Looking for some cardio at home? In case you don’t like outdoor running or biking and going to the gym is too much for you, you should go for Zwift.
Zwift allows you to ride virtual roads, hundreds of kilometers across 5 different worlds. It gives you the power to link your turbo trainer to almost any modern device and enjoy a virtual gaming experience while cycling. You can connect your laptop computer, iPad, iPhone, or even a TV that will work.
Explore real-world simulations inspired by real-world courses like Richmond, Virginia or an imaginary world of Watopia island. You can train yourself or can join a group workout routine. There are always hundreds of events going on – friendly competitions to real intense races with prizes on the line.
Requirements for Zwift
Laptops more often than not are the top prime choice for Zwift for their simplicity and resourcefulness. Yet there are some requirements that need to be met before you’ll be able to run the game on your laptop.
Here are the things you’ll need:
- Operating System: 7×64 bit, OSX 10.8
- Memory: 4GB
- Hard Drive: 4GB free space
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
- Graphics card: 1GB GPU or embedded Intel HD 400/AMD R5
These are the minimum requirements needed to be met so the game can run smoothly. Anything more than this will be enough however before you select the Best laptops for Zwift gameplay ponder all the details.
List of Top 6 BEST LAPTOPS FOR ZWIFT IN 2022
To find out the best laptop choices for Zwift gameplay in 2022. All their features, software and hardware specifications, all their strengths and weaknesses.
1: OMEN by HP 15-inch Gaming (Best Laptop for Zwift)
Combining a long list of solid features HP Omen packages outstanding performance and striking display for the HD gaming experience.
Omen 15 is a powerhouse with outstanding qualities. A color-rich 15.6-inch display with a 144Hz refresh rate, a cozy keyboard, and the popular Bang & Olufsen speakers all integrated into an elegant design.
The collision of brushed aluminum and carbon fiber gave birth to this stylish and lush gaming star. The glossy Omen logo sits on the top of the lid with red stripes elegantly sketched. Standing on two small hinges the ultra-narrow bezel screen seems like it’s floating. Giving a remarkably refreshing look of a gaming laptop. Weighing 5.4 pounds the only blemish Omen 15 suffers is its thick stocky plastic build.
On the back, you’ll find a beefy fan exhaust that helps control overheating although adding a chunk to the laptop. Offering plenty of ports the Omen can connect all your gaming peripherals, a detached headphone and microphone jack, a USB-C port, Ethernet socket, along with a DisplayPort and an HDMI that serve pretty handy for gaming.
Omen 15 has somewhat coped between the budget and the display quality. Without sacrificing the display Omen has come up with a bursting color stream on a full HD screen. With a 300 nits max brightness and a 965:1 contrast ratio the display is as good as any top-notch display nowadays.
With a score of 90.8 percent on sRGB color gamut, the display offers superb color accuracy. Omen 15 brags a refresh rate of 144Hz assisting fluent screen performance. To prevent tearing or contorted video HP included Nvidia’s G-Sync technology which adds up to the unique features of this gaming giant.
Thanks to the Intel Core i7-8750H for the slick swiftness Omen 15 possess. It breezes through web browsing with lightning speed at dozens of tabs open.
HP Omen 15 outclasses similar price laptops in our Geekbench tests like Dell G5 15 and even Razer Blade 15 falls short in Geekbench multi-core.
Supported with a mediocre Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU offers a comparable gaming performance to the Dell G5 15. Though you can upgrade it to GTX 1070 easily if you fancy. The only lag in the performance is that the system doesn’t have the power to truly utilize the laptop’s 144Hz refresh rate. The fans also put some rumpus when you push the Omen 15 too hard. So you won’t have the luck to play games quietly, the positive of this is that the system hardly ever gets hot.
HP Omen 15 offers an average battery life of 4 hours with video playback and web browsing. Gaming machines consume a lot of power to deliver the performance although Omen 15 stands even below that offering only 2 hours with non-stop gaming.
2: Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop
Acer Predator Helios 300 is powerful, popular, and economical. Observing its specs we can relatively see its power. Paired with a 6-core Core i7-8750H, GeForce GTX 1060, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and 1080/144Hz IPS display, it’s pretty good for a gaming laptop.
The Predator Helios 300 combines several hallmark design features of a gaming laptop in one. The aluminum and plastic combo design doesn’t go far from Acer’s other designs. An assertive looking Predator logo, some red spotlights, and overall angular shape. Crafted with a metal chassis in gun-metal finish, black and red accents, and tapered sides do spike the gamer’s aesthetics.
The logo and lettering combination in silver are adorned with red stripes on the top cover. While the port options do stand out as well. Integrated with two USB 2.0, a USB 3.0, and USB 3.1 port also an HDMI port, Ethernet, headphone jack, and an SD card reader. The laptop is astonishingly lighter than it looks and not too bulky.
Opening the lid you’ll find the 15.6-inch full HD 1080p display and a full-size keyboard illuminated by red backlight with a number pad along with a black metal deck. Weighs 5.5 pounds and with dimensions of 15.4 x 10.5 x 1.5 inches.
The Predator offers a sharp 1080p display but does lack in brightness. It covers more than 80 percent of the sRGB color gamut which is a bit short of the 15-inch laptop average. Brightness on the screen measures 226 nits on the light meter and 144Hz refresh rate.
Strengthened by Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB video memory which does show its output in the gaming experience. The Predator gave a whopping score of 7.1 on the SteamVR Performance Test that is way better than the 5.6 average.
When it comes to performance the 16GB of RAM, the solid-state storage, and exclusive graphics card, and an 8th Gen Intel processor do stand up to the mark and give pretty impressive results. It’s not the best gaming laptop out there but it’s just a notch below the top and serves well powerful in the affordable range of devices. Withholding its limitations everything loads quickly and you won’t notice any texture drag. With clean and smooth graphics the gaming performance is continuous and responsive.
Battery life is somewhat decent with this many features onboard. Lasting around 7 hours on Mag Battery Test. Which is better than one would expect from a middle-range gaming laptop.
3: Dell G5587-7866BLK-PUS G5 15 5587 Gaming
The Dell G5 15 is equipped with an 8th generation Intel i7-8750H processor and 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 RAM which makes it a gaming beast. Nvidia GeForce GTX gives excellent picture quality, IPS display and matte finish combined with huge storage give you an advantage above other gaming laptops.
As always Dell came up with a simple design and applied it to the gaming machine. The black matte finish with a red-colored logo of Dell on the top. With the same red color on the backlit keyboard and trackpad. The plastic of superior quality.
The ventilation design is advanced and has a classy look to it, complemented with the hinge’s striking elegance. Weighs 6.28 pounds with 0.98 x 15.3 x 10.8 inches in dimensions making it lightweight and slim. Overall the design is fascinating and prominent.
The 15.6 inches display gives brilliant and detailed graphics. Reinforced with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti offers you a splendid display. The image quality is just fascinating with the IPS display, Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. The dedicated 4GB GDDR5 video memory gives smooth and unhindered results.
Powered with an 8th generation Intel Hexa-Core i7-8750H 3.9GHz processor bringing it par to the fastest gaming machines. With a 6 core processor, 9 MB of cache, and using turbo boost technology you can easily overclock the CPU speed.
Graphics are supported with a top-of-the-line graphics card 4GB of Nvidia GeForce GTX 10 series. The 15.6 inches screen delivers enriched and high-quality graphics with Nvidia graphics. Performance is boosted with a 128GB SSD onboard and to facilitate the storage capacity 1TB of Hard Disk is also available. The system comes with 16GB DDR4 RAM and all these features of the Dell G5 15 make it capable of running all the modern games though with the highest settings.
The battery assumes greater importance when using gaming laptops. The battery performance is seriously affected with all the high graphics and power in spite of this the battery for this laptop gives approximately 7 hours. Which is laudable in consideration of the hardware configuration and the ones offered by competitors in the same range.
4: Acer Aspire 7 Casual Gaming Laptop
- Processor 4.1 GHz Intel Core i7
- RAM 16 GB DDR4
- Hard Drive 1000 GB Hybrid Drive
- Graphics Coprocessor NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
- Graphics Card Ram Size 4 GB
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Acer Aspire 7 is a 15.6-inch multimedia notebook with somewhat decent hardware capable of handling all the modern games at full HD resolution. It comes packed with a 6-core Coffee Lake CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 4GB dedicated video memory.
It does surpass its predecessor with improved hardware and a faster processor. With IPS display, solid-state storage, hard-disk drive, and an 8GB dual-channel RAM the Aspire is competing with Dell G3 15 and HP Pavilion Gaming 15.
The Acer Aspire 7 is elegantly designed with matte black brushed metal with the Acer logo on the lid featuring a mirrored finish. Overall the laptop feels nice and you won’t notice any sharp edges and has a solid build quality. Weighing 5 pounds while the dimensions are 38.1 x 26.2 x 2.4 cm that is about average for a 15-inch laptop.
With Intel Core i7-8750H hexacore CPU and supported by NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4 GB of dedicated video memory. The display is a 60Hz 1080p IPS panel with amazing viewing angles. The system supports 2×2 MIMO Wireless Technology for ultra-fast wireless connectivity. On the trackpad, there’s an integrated Acer fingerprint biometric authentication system that supports Windows Hello technology. For rich and powerful sound Acer’s true harmony is combined with Dolby Audio Premium.
Aspire 7 has a 15.6-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. While the brightness and contrast ratio – 500:1 falls short for a device of this price range.
Equipped with widescreen LED-backlit IPS panel with stable viewing angles. As a result, the content can be read from any angle or position. The brightness does lag a bit and is sufficient for indoor use only. In outdoor environments the readability becomes impaired.
Backed up by NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM the visuals deliver epic imagery with crisp, true-to-life colors.
The Aspire 7 is a 15.6-inch notebook powerful enough to play 3D games and consume media. Powered by a hexa-core Core i7-8750H CPU with compromise on energy, efficiency, and performance of the system, the processor is the optimal choice for Aspire 7. With the base clock of 2.2GHz and 3.9GHz of boost clock for six cores. Combined with an 8GB of dual-channel RAM and NVMe SSD the system performance is boosted.
Playing hefty games or ultra-high-definition video content we didn’t encounter any issues. The NVMe SSD accomplishes faster speed than SATA-III together with a hard-drive disk on Aspire 7 to facilitate users with speed and storage space at the same time.
The dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is a mid-range GPU and supports Nvidia’s Optimus technology. The graphics are sufficiently powerful to run modern games without any lag. The PCMark 10 results rank the system 5160 which indicates the system is rather well-rounded.
The battery on Wi-Fi testing attains a runtime of 6 ½ hours. While in the video testing the Aspire 7 lasted 6 hours only. So overall the system gives a somewhat better lasting battery than the same range of devices.
5: Acer Chromebook 15 CB5-571-58HF (Cheap Laptop for Zwift)
Acer came up with its biggest Chromebook – physically. From the start, Chromebooks have been evolving in every aspect from bigger screens to newer powerful processors like Intel’s Core i3 and i5. Those have always been the backbones of powerful laptops and ultrabooks.
Acer came up with a dynamic design and features never seen before in a Chromebook, a larger 15.6 inch full HD display with a 5th Gen Intel Core i5 processor. The improved processing power with the largest screen size in any Chromebook by now.
Asus is betting on the enhanced features to boost its market. Weighing only 4.8 pounds and measuring 0.97 x 15 x 9.6 inches, it makes the largest Chrome Operating system-based laptop.
It appears we cannot run the standard testing on a Chromebook, therefore there’s nothing to compare and contrast. The Chromebook 15 with Intel Core i5 processor does perform swiftly in browsing, streaming, and playing web games. Eliminating the performance issue in almost all the prior Chromebooks.
Chromebook 15 though with a larger chassis offers the same ports options similar to smaller models. An SD card slot, a USB 2.0 port, and a Kensington lock on the right. Power connector, a USB 3.0, headphone jack, and an HDMI output on the left. It comes with an HD webcam on the top of the display.
The extra space though makes extra room for a full-size island-style keyboard, with some Chrome custom-built features such as a dedicated search and instead of F1-F12 keys a row of Chrome functions.
The 15.6-inch display encloses the latest update in the Chromebook category with a Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution and an LED-backlit screen. The Intel HD Graphics give the needed boost for gameplay and high-definition video streaming.
Fitted with a 5th generation Intel Core i5-5200U 2.2 GHz processor coupled with 4GB RAM. Chromebook 15 comes with a 15.6-inch display boasting full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. Powered by a U-series chipset Chromebook 15 performs pretty awesome compared to other Chrome-based laptops.
The Chromebook with 6 second boot time and 5 second wake time, offers 32 GB solid-state storage, which is not much in spite of being double then usually assigned to Chrome-OS-based laptops – 16GB.
Google prompts users to utilize the cloud storage by offering 100GB of Google Drive storage with the laptop. Which makes sense as Chrome entirely relies on the web applications for productivity like Google Drive and suit of office apps.
Chromebook 15 offers credible multitasking capabilities, as for small older Chromebooks after opening eight or nine browsing tabs, the performance lags substantially. Also in some cases, if talking on multiple video streams you’ll probably feel the squeeze.
Bigger battery space allowed Acer to put 3220 mAh battery and performs much better than the competitors. On battery, the Chromebook 15 lasts up to 9 hours and can fully charge in two hours.
6: ASUS VivoBook S Ultra-Thin (Best Portable Laptop for Zwift)
Asus has always challenged the laptop market with its elegance. Asus launched its ultra-thin VivoBook S (S510UA-DS71) alongside the release of newer MacBooks and Dell XPS 15 – an astoundingly powerful lightweight with impressive features.
The VivoBook S boasts a full HD sharp display and sleek design. Beating most competitors vis-à-vis absolute value, superior design, vibrant display earning a top spot among notebooks. With middling battery life and low-quality webcam yet the VivoBook stands out in the Ultrabook market with its appealing sleek and elegant design and massive powerhouse performance.
This is one of the only full-size notebooks around with a 15-inch full HD IPS display, solid design, and weight of only 3.6 lbs., offering a backlit keyboard, excellent IO options, and all the modern hardware for a competitive price.
Made with silver aluminum on the hood and plastic on the interior it is one of the finest 15-inch laptops available in the market. Build quality is quite amazing while the light coloring serves as ideal for hiding marks and scratches.
Surely there are other such devices that offer premium builds like Dell XPS 15 or LG Gram 15, though this low price comparative to the aforementioned VivoBook is rather appealing.
The slim and sleek design with aluminum unibody shell measures only 0.7 by 14.2 by 9.6 inches, quite trimmer than the majority of 15.6-inches laptops.
Weighing only 3.6 pounds with more screen size and narrow bezels, and the chrome Asus logo at the center of the brushed aluminum lid gives it a premium look.
VivoBook is also pragmatic, it’s pretty easy to carry around with compact size and weight and fits nicely on the lap. Despite its shrinking size and compact design, Asus put some useful IO options. With three USB slots, a USB Type C, a card reader, an HDMI port. All in all the VivoBook S is wonderfully crafted with superb design and higher performance.
VivoBook S510 comes with a matte finish, IPS full HD 1920 by 1080. NanoEdge display with an ultra-narrow 7.8mm bezel that gives an 80 percent screen-to-body ratio. Using 178° wide-view technology to assure that colors and contrast remain vivid and bold, even when viewed at sharp angles.
The Splendid utility allows you to choose from many modes like normal, eye-care, or you can custom choose the color temperature according to your choice. The high-definition screen gives sharp detail and contrast.
The VivoBook S offers a backlit island-style keyboard and the plastic keys give stiff feedback, which thwarts the otherwise elegant design. The layout of keys is good with suitable size and space and types accurately.
The touchpad is a plastic made Elan click-pad without buttons and comes with Microsoft Precision drivers. The touchpad works smoothly and gestures have no issue performing. On the top right corner, there’s a fingerprint reader that works with Windows Hello gesture.
Asus VivoBook S powered by Intel i7 U-series chip 8550U, with 8GB RAM and a combo drive of 256GB SSD and a 1TB HHD. The Intel I U-series CPU is capable of handling anything. With Intel integrated HD graphics of 1GB, the system gives a pretty solid outcome. The machine is powerful enough to play games and light video editing, with smooth playability.
Asus put a 42 Wh battery to save space and weight, which is comparatively small to the average battery offered by laptops nowadays. For that reason the VivoBook does struggle a bit, overseeing around 3 hours on multitasking 5 hours on video playing. On the bright side, the Asus couples the laptop with a solid quick charger that can charge 60 percent of the battery in just 50 minutes.
Overall the battery won’t last a full workday and will require charging in between which can be the wanting side of the otherwise powerful Ultrabook.