It may pain me a little to call something that costs $630 'budget', but in the case of this Nitro V16 AI gaming laptop, it's hard to deny it. It's a struggle to find something quite as gaming-capable as this at this price point, that doesn't require buying a monitor or keyboard separately (though you will want a mouse, as trackpads sort of suck aren't very good for gaming).
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Let's start out with that GPU. The RTX 5050 mobile is the cheapest GPU Nvidia offers in the 50-series mobile range, and that means any laptop featuring it needs to be very well-priced to justify its existence.
$200 more and I'd opt for an RTX 5060 instead. Luckily, the 5050 is reasonably capable for the cash. Our Nick tested Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 on a whole bunch of rigs earlier this year, and one of those rigs is his Acer Nitro V15, complete with a Ryzen 7 7735HS and RTX 4050. Effectively, the Nitro V16 AI I've picked out above is almost a straight upgrade.
In his testing of the 4050, Nick found it to run Deliverance 2 on the High preset at 1080p and got a playable 60 fps without DLSS. It did stutter occasionally, but that's with just 6 GB of VRAM, which is two less than the RTX 5050. This one's also clocked at a 75 W base TDP, with a boost of 20, so that's once again rather decent for a gaming laptop at this price point.
DLSS Quality upscaling
GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop, 1080p with High preset
Moving from there, the Ryzen 5 240 processor is one of AMD's new-fangled 'AI CPUs, ' though a processor speed of 4.3 GHz on this six-core 12-thread CPU is reasonably beefy. Having six cores could make it age somewhat, but as our performance testing with Borderlands 4 shows, core quality counts more than core count.
The 16 GB of DDR5 RAM is more than enough for games right now, though it is soldered, so you can't crack open the back and upgrade it. However, the 512 GB of SSD storage is upgradable, and an investment well worth making in the future with how capacious games have become.
What is surprisingly good at this price point is the V16 AI's screen. 1200p resolution is solid, as getting over 1080p is always a win, and the 180 Hz refresh rate is pretty decent, too. It's reasonably sizable machine at 16 inches, and this, combined with the 5.4 lb weight, may make it a slight challenge to get in a backpack, but for a quick game at your desk or even in bed, it's hard to say no to its price.
Ultimately, the Nitro V16 AI is in a bit of a weird spot because, at MSRP, I'd almost never recommend going for an RTX 5050 laptop, but dropping it closer to the $600 mark makes for a very appealing package. It's the lowest I could justify spending on a laptop without worrying something might be wrong, and just $100 more would make me argue you should save up for an RTX 5060 lappy instead. But, where it is now, it's a very good way of getting decent gaming performance on a budget, and your games should look plenty snappy on that screen too.
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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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