For that budget and use case, you're looking at either a mid-range gaming laptop or a performance-focused business laptop with decent integrated graphics, and honestly the gaming laptop route usually gives you better value. The Lenovo Legion 5 or ASUS TUF series frequently hit around $1000 on sale and give you solid specs like an RTX 3050 or 4050, Ryzen 5 or Intel i5 processor, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD which handles both work and casual gaming really well. The Legion 5 specifically has surprisingly good build quality for a gaming laptop and doesn't look too aggressive if you're taking it to meetings, plus the thermals are decent so it won't sound like a jet engine under load.
If you want something more professional-looking, the Dell G15 is another solid option in that range, or you could look at refurbished business laptops like a ThinkPad P series or Dell Precision that come with discrete GPUs, though gaming performance won't be quite as good as dedicated gaming laptops. Just avoid anything with only integrated graphics if you actually want to game - an Intel Iris Xe or AMD Radeon can handle very light gaming and older titles, but you'll be disappointed trying to run anything recent. Also make sure whatever you get has at least 16GB RAM because 8GB is barely usable in 2025, and check that the SSD is upgradeable since 512GB fills up fast if you're installing games. Watch for sales around major holidays because these laptops regularly drop $100-200 off, and don't sleep on refurbished or open-box deals from manufacturer outlets which can get you better specs for the same price.
