More affordable, more powerful: 2019 was an excellent year for gaming laptops in India

Gaming laptops have a long-standing history of being associated with over-the-top specs and over-the-top prices in India. And, while entry-level gaming laptops provide some relief, they come with their own set of flaws. But 2019 hasn’t been the same as past years, which is in part due to the rise of the RTX graphics cards.

The Nvidia RTX graphics cards didn’t just deliver RT cores that offer enhanced ray tracing performance, and they also brought big performance gains without really impacting price. Take, for example, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, which debuted in India at approximately Rs 33,000 but delivered performance on par with a GTX 1070Ti – a card priced at anywhere between Rs 45,000 to Rs 55,000, at the time.

What does this have to do with laptops?

When the high-performing RTX gaming laptops first began popping up in India, rather than launch at higher prices, the high performing notebooks debuted at lower prices than their GTX 10 series counterparts. Things got even better for the entry and mid-level markets with the GTX 16 series laptops.

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti gaming notebooks, that are meant to replace the older GTX 1060 powered-laptops, are currently available at much lower prices. A laptop with GTX 1660 Ti graphics, starts as low as Rs 90,000 as opposed to laptops with GTX 1060 graphics cards, which until Q2 of this year were priced at anywhere between Rs 1,20,00 and Rs 2,00,000.

Even the entry-level gaming market space has gotten more competitive with the GTX 1650. We’ve reviewed quite a few entry-level gaming laptops with GTX 1650 graphics, and got to 60 fps on titles like PUBG and Apex Legends on medium settings.

Conclusion

To conclude, in 2019, we’ve seen substantial performance gains in gaming laptops in all price segments. And these performance gains have come without an increase in price. Although value goes out of the door when dealing with behemoths like the Dell Alienware Area 51m or MSI GT76 Titan, it has significantly improved in every other price range.

While gaming laptops are still quite expensive in Indian markets as compared to the United States, in 2019, their price-to-performance ratio has improved significantly over 2018.

Also Read: From over-the-top to affordable: We've narrowed down the best gaming laptops for every budget