Which notebook is best

Our pick for the best overall laptop, the Dell XPS 13 , is the option we recommend to most people, but something from the list below should suit your needs. No laptop in the past few years has been more influential than the XPS It started the race to thinner bezels back in , which has now spread to every gadget that has a screen.

The latest XPS 13 made the screen larger using a aspect ratio, all while shrinking the bottom bezel. The result is a larger screen without needing a larger overall laptop, another trend that many other laptops have come to copy. That update of the Dell XPS 13 also received a larger keyboard and touchpad, making use of every possible surface of the device.

It all adds up to what is undoubtedly the best laptop you can buy. Read our in-depth Dell XPS 13 review. It might not look any different, but the most recent MacBook Air is a huge departure from the Macs of recent years. Despite not increasing the price of the laptop, this M1 chip brings a few major advantages to the MacBook Air, making it the perfect laptop for college students. The two big improvements the M1 brings are in battery life and performance.

The old MacBook Air was hamstrung by a slow, dual-core processor. The battery life, though, is really what makes this the ultimate student laptop.

Read our in-depth MacBook Air M1 review. You can expect the Acer Swift 3 to get updated with the latest Ryzen processors soon, which should deliver even more performance. Before you buy, though, make sure you check out the best Black Friday laptop deals. Acer typically offers several of its more popular laptops at steep discounts during this sales period.

Read our in-depth Acer Swift 3 review. The Pixelbook Go, though, makes a serious case for a Chromebook with a bit more finesse. Thanks to its ultra-light 2. You do, of course, face the usual limitations with Chrome OS.

Read our in-depth Google Pixelbook Go review. But with the Surface Pro 8, it received the upgrades it always deserved. From display brightness and vividness, to battery life, the X17 gave a stellar performance that put it on a par or transcended the competition.

It's a prime example of what a gamer-centric desktop replacement should be. Alienware even brought back a fan favorite — the light up touchpad while tweaking the company's proprietary Cryo-Tech cooling solution. It a beautiful badass of a gaming laptop and if you have the budget, it should definitely sit at the top of your list. See our full Alienware X17 review. Lenovo made our favorite business laptop even better by improving its speakers, giving it a svelte carbon fiber texture and adding some useful security features, including a webcam shutter and IR camera.

You even get far-field microphones in case you want to use a digital assistant. On top of that, you get strong performance and a fast SSD. That means if you're working on large spreadsheets with plenty of calculations, the X1 Carbon will handle them with aplomb.

You can also expect long battery life on the p model and two gorgeous, p and 4K display options, all in an impossibly lightweight chassis. Price is another big selling point of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet. Everyone likes getting more for less. With the Chromebook Duet, you get the colorful display and solid performance. Overall, we recommend the Duet for kids who want an attractive 2-in-1 for light gaming, YouTube, Netflix and web browsing.

Best of all, it's hundreds of dollars cheaper than a similarly-specced Windows 10 laptop. It's a great starter system for kids and secondary device for more advanced users. Read our full Lenovo Chromebook Duet review. The Surface Laptop 4 proves, a few tweaks are sometimes all that's needed to refine a not-quite-there-yet product like its predecessor.

Our biggest complaints with the previous model, the subpar speeds and endurance, were addressed with the new chips.

With those major drawbacks resolved, the inch Surface Laptop 4, with its sleek design, colorful display, and excellent keyboard and touchpad, finally shines. It should be on every shopper's shortlist as one of the best laptops on the market. The Surface Laptop 4 addresses the major flaws we found in the Surface Laptop 3 by delivering faster performance and longer battery life.

With the right CPU, the Surface Laptop 4 has all of a sudden become a laptop with very few downsides. The sleek, sturdy design is as stylish as ever, the inch panel is bright and vivid, and the keyboard and trackpad are darn-near class-leading.

Bigger is better, particularly when it comes to the Dell XPS Since its reemergence onto the premium laptop market, the big brother of the XPS 15 and 13 has flexed its muscle at every turn, serving up big heaps of performance, a head-turning inch display, and excellent audio. And it has done so without being any bigger or heavier than your average inch laptop.

Thanks to its 11th Gen Intel processor and series Nvidia GPU, the premium system has more than enough power to keep even its fiercest competitors struggling to keep up. See our full Dell XPS 17 review. Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing laptops for over two decades. We test over different models per year, subjecting each system to a series of rigorous benchmarks that provides a complete picture of performance, battery life and usability. Our expert reviewers also use each product to see how it looks and feels in everyday situations.

Because we see so many different notebooks, we can compare each to its direct competitors and give you an idea of how it stacks up to the average laptop in its price band. When we bring a laptop into our laboratory, our goal is to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use a number of industry standard benchmarks such as Geekbench and 3DMark, we focus heavily on real-world tests that we have developed in-house.

To test endurance, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at nits of brightness until the system runs out of juice. To judge pure processing power, we use a giant spreadsheet macro that matches 65, names with their addresses, a video transcoder that converts a 4K video to p and the Geekbench 4 synthetic test.

We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. See this page on How We Test Laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures. When shopping for a laptop, there's a lot to consider. To help you choose a system, we've put our up-to-date list of favorite notebooks above, along with five points to keep in mind when choosing a system. Knowing a laptop's screen size tells you a lot about its portability overall.

If you want to use your computer on your lap or carry it around a lot, go for one with a 12, 13 or inch display. If you want to use the computer on tables and desks and won't carry it around much, a inch model may give you more value. Some gaming rigs, media machines and workstations even have 17 or inch screens, but those are hardest to carry. More and more of today's laptops are 2-in-1s with screens that either bend back degrees or detach so you can use them as tablets. If you like the idea of using your laptop in slate mode for drawing, media consumption or just using it standing up, a 2-in-1 could be for you.

However, you can often get better features or a lower price by going with a traditional clamshell-style laptop.

Unless you only plan to use your laptop on your desk, battery life matters. Even within the home or office, having plenty of juice enables you to work on the couch or at the conference table, without being chained to the nearest outlet.

For the best portability, we recommend getting a laptop that lasted over 8 hours on the Laptop Mag Battery Test. The longest-lasting laptops endure for over 10 hours. You can spend a lot of time delving into specs, but here are the key components to think about.

Laptop Mag. The other piece you'll want to consider is the display. For gaming, look for screens with a high refresh rate of Hz or faster so games look smoother while playing.

CNET editors pick the products and services we write about. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Joshua Goldman. Best small 2-in-1 HP Spectre x Jump to details.

Best inch laptop for creators on a budget Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. Best Surface laptop Microsoft Surface Pro 8. Best Chromebook Acer Chromebook Spin Best small laptop Dell XPS Best laptop on a budget Acer Swift 3. Best inch lightweight laptop LG Gram Best and Best entry-level gaming laptop Dell G Best gaming laptop for impressing at work Razer Blade Pro Best small 2-in HP Spectre x Best inch laptop for creators on a budget.

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. Best MacBook Air. Apple MacBook Air M1 Best Surface laptop. Microsoft Surface Pro 8. Best MacBook Air alternative. Lenovo Yoga 7i inch. Best Chromebook. Acer Chromebook Spin Best small laptop. Dell XPS HP Pavilion Aero Best laptop on a budget. Acer Swift 3. Best MacBook Pro. Apple MacBook Pro , inch. Best MacBook Pro inch alternative.

Razer Blade Best inch lightweight laptop. And HP has added a row of convenient hotkeys to the keyboard, including kill switches for the microphone and webcam. The Ryzen U in my model did an outstanding job with a fairly heavy load of multitasking. The MacBook Pro has a slightly different design and look than the Air, as well as a few additional features like the Touch Bar. But the two have the same processor.

The main difference is that the Pro includes a fan the Air is fanless , which means it can sustain heavy workloads for a longer period of time without needing to throttle its performance. The Pro also achieved a significantly higher score than the Air in a minute loop of Cinebench R23; the scores were closer together after a single run.

And you can even play some games on this thing: it broke 60fps on Rocket League , League of Legends , and Overwatch , and even managed 36fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider at its lowest settings. The port selection is limited as is customary for modern XPS models and the keyboard is a bit flat for my taste. But overall, the 2-in-1 excels on the fundamentals: build quality, display, performance, and battery life.

What more could you want? The Dell XPS 13 is a compact and reliable laptop. Its beautiful chassis, excellent display, and great performance make it an excellent choice for general-purpose users. My review unit an i7 model blew through the work tasks I needed it to do without any slowdown or heat. It did quite well, and handily beat its 10th Gen predecessor in both gaming and media work. But if you like the look and feel of the XPS 13 and would prefer a clamshell model or need a bouncier keyboard , this XPS is still a great option.

This model has worse battery life, but does deliver a stunning picture. The inch MacBook Pro is the best Apple laptop for power users. Most importantly, the keyboard is good again. Apple has crammed three speakers into each side, including two woofers.

The result is balanced audio with audible bass and great stereo separation. For those who need a laptop that can crank through editing video, working with multiple audio tracks, or processing large batches of photos, the inch MacBook Pro is the king of the hill. The Duet is tailor-made to be used around the house and on the go, weighing just 2.

The Chromebook Duet boasts long battery life and has a aspect ratio display to fit more content on the screen at once.