May 11, 2024 8:30 AM

The Best Laptops to Work and Play Wherever You Are

These are our favorite Windows notebooks, MacBooks, Chromebooks, and Linux portables.

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Buying any laptop is a big decision. Most of us go years between making purchases of this magnitude, and there are many makes, models, and chip configurations to choose from. Lucky for you, we’ve tested many of the new releases in the past year. These are our top picks for the best laptops you can buy right now.

If you don’t know exactly what you need or what all the various hardware jargon means, be sure to read our How to Buy a Laptop guide. Check out our many other computing guides, including the Best MacBooks, Best Cheap Laptops, Best Gaming Laptops, Best Linux Laptops, and Best Laptop Backpacks.

Updated May 2024: We’ve changed our top pick to the HP Spectre x360 and added several new computers, including the Razer Blade 14, MSI Prestige 13, Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra, Acer Swift Go 14, Acer Nitro 17, Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, Zenbook Duo, and Dell XPS 16.

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Photograph: HP
Best Windows Laptop
HP Spectre x360 14 (2024)
The Spectre x360 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is a top-shelf ultralight Windows laptop. This is not the angular, design-heavy Spectre x360 of a few years ago. The latest model's OSHA-friendly curves are clad in corporate black, silver, and blue, giving this laptop a clean, sleek design. At 19 millimeters of thickness and a 2.4-pound weight, it's firmly in the ultraportable category.
The major upgrade for 2024 is the introduction of the AI-infused Intel Core Ultra CPU—in this instance, the Ultra 7 155H model, backed up by a beefy 32 GB of RAM and a 2-TB solid state drive. That’s not bad considering the inclusion of a touchscreen and the 360-degree hinge. Performance was outstanding, topping our benchmarks in nearly every category. The battery also did well in our tests (looping a YouTube video at full brightness), netting 10.5 hours of running time—significantly better than other Core Ultra laptops we’ve tested to date.
The Spectre x360 is light on ports, with two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports (one used for charging) and a single USB-A port partially covered by an awkward and unnecessary spring-loaded, flip-out panel, but it's enough to get the job done. A pair of hinges allows the screen to fold back 180 degrees, converting the laptop into a 14-inch tablet. A fingertip works on the screen, as does the stylus included in the box, and the rechargeable active pen snaps magnetically to the side of the chassis when not in use. The only issue is that the touchpad sometimes misses taps and clicks, but it wasn't bad enough to stop us from recommending this machine.
Specs to look for: Intel Core Ultra 7, 32 GB RAM, 2-TB SSD, 2.8K OLED Touchscreen
$1,900 at Best Buy
$1,850 at HP
Photograph: Brenda Stolyar
Best MacBook
Apple MacBook Air (13- and 15-Inch, 2024)
Apple’s latest MacBook Air (7/10, WIRED Recommends) with the company's M3 chip is our favorite Macbook. It's a sleek, portable machine with plenty of power for the average person. There are two sizes to pick from—13 and 15 inches, both screens with a 60-Hz refresh rate. They are very similar, though we found the larger model had better battery life. The 15-inch is the first lower-priced MacBook with a large screen, and having all that screen real estate is fantastic for productivity. The display is easy on the eyes too, with a solid 1080p webcam sitting right above the notch. The 15-inch also features a slightly louder six-speaker sound system, but these machines are otherwise the same.
Battery life remains ahead of the competition, and macOS performance is breezy for everyday tasks like web browsing and document editing. You'll notice some stuttering here and there if you push your devices hard with demanding apps. If you plan to do more photo or video editing, bump the unified memory to 16 GB instead of 8 GB. It's a fanless design, so these will never sound like you're sitting in a jet, but this Mac does tend to run warm. One big downside? It can only connect to one external monitor, which means no dual-monitor setup for you.
Specs to look for: Apple M3, 8-core or 10-core GPU, 16 GB of unified memory, 256-GB SSD
$999 at Amazon (13 Inch)
$1,199 at Amazon (15 Inch)
$1,099 at Apple (Both)
$999 at Best Buy (Both)

Photograph: Asus
Best Budget Laptop
Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (2024)
We've been pleasantly surprised to see more lower-cost laptops that still incorporate some measure of this season's hottest feature—artificial intelligence-focused performance tuning. The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (7/10, WIRED Review), the latest in the company's line of affordable, no-nonsense laptops, is under $1,000 and uses the new AMD Ryzen 7 CPU (model 8840HS).
This is a small, portable machine (3.1 pounds and 19 mm thick), and it packs in plenty of ports despite the slim form. There are two USB-C ports (one of which is needed for charging), one full-size USB 3.2 port, a full-size HDMI output, and a microSD card reader. The keyboard has small arrow keys but is otherwise nice to type on.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS, 16 GB of RAM, 512-GB SSD, 1,920 x 1,200 OLED Touchscreen
$799 at Walmart
$1,000 at Asus
Photograph: System76
Best Linux Laptop
System76 Lemur Pro Laptop
Not into Windows 11? Try Linux. System76's Lemur Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is a thin, light 14-inch Linux laptop that strikes the best balance between power and portability. It's based around an Intel Core Ultra 5 processor with 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 500-gigabyte SSD. You can configure the Lemur Pro with a Core Ultra 7 chip if you want more power, as well as up to a whopping 8 terabytes of storage and 56 GB of RAM. The port selection is good, with one USB 3.2 Type-C port, 1 Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB-A ports, a 3.5-mm headphone/microphone combo jack, a microSD card reader, and HDMI 2.0. The battery life is fantastic, lasting all day in most use cases, and the keyboard is pleasant enough to type on. It's not the best for gaming or video editing, but for everything else, this is a beast of a Linux machine. Read our Best Linux Laptops guide for more recommendations.
Specs to look for: Intel Core Ultra 5, 24 GB of RAM, 500-GB SSD
$1,498 at System76

Photograph: Framework
Best Repairable, Upgradeable Laptop
Framework Laptop 13 (2023)
If you want to buy a laptop you can keep for five, maybe 10 years, look no further than Framework's Laptop 13 or 15 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). The user-repairable and upgradable Framework Windows laptop comes in many flavors (it's Linux-friendly too), but we're fans of the DIY build options, which allow you to assemble the machine yourself, screwing in SSD, RAM, screen bezel, and more. The 2023 Intel version features much-improved battery life and an excellent matte 3:2 screen. The hot-swappable, extensible port system means you can add and remove ports according to your needs. When a new chipset is released, you can upgrade instead of buying a whole new laptop.
Specs to look for: Intel Core i5 or higher, 16 GB of RAM, 500-GB SSD
$978 at Framework
Photograph: Razer
Best Gaming Laptop
Razer Blade 14
Razer is known for its high-end gaming laptops, and the slim, aluminum chassis on the Razer Blade 14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) has the same luxe build quality we've liked it for in the past. The star of the show is the bright and vivid 2,560 X 1,600 IPS, G-Sync-compatible display with blacks so dark it almost felt like the screen disappeared in dark rooms. It's not quite an OLED display, but it was close enough that it fooled me for hours of flying through space. Best of all, the 240-Hz panel supports ultra-high frame rates for the smoothest gameplay.
Inside, the Blade 14 comes equipped with the powerful AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, 16 GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1-TB NVMe SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU (upgradeable to an RTX 4070). The RTX 4060 is decently powerful, but the RTX 4070 is a respectably strong GPU that can help power through even demanding games like Starfield. If you want even more power and don't mind the heft, check out the Razer Blade 18 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). See our full Guide to Gaming Laptops for more picks.—Eric Ravenscraft
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060/4070 Laptop GPU, 16 GB of RAM, 1-TB NVMe PCIe SSD, 14-inch 2,560 X 1,600 IPS display w/ 240-Hz refresh rate.
$1,800 at Amazon
$1,800 at Razer
$2,400 at Best Buy

Photograph: Asus
A Dual-Screen Dream Machine
Asus Zenbook Duo (2024)
The latest version of the Asus Zenbook Duo (9/10, WIRED Recommends) looks like a standard 14-inch laptop, perhaps a little on the thick side. When you open the lid you'll find the usual keyboard and trackpad, but the keyboard is attached to the chassis magnetically -- lift it off and you'll find a second 14-inch touchscreen display hidden underneath. Normally, something this unusual gets the tag "not-for-everyone" but not so in this case. With two bright, 14-inch, 2,880 X 1,800 pixel screens and a variety of configurations possible, two is better than one. The Zenbook Duo can be laid flat on a table or turned on its side to give you two portrait-oriented screens next to each other. Or it can be propped up on its kickstand with the two screens on top of each other and the detached keyboard sitting in front. You can also use it as the regular old laptop it looks like at first glance.
With an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU with 32 GB of RAM, with a 1-terabyte solid-state drive, the Duo is no slouch. Unfortunately, there is no option for discreet graphics, which makes it not so great for gaming and video editing, but for other use cases it more than handles the load. Two screens do not make for great battery life; we got just 6 hours and 48 minutes of YouTube run time with one screen active, and that drops to 5 hours and 13 minutes with both running. Still, as a mobile workstation, the Zenbook Duo is hard to top. Just make sure you stay reasonably close to a power outlet.
Specs to look for: Intel Core Ultra 9, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 3K screen
$1,700 at Best Buy
$1,700 at Micro Center
$1,700 at ABT
$1,700 at Asus
Photograph: HP
Best When You Want It All
HP Envy 16 (2023)
Laptops have always been a compromise–you have to trade something for portability, after all. But HP’s new Envy 16 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) comes tantalizingly close to having it all. It offers amazing performance, thanks to its Intel Core i9 chip and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Max-Q video card; excellent battery life; and a good keyboard. Perhaps most importantly, it delivers all of the above at a decent weight and price. The Envy’s 16-inch 2,560 X 1,600-pixel screen OLED touchscreen isn’t amazingly bright, but it is impressively clear and, despite running it at near full brightness, we managed to get a full workday (nine hours) before needing to find a wall socket. The Envy 16 also has plenty of ports, offering two USB-C ports, two full-size USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI output, and a microSD card slot. All of this in a fairly portable package (the Envy weighs just over five pounds) makes it pretty close to a true desktop replacement.
Specs to look for: Intel Core i9, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Max-Q, 16 GB of RAM, 1-TB SSD
$1,750 at Best Buy
$1,673 at Amazon

Photograph: Apple
Best MacBook Upgrade
Apple MacBook Pro (M3 Max, 16 Inch)
If you're an Apple user looking for more power, the MacBook Pro has always been the place to turn. The 14-inch model can be configured with the entry-level M3 chip—replacing the 13-inch Macbook Pro, which Apple no longer sells through its store. The 16-inch can be paired with the M3 Pro or M3 Max. Both feature Apple's Mini LED screens (providing deeper blacks and rich color like on the 2022 iPad Pro), with a 120-Hz refresh rate for smoother-looking interactions. You also once again get a variety of ports, including three USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 (the 14-inch version with M3 has just two), an SD card slot, a headphone jack, an HDMI port, and a MagSafe charging port.
Of the three processor choice options, the M3 Pro and M3 Max are significantly more powerful than most people need. If you're not editing 4K videos or rendering 3D models you probably don't need the top-end chips. We do recommend going for 16 gigabytes of unified memory though as you can't upgrade that after the fact.
Specs to look for: 16-inch M3 Max, 36 GB of unified memory, 256-GB SSD
$3,199 at Amazon
$3,499 at Apple
Photograph: Dell
Best MacBook Pro Alternative
Dell XPS 14 and 16
Dell's two new XPS laptops (7/10, WIRED Recommends) are aimed at Windows users with Macbook jealousy. The design, specs, and sizes line up perfectly with Apple's offerings. The XPS 14 and 16 both have a gorgeous, sleek design, wonderfully bright and sharp OLED screens (with 120-Hz screen refresh rates), and are plenty speedy for everyday tasks. Unfortunately when it comes to more intensive tasks like video editing, the MacBook's benchmarks run circles around the XPS 14. The larger XPS 16, which uses the more powerful RTX 4070 graphics card, fared much better but costs more than a similarly powerful Macbook.
The XPS 14 and 16 are both beautiful, well-designed machines. They're plenty capable for most use cases, though heavy gamers and video editors will want to look elsewhere. They're expensive for what you get, but if you don't mind paying a premium for first-class build quality with clean, eye-catching design, then the XPS 14 and 16 are solid laptops.
Specs to look for: Intel Core i7, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 (or better), 16 GB of RAM, 512-GB SSD.
$1,499 at Dell (XPS 14)
$1,899 at Dell (XPS 16)

Photograph: HP
Best 2-in-1 Laptop
HP Envy x360 (15 Inch, 2023)
HP's Envy x360 line has long offered some of our favorite convertibles. There's just one problem—which one should you get? You have to sort through dozens of sizes and configurations ranging from bargain models to high-end performance machines. This 15.6-inch Envy x360 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU, is one of our favorites. It has enough power for most workloads—though video editors and gamers will want something more powerful—and there are plenty of ports (two USB-C ports with DisplayPort capabilities, two USB-A ports, and an HDMI 2.1 port, plus a full-size SD card reader). The touchscreen is bright and has excellent color accuracy. The Envy is eerily quiet, with fans hardly ever spinning up, but the click pad is one of the loudest we've tested. Read our Best 2-in-1 Laptops guide for more convertible options.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU, 16 GB of RAM, 512-GB SSD
$1,050 at Best Buy
$1,200 at HP
Photograph: Apple
Best Cheap MacBook
Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
The 13-inch MacBook Air from 2020 is still one of the best laptops around (9/10, WIRED Recommends). It was the first from Apple to ditch Intel chips for the company's very-own M1 processor. Even with the new MacBook Air and its M3 processor (see above), this older version is just as appealing considering Apple dropped the price at third-party retailers to $699.
Battery life is great, easily lasting more than a full workday, and we've encountered fewer hiccups with performance (and fewer thermal issues) with this MacBook over the latest Air. It's not as svelte as the latest Macs, but it's still slim and lightweight with good speakers, an excellent keyboard, and a nice screen. We love how it now instantly wakes from sleep, just like an iPhone or iPad. If you want a Mac and aren't planning on taxing it too much with demanding tasks like video editing, this is the MacBook you want. All that said, this one is getting a bit old, and we've seen the M3 MacBook Air for just $999 on sale, so it might be worth saving up the extra $300 and getting a more modern experience.
Specs to look for: Apple M1, 8 GB of unified memory, 256-GB SSD
$699 at Walmart
$699 at Best Buy

Photograph: Lenovo
Best Chromebook
Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus
Do you think of a laptop as metal framing around a web browser? Consider a Chromebook with Chrome OS. Google recently rolled out a big upgrade called Chromebook Plus. The “Plus” stands for better performance—faster processors, more memory, more storage, and better video cameras. Our favorite of the models we've tried is Lenovo's Flex 5i Chromebook Plus (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It's the fastest Chromebook we've tested. It features a 3.75-GHz Intel Core i3-1315U CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and 128 GB of flash storage. The Flex 5i has two USB-C ports (one is used for charging) plus one USB-A port. You also get a microSD card slot for expanding the storage capability, making this a good choice for those who don't want to keep everything in the cloud. The 14-inch touchscreen uses a 2-in-1 design, making it ideal for media streaming. As on most Chromebooks, the screen isn't the best, with mid-level brightness and a standard 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution.
Alternative: The Acer Chromebook Plus 515 ($399) is a 15-inch Chromebook Plus model (8/10, WIRED Recommends) with the same internal components as the Lenovo above. The battery life for this one is a solid 8.5 hours of full-screen video playback time. The Acer offers an HDMI 1.4 output jack in place of the Lenovo's microSD card slot, making this one a better choice if you frequently need to give presentations or otherwise use the HDMI port. There's also the smaller Chromebook Plus 514 ($380) that's equally great.
$499 at Best Buy
$499 at Lenovo
Photograph: LG
Best for Big Screen Productivity
LG Gram 15.6-Inch SuperSlim
The LG Gram SuperSlim (7/10, WIRED Recommends) retains its spot as our favorite large laptop, and how could it not? It’s impossibly thin—just 15 mm thick including the elevating standoffs underneath the chassis—and all of 2.2 pounds in weight. Despite that thin, light frame, it manages to be a solid machine. The only difference between models is the amount of RAM and storage; the CPU, a 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-1360p, remains the same no matter which one you opt to get.
There is a trade-off to be made for that thinness: performance. On business apps, the Gram scored lower than the $700 Asus above, and it wasn't much better on graphics performance. Still, that ultrabright 15.6-inch screen is a joy to use, and the fans are so quiet you barely notice them. We also managed an excellent 10.5 hours out of the Gram’s battery on a full-brightness YouTube playback, which is impressive considering the luminosity of the screen.
Specs to look for: Intel Core i7, 16 GB of RAM, 512-GB SSD
$1,839 at Amazon (32 GB, 2 TB)
$1,572 at Amazon (16 GB, 1 TB)
$1,839 at B&H (32 GB, 2 TB)
$2,000 at LG (32 GB, 2 TB)

Photograph: Acer
Best Budget Big Screen
Acer Swift Edge 16
Want a nice, big laptop at a reasonable price? The Acer Swift Edge 16 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) isn't perfect, but it has enough going for it to earn a cautious recommendation for users in the market for something more spacious and powerful than the typical ultralight Windows machine. Not to say this is heavy. At just 18 millimeters thick and weighing a mere 2.7 pounds, it's plenty portable. The huge 16-inch 3,200 X 2,000-pixel resolution screen is the standout here. But note that it's not a touchscreen, and it's an ultra-glossy OLED—it’s so shiny that it can effectively double as a mirror whether it’s off or on—which is not for everyone.
Inside you get a 3.3-GHz AMD Ryzen 7 7840U CPU and companion Radeon 780M integrated graphics with 16 GB of RAM and a 1-TB SSD. It's not as powerful as some of our high-end picks, but for the price, the performance is very good. Just know that the speakers aren't the best, and the keyboard is mushy.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 7, 16 GB of RAM, 1-TB SSD, 2K OLED display
$1,300 at Best Buy
$1,000 at Acer
Photograph: Acer
A Budget Gaming Rig
Acer Nitro 17 (2024, AMD)
Acer’s latest Nitro 17 gaming laptop (model number AN17-42-R9TH) is built atop an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, which sits near the top of AMD's product line. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics processor in the Nitro 17 is also no slouch. That said, the rest of the specs are budget-oriented, with only 16 GB of RAM. Still, if you're looking for a decently powerful gaming laptop without spending two grand on our top pick, this is a great buy.
Do be aware that this is not a super portable machine. The 17.3-inch screen (resolution limited to 1,920 X 1,080 pixels) makes for a bag-stretching laptop with a weight of 6.3 pounds (and that’s without the power brick, which adds another full pound). That said, the $1,250 asking price is a bargain, and dollar for dollar it represents perhaps the best price-to-performance ratio we've ever seen on a laptop.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 7, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16 GB of RAM, 1-TB SSD
$1,250 at Micro Center
$1,250 at Acer

Photograph: Dell
Other Good Laptops
Honorable Mentions
MSI Prestige 13 AI Evo for $1,300: This ultralight Windows laptop (7/10, WIRED Review) offers a great balance between price, performance, and portability. This price gets you an Intel Core 7 processor and a 2,880 X 1,800-pixel OLED display. The keyboard and trackpad are not the best, but if they don't bother you this is a solid laptop at a good price.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra for $3,000: There's much to love here (7/10, WIRED Review), but that price. Ouch. You get what you pay for at least, with the new Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, the current top-of-the-line processor in Intel’s Core Ultra CPU lineup, along with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. The 16-inch AMOLED 2,880 x 1,800 pixels touchscreen is magnificent to work on and performance blew everything else we've tested out of the water. But that price.
Acer Swift Go 14 for $800: This one is very similar to the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, our top budget laptop. We found the Asus to be a little faster and have a much nicer build quality, but the Swift Go still offers outstanding performance, especially considering the price (7/10, WIRED Review). It also boasts an impressive 15-hour battery life. The downside is the speakers, which aren't great, and overall the body feels a little plasticky. But this is the least expensive Intel Core Ultra laptop we've tested by a few dollars, so if the budget is tight, the Swift Go is worth considering.
Lenovo Slim Pro 7 AMD for $900: Lenovo's Slim series are solid laptops. This AMD model (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is particularly nice with good battery life and impressive performance, especially in graphics-intensive tasks. It sports a bright 2.5K, 16:10 screen, aluminum construction, and a variety of ports. This one is frequently on sale; don't pay more than $1,000.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 for $800: The look of the machine has barely changed since its inception, and it’s most evident with its obscenely sized bezels. It’s a shame, as the Laptop 5 sports a nice keyboard, and the outer design remains stylish if a tad stale. It's hard to justify the price of the new model given its shortcomings, but it has started to go on sale for around $800, which makes it a little more reasonable.
Photograph: Charles O'Rear/Getty Images
Laptop Buying Tips
How to Choose the Right Laptop for You
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 recommend sticking to these guidelines:
RAM: Make sure you get at least 8 GB of RAM—16 GB would be even better, and 32 GB means you really never have to worry about RAM.
11th-generation or higher: There are dozens of chips on the market, but we prefer 11th-generation or higher Intel chips (we're currently in the 13th generation and about to start the 14th generation). For AMD machines we recommend at least 5000 series Ryzen chips (AMD's 7000 series is the latest).
Core i5 or higher: We suggest going with at least an Intel Core i5 (or Core 5 Ultra), though an i7 (or Core 7 Ultra) will give you more power, which you'll be glad you have if you're doing anything taxing, like editing video or even processing large batches of photos. AMD has wisely elected to follow a similar naming convention, and we suggest a Ryzen 5 chip—though again, for more processor-intensive tasks the Ryzen 7 is the better choice.
Screen resolution: The display depends on the size of the laptop. A 1080p (HD) screen on a 13-inch laptop looks good enough. A 1080p screen on a 15-inch laptop does not. If you spend all day staring at your screen, a higher-resolution screen (like a 4K screen) can ease eyestrain. Brightness is measured in nits, go for at least a 300-nit display if possible.
Connectivity: Ports are important, we suggest at least 2 USB-Cs and prefer to have at least one USB-A for those legacy devices. Also, make sure there's Wi-Fi 6E support. Even if you don't have a Wi-Fi 6E router yet, it's a good bet you will in the future (see our guide to routers if you need a new one).
10 hours of battery: Make sure it's advertised to get at least 10 hours of battery life if not more. Realistically, that should be enough to get you through a workday.

Scott Gilbertson is a senior writer for WIRED. He was previously a writer and editor for WIRED’s Webmonkey.com, covering the independent web and early internet culture. He studied at the University of Georgia. You can reach him at luxagraf.net.

Senior Writer and Reviewer