I’ve been reviewing laptops for well over a decade, sometimes testing more than 30 devices per year. Not all are winners, and many should be avoided, no matter how slick the marketing or how cheap the discount. Good news: It’s my job to recommend laptops that fit your budget and won’t make you regret your purchase six months later. 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 the Best MacBooks, Best Gaming Laptops, Best Chromebooks, Best Budget Laptops, Best Windows Laptops, and Best 2-in-1 Laptops. My guide on How to Choose a Laptop may also help if you’re undecided.
Updated October 2026: I’ve updated my recommendations after testing all the new Nvidia RTX Spark laptops, as well as the new Googlebooks. The Surface Laptop Ultra has replaced the Dell XPS 14, and I’ve added back the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 at its discounted price.
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Dell XPS 13 (2026)
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The Laptops I Recommend Most
When friends or family ask what laptop to buy, I always start with the MacBook Air. It is far more powerful than its compact size suggests. It’s a shame about the recent $200 price increase from $1,099 to $1,299, but even at that new price, it remains my top pick because it nails the big picture. Everything from the trackpad to the speakers is of the highest quality, and it delivers all the performance and battery life the average person needs.
With the latest M5 chip, its GPU matches the M3 Pro MacBook Pro, easily handling everything from gaming to video editing. That’s not at all what the MacBook 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 workday away from the wall socket and perform just as well on battery as when plugged in? In almost every aspect, it’s the gold standard.
While the lower price of the new MacBook Neo might be tempting, the MacBook Air is the better choice for anyone working at a computer all day. With its superior performance, extra memory, faster storage, and Thunderbolt ports, you will never have to question if you have the right tool for the job. (And unless you already know you need a MacBook Pro, you probably don’t.)
Speaking of price, I have to mention the new Dell XPS 13 next. I like just about everything about this laptop, whether it’s the compact size, the excellent build quality, or the gorgeous screen. It’s not OLED, but it’s sharp, bright, and color-accurate. It also includes a 120-Hz refresh rate, which makes animation and motion on the device look super smooth. The XPS 13 is filled with features like that, which don’t normally end up in a laptop at this price. While it doesn’t have what I’d call powerhouse performance, the Intel Wildcat Lake chip inside gets the job done for basic, day-to-day computing tasks. That translates to great, all-day battery life, competitive with the MacBook Air. Just don’t try to play games, edit high-resolution video, or take it to engineering school.
The XPS 13 is especially good for those who want a compact device to travel with. With its tiny bezels, it’s still one of the best laptops to use on a plane. But even beyond that, it’s just one of the best laptops you can buy under $1,000 right now. The Dell XPS 13 is primarily being talked about as a budget laptop, thanks to its $700 starting configuration. But that model comes with only 8 GB of RAM, which limited performance in my testing. You’ll probably just want to avoid that 8 GB model. Most people will want the upgraded 16 GB model, which you can get for $900. It’s the best hardware you can buy for under $1,000.
If you want a Windows laptop that still feels high-end but has a bit more performance, I would point you to the HP OmniBook Ultra 14. It might be the prettiest Windows laptop you can buy right now. The device is beautifully built and incredibly sturdy, with a thin chassis, an oversized haptic trackpad, and polished metal edges. I also appreciate the three Thunderbolt 4 ports split between both sides for convenient charging, as well as the surprisingly good speakers. I tested the high-end model, which features a fast Snapdragon X2 Elite, 32 GB of RAM, and a gorgeous 2880 x 1800 OLED display. The screen offers near-perfect colors, excellent brightness, and astounding HDR performance. It doesn’t get much better than this. It’s usually quite expensive, but we’re finally seeing discounts that bring it to a more reasonable price. There’s also an Intel model with a very efficient, powerful chip that would be a good choice. I’d go with whichever is cheaper right now.
And lastly, for something with a larger screen, I’d recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x. It’s a particularly good alternative to the 15-inch MacBook Air, at a much lower cost. These days, you can buy the upgraded model with the 2560 x 1600 OLED display (and 165-Hz refresh rate) for $1,000, on sale at Amazon. While it’s slightly thicker than the MacBook Air, it leaves more room for extra ports including HDMI, USB-A, and an SD card slot. And while the Snapdragon X2 Plus isn’t quite an M5 killer, I was happy with the performance and battery life provided. Lenovo also sells a cheaper version directly, but it has a lower-resolution IPS screen that I haven’t tested. The $30 it costs to upgrade the display to a higher-resolution OLED is well-worth it.
Cheap Laptops That Are Actually Good
While “cheap” means something different to everyone, the best budget laptops generally fall under $750. This is where Windows truly shines, offering great specs for less money. Thanks to the latest processors from Qualcomm and Intel, these laptops now offer battery life that rivals Apple. The best affordable laptop I’ve checked out is the HP OmniBook 5. The model I tested has a Snapdragon X processor, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage, and a 14-inch OLED screen. Discounts fluctuate frequently, but HP always has some version of the OmniBook 5 with a Snapdragon CPU at under $700. The specific discounted configuration seems to change every few days, though, so shop carefully. I’ll be testing the latest model soon, which switches to Intel processors and starts at $699.
I also recently tested the new HP OmniBook 3, which uses the same chip as the OmniBook 5. It frequently sells for less than the OmniBook 5 by at least $100 or so. HP is selling this configuration of the 14-inch model for under $550. While the OmniBook 3 is a good alternative, the OmniBook 5 is much thinner and looks more modern. Neither laptop has a particularly great touchpad, though, which is easily the biggest flaw in both laptops. Between the two, the OmniBook 5 is the better buy if you can afford it.
The MacBook Neo is Apple’s new entry-level laptop. It initially started at an aggressive $599, but that price has recently been raised to $699. Even at that price, the laptop shines when it comes to the display. It offers the best screen you can find at this price, bringing the macOS experience to an unprecedented value, even at $699 (or $799 for the 512 GB model). Apple clearly prioritized the front-of-screen experience, delivering a premium feel across the display, build quality, and keyboard. While the 8 GB of RAM, outdated ports, and slower SSD are notable drawbacks—making the MacBook Air a far better choice for remote workers—the Neo is an extremely premium-feeling laptop available for students, travelers, and casual users. Thanks to the lower-powered A18 Pro chip, though, performance does take a hit. So, be careful about buying this laptop if you work at a computer all day.
Given how good some of these budget laptops are, it’s a bit harder to find a place for Chromebooks. Perhaps that’s why Google introduced the next evolution of the platform, so to speak: the Googlebook. The first batch has been released into the world, and I’ve tested a number of them. Googlebooks are similar to Chromebooks in use case, but they run entirely on Android and include some exclusive Google Gemini features. I like the close integration with Android, but Googlebooks ended up being a bit of a letdown, mostly because they’re so expensive. The Acer Googlebook 14 and Dell XPS Googlebook are the two standouts in my book, as both use a Snapdragon X-series chip to deliver really great battery life. The XPS Googlebook is particularly pretty, as the chassis is nearly identical to the XPS 13. But $999 is a tough price to swallow. It ultimately has some of the same limitations as Chromebooks, as you can’t download applications from the web and are forced to rely on the Google Play Store. The Acer Googlebook 14 is probably my top pick, as it comes in the cheapest at $899. Even that isn’t exactly what I’d call a “budget laptop,” though.
That’s why I strongly recommend the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514, especially when it’s on sale for under $700 (which is frequent). It uses an efficient (and responsive) MediaTek Kompanio Ultra that delivers excellent battery life. For most people, I wouldn’t recommend spending over $500 on a Chromebook because if you’re paying more, you should consider the MacBook Neo or the HP OmniBooks, which offer more than a Chromebook’s limited scope. But the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 might be the best combination of display, touchpad, and battery life at this price, making it a good choice for the right person—so long as you know what you’re paying for.
Truly cheap Chromebooks come with bigger compromises, especially in display quality, touchpad feel, and battery life. If you really need something dirt cheap as a starter laptop for a kid or as a secondary device, I’d recommend the Asus Chromebook CX14. It has a modern design, enough ports, a good keyboard, and decent storage.
Powerful Laptops for Those Who Need It
While the laptops above are great for most people, content creators and gamers need extra performance. For the former, the 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro is the ultimate choice. It combines immense power with surprising portability and fantastic battery life—a rare feat. The M5 generation is the most impressive yet, with a greatly expanded GPU and significantly boosted on-device AI processing thanks to a more efficient Neural Engine and faster memory bandwidth. While it is one of the most powerful AI laptops available, the MacBook Pro isn’t for everyone; it is built specifically for professional creatives and engineers running heavy, demanding applications. It’s become more expensive in 2026, though, and the competition from the Windows side is finally heating up.
I’m talking primarily about the launch of Nvidia’s new RTX Spark “superchip” and the new laptops that use it. To be clear, despite Nvidia’s involvement, these aren’t gaming laptops. Like the MacBook Pro, they’re designed first and foremost for running heavier creative applications and on-device AI. The Surface Laptop Ultra is a great example, which has a lot in common with the standard 15-inch Surface Laptop. But the differences internally are substantial. The Surface Laptop Ultra uses a single chip that integrates the CPU, GPU, and memory together, allowing up to 128 GB of memory to be shared across the system. That’s not unlike how Apple Silicon works, dramatically increasing the on-device AI performance. So, if you’ve been curious about running LLMs right on your laptop without relying on the cloud, these RTX Spark laptops are a great place to start. The other two RTX Spark laptops I tested, the HP OmniBook Ultra 16 and Lenovo Pro 9n, share a lot with the Surface Laptop Ultra (including performance). The OmniBook Ultra is the thinnest of the three, but I prefer the Surface Laptop Ultra’s Mini-LED display and 3:2 aspect ratio.
Perhaps the most common use for extra laptop performance, however, is gaming. If you plan to boot up graphically intensive games more than a couple of times a week, you will want a dedicated gaming laptop. After testing dozens over the past year, I’ve come back to the Lenovo LOQ 15 as my top pick. There are cheaper RTX 5050 models, such as the Alienware 15 or MSI Cyborg A15, but prices have been increasing on these laptops over the past few months. The Alienware 15 with the RTX 5050, in particular, has seen a $600 price jump, which makes it incredibly overpriced.
That’s led me back to the LOQ 15, which has stayed steady at $1,300 at Walmart and gives you an RTX 5060 for graphics and a bright, colorful screen. You won’t find a cheaper gaming laptop that doesn’t make some significant compromises in either performance or screen quality, both of which can sour the gaming experience. And while I wish the LOQ 15 were still selling for under $1,000 as it did at launch, it’s still the best gaming laptop for the money right now. It’s really the only gaming laptop under $1,500 I’d currently buy, given where prices are.
There’s also a whole world of gaming laptops outside the budget tier, though. I’ve tested an assortment of options, and I always come back to the Razer Blade 14 and Razer Blade 16. Portable, minimalist, and extremely well-made, their sleek design means they work just as well for school or work as they do for gaming, without the bulk of a traditional gaming laptop. While you can buy more powerful options, nothing quite matches the Razer Blade. They’re expensive, but if you can afford them, they’re as premium as gaming laptops get. I’ll soon be testing the latest version of the Blade 16, which includes Intel’s new Panther Lake chips and should have vastly improved battery life.
Other Good Laptops I’ve Tested
If you choose one of the laptops above, you will be very happy with your purchase. However, if you are looking for a specific feature or a different price point, I have included a few other options below that I’ve recently reviewed and enjoyed using. Each of these recently tested laptops has at least one minor drawback, but they could still be the perfect choice depending on your needs and current discounts.
Photograph: Luke Larsen