$1000 is a lot of money; too much for a new laptop if all you want to do is play games on the go. At Laptop Mag, Rami Tabari wrote a guide on how to hunt for a good one.
4. Whether you’re going cheap or all out, avoid touch screens. All they do is hike up the price.
It’s a good guide with all the necessary caveats; the most important one is that the GPU is by far the most important factor. The entry-level GPU is the Nvidia MX150, which gets you playing older and casual titles easily and fancy new games with the settings all on low. But if you’re gonna bother, you may as well fork a little to get to a 10xx-series chip so you know it’ll handle the hits of 2020.
Here’s my one-sentence guide: go on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace or OfferUp or whatever, search for “1060 laptop”, and buy the cheapest on offer that looks kosher to you. If you don’t want to risk used, but want something good under a grand, this Dell is about $950 [Amazon link] and won’t mark you as one of The Gamers, with only 2 (two) red LEDs and no leprechaun swastika logos.
