quick gaming session on their lunch break, particularly if you aren’t playing the latest, most demanding titles.
It has the hardware to support the RTX 4060 too, with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and 16 GB of memory. Our reviewer found it was able to manage almost 10 hours of battery life just doing normal work, but only a couple hours when gaming, which is to be expected for a slim gaming laptop. The speakers are underneath the machine, which means they can be a bit muffled, so you’ll want to invest in a proper pair of gaming headphones.
While you could certainly spend two or three times as much for a super-high-end gaming laptop, I think a lot of people will be really happy with the Asus TUF A14, particularly if you play a lot of less-demanding titles, like World of Warcraft, or only play games occasionally. You get a great screen, solid GPU, and a slim, lightweight chassis, and make only a few compromises to get under $1,000.
