Best Laptops (2026): My Honest Advice Having Tested Hundreds | WIRED

Overview

I've been reviewing laptops for well over a decade, sometimes testing over 30 devices per year. As you can probably guess, they aren't all winners, and many should be avoided—no matter how cheap the discount is. Good news—it's my job to recommend laptops that fit your budget and won't make you regret your purchase six months later. So, don't fall for the marketing, fake sales, or knock-off brands on Amazon. These are my favorite laptops that I've tested myself and would highly recommend you buy.

For more guidance, also see my recommendations in specific categories, such as Best Mac Books, Best Gaming Laptops, Best Chromebooks, Best Budget Laptops, Best Windows Laptops, and Best 2-in-1 Laptops. My guide to How to Choose a Laptop may also help if you're undecided.

Details

When friends or family ask what laptop to buy, I always start with the Mac Book Air. This little laptop is far more powerful than most people realize. With the update to the M5, its GPU is now as powerful as the M3 Pro Mac Book Pro, speeding up everything from games to video renders. That's not at all what the Mac Book Air is designed for, but the performance is there when you want to dabble. It's what makes it feel like a do-it-all machine, all contained in a fanless chassis that's still one of the thinnest laptops you can buy. Oh, and did I mention it'll last well over a full work day away from the wall and perform as well on battery as when plugged in? In almost every aspect, it's the gold standard.

You might dissuaded from the Mac Book Air for the attractive price of the new Mac Book Neo. But if you work in front of a computer for eight hours a day, the performance, extra memory, super fast storage speed, and Thunderbolt ports make the Mac Book Air the right option. Unlike with the Neo, you'll never have to stop and wonder if you've got the right computer for the job. (If you don't already know that you need a Mac Book Pro for your work, you probably don't.)

I know not everyone wants a Mac. Not everyone wants to submit to walled garden of Apple, or maybe there are specific applications you rely on that require Windows. Windows has a really solid alternative to the Mac Book Air: the Surface Laptop 13.8 (also known as the 7th Edition). It's almost as good as the Mac Book Air in many different areas, and it even surpasses it in others. The Mac Book Air might be slightly thinner, but the Surface Laptop comes with an additional USB-A port. There are lots of little tradeoffs like that. My favorite aspect of the Surface Laptop 13.8 is the screen, though. This is easily the superior screen compared to the Mac Book Air, offering a touchscreen, a 120-Hz refresh rate, and a taller 3:2 aspect ratio. Like the Mac Book Air, there's a 15-inch version as well that's otherwise identical.

My one caveat with this current version of the Surface Laptop is that it came out in mid-2024, and we've been waiting for the update to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 chips with improved performance. These are rolling out on other laptops, but Microsoft has yet to announce a refreshed Surface Laptop. My best guess would be an announcement around the Microsoft Build developer conference in early June, but we'll have to wait and see.

Lastly, I'll point you in the direction of the Asus Zenbook S 16. I've always appreciated this laptop for its stunning design. That all-white aesthetic, oversized trackpad, and those thin bezels make it stand out. There's also the fact that it's only 0.48 inches thick, which is very close to as thin as the Mac Book Air. My only problem with this laptop has been that the pricing refused to drop throughout much of last year. It was hard to justify at over

1,500, regardless of how polished it felt. These days, the price is hovering around or under

1,000, making it much easier to swallow. What you get is an absolutely stacked laptop, with more memory and twice the storage as the Mac Book Air. The OLED display is also gorgeous. It's high-resolution at 2880 x 1800 and has a 120-Hz refresh rate. It doesn't get much more high-end than that.

Buy one of those three laptops, and you'll find very little to complain about. But not everyone has

1,000 or more to spend on a laptop. And even though a good discount will never raise a decent into the category of the three laptops listed above, you'll likely be surprised by just how good laptops have become that falls under

800.

Everyone has a different idea of “cheap," but conventionally, these are laptops that land below

750 or so. This is where Windows laptops really shine these days, as they often offer great specs for less money. And in case you haven't been paying attention, the latest silicon from Qualcomm and Intel have dramatically improved battery life, and can now play in the same ballpark as Apple. The best deal of them all has to be the HP Omni Book 5. For just

500, this little laptop offers a Snapdragon X processor, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. It even has an OLED screen! It'd be a bit harder to recommend at the full retail price of

800 (if only because the resolution of the screen is just 1920 x 1200), it's an unbeatable deal at

500.

The Dell 14 Plus is one step up from there, with a current starting price of

650. The specs are comparable, as is the battery life and performance. You'll get a bit more graphics thanks to the switch to Intel, but they otherwise feel similar in quality. The major upgrade you get with the Dell 14 Plus is the display, which is higher-resolution at 2560 x 1600. It's not OLED like the Omni Book 5, but the sharper screen results in an overall better experience that's worth the

150 in my book.

Speaking of better displays, that's where the Mac Book Neo really shines. This is Apple's new entry-level device, which starts at $599. It has the best display on a laptop you can buy at this price, and gets you the mac OS experience at an unprecedented price. Apple prioritized its front-of-screen experience to give it a premium feel, whether that's in the display, the build quality, or even the keyboard. The 8 GB of RAM is a major drawback, as is the slower ports and SSD performance. As I said above, the Mac Book Air is the better choice for most remote workers. But for students, travelers, or anyone whose use of a laptop is a bit more minimal, the Mac Book Neo is the most premium-feeling laptop you can buy at this price.

Given how good some of these other budget laptops are, it's a bit harder to find a place for Chromebooks. The best of the bunch is still the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, which is the most premium Chromebook ever made, sporting an OLED screen, 16 GB of RAM, and competitive battery life with the Mac Book Neo. $649 is probably more than what most people want to spend on a Chromebook, that has more to do with the perception of Chromebooks and less to do with the quality of this particular laptop.

There are much cheaper Chromebooks out there, of course, but once you get under

500, they usually come with some considerable drawbacks to the quality of the screen and touchpad. The one exception is the Acer Chromebook Plus 516. While it's a bit thick and the screen isn't the sharpest (especially for a 16-inch laptop), it's the best laptop you can buy under

300.

The M5 Max Mac Book Pro is the real deal. Not only is it immensely powerful, it's also surprisingly portable and gets fantastic battery life. Those three things don't seem physically possible, but the 16-inch M5 Max Mac Book Pro pulls it off. That's been true of the “Max” chips for years, but with the M5 generation, it's never been more impressive. Not only does this year's M5 Max greatly expand the capabilities of the GPU again, it also significantly bumps up this laptop's on-device AI processing with a more efficient Neural Engine, AI accelerators in each of the 40 GPU cores, and faster memory bandwidth. It's one of the most powerful AI laptops you can buy, which is only going to appeal to a fraction of the demographic. But the Mac Book Pro is not for everyone. It's for professional creatives and engineers that run heavy, taxing applications all day.

There are a number of Windows alternatives to the Mac Book Pro, such as the Asus Pro Art P16 and Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i. And while these are both powerful, they both use hot-and-heavy discrete graphics cards that significantly reduce the battery life to achieve that level of performance. That's why the Dell XPS 14 takes a different approach, ditching the discrete GPU for Intel's new X9 chip (also known as B390). The results are seriously impressive, replicating the performance of an RTX 4050 without the downsides of using a discrete GPU. More than that, as a laptop, the Dell XPS 14 has a level of polish really only seen on Mac Books—and I might even say it surpasses it in some areas.

Gaming is the other major thing extra performance is needed for. While you can certainly use something like the Dell XPS 14 for gaming, you'll want something dedicated to gaming if you're gaming more than a couple times a week. Having tested dozens of gaming laptops over the past year, the Lenovo LOQ 15 really stands out. So many cheap gaming laptops only come with an RTX 5050, which is an entry-level Nvidia GPU. The LOQ 15 is thick and fairly plain-looking, but it really has the performance where it counts. At the Medium graphics preset, you can get well over 60 FPS (frames per second) in almost any game, and up to 113 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077. For the price, that's really impressive.

There's a whole world of gaming laptops outside the budget-tier stuff, though. I've tested an assortment of options, and I always come back to the Razer Blade 14 and Razer Blade 16. Both are extremely well-made, portable, and minimalist, which is how these laptops have earned the reputation of being the Mac Books of PC gaming. That also comes with a Mac Book Pro-like prices. But the excellent design means these laptops work just as well for work or school as they do for gaming. You won't struggle to lug this thing around campus like other gaming laptops. While there are more powerful gaming laptops out there, there's truly nothing quite like the Razer Blades.

If you stick with one of the laptops above, you will be very happy with your purchase. They're all laptops I've come back to repeatedly over the past year or two. However, there might be an individual feature you're looking for—or maybe you really are trying to hit a certain price point that isn't represented above. Below, I've included some of the other laptops I've recently tested and enjoyed at some level. They each have at least one issue that give me hesitation, but for the right person (and discount), they could be worthwhile options.

Framework Laptop 13 for $899: This unique laptop is fully repairable and accessible, including the CPU and motherboard. There's nothing else like it out there. The Framework Laptop 16 gets you better performance, while the Framework Laptop 12 is the budget option.

Mac Book Pro M5 for $1,599: It's not a significant step up from the Mac Book Air in terms of performance, and it's quite a bit thicker. The Mini-LED screen and extra ports are what you're paying for.

Asus Zenbook A14 for $700: This laptop's calling card is the portability, as it's a half-pound lighter than the Mac Book Air, without making compromises in build quality.

Lenovo Yoga 9i for $1,550: This high-end 2-in-1 laptop is one of the most premium feeling Windows laptops you can buy, but it's priced too high to be competitive.

Acer Nitro V 16 for $885: This gaming laptop is one of the cheapest you can buy, and it's a solid option as a starter. But the 130-watt power supply is underpowered, meaning you don't get the full performance out of the GPU while gaming.

Asus Vivobook 14 for $610: While it has great battery life, the HP Omni Book 5 14 and Dell 14 Plus both offer better displays and specs for a similar-priced budget laptop.

Lenovo Legion 7i for $1,749: This all-white, high-end gaming laptop is one of my favorites aesthetically, and it performs just as well. But expect to pay extra for all those bells and whistles.

Asus CX14 Chromebook for

139: A sub-

200 Chromebook is never going to be compromise-free, but if your budget really is this low, this is as good as you'll find.

Alienware 16X Aurora for $1,650: Another great gaming laptop, this one with the typical Alienware flair. It has a higher-resolution display, but if price is your concern, the Lenovo LOQ 15 is still the way to go

If you're shopping for a laptop, you probably have an idea of how much you want to spend. But some context might help put things in perspective. The cheapest laptops cost around

200, but they can range up to

5,000. Meanwhile, the average amount people spend, according to the best data we have, is around

750. That lands decidedly in the midrange, splitting between the more expensive devices that are over

1,000 and the budget-tier machines you find below $700.

When we talk about pricing, it's often the “starting” price of the laptop, meaning the lowest-priced configuration. This is really important to consider, as you want to compare devices apples-to-apples as much as possible. For example, a cheaper laptop might start at $750 with 256 GB of storage, while a more premium laptop might start at this same price but come with 512 GB or even 1 TB of storage. Increasingly, you can find some really decent laptops around this price, some of which we’ve listed below.

If your budget needs to be under

750, though, there are still good options. Laptops below this price tend to compromise in one area or another. Most commonly, it's the quality of the display and touchpad that suffers, as these are things you can't see from a spec sheet or reference photo. Chromebooks often give you the best bang for your buck, especially if you're trying to spend

500 or less.

So, why spend more? Well, there are two primary reasons. First, you might want a more premium design, perhaps one that has a more daring aesthetic or high-end components. Take the Mac Book Pro, for example. It starts at

600 more than the Mac Book Air but comes with a brighter Mini-LED display, significantly better speakers, and more ports. The second primary reason to spend more than

750 or so is to get more performance. Whether for gaming or for content creation, laptops with discrete GPUs are more expensive, which is why it's hard to find a worthwhile gaming laptop under

1,000. If you're buying a gaming laptop, plan to spend at least

1,500.

Unlike the smartphone world, the biggest laptop brands have been around in the tech industry for over 40 years now. Taking Apple out of the picture, four laptop brands stand above the rest, following the latest trends and technology, while backing that up with reliable support and services.

Lenovo is the biggest PC brand in the world, at least in terms of global shipments. It's perhaps most well-known for its familiar sub-brands like Think Pad and Yoga, but it also isn't afraid to take risks with more experimental designs and advanced technology. Lenovo has also made a name for itself in the gaming space, too, with its Legion laptops, known for balancing performance and features at the most competitive prices.

Asus has quickly become a favorite, notable for its sheer number of laptops available in the consumer market. The company takes a similar approach to Lenovo, and that's led Asus to quickly innovate on new technology and designs, while also launching premium clamshell laptops at more affordable prices than its competitors. Gaming laptops in particular are a space that Asus has come to dominate in, with the ROG Zephyrus, Strix, and TUF brands leading the way.

Dell and HP are a bit more conservative, though they aren't without their notable designs as well. Interestingly, the companies have both gone through a significant laptop rebrand. HP has introduced “Omnibook” as a replacement for the Spectre and Envy sub-brands in 2024, while Dell started 2025 by removing its well-known sub-brands entirely, including Inspiron and XPS. Dell has since reversed course and now XPS is back.

Other laptop makers in the mix include Microsoft Surface, Samsung, Acer, LG, and MSI, though none of them have as big a footprint globally in laptops as the top four.

If none of these laptops quite rings your bell, that's OK! There are far more laptops than we have time to test. To help you make smart choices, we put together a complete laptop buying guide. We also have the details about all the CPUs and GPUs you need to know about. We recommend sticking to these guidelines:

RAM: Is there a more contentious component in laptops than memory? In most cases these, make sure you get 16 GB of RAM. That's become the new standard in even more affordable laptops. Upgrading to 32 GB is even better and means you never have to worry about running out of memory, especially if you're a gamer or video editor. The recent memory shortage may change RAM configuration options soon (and overall laptop pricing), however, though we haven't yet seen how exactly that will play out. Apple's launch of the 8-GB Mac Book Neo may end up having an influence on the direction things head as well.

CPU: In the world of Windows laptops, you have three CPU brands to choose from: Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm. Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 launched in late 2024, providing a huge increase in battery life. It also has the best integrated graphics of the three. Core Ultra Series 3 is just now rolling out, and based on my own testing, is extremely impressive in performance and efficiency. AMD chips have been primarily used in gaming laptops, as they’ve struggled to take much ground from Intel. Its next-gen chips, AMD Ryzen AI 400 series, are also rumored to launch in 2026. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, however, have challenged Intel in a serious way over the past year with its ARM-based chips, offering some of the best battery life we've ever seen on Windows machines. The second generation of these chips, Snapdragon X2, was announced last fall and will launch in devices in 2026.

Discrete graphics: Want to play AAA PC games or edit video on your laptop? You’ll likely want a standalone graphics processor. At this point, Nvidia is the primary option. The RTX 5090 launched in 2025 as the most powerful new GPU available, but the 40-series remains a good option. Integrated graphics have improved significantly over the years though, too, especially with Apple, AMD, and Intel's latest offerings, such as the Apple M5 or the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H.

Screen: The display depends on the size of the laptop. A 1200-pixel resolution (HD+) screen on a 13- or 14-inch laptop looks sharp enough, but you’ll want more pixels on larger displays, such as a 2560 x 1600, 2880 x 1800, or 3840 x 2400. While IPS screens will be good enough for most people, OLED or Mini-LED are becoming more common, which provide better color accuracy, contrast, and decent HDR performance.

Connectivity: Ports are important, though everyone needs something different. For most people, though, we suggest at least two USB-C ports and at least one USB-A and HDMI for those legacy devices. (Remember that nearly all laptops today use one of those USB-C ports for the power adapter.) Thankfully, most laptops still have headphone jacks, but always check, because a few daring machines have dropped it. Lastly, make sure there's Wi-Fi 6E support or newer. Even if you don't have a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 router yet, it's a good bet you will in the future (see our Best Routers or Best Mesh Systems guides if you need a new one).

Battery life: Battery life is extremely competitive these days, with Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel all making highly ambitious battery life claims. Most laptops with the latest chips (and without discrete graphics) will get you over 10 hours of battery life, or many more if your workload is lighter.

In the world of Windows laptops, there are three primary options for CPUs: Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. All three companies have good options, but it really depends on the type of laptop. For premium laptops, you'll want something like the Intel Core Ultra 258V or Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite. Meanwhile, for budget laptops, Snapdragon X is the best option. And for gaming laptops, I'd recommend something from AMD like the Ryzen AI 9 365. All three companies have announced next-gen chips for 2026, though, and there's some exciting stuff coming soon.

Intel's latest chips, known as either Core Ultra Series 3 or codename Panther Lake, are slowly starting roll out it new laptops, such as Dell XPS 14. These chips are a huge step forward over the previous generation, both in terms of CPU and integrated graphics performance. It's very impressive, but AMD and Qualcomm also have new silicon coming out soon.

Qualcomm made a huge entrance in 2024 with its Snapdragon X chips. These ARM-based chips, like Apple's M-series chips, emphasize efficiency, which drastically improves battery life. This has been a game-changer for Windows laptops across a wide range of price points. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite is the highest-end option in terms of performance, but the Snapdragon X Plus and base Snapdragon X still offer equally strong battery life, despite showing up in much cheaper laptops. Qualcomm recently unveiled the Snapdragon X2 platform which includes the X2 Elite Enhanced, X2 Elite, and X2 Plus so far. Laptops are still slowly rolling out and becoming available.

Over on Team Red, AMD has grown into a competitive player in the gaming laptop space in particular. Its latest gaming chips are the most powerful gaming hardware you'll find on a laptop, including the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D. Unfortunately, it's still hard to find many laptops supporting these killer chips. The company also has its Ryzen AI 300 H and HX chips, which are a bit more commonly found across gaming laptops. AMD does have its mainstream chips as well, as part of the Ryzen AI 300 Series, but they haven't made their way into as many laptops at this point and don't have as long a battery life as Intel and Qualcomm's latest options. AMD's new chips are the Ryzen AI 400 series, which are also arriving soon.

I have been reviewing laptops for a decade, and WIRED contributor Chris Null has been testing these machines for 25 years. We test each laptop we review in a variety of situations, including both synthetic benchmark tests, real-world use cases, and comparisons against similar equipment. We don’t consider hardware in a vacuum: Our reviews aim to match laptops with the users that will benefit from them the most, taking performance, usability, portability, and price all into account.

We put every laptop through a gauntlet of tests before writing a review and assigning a rating.

Hands-on use: We evaluate the exterior of the device. We compare how thin and light it is against other laptops. We repeatedly open and close the lid to test the quality and ease of use of the hinge. We push on weak points like the keyboard and lid to test build quality. We furiously type on the keyboard and swipe around on the touchpad to ensure it's comfortable and precise. These are all things you can't see just by looking at a device's landing page on Amazon. We use the laptop itself for many days (and sometimes weeks) to report on any quirks that might pop up, such as oddly placed ports, a surfeit of preloaded shovelware, or unexpected problems that make using the laptop difficult.

Sights and sounds: Once we boot up a device itself, it's all about the sights and sounds of the laptop. The screen is paramount, as it's the world through which you experience the entirety of the device. There's a lot you can tell about the brightness, colors, and contrast of a display just by looking at it. Beyond just subjective testing, we also use a Spyder colorimeter to measure the brightness, contrast, color saturation, and color accuracy of a display. If it's an HDR-capable screen, we also test the peak brightness of the display in HDR content. We also test the webcam and speakers of a laptop to see if they are worthy of your video calls and music streaming sessions.

Performance testing: Finally, we test performance. There are a lot of ways to go about this, but we always evaluate a laptop's performance based on what it's intended for. We don't expect a $500 budget laptop to perform like a powerhouse gaming laptop, nor do we expect a gaming laptop to get 18 hours of battery life. Our testbed includes more than 20 synthetic benchmarks, though this is constantly evolving and is dependent on the unit’s CPU and operating system, as mac OS and Snapdragon-based laptops have fewer benchmarks available. Those benchmarks include various tests within the latest versions of Geekbench, PCMark, 3DMark, Procyon, GFXBench, Pugetbench, Superposition, Cinebench, and various gaming-related tests such as 3DMark and Cyberpunk 2077. Note that WIRED does not, in general, report raw benchmark scores. In addition to paying attention to the scores these benchmarks produce, we also observe the volume and speed of the fans, the surface temperature of the laptop, and the effect it has on battery life.

It's a lot, I know. But we're thorough because we want to stand by our recommendations and ensure that the laptops we rate highly are worth the money.

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Key Takeaways

I've been reviewing laptops for well over a decade, sometimes testing over 30 devices per year
For more guidance, also see my recommendations in specific categories, such as Best Mac Books, Best Gaming Laptops, Best Chromebooks, Best Budget Laptops, Best Windows Laptops, and Best 2-in-1 Laptops
When friends or family ask what laptop to buy, I always start with the Mac Book Air
You might dissuaded from the Mac Book Air for the attractive price of the new Mac Book Neo
I know not everyone wants a Mac