The sweet spot for laptop memory is 16GB of RAM; more than that is often just a waste of money. Here’s a roundup of the best 16GB laptops you can buy today.
Processor Intel Core i7-9750H| RAM 16GB| Display 15.6 inches| GPU GeForce GTX 1660 Ti| Hard drive 512GB SSD| Dimensions 14.2 x 10 x 0.9 inches| Weight 5.3 pounds
You can count on Acer to offer affordable, mid-ranged laptops, and the Predator Helios 300 is exactly that. It’s equipped with a solid array of components that position this laptop as a workhorse for both productivity and gaming — it has an Intel Core i7 processor,16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card. This is a great hardware lineup for the laptop’s 15.6-inch full HD display (1920×1080 pixels). The GTX 1660 Ti, for example, is an affordable mid-ranged video card that, while it’s bested by newer cards like the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080, can handle most games at this laptop’s resolution.
The system is positioned as a gaming laptop, so the keyboard is backlit with four zones of configurable RGB lighting, and the touchpad is off-center — that’s a matter of taste whether you like this configuration, but either way it’ll probably take a little getting used to. You get three USB 3 ports and one USB-C, along with HDMI, DisplayPort, and even an Ethernet. It would be nice to see additional USB-C ports, but it’s hard to complain with the connectivity overall — especially since the laptop has Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax, still something of a rarity in laptops today.
Here’s something else unusual: The Acer Predator Helios 300 has a one-touch overclocking mode. A “turbo” button atop the keyboard instantly overclocks the laptop’s GTX 1660Ti graphics chipset and cracks up the fans at the same time to deal with the heat. That’s a really nice touch, though it doesn’t substantially increase the performance of the laptop. And if you’re eager to increase performance — and your workflow justifies it — you can add additional memory via the empty RAM slot.
Processor Intel Core i7-8750H| RAM 16GB| Display 15.6 inches| GPU Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q| Hard drive 512GB SSD| Dimensions 14.1 x 10 x 0.7 inches| Weight 4.6 pounds
Acer covers its bases with Predator laptops at both ends of the spectrum — modest, affordable models with mid-level graphics, and entries like this Acer Predator Triton 500, which despite measuring just .7-inches thick is sporting the formidable Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max Q, a hybrid version of the high-end 2080 that makes some small compromises on clock speed and power consumption to fit in the tight constraints of a thin laptop. So while it is still classified as a 2080 and can perform real-time ray tracing and all the other goodies the RTX 2080 is known for, it won’t get so hot that it melts a hole in the bottom of your laptop and burns through to the center of the earth.
The trade-off seems worth it. While still packing high-end graphics, this laptop is super thin and light, making it very portable. It’s powered by an Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB of RAM, though it’s a little disappointing that this version of the Predator has just 512GB of SSD storage. A system this well-equipped would benefit from a full 1TB of storage (but to be fair, that option does exist for a little more money). The 15.6-inch display is backed with a 144Hz IPS panel that boasts a mere 3ms pixel response — this system is really designed for gaming. In fact, it even has Nvidia G-Sync, which prevents tearing and jitters in fast-moving gaming graphics.
Despite the lightweight design, this system is made with lots of aluminum, so it has a solid and rugged feel to it, even if the overall aesthetics are a little mundane. Even so, Acer gets a lot of stuff right. There are a wealth of ports (two USB 3 and a USB-C on the right, with another USB 3 and Ethernet on the left), and an RGB keyboard with per-key programmable lighting. Disappointments? The sound is lackluster (bring headphones) and many of the ports are on the right side where cables will interfere with your mouse.
Processor Intel Core i9| RAM 16GB| Display 16 inches| GPU AMD Radeon Pro 5500M| Hard drive 1TB SSD| Dimensions 9.7 x 14.1 x .6 inches| Weight 4.3 pounds
There’s only one Apple laptop on this list. Not because Apple doesn’t make excellent portable PCs — it certainly does — but because thanks to its new keyboard, the new 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro is the most worthy of attention. In fact, when it comes to the new MacBook Pro, it seems all anyone can talk about is the new keyboard. But in reality, this says a lot about the keyboard it’s replacing.Last year’s MacBook Pro users a butterfly keyboard that was abysmal — and people hated it. The good news is that the keyboard in this year’s laptop uses tried-and-true scissor switches and is a welcome improvement. Not surprisingly, the laptop also includes Apple’s Touch Bar, which puts common and favorite commands right at your fingertips.
The MacBook Pro is a lot more than just a keyboard, though, and it’s fair to say that this may be the best MacBook that Apple has ever released. It has an 8-core,8th generation Intel Core i9 CPU, of course, along with 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD for storage.
