Need something to feast the eyes on? The best gaming laptops spent the last year jumping on the OLED bandwagon and speeds grew faster and the display tech dropped in price. If you've been keeping one eye on these high-contrast panels and another on your bank balance, though, I've got one record-breaking deal to offer this week.
The Lenovo Legion 5i has just sailed down to a brand new record-low price at Best Buy, shedding $560 from its $1,559.99 MSRP to hit just $999.99 in the brand's latest sales. That means you're getting an OLED gaming laptop for less than a grand, a sentence I haven't been able to say before today.
The Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10 was already pushing its launch price well with that high-end panel, so I'm not surprised it's the first model I've seen at this kind of price. It's a cheaper rig, and I did notice a little more glare on its screen as a result, but it's more than up to the task of running your Steam library with a little extra visual pzazz. However, if you want to make the most of that QHD+ display in more games, that RTX 5050 GPU may well struggle.
That's where another deal comes in.
While I was marvelling at this holy grail of a gaming laptop deal, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI couldn't help but tickle my peripheral vision. For $150 more than the Lenovo Legion 5, you're picking up a slightly more solid body, a boosted RTX 5060 graphics card, and a screen that offered up less glare overall in my testing.
The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI is a jack of all trades machine. That OLED panel is still working hard for you, alongside boosted specs and a full-sized keyboard underneath. Not only that, but the RTX 5070 Ti version I reviewed actually managed to beat slimmer RTX 5080 models in some benchmark runs.
Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 vs Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI
So which gaming laptop should be heading to checkout with you this weekend?
It depends on whether you can break past that $1,000 price barrier. The Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 is an impressive machine in isolation - there aren't any other OLED panels at three figure price tags right now, and very few in this price range offer such a sophisticated look and feel. If you've got a hard budget set I'd jump right on this offer, I've never seen it before and loved my time with the chassis in testing.
If you've got a little wiggle room on that budget, though, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI is going to give you a lot more for your cash. The display still has a little glare to it, but it's more forgiving of brighter environments than Lenovo, and it's got that 240Hz ticket in its back pocket. An RTX 5060 isn't going to get you up to those speeds at full QHD+, but if you're looking to drop down to 1080p for some competitive gameplay it's certainly worth considering.
On top of that, the Helios Neo adds a full-size keyboard into the mix as well as a slightly chunkier form factor. While a drawback for portability, that extra breathing room means components have typically performed a little better in this chassis than they have in others during my testing.
- See all gaming laptop deals at Best Buy
After something completely different? I'm running through all the best Asus gaming laptops and the best Razer laptops if you want to spend a little more. If you're maxing out a budget, though, check out the best Alienware laptops on the market.
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