The Sundarban
Printed Mar 29, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT
Dave has a bachelor of arts stage in journalism, and has been writing professionally since 2006. Over the years he’s produced inform for many global brands, including IGN, PC Gamer, TechRadar and Tom’s Information. His main passions revolve around PC hardware, display tech and gaming.
Dave is absolutely enthusiastic about cutting-edge PC abilities. He’s been constructing his acquire rigs since ye olden days of 2004 and has owned an embarrassing number of GPUs over that timeframe.
When he’s now not obsessing over frame rates, Dave can normally be realized fretting over dead pixels and OLED burn-in. He first fell in admire with OLED displays in 2015, and has spent the ensuing years obliterating his bank balance buying “Mild Emitting Diode” monitors.
In his off hours, Dave can normally be realized sweating unbearably over Arsenal outcomes. He may probably take footba… sorry “soccer”, a miniature too severely.
As much as I adore PC tech, weirdly, I’ve handiest owned four laptops in my life. And for context, I’ve existed on this spinning rock for 40 years. Holy moly, does my back ever damage. The last couple of years have made me massively appreciate portable PCs, and even if I sold my present mannequin for gaming capabilities, it’s unexpectedly turned into my main workstation in improbable fashion.
I obtained’t lie: my present laptop rate an discover-watering amount. My battered credit rating card balance is going to be weeping for years to approach. Yet as much as I admire my excessive-stop, portable Windows 11 instrument, for these occasions I want to unwind with my favorite Steam games, I actually appreciate it fair as much for being a surprisingly grand workstation.
Certain, that gaming laptop you may well probably at the second acquire really can be a viable productivity machine. Give me a chance to are trying and make my level.
A great laptop for work and gaming
The Zephyrus G14 can enact it all
Credit: Dave Meikleham MakeUseOf
In phrases of my present laptop, gaming or in any other case, the stats speak for themselves. A cellular RTX 5080 isn’t fair amazing for playing up to date Steam titles on; 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM make this card an oh-so credible possibility for users who want to render large 4K video information in a jiffy.
The addition of an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 12-core CPU and 32GB of DDR5 RAM also be obvious this ROG mannequin has the compute and reminiscence capacity to juggle excessive-stop image enhancing while also being able to handle 30-unusual browser tabs at any given time. Believe me, I may restful know. I have a real challenge when it comes to limiting my Google Chrome dwelling windows.
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That the latest G14 also has a 2.8K (2800 x 1800) OLED panel means it’s a great possibility for prosumer users who want a laptop display capable of supreme shade accuracy. I enact a lot of image enhancing for my role on MUO, and I can actually say using Photoshop on my G14 is a delight thanks to the undeniable quality of its astonishing OLED mask.
Why gaming laptops make great workstations
Making the case for gaming devices as productivity devices
Regardless of the cost bracket you’re working inside of, gaming laptops usually have shared qualities that make them a fair match for work capabilities.
While you can’t push the boat out for a 50-series gaming laptop, far extra affordable variants (whether they be Nvidia or AMD) can restful make for perfectly fair workstations. Certainly, going for a halfway dwelling possibility that can accelerate up to date PC titles at 1080p/60FPS while also being able to handle video rendering and photo enhancing tasks is a great bet whenever you happen to’re a casual gamer who also wants to work on their laptop.
Many semi-up to date gaming laptops boast a svelte, gentle-weight obtain factor. This makes them ideal for each commutes and also for dwelling administrative center work, where they’ll take up less space than thicker, all-round laptops. Apt bear in thoughts your next laptop may restful have this RAM spec.
A lot of gaming laptops also undercover agent beautiful elegant. I’m now not saying aesthetics are going to make that 7,000-be aware document you want to bag in first thing Monday morning any easier to pen. After all now not. Yet in my trip, of the gaming laptops I’ve owned, they have all sported the obtain of responsive trackpads and tactile keyboards that make searching for research capabilities and typing a miniature extra friction-free.
High refresh rates also matter. My G14 tops out at 120Hz, which makes desktop navigation and internet searching really feel silky gentle compared to 60Hz displays. Yet some gaming laptops bag far increased than that, maxing out at 240Hz and above.
Even whenever you happen to’re now not a budding eSports champ in the making and fair want to edit spreadsheets, anyone can really feel and appreciate the benefits of a increased refresh rate mask. And don’t neglect, in certain circumstances, laptops can beat dual-monitor setups.
Asus Zenbook 14X Laptop
Operating System
Windows 11 Home
CPU
Intel Core i7-1260P
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce MX550
Storage
512GB SSD
The ASUS Zenbook 14X is another gentle-weight possibility excellent for travelers. With its gorgeous 2.8K OLED display, media inform seems fantastic. Its grand specs and handy ScreenPad make it a fair decision for multitasking, too. Having a primary display and a secondary display to assign less critical applications to is amazingly valuable for travelers and nomads wanting to enhance their productivity on the go.
Maybe gaming laptops ought to not be for work
The cases against a gaming machine for productivity
There is an almighty “BUT” when it comes to using a gaming laptop as your primary workstation.
