Business laptops for gaming? Hear me out. Grown-up gamers are serious professionals now, and studies show that a video game hobby in the workplace is good for you.
Here’s the science: researchers at the University of Central Florida, a noted game design school, determined that video game breaks rejuvenated stressed-out workers better than guided meditation and relaxation exercises. Under the right circumstances, gaming at work builds camaraderie and motivates creative problem solving. That is, so long as gaming doesn’t become the focus of a workday, but rather serves as a periodic resetting of the mind.
Video games are ideal for micro-breaks
Work psychologists advocate taking periodic micro-breaks: five- or ten-minute mind-breathers that break up extensive periods of work. Video games are perfect for micro-breaks. Not talking about a marathon Civilization binge; think along the lines of a 15-minute bout of Overwatch or Fortnite, perhaps a quick round of Puyo Puyo Tetris before a conference call.
For many, gaming provides a short experience of autonomy and competency that is therapeutic for coping with anxiety or boredom at work. Business travelers might find respite in video games, winding down after-hours in a hotel, or while waiting around in an airport. Aside from stress relief, gamers talking about honing time management, self-discipline, leadership, and community building from their hobby. That makes a lot of sense in the context of games like World of Warcraft or Eve.
Are business laptops built for gaming? You bet.
If you want laptops equipped for both work and play you have plenty of options. Think business first. The flashy presentation of gaming laptop might not offer the right look in every professional setting. The computing performance won’t be an issue. However, the heavier weight, shorter battery life, and alien spaceship appeal of many gaming laptops is a little too extra for a business-first computer. Better to choose business laptops with strong gaming specifications. You will also find modest, all-black gaming laptops from MSI and ASUS ROG are a good fit as well—you will find some below with Windows 10 Professional pre-installed.
Are NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards good for games?
If you’re looking in the mobile workstations store, you will notice these laptops come equipped with CAD video cards, namely NVIDIA Quadro M-series, and NVIDIA P-series. Design programs and PC games pose a different type of workload for graphics hardware. Newer generation gaming graphics card tend to work fairly well with creative software, but CAD cards don’t run games very well. Hardware drivers for workstation GPUs like Quadro offer precision for CAD and 3D design, while gaming cards are built to push fast framerates across a display.
Baseline hardware for a competent computer for business and gaming is an Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen CPU, 256 GB of hard drive capacity, and 8 GB of system memory. There are other specs you probably want as well:
- Pre-installed Windows 10 Professional
- Full size keyboards—at least 14 keys across; keys are three-quarters inch across. Chicklet is OK, mechanical is a gamer preference.
- NVIDIA GeForce or AMD Radeon graphics card.
- Full high definition display (1080 pixels tall) – 14 inches or more, corner-to-corner.
- Built-in webcams for teleconferencing from the road.
Recommended SKUs: 5 Business Laptops for Gaming
Each laptop below comes installed with Windows 10 Professional. It’s ready for serious work and serious gaming out of the box. Click the name for product details and NeweggBusiness pricing.
| Dell XPS 15 |
Lenovo ThinkPad E570 |
Asus P2440UQ |
HP ProBook 450 |
GIGABYTE Aero 15X |
|
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 | 4K |
| Display Size | 15-inch | 15.6-inch | 14-inch | 15.6-inch | 15.6-inch |
| CPU | Intel Core i5 | Intel Core i7 | Intel Core i7 | Intel Core i7 | Intel Core i7 |
| Graphics | GTX 1050 | GTX 950MX | GTX 940MX | GTX 930MX | GTX 1070 |
| Memory | 8 GB | 8 GB | 12 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Disk capacity | 1 TB HDD 32 GB SSD |
256 GB SSD | 512 GB SSD | 256 GB SSD (M.2) | 512 GB SSD (M.2) |
Gamer professionals: Let me know what you use on the go. What your choice business laptops for gaming?
Your link to the Gigabyte laptop (the only one on the list with a reasonably powerful GPU) goes to an HP. Surprised there weren’t more GTX 1060 laptops on your list; it’s a great compromise in a work/play laptop today around the $1,200 price point. Also- great clickbait in the email =).
Hi Eric, here’s the Gigabyte SKU, thanks for letting me know: https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-34-233-238
Hi, thanks for a great article – would you be able to recommend some good work laptops that are also good for gaming that have come out more recently?
Such great selection of laptops!! Yeah, they are legit for gaming. The content justifies the title. Well done, Adam.