I'm picky when it comes to gaming laptops. And I'm particularly picky when it comes to budget machines, as there are a lot of truly awful laptop deals doing the rounds at the moment, and you deserve better than that.
That's why I've spent hour after hour continuously updating our Black Friday gaming laptop deals page with the models I'd actually buy or recommend to a friend. In fact, I do this week-in, week-out on because part of my job is to find the best gaming laptop deals all year round. Of the selected few machines I rate, I've picked out three gaming laptops for under $1,000 I'd personally drop my own cash on at this very moment.
- We're curating all the Black Friday PC gaming deals right here
That doesn't mean there aren't others on our books that are worth some serious consideration, of course. But the lappys I've picked out here are the cream of the crop as far as I'm concerned, and if I was looking for a sub-$1,000 machine right now, this is exactly where I'd be dropping my cash.
Let's take a look at my bumper basket of budget gaming laptops, shall we?
Quick links
- Lenovo LOQ | $850 @ Best Buy
- HP Omen 16 | $950 @ HP
- Lenovo Legion 5 | $1,000 @ Walmart
Lenovo LOQ | $850
I'll kick things off with a theme for each of these gaming laptop deals: they've all got 512 GB SSDs. That's a pretty tight amount of storage for a main gaming machine in 2025, although each of them have a spare M.2 slot to stick a cheap Black Friday SSD deal in later on. It's the price you have to pay for most good sub-$1,000 gaming laptops right now, and your money is better spent on the non-upgradeable hardware inside.
Like the 100 W RTX 5060 you get with this Lenovo LOQ, which is down to $850 at Best Buy. While there are a lot of RTX 5050 machines floating around for under $1,000 right now, they'd have to be really cheap to tempt me into paying good money towards such a low-powered mobile GPU, even if the deal did come with more storage space.
This Lenovo also has a 144 Hz 1080p display, which should pair very well with the RTX 5060 mobile. It's a very capable graphics chip if the resolution is kept reasonable and the wattage is kept reasonably high, as it has been here. Plus, you get a 14-core (six Performance, eight-Efficient) Core i7 13650HX thrown into the bargain, which is a speedy budget mobile CPU.
Top things off with 16 GB of DDR5, and this laptop represents the most gaming performance I can find for under $900 this Black Friday. From a major manufacturer, anyway—and trust me, you want that brand reassurance when you're buying this cheap. A tidy little no-frills machine, make no mistake.
HP Omen 16 | $950
Stepping things up a notch, take a looksie at this HP Omen 16 for $950. For reasons that seem to defy all logic, it's been fitted with an absolutely monstrous 16-core, 32-thread AMD CPU.
It's the sort of chip that fire-breathing high-end productivity laptops are built around, and it's a hugely powerful gaming CPU, too. It must be said, however, that in most games you'll be limited by the performance of the GPU, not the processor.
Luckily, this appears to be the 115 W variant of the RTX 5060, which is the full-fat spec. HP doesn't list the TGP in the specs sheet, and reviews of this particular model seem to be nigh-on non-existent, but Omen 16 variants with other AMD chips have the 115 W version—so I'd say it's a good bet that's what we're looking at here.
Which should be plenty powerful enough for its 1200p display, especially with some DLSS 4 assistance in the really demanding stuff. You also get 16 GB of DDR5, and a once-again-too-small SSD. Allow me to tap the sign, though—it's an easy upgrade later on, and 512 GB should be fine to get you going, at the very least.
Lenovo Legion 5 | $1,000
And of course, I saved the best for last. While the sheer value of the Lenovo LOQ (and the mega CPU inside the HP Omen 16) make them both laptop deals I'd be happy to spend my own money on, if I had to pick one of the three, it would be this Lenovo Legion 5 for $1,000.
Well, a single cent under, anyway. Still, it's got one desirable feature both of the laptops above are lacking—a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, honest-to-goodness, OLED display.
It's astonishing you can find an OLED gaming laptop for $1,000, as the tech is still regarded as something of a stretch goal for many mid-range to high-end models. For those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing one in person, OLED screens have incredibly vivid color reproduction and nigh-on unbelievable contrast levels. And the speedy panels are also a perfect match for PC gaming.
In short? Your games are going to look great, as will just about everything else. This one has a 1600p 165 Hz OLED panel, which represents quite a lot of pixels to push (and a high refresh rate to reach) for an RTX 5060, even the 115 W variant you'll find here. Luckily, DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation should even up the odds in really demanding games, and I'd happily turn either up to make the most of that fabulous screen.
To round things out, the CPU is a decently-beefy AMD eight-core, 16-thread model, the RAM is the requisite 16 GB of DDR5, the chassis is rather lovely, and the SSD is once again tiny. I told you it was going to be a running theme, didn't I?
Still, with all the hardware on offer here, it's a trade-off I'd happily make. Go careful on the downloads (or stick a larger one in later on once you've saved some more cash), and any of these three laptops should give you years of gaming fun. Me? I'd plump for the Legion 5 out of the three, but I'd happily drop my cash on any of them.
👉Shop all the Best Buy gaming laptop deals here👈
👉Peruse the HP gaming laptop deals here👈
👉Take a look at all the Walmart gaming laptop deals here👈
1. Best overall:
Razer Blade 16 (2025)
2. Best budget:
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 10
3. Best 14-inch:
Razer Blade 14 (2025)
4. Best mid-range:
MSI Vector 16 HX AI
5. Best high-performance:
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10
6. Best 18-inch:
Alienware 18 Area-51
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