What Are NVIDIA MAX-Q Laptops?

If you’re looking for a new Windows-based laptop and you’re somewhat interested in performance, you might come across models that are marketed as “featuring “NVIDIA MAX-Q.” But that description is somewhat nebulous: MAX-Q isn’t a specific NVIDIA graphics card, or even a hardware feature at all. So what exactly does this description mean, and does it make a gaming-grade laptop any more desirable than a non-Q laptop?