You Don’t Need to Spend a Lot on a Pricey Gaming Laptop

Any gaming laptop that costs thousands of dollars should be able to play the newest, most taxing games smoothly and consistently on high graphics settings. But you don’t need to shell out more than $1,500 to get a great laptop capable of playing your favorite games, and higher price tags do not guarantee better performance.

We’ve tested many gaming laptops in the past, and in 2023, we tested models costing up to $3,000, with the newest generation of Nvidia’s 40-series GPUs and Intel’s 13th-generation processors. Our findings have remained the same over the years: High-end gaming laptops packed with the most-powerful hardware still don’t offer enough performance benefits over more-affordable options. In some cases, they even perform worse.

Why we don’t recommend expensive gaming laptops

Lithium-Ion Batteries with IP65 Ratings

As lithium-ion batteries become more popular, various standards and certifications are being created to ensure the safety of consumers. Each of these standards puts the batteries through rigorous testing to see if they will continue to operate optimally, even in rough conditions. Ingress Protection (IP) ratings were created to signal how well a device was protected against foreign bodies. Battle Born Batteries were exposed to various levels of testing and given an IP65 rating, showing that they are completely dust-proof and water-resistant.  

What Does Ingress Protection (IP) Mean?

Over the last 50 years, technological innovation has hit its stride. Everyday new research creates opportunities for new technology that quickly comes to market. With this rapid pace of advancement, consumers were struggling to keep up with safety specifications and requirements. Standards were then created and implemented to quickly signal to consumers which devices had passed the strictest quality and safety testing.  

In 1976, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) created the Ingress Protection (IP) rating system to “standardize how to classify electrical enclosures and mechanical casings against ingresses such as dust and water particles.” Before these standards were created, many electronic and mechanical devices were labeled as “waterproof” and “dustproof”. These terms quickly became ambiguous, and consumers were unknowingly exposing their devices to damaging and potentially dangerous conditions.

IP Ratings utilized international standards to create a sliding scale that would quickly convey exactly how “waterproof” and “dustproof” a device really was. The higher this two-digit rating is, the more protected a particular device is from foreign bodies. To determine which rating each device receives, they are subjected to a series of tests. Each test gets progressively more intense in the exposure the device has to certain foreign bodies.  

With the creation of IP Ratings, each electronic or mechanical device that receives a rating is exposed to the same exact testing conditions. This removed ambiguity and allowed consumers to deduce quickly and accurately just how “dustproof” and “waterproof” their devices are. Within the last few decades, IP Ratings have greatly increased manufacturer transparency, consumer safety, and overall piece of mind when adopting new technology.  

Breaking Down IP Standards

To measure the effectiveness of an electronic device’s sealing against moisture and other foreign objects, IP Standards were established with a two-digit rating. For each digit, the higher the number, the better protected the device is. If a device has an X in place of one of the digits in the IP rating, the enclosure has not been tested for that specification yet.  

First Digit – Intrusion Protection

In an IP rating, the first digit indicates the enclosure’s ability to protect against intrusion from solid foreign bodies. A hazardous situation can arise when dust, tools, fingers, or other objects come inContact with electrical components or circuitry.  This rating is determined on a scale from 0-6. The lower a rating is for intrusion protection, the more careful an individual needs to be when storing, using, or touching the device.  

Second Digit – Moisture Protection

In an IP Rating, the second digit is used to indicate that ability of the enclosure to protect against moisture. This rating is determined on a scale from 0-9. The higher the rating a device receives, the more moisture it can withstand without breaking the seal and impacting the internal electronic components. Testing for moisture protection ranges from subjecting the device to condensation or other water droplets all the way to full submersion.  

Estonia grid-scale BESS to come online in 2025 with LG batteries

It will come online at the start of 2025, when Estonia and the other Baltic countries Lithuania and Latvia will disconnect from Russia’s grid. The complex is located close to the border with Russia in the northeast of Estonia.

The procurement, launched in June last year, saw local firms Diotech OÜ and Solar Wheel OÜ win a joint tender with LG Energy Solution enlisted to supply the BESS units.

The BESS will participate in various electricity market activities but most importantly will help to cover the frequency containment reserve (FCR) need in the Baltics.

‘We are honoured to contribute to Eesti Energia’s energy plan for desynchronisation (disconnecting from Russia’s grid) in the Baltic countries,’ said Kyuwon Heo, Head of Grid ESS Europe at LG Energy Solution.

Estonia is targeting an exit from electricity production from shale gas and a 40% renewable energy mix by 2030.

The BESS is the first large-scale project in the country but smaller-scale projects are being supported through a grant programme, including a 4MW/8MWh BESS.

Eesti Energia and a consortium of private companies are also launching separate, large-scale pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) projects, though these would come online in the late 2020s.

The 2 Best Cheap Gaming Laptops of 2024

Powerful gaming laptops can be wildly expensive, with some as much as $3,000. For that price, you can get a slim, light laptop with solid speakers, quiet fans, and high resolutions—in theory. But you don’t have to spend more than $1,500 to get a great gaming laptop, and most people probably shouldn’t. Cheaper laptops are being built with more powerful hardware all the time, and in 2023, we’re seeing more budget models that include high refresh rate displays, slimmer builds, and the newest generation of graphics cards and processors.

We spent months testing laptops for this guide, including against more expensive models costing all the way up to $3,000, and found that the affordable Gigabyte Aorus 15 (BMF-52US383SH) was the only laptop of the 12 we tested that provided consistently good performance while staying cool inside and out.

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