Whether you’re looking for a personal upgrade for work and play, a scholastic companion or something that allows you to take your professional work on the go, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve tested all the top options, including ultra-portable devices that you can take between home and the office, and powerhouses that can chomp through video editing and creative tasks.
Read more: Best 4K laptops: Expansive screens and crisp colours for stunning display
Our list includes options for both macOS and Windows users, so you can get a good overview of all the available options. If these don’t fit your needs, we’ve also got a separate guide to the best Chromebooks, as well as the best gaming laptops and the top 2-in-1 choices. Now, let’s dive into the picks.
Best laptops: Our top choices
Apple MacBook Air 15 (M2, 2023)
1. Best laptop overall
Power meets portability
$1049 $1299 Save $250
What do you get when you take one of the most popular laptops in the world and add a larger display? An absolute winner.
- Lovely spacious display
- Rock solid build quality
- Great battery life
The MacBook Air has been a longstanding favourite for anyone seeking quality, portability, performance and battery life. For 2023, Apple gave us a new option, which comes with a spacious 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display.
If you primarily use your laptop on the go, and not plugged into an external monitor, this is a very welcome upgrade. You can fit much more information on the screen at once, and the laptop still manages to be extremely lightweight and portable – tipping the scales at just 1.53kg.
There’s ample computing power from the M2 chip, and it’ll storm through lighter creative workloads, like Adobe Photoshop work, with great speed and efficiency. What’s more, it offers some of the best battery performance in the business, able to power through up to 18 hours on a single charge.
Asus Zenbook 15 OLED
2. Best Windows laptop
Stunning display and great performance
A gorgeous display, loads of power and an extremely thin and light chassis. There’s a lot to love about the Asus Zenbook 15 OLED.
- Gorgeous OLED display
- Plenty of power
- Thin, light and well built
- Battery life could be better
If you’re more into the Windows experience, then we think the Zenbook 15 OLED is one of the best options around. The display is slightly larger than the one on the MacBook Air 15, with a 15.6-inch screen but despite that, the Zenbook still weighs less, coming in at just 1.4kg – impressive stuff.
It’s a beautiful display, too, with a 2880×1620 resolution, smooth 120Hz refresh rate and the colour accuracy and deep inky blacks that you’d expect from a high-end OLED panel. There’s no notch, either. The downside to this lovely display is that it takes a lot of power to run, so you’ll get a modest battery life of just over 7 hours on a charge.
When it comes to performance, the Ryzen 7 7735U-powered model leaves little to be desired, outclassing many of its rivals in creative workloads and even managing to run some AAA games, like ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider,‘ at decent frame rates in high settings at 1080p.
Apple MacBook Pro 14in (M2, 2023)
3. Best laptop for professionals
The MacBook of choice for creative work
This MacBook Pro really lives up to its name, and after a few missteps with previous models, it’s now a really excellent choice for professionals again.
- Massive processing power
- Great port selection
- Incredible display
- It can get very expensive
- Slightly chunky design
The MacBook Pro got a full redesign in late 2021, with a minimal-bezel display (featuring a notch akin to the iPhone), the return of many lost ports (like the SD card reader and HDMI slot) and a huge amount of power.
It’s an absolute beast of a laptop, now even more so, thanks to the inclusion of Apple’s own M2 Pro or M2 Max chips, which make it the highest-performing MacBook Pro to date. If you’re into video editing, 3D rendering, or even a spot of gaming, this is the best portable tool in Apple’s lineup.
It’s certainly not designed for the casual laptop user – if the price wasn’t already an indicator – and is instead better suited to heavy-use professional platforms, or for those who plan to use their laptop day in and day out for the next few years, at least.
Acer Swift X 14
4. Best laptop for content creators
Stealthy design and top-tier performance
$1350 $1500 Save $150
With a dedicated GPU onboard the Acer Swift X 14 is an ideal companion for content creators on the go.
- Dedicated Nvidia GPU
- Impressive OLED panel
- Reasonable pricing
- The battery life isn’t too impressive
If you need a machine that can handle heavyweight creative tasks, like 4K video editing and 3D modelling, but don’t fancy the bulky and often garish design of a gaming laptop, then the Acer Swift X 14 is what you need.
Read more: Best Chromebook: Our pick of the top Chrome OS laptops available
Not only does it pack a high-performance Intel Core i7 13700H processor, but it has a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card. This will dramatically speed up your rendering times in applications like Adobe Premiere, and it’ll also allow you to play some games on the side.
This laptop also comes with a gorgeous OLED display with great colour accuracy, and it does so while remaining very portable, with a weight of just 1.55kg. To top it all off, it’s very reasonably priced, considering the specs on offer.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 5
5. Best premium Windows laptop
A Windows laptop with luxury fit and finish
$871 $999 Save $128
A lovely, premium-feeling, high-performance laptop for those who don’t need the convertibility of 2-in-1 devices.
- Best-in-class design
- Lovely keyboard and trackpad
- Brilliant speakers
- Not much has changed since the Surface Laptop 4
- Could use some more ports
The Microsoft Surface Laptop has been a favourite of ours for a long time now, it’s arguably the finest Windows laptop experience money can buy, with a level of fit and finish that’s unmatched and a Windows 11 install free from bloatware.
The latest model is essentially identical to the previous generation, with only an upgrade to 12th Gen Intel Processors, Thunderbolt 4 support and a new Sage green colourway to set it apart.
However, while it’s not the most exciting update, it was already one of our favourites, and the increased speed, better battery life and connectivity make it a very appealing pick. It’s essentially the Windows equivalent of a MacBook, and we mean that in a good way.
The best laptop: The bottom line
The MacBook Air 15 (M2, 2023) is our top recommendation due to a combination of its large high-quality display, portability, excellent performance, class-leading build quality and unmatched efficiency.
Apple MacBook Air 15 (M2, 2023)
$1049 $1299 Save $250
No matter what kind of work you do, there’s a good chance that the MacBook Air 15 can handle it with ease.
However, it’s not going to be the right choice for everyone, if you’re looking for something even more portable, then you might be better off with the 13-inch MacBook Air, instead. It’s smaller, lighter and cheaper.
If you prefer a Windows device, then there are endless options to choose from. Our favourite model that we’ve tested recently is the Asus Zenbook 15 OLED, which is extremely portable, packs a large OLED display and has boatloads of power.
How we chose these laptops
The Pocket-lint team has tested each and every laptop on this list. When testing laptops, we don’t just run some benchmarks and call it a day, we live with the product at home and on the go, ensuring it meets our expectations in every regard. We assess everything from the build quality and design to performance and battery life, and only the best models make it onto this page.
There are endless laptops to choose from, and we can’t include the perfect product for everyone, but we’ve tried to incorporate a wide selection of devices, running both MacOS and Windows and coming in at varying price points, to suit most consumers.
How to choose the best laptop: What’s your primary purpose?
Choosing a laptop isn’t that simple a process. Figuring out what you actually need a laptop for is essential – and also ties into figuring out what size laptop is best for you, as well as what other components you should prioritise. Are you looking for a laptop to take notes at college with? Or perhaps one to curl up in bed and watch TV and movies on? If you’re looking to game on it, that’ll change your needs as well.
This can help you narrow down whether you need a bigger display, more processing power or a graphics card in your laptop, or whether a simple and less powerful machine will do the job just as well.
How do you choose which laptop screen size is right for you?
Perhaps the biggest variable between different models of laptops, even from the same manufacturers, is how big they are. The size of a laptop’s display tends to dictate the size of its body overall, so it’s worth working out what size is going to be best for you.
13-inch models have become the standard size for many people, since they marry usability with real portability, but a bigger screen could be better if you’re planning to use it for work – letting you multitask and have multiple windows open.
What’s a good budget for a laptop?
As important for a laptop as it is for any other tech purchase is knowing how much you want to spend – between upgradeable components and different versions, many popular laptops can easily become frighteningly expensive as you customise them, so it’ll help in the long run if you have a clear idea of your budget ahead of time. The laptops on our list hit multiple budget points, so a good budget is the budget that fits your life.
Do you need a 2-in-1 laptop?
While some people might say they’re not laptops, a 2-in-1 device that lets you use it as a normal laptop or flip it up and use it like a tablet is becoming a more and more normal sight. We think these devices are really great, adaptable and interesting, but do keep in mind that the novelty may wear off for you after a few months.
So, before you get too tempted by a 2-in-1, think about whether you’re actually liable to use it in its folded-up forms.
Should I buy a Mac if I’ve never used one before?
Finally, there’s still a big divide in the laptop market, between Apple and everyone else. If you’re taken by the design of the MacBook line, it’s worth heading into an Apple Store or seeing if anyone you know has one you can try out, because the change from Windows to macOS (and vice versa) is one that can derail some people.
We think both operating systems are great, but, to some people, they’re like water and oil, so it’s worth test-driving either one if you’re not familiar with it, as this could steer you in the right direction.
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