If you're shopping for the best gaming laptop deals on a budget, I'm sure you've noticed the RTX 50-series mobile GPUs have been announced. And so you might be tempted to try and hold out for the new generation when it eventually arrives. But if price is a concern, and you want something slim, sleek and remarkably powerful for relatively little cash, I really think you should be looking at what's currently available instead.
Like this Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 for $1,100 at Best Buy. Ignore the fact that it's a 2023 model, for starters. It still looks and feels more modern than 90% of gaming laptops today, a feat that has only really been superseded by the 2024 model, which is currently much more expensive.
Yes, this laptop doesn't have the fancy OLED screen of the new version. Big deal, it's still a nice panel, and you're getting it for far less money. And while you'd be forgiven for thinking that the GPU inside is about to become out of date, let me assuage any fears in that regard: This is still a phenomenal, ultra-portable gaming laptop in 2025, even with the new GPUs on the way.
Let's kick things off with a fact: While we know that the mobile version of the RTX 5070 exists, we still don't have a bead on its performance. We're assuming that it'll likely be a 15-20% raster uplift over the previous GPU, TGP for TGP, but that's a very speculative figure. And while it'll have DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation to its advantage, it's not like the RTX 4070 (here in 125 W TGP form) is suddenly going to be regarded as slow.
It's also going to be able to take advantage of some of the improvements of DLSS 4, like better image quality and enhanced (although not multi) Frame Generation, so it's still a brilliant gaming GPU.
And here it's paired with a sensible 1080p display, so it should have little issue taking advantage of that 165 Hz refresh rate with DLSS turned on.
There's also the question of availability, and its effect on pricing. Laptops featuring the new GPUs will be hot-ticket items, so they'll likely carry a price premium for a while compared to RTX 40-series machines. And I'd be willing to eat my hat if we see an ultra-slim RTX 5070 laptop for under $1,100 for a while to come.
So the Zephyrus G16 is still brilliant value. Yes, the SSD is still too small, but it'll do as a budget starter—and sticking in a cheap 1 TB NVMe drive later on is a surprisingly simple task even for novices.
The Zephyrus G16 is not a speculative piece of hardware. It's here right now, and will continue being a slim, portable, very well-featured gaming laptop for some time to come. Well worth a look then, don't you think?
