Lenovo LOQ 15: The Only Gaming Laptop Worth Buying Below $1,500

Given this landscape, there's really only one gaming laptop under $1,500 that I feel comfortable recommending. That's the Lenovo LOQ 15. It's not the thinnest or most powerful gaming laptop in the world, but for this price, there's nothing else like it.

It's not that the price of the LOQ 15 hasn't gone up over the past year alongside its gaming-laptop brethren. (It certainly has.) For the first few months of 2026—the good old days—it was selling for less than $1,000. But even then, it was technologically ahead of its rivals in a number of ways, offering strong performance paired with a high-quality IPS display. So many cheap gaming laptops come with pitifully desaturated screens that put a damper on the gaming experience.