Best Laptops for Playing Minecraft Windows Central 2020

Minecraft is an incredibly popular game that found its start on PC before moving along to a ton of other devices. It allows players freedom to experiment in endless blocky worlds, gathering resources, building shelters, and eventually creating complex automated machines. Part of its magic is that it doesn't take a super gaming PC to run, opening it up to a ton of people. If you're looking to upgrade your laptop or simply start exploring what the game has to offer, we've rounded up a bunch of the best laptops for playing Minecraft.

Good Price, Good Performance: Acer Swift 3

Editor's choice

This affordable laptop is powered by AMD's updated 4000-series Ryzen mobile CPUs, bringing excellent performance at a great price. This model includes an eight-core Ryzen 7 4700U, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The FHD display is sized at 14-inches for a nice mix of size and portability, and there's a decent port selection for connected external gaming accessories. For playing Minecraft and handling productivity work, this is a great choice.

Ultimate Performance: Alienware m15 R3

Staff pick

If you're interested in the Java Edition with custom shaders or just want to prepare for the release of Bedrock Edition RTX enhancements, something like the Alienware m15 R3 w5ith NVIDIA RTX dedicated GPU will offer the performance necessary to get the game looking as good as possible. It's also cut out to handle just about any other game when you're not in a Minecraft world.

From $1,400 at Dell

Budget Option: HP 14t

If you're on a tight budget or just want to get a laptop on which the kids can play Minecraft, HP's 14t doesn't get much better for the price. It has a 14-inch FHD display (upgrade from HD for $40), 8GB of DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, and a 10th Gen Intel Core i3-1005G1 CPU. Ports are varied for connecting accessories, and it can be had in three different colors.

From $500 at HP

15-Inch Ultrabook: MSI Prestige 15

Need a high-quality laptop you can use for productivity work when you're not playing Minecraft? MSI's Prestige 15 is a unique blend of 10th Gen U-Series CPU and NVIDIA GTX 1650 dedicated GPU. Grab the display in FHD or 4K and enjoy Wi-Fi 6 connectivity and long battery life for working (or gaming) late into the day.

AMD Hardware: ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14

Love AMD and want the latest hardware? The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 brings a Ryzen 9 4900HS CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD, and dedicated NVIDIA RTX 2060 GPU. It will easily run Minecraft with RTX ray tracing or shaders enabled, and other games will look great too on the 15.6-inch FHD display with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Huge FHD Display: Lenovo Legion 5i 17

Can't settle for anything less than a 17-inch FHD display? The Legion 5i's baseline configuration is more than enough for a quality Minecraft experience, and the enormous 17.3-inch IPS screen makes it easy to get a wide view of the action. Get a 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10750H CPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB PCIe SSD, and NVIDIA GTX 1650 Ti or 1660 Ti GPU for great Minecraft performance.

If we're making some suggestions

Any of the above laptops in our collection will run Minecraft without issue, though if you're still wondering where to turn, we can offer further guidance. If you just want a reliable laptop that's equally capable of handling productivity work as it is running Minecraft, Acer's Swift 3 is an excellent choice.

It has a 14-inch FHD display with an IPS panel, and it's all built into a slim chassis. The keyboard is backlit, and it has a Precision touchpad. A built-in fingerprint reader resides in the palm rest. Performance hardware is enough to keep up with Minecraft and standard productivity work thanks to an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U CPU, 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD. AMD has improved its integrated graphics with its 4000-series mobile chips, so you should have no issues running minecraft at a smooth framerate.

The Acer Swift 3 will handle a standard game of Minecraft, but if you're looking to play Java Edition with shaders or want to prepare for eventual RTX upgrades to the Bedrock Edition, a more powerful gaming PC is recommended. Enter the Alienware m15 R3, a laptop capable of handling whatever games you throw its way.

Basic models start with a 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10750H CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, AMD Radeon RX 5500M dedicated GPU, and 15.6-inch FHD display with 144Hz refresh rate, though you can max things out with up to a 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10980HK CPU, NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super Max-Q GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 4K OLED display with unreal color and contrast. It will handle all versions of Minecraft, and it will also be up to the task of running modern AAA games.


Diamonds are forever


Mind the skeletons

Minecraft is a legendary crafting survival game from Mojang and Microsoft, where players can build literally anything they can imagine.
