The best laptops you can buy

We test a wide variety of laptops each year here at The Verge, and many of them are very good. But you can’t buy them all. So I’ve done the very difficult (very difficult, trust me) task of selecting some of the best laptops you can get. Whether you’re looking for a Chromebook, a gaming laptop, a 2-in-1 convertible, an ultralight notebook, or something that’s a little bit of each, I’ve got multiple options for you here. These aren’t necessarily the best laptops of all time, but they are, in my opinion, the best laptops you can buy right now.

Our current pick for the best laptop is the MacBook Air M3. It’s a device that does just about everything right. While it’s certainly not perfect, there are no major flaws. It’s a great pick for productivity, browsing, and even light gaming.

It's getting harder to buy a bad laptop, but what separates the best laptops from good laptops is how they balance power, efficiency, portability, and comfort. A great laptop should have a fantastic keyboard and trackpad — after all, those are the two biggest reasons you'd choose a laptop over a smartphone or tablet. Its display should be easy on the eyes, bright, and sharp enough that you aren't distracted by jagged edges and visible pixels. It should be powerful enough for most anything short of intensive video editing and advanced gaming. It should be easy to carry around from place to place, and it should be able to last all day without needing to be plugged in.

Our other picks for the best laptops, Chromebooks, and 2-in-1s include the MacBook Pro 16 and the Dell XPS 13 with a Snapdragon X Elite chip. Check out the full list of best laptop picks below or our roundup of the best gaming laptops, if you’re looking for a powerful machine that doesn’t sacrifice portability.

The best laptop

CPU: M3 (8-core) / GPU: M3 (8- or 10-core) / RAM: 8GB, 16GB, 24GB / Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB / Display: 13.6-inch or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, 2560 x 1664 or 2880 x 1864 , 60Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches or 0.45 x 13.40 x 9.35 inches / Weight: 2.7 pounds or 3.3 pounds

The Apple MacBook Air M3 is the best laptop for most people — Mac users, of course, but also the platform-agnostic or anyone who wants a no-fuss, straightforward machine that doesn’t bombard them with advertisements or bloatware. It’s a productivity laptop that can do a bit of everything, and it now comes in a 15-inch version for those who like their laptops a little larger. It’s hard to find another laptop that offers this kind of combination of performance and battery life in a thin and light chassis.

Despite losing its way around the mid-2010s, Apple has a long history of sending quality MacBooks to market, and the Air M3 is no different. A smooth, almost ethereal trackpad, check. Chiclet-style keyboard that makes typing feel like a dance, check. Fast Wi-Fi adapter, color-rich display, 1080p webcam, and MagSafe charging, check. The Air M3 wasn’t made for heavy gaming, video editing, or 3D modeling or for those who want more than two USB-C ports, but for nearly everyone else, it’s a great option.

It’s absolutely worth spending an extra $100 to get the Air M3 over the MacBook Air M2, which Apple still sells. It’s about 16 to 18 percent faster than Apple’s M2 chip, and the storage on the 256GB configurations is up to twice as fast. The new Airs also support two external displays with the lid closed, which is another improvement from the previous generation. The speakers on 15-inch Air M3 are vastly superior, especially on the low end. You can actually hear the bass, whereas on the 13-inch, it’s nearly nonexistent. If you opt for the midnight colorway in either model, keep a microfiber cloth handy. The amount of fingerprints it collects turns the chassis into a CSI’s playground.

We recommend upgrading the MacBook Air M3 to at least 16GB of memory. It will improve the laptop’s ability to multitask now and will give you a few extra years of service down the line. (Important since you’d have to buy a whole new laptop to upgrade the memory.) 256GB of storage is easier to get away with, given the plethora of cloud and external storage options available, so if you can only upgrade one thing, make it the memory. You get an automatic GPU bump when you do, anyway.

Best Chromebook

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 115U / GPU: Intel UHD / RAM: 8GB, 16GB LPDDR5 / Storage: 256GB, 512GB / Display: Touch 14-inch FHD 1920 x 1200, 60Hz IPS with stylus support, 340 nits / Dimensions: 12.35 x 8.84 x 0.71 inches / Weight: 3.21 pounds 

Like last year, Acer’s newest Chromebook Spin is the best Chromebook we’ve seen so far in 2024 — and it’s still part of the Plus line of Chromebooks, which now have Google Gemini features integrated with ChromeOS. It also comes with a 12-month subscription to the Google One AI premium plan, which includes 2TB of cloud storage space.

The Core Ultra 5 115U is slower than last gen’s Intel Core i5-1335U (the Ultra has eight cores with clock speeds up to 4.20GHz, while the Core i5 has 10 cores and goes up to 4.60GHz), but the Ultra Core has an NPU, which means it’s better suited for running AI-related tasks on-device. The new Spin Chromebook also supports the current LPDDR5 memory standard, which is faster than the previous generation in the 2023 Spin 714.

Acer upgraded some of the connectivity port options, too. The Spin 714 now has two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, instead of two USB-C 3.2 ports, for much faster data transfer and power delivery.

Best Snapdragon X Elite laptop

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 / GPU: Qualcomm Adreno / RAM: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB LPDDR5X (soldered) / Storage: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB / Display: Non-touch 13.4-inch FHD 1920 x 1200 120Hz, 500 nits or touch 13.4-inch QHD 2560 x 1600, 500 nits or touch 13.4-inch OLED 2880 x 1800 60Hz, 400 nits / Dimensions: 11.62 x 7.84 x 0.58–0.60 inches / Weight: 2.60–2.62 pounds

Out of all the Snapdragon Copilot Plus PCs we recently tested, the Dell XPS 13 has the best price to performance ratio. Both of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7s we tested also stood out (one of which had the same Snapdragon chip as the XPS 13), but Dell offers more balanced configuration options. Want 32GB of memory and 1TB of storage? Dell charges $1,600 while Microsoft charges $2,000. Dell also lets you mix and match more of its memory and storage options than Microsoft; it doesn’t tie a specific configuration to one chassis color.

The XPS 13 configuration we tested goes for $1,800, but you can save $500 by downgrading the OLED touchscreen to a non-touch 1200p display (and the refresh rate doubles to 120Hz). You get the same processor with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage space instead of the base 32GB of memory that comes with the OLED configuration, but 16GB is plenty for most people. (Dell does give you the option to upgrade the memory and storage if needed.)

Like the rest of Dell’s new XPS lineup, the Qualcomm XPS has the same “zero-lattice” chiclet keyboard, a borderless trackpad that blends into the chassis, and a “capacitive touch function row,” which is Dell’s take on the (RIP) 13-inch MacBook Pro touch bar. While I wasn’t thrilled with how it felt to type on the XPS 14’s keyboard, I liked it way better on the XPS 13. The keys felt less springy, and I didn’t hit the tilde (~) key every time I tried to hit the escape key thanks to the same keyboard being in a smaller chassis.

The best 16-inch Windows laptop

CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 / GPU: Radeon 890M, Radeon 880M  / RAM: 32GB, 24GB / Storage: 1TB / Display: touch 16-inch 2880 x 1800, 120Hz OLED with stylus support, 500 nits peak HDR / Dimensions: 13.92 x 9.57 x 0.47 ~ 0.51 inches / Weight: 3.21 pounds

The 16-inch Asus Zenbook S 16 is the best-looking, best-performing laptop we tested over the summer; it’s also so thin and lightweight you wouldn’t know it just by holding it! It can handle a little bit of everything, from emails to graphic design work, and it tackles gaming surprisingly well for a laptop without a separate graphics card. It’s miles ahead of what any Copilot Plus PC can do, too, including the Intel Core Ultra laptops we’ve recently tested. It’s a lovely, catch-all device.

There are only two Zenbook S 16 models as of now. The $1,700 one comes in gray with AMD’s flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip and 32GB of memory; and the $1,400 model comes in white with the lower-tier AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 and 24GB of memory. Otherwise, they are identical. Both feature OLED touch displays with a native 2880 x 1800 (3K) resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, stylus support, 1TB of storage, and the same ports / Wi-Fi adapter. Everything but the Windows version. (The more expensive model gets Home, the cheaper one gets Pro.)

One of the Zenbook’s niche but interesting features is that you can allocate up to 75 percent of the laptop’s total memory to the integrated graphics. Doing so can boost frame rates in games a smidge, but it really comes in handy for complex 3D rendering or anything else that needs a lot of graphics memory to process. At just 11 hours, its battery life doesn’t last as long as similar laptops we’ve tested, such as the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and Dell XPS 14, but it’s a small trade-off. There’s currently no other Windows laptop that offers as much performance and versatility in a 16-inch chassis for the price.

The best laptop for high-end gaming

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D / GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 4090 / RAM: 32GB / Storage: 1TB / Display: 17-inch IPS QHD, 240Hz display, 3ms, 300 nits, 100 percent DCI-P3 / Dimensions: 15.55 x 11.1 x 1.11 inches / Weight: 6.51 pounds

The ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D is big. It’s loud, it’s garish, and it’s flat-out the fastest gaming laptop we’ve tested. Thanks to its AMD Ryzen 9 79045HX3D processor, it leaves models with the same top-tier RTX 4090 graphics card and Intel’s fastest CPUs in the dust. It can run many of today’s AAA titles at 1440p with triple-digit frame rates.

The Scar 17 X3D has a 17-inch 2560 x 1440 240Hz screen with G-Sync, oodles of ports, a pleasant keyboard, and RGB galore. At over six and a half pounds and 17 inches on the diagonal, it’s your classic high-performance, barely portable gaming laptop.

Its webcam is potato, battery life is exactly as bad as you’d expect from everything we just listed, and it’s expensive, but for now this is the high-water mark for gaming laptops.

The best MacBook for photo and video editing

CPU: M3 Pro, M3 Max / GPU: M3 Pro, M3 Max / RAM: 18GB - 36GB (M3 Pro), 36GB - 128 GB (M3 Max) / Storage: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB / Display: 14.2 / 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR, 3024 x 1964 / 3456 x 2234, adaptive refresh up to 120Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 / 14.01 x 9.77 x 0.66 inches / Weight: 3.5 / 4.7 pounds (M3 Pro), 3.6 / 4.8 pounds (M3 Max)

If you need more power for intensive creative work — like 3D rendering and working with ultra-high-resolution photos and video — the MacBook Pro is your huckleberry. Both the 14- and 16-inch models are available with powerful M3 Pro or M3 Max processors. There’s also a 14-inch Pro with a plain-old M3 processor, but it’s kinda weirdly positioned and most people shouldn’t get it.

Processors (and the new space black color option) aside, the MacBook Pro has remained largely unchanged since 2021. It has a bright, beautiful, color-accurate, high-definition screen with HDR and adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz; amazing speakers, a comfortable keyboard and trackpad; and a good port loadout: three Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C 4 ports, plus HDMI and an SD card slot. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is a few hundred dollars cheaper than the 16-inch, but aside from the very lowest processor options, most configurations are available in either size, so pick whichever works for you.

In our benchmarks, which test a variety of creative tasks including encoding, playback, and export time, the MacBook Pro 16 did better than any laptop we’ve ever used — the only other machines that have come close to matching this thing in some of our benchmarks are high-end desktop PCs. The battery life is also record-shattering. The top-of-the-line 16-inch M3 Max model lasted around 18 hours in our most recent testing, with no battery-saving features enabled.

Most people who need more power than a MacBook Air — including pro photographers —will be fine with an M3 Pro model, which starts at $1,999 for the 14-inch with an 11-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 18GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD. The 16-inch starts at $2,499 for a 12-core CPU, 18-core GPU, 18GB of memory, and 512GB SSD. The Pro chip can be configured with up to 36GB of memory and a 4TB SSD, at the usual absurd Apple markups, and it supports up to two external displays.

If you absolutely need more GPU power — or more than two external monitors — you can step up to the M3 Max. The base M3 Max with 14 CPU cores and 30 GPU cores, plus 36GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, starts at $3,199 in the 14-inch and $3,499 in the 16-inch. There’s also an M3 Max with 16 CPU and 40 GPU cores, which starts at $3,699 and $3,999, respectively. The M3 Max models are configurable with up to 128GB of RAM and 8TB of storage and can support up to four external monitors. The vast majority of people don’t have workloads heavy enough to notice a difference between the M3 Pro and M3 Max; if you do, you probably know it.

The best 14-inch gaming laptop

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 8945 HS / GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, RTX 4070 / RAM: 16GB, 32GB / Storage: 1TB / Display: 14-inch OLED, 2880 x 1800, 60Hz and 120Hz, 400 nits / Dimensions: 12.24 x 8.66 x 0.63 inches / Weight: 3.31 pounds

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 4070 is the most well-balanced 14-inch gaming laptop. It’s powerful enough to reach 60 frames per second on ultra graphics at its native resolution (with or without DLSS) and thin and lightweight enough without trapping too much heat in its chassis. Also, its battery can last up to 6.5 hours on a single charge, which is good for a gaming laptop.

Its display has been upgraded from an IPS to an OLED, it has 1TB of SSD storage and 32GB of memory, and Asus put lighting back on the lid — not a dot matrix, but a strip of LEDs spanning diagonally across.

All that for $2,000 to $2,200 makes it hard to justify getting anything else, though you can save up to $500 if you get the RTX 4060 model. Though it has only half the RAM, it has the same great screen and build, and its frame rates are only about ten percent lower than the 4070 Zephyrus at 1080p/ultra.

If you spend up to $700 more on the Razer Blade 14, you’ll get higher frame rates, a 240Hz screen, and upgradeable RAM — but its battery life barely hits four hours in general use, and its display doesn’t support G-Sync or HDR.

The best dual-screen laptop

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 155U / GPU: Intel UHD (integrated) / RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X / Storage: 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD / Display: 13.3-inch (2880 x 1800) 60Hz OLED touchscreen w/ stylus support / Dimensions: 11.78 x 8.03 x 0.63 inches / Weight: 2.95 pounds

A dual-screen laptop is exactly what it sounds like: a laptop with a second screen where the keyboard normally goes.

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i has a 360-degree hinge, which lets you use it as a regular laptop, a (large) tablet, and more. You can put it in clamshell mode and write or sketch on the bottom screen with a stylus or fold the keyboard folio into a stand to prop it up and take advantage of both screens. That’s how I usually use it at home: propped up and plugged into an external monitor as a three-screen desktop replacement. But when I’m away, I use the included Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Its touchscreen gestures are super responsive but too responsive for the virtual keyboard and trackpad. It’s easy to mistype and accidentally minimize windows.

The Yoga Book’s only real competitor is Asus’ Zenbook Duo. The Duo’s physical keyboard includes a trackpad and makes it look a lot more like a traditional laptop. Its 14-inch OLED screens are a little bigger and brighter, it has a ton of port options, it’s more powerful, and it’s a little easier to fold up and put away. But it’s also heavier (at 3.64 pounds), its top lid doesn’t fold back far enough to use it as a tablet, and its touchscreen gestures aren’t as responsive.

The best repairable laptop

CPU: Intel Core i5-1340P / i7-1360P / 17-1370P, AMD Ryzen 7 7840U / GPU: Intel UHD / Iris Xe, Radeon 700M / RAM: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB / Storage: 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB / Display: 13.5 inch IPS, 2256 x 1540, 60Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 11.68 x 9.01 x 0.62 inches / Weight: 2.87 pounds

If you want a 13-inch laptop that you can configure and assemble yourself, from the ground up, the Framework Laptop 13 is pretty much your only option. The Framework is a modular laptop that users can repair and upgrade over the length of their ownership. Everything from the RAM, to the storage, to even the processor can be upgraded down the line. The company has even come out with upgrades for parts like speakers and hinges that you can install yourself. Not only can you buy it as a prebuilt system, but you can also order it as a DIY kit, allowing you to assemble the entire thing yourself and swap out parts as you please. 

Repairability aside, the Framework has a number of laudable features as a laptop itself. The display is bright and high resolution, the speakers are great, and the chassis is quite portable, coming in at under three pounds. The 3:2 aspect ratio provides a lot of room to work and is still a somewhat rare find on today’s market.

That said, I won’t pretend that this is the best 13-inch laptop you can buy. On its own merits, it is an unremarkable system with a somewhat generic look and plasticky build, particularly compared to others in its price category. Nevertheless, the Framework’s standout feature is the unprecedented access it allows its users to replace and repair its parts. We’d love to see more companies make that kind of commitment to sustainable design.

The best laptop under $400

CPU: Intel Core i3-1215U / GPU: Intel UHD / RAM: 8GB / Storage: 128GB, 256GB UFS / Display: 14-inch IPS, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz, non-touch / Dimensions: 12.9 x 8.4 x 0.74 inches / Weight: 3.17 pounds

The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is the least expensive laptop with Google’s new Plus certification. At around $400 for a Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, it’s the baseline Chromebook you should consider if you can’t spend any more.

It’s so easy to get a bad Chromebook at this price, so it’s a relief that the Chromebook Plus CX34 is so good. Not only does it have respectable internals, but the 1080p screen and 1080p webcam are good for the price, the keyboard is great, and the trackpad is fine, if a bit stiff. Battery life is decent, too, and like all Plus Chromebooks, it comes with 10 years of software updates. You can spend more on a laptop, and you probably should, but don’t buy a Chromebook less powerful than this one.

Update, August 23rd: Added the Asus Zenbook S 16 as the best 16-inch Windows laptop.