Scan 3XS Gaming Laptops
Scan makes the fastest, most reliable gaming laptops, built using high-quality branded components from market leaders such as NVIDIA and Intel. Scan gaming laptops have won multiple awards in the media and are backed by a best-in-class two-year warranty.
Today’s gaming laptops are just as good as a Gaming PC. Featuring the latest NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards and Intel Core i7 processors, gaming laptops not only cost as much or as little as you want to spend, but also come in a variety of sizes. Scan offers a huge range of gaming laptops to choose from, with from pre-built laptops to our laptop configurator that allows you to spec a laptop just the way you want.
Configure your 3XS Gaming Laptop
Step 1 - Performance
The best gaming laptops are powered by NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards. The graphics card is the most important component in a gaming laptop as it’s responsible for rendering games, with a more powerful graphics card producing smoother frame rates. NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards are available in several different models, depending on your budget and the sort of games you like to play.
The table below shows the key NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards along with their primary characteristics. The number of cores and amount of memory determines the cards performance, which we’ve simplified into a single Performance rating in the fourth column. The next two columns indicate which graphics cards support advanced gaming technologies such as VR and DXR Ray Tracing. The final column indicates the name we give each of our 3XS laptops depending on which NVIDIA GeForce card it features.
| RTX 3080 | RTX 3070 | RTX 3060 | RTX 2080 Super | RTX 2070 Super | RTX 2060 | RTX 3050 Ti | GTX 1660 Ti | RTX 3050 | GTX 1650 Ti | GTX 1650 | |
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| GAMING | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| RAY TRACING |  |
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| VIRTUAL REALITY |  |
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*Laptop also has to support VR, not just the graphics card
Configure your 3XS Gaming LaptopsStep 2 - Size
Gaming laptops are available in two main sizes, 15.6in and 17.3in, which refers to the size of the screen. However, it’s not quite as simple as that as some laptops now feature what is commonly referred to as a narrow bezel screen. As the name suggests these screens have a smaller bezel than traditional screens, providing the same viewing area without requiring such a large chassis to mount them. As a result narrow bezel laptops are thinner and lighter than traditional laptops as shown in the diagram below.
15.6in Narrow Bezel Screen
379 x 236 x 19.9 (mm) (W x D x H)
Weight - 2.0kg
15.6in Traditional Screen
378 x 267 x 29.9 (mm) (W x D x H)
Weight - 2.3kg
Step 3 - Special Features
The third and final consideration when choosing a gaming laptop is any special features you might find desirable. These include RGB lighting, mechanical keyboards, high refresh rate screens and NVIDIA G-Sync.
RGB
Many gaming laptops include an RGB lighting system that can be programmed with complex themes and millions of colour combinations. Even if you’re not a fan of RGB, you can use these systems to act as a simple backlight for the keyboard aiding visibility.
Keep an eye out for the Vengeance Pro series of laptops if you want extra RGB lighting.
Keyboard
The keyboards in many gaming laptops use membrane switches that provide a mushy and unresponsive key response. This is unsatisfying to the touch and will slow you down, whether you’re typing or gaming. The superior choice would be a laptop with a mechanical keyboard. These feature physical switches underneath the keys to determine a key press. Mechanical switches require less actuation force to generate a key press, making them easier and more satisfying to type on. They are also noisier, but this can actually be a plus point with the sound presenting positive aural feedback on your efforts.
Keep an eye out for the Vengeance Pro series of laptops if you want a keyboard with mechanical switches.
Screen
The quality of the integrated screen in a laptop is very important, as whether you’re gaming, watching videos or working you’ll be looking at the screen most of the time. 3XS gaming laptops use IPS panels that provide wide viewing angles and lots of colour depth.
For gaming it’s also important to look at the refresh rate of the screen, with a higher refresh rate making fast moving games such as FPS titles smoother. The two most commonly available screen refresh rates are 60Hz and 144Hz, with the latter providing a much better gaming experience.
Finally, keep an eye out for the resolution of the screen. Most gaming laptops have a 1920 x 1080 screen, also known as FullHD, which is a good match for the performance of most laptop graphics cards. However, some high-end laptops are also available with a 3840 x 2160 screen, also known as 4K or UHD. These are much sharper than FullHD screens, but require a very powerful graphics card to make games run smoothly.
G-Sync
Even if you buy the most powerful gaming laptop, you may experience tearing and stuttering in gamesas the frame rate of the graphics card is not always in sync with the refresh rate of the screen.
The common work around for this problem is vsync, which forces the screen to only display whole frames. This does eliminate tearing, but it causes the screen to skip over any frames that are sent over by the graphics card while the screen is in the middle of a refresh. This skipping however is also visible as a stutter, and is evident on-screen when the frame rate changes dramatically, such as changing the view from a simple to a complex scene.
NVIDIA G-Sync is an advanced technology available in some laptops that eliminates both tearing and stuttering. It works by synchronising the refresh rate of the screen with the frame rate of the graphics card, meaning that the screen will only refresh when the graphics card is ready to send it a new frame.
View Pre-Configured Laptops
