Simple in-store browsing guide (for those who dont want the specific details)
Simple in-store browsing guide (for those who dont want the specific details)
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Figure 1: 2 Stickers, 1 for each Chip
Figure 2: Radeon Graphics Sticker
This section will go over how to find a gaming that's not just a label "Gaming" when you don't want to figure out what GHz, TB, GB, RAM, and the other specific things mean.
What to look for in the laptop when browsing in-store are the stickers next to the mousepad, they look like the one I have on mine on the image to the left (Figure 1).
What this means is that there are 2 computer chips in your laptop, one is the main processor, which all laptops have, the other is the graphics processor, or the processor to make your games look good and run well. In gaming, it is recommended, if not, required to have both of these chips. The reason you need to look for 2 chips is why you need to look for the 2 stickers.
WATCH OUT: The sticker that state "Radeon Graphics" (Figure 2 on the left) is AMD (a chip company), doing a marketing trick. This is because most main processors have tiny graphics one with them, and the "Radeon Graphics" sticker is advertising the tiny one rather than the seperate chip. My rule of thumb is to look for the NVIDIA stickers that have RTX on it, because that guarentees that the laptop has that second chip. Tldr; avoid the laptops with the sticker on figure 2 if you are looking for gaming laptops.
How I chose my laptop
How I chose my laptop
On the get go, I knew I wanted a laptop with the following features: Touchscreen, a Modern Dedicated GPU, a CPU with a at least 6 cores and 12 threads, 14" or less screen size (I like smaller laptops), and a good selection of port with a minimum of 1x PD USB-C and 1x USB-A. I knew it was very specific and quite specific, hence I knew I needed a budget of about $1,200.
At the time (Summer 2025), laptops at this time were showing decent laptops at $500, and budget gaming laptops at $900. When deciding a budget, I would look at sites like Micro Center, Best Buy, NewEgg, and even laptop companies (Dell, Lenovo, Asus). Due to my needs including a dGPU and touchscreen, the budget was going to be over $1000 easily, this is because both dGPU's increase the price (which is which budget gaming laptops were around $900), and touchscreen is $200 more than the "decent laptop" looking around $700 at the time (this also includes better specification). Knowing this allows me to consider $1100 as a minimum budget, but due to wanting a laptop to last me a while and include specification higher than the minimum, so I chose $1200, with headroom up to $1300.
The annoying part in finding a specific laptop is going to every store front (same ones listed above). This included putting in a lot of filters in each of these, I suggest doing the specific filters in laptop manufacturer's sites. Doing this got me to a few options: Dell XPS 14, Asus Zenbook 14X, Asus ROG X13, and Asus ProArt PX13. I was easily able to rule out the XPS due to price being too high. Next I found that the Zenbook 14X was no longer made and I could not find it sold with the dGPU specifications. I also found this same issue with the ROG X13. Additionally, the ROG X13 was outdated and overpriced for those outdated specifications. This brought me to the ProArt PX13, which have a configuration that was at $1600. This was too pricy, so what did I do? I waited, and waited. I waited about 6 months watching prices and stock on each of those options on all the different stores including Amazon. This brought me to the ProArt PX13 at a $1200 Sale on BestBuy, which was my purchase for my almost perfect laptop. I say almost because I missed out on a higher screen refresh rate than 60hz, but due to my price range goals, this was a minor thing I am fine missing out on for the good deal I got on the PX13. That's how I chose my laptop which I am even using to write this!
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