You’ll want to read our extensive guide on How to Choose the Right Laptop, but for the basics, decide what category of laptop you need. Most people should buy a 13-inch or 14-inch laptop, and spending around $750 to $1,000 is a good place to start. At this price, you should expect good battery life, a decent screen, solid performance for basic tasks, and a comfortable keyboard and touchpad. You should also expect at least 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. Anything more than that gets into premium territory where you’re paying for higher specs, more performance, or extra features. If you want a discrete GPU for gaming or creative workflows, you’ll need to spend more.
A laptop like the Dell 14 Plus is a great example of what you can get in this price range. You can even find laptops with OLED panels and up to one terabyte of storage, depending on how good the discounts are. I would consider anything under $750 a cheap laptop, and it will come with significant compromises, especially in panel and touchpad quality. Fortunately, laptops that use the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip get great battery life, even when they fall under $750, such as the HP OmniBook 5 14.
Here’s a list of important specs to consider:
CPU: Thanks to the huge variety of good chip options, it’s never been trickier to buy a laptop. For thin-and-light laptops, I would recommend one of the following chips:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X, Snapdragon X Plus, or Snapdragon X Elite
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X2, Snapdragon X2 Plus, or Snapdragon X2 Elite
- Intel Core Ultra 225 V or Core Ultra 7 258V
- Intel Core 5 320, Core Ultra 7 365, or Core Ultra X7 358H
There are many variations of these chips, so you’ll undoubtedly run across other strings of numbers, especially on the Intel front. But the above is a good place to start. There’s lots more to say in the world of gaming laptops or content creation devices, so make sure to read our full guide to How to Buy a Gaming Laptop.
GPU: As of now, Intel’s Panther Lake X7 or X9 chips have the most powerful integrated graphics. You’ll find them in laptops like the Dell XPS 14, which can replicate discrete GPU-level performance like the RTX 4050. Unlike many laptops with discrete GPUs, though, Panther Lake X chips offer great battery life, making them better Windows alternatives to the MacBook Pro.
For discrete options, you’ll want one of the latest Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs, such as the RTX 5060. The biggest leap in performance is between the RTX 5070 and the RTX 5070 Ti, which increases VRAM to 12 GB.
RAM (or memory): Stick with at least 16 GB if you can. Since the Copilot+ designation was introduced in 2024, it has become the new standard. You’ll even find laptops as cheap as $600 that have 16 GB of memory. Gamers and content creators should upgrade to 32 GB if possible, though the ongoing memory shortage makes this more expensive. There’s been a new surge in 8 GB options, such as the Dell XPS 13, but these should be reserved for only light usage.
Storage: Similar to memory, many laptops have moved to 512 GB as the new standard, and you’ll find lots of affordable laptops with that as the base configuration. Upgrading to 1 or 2 terabytes, where possible, will make your life that much easier, especially since many laptops don’t offer expandable storage.
Display: Laptops are usually categorized by screen size, with 13-inch, 14-inch, and 16-inch being the most common. Consider size, resolution, refresh rate, and panel type.
Portability: Aside from display size, chassis thickness and weight are the main factors, determining how portable a laptop is to travel with. Other dimensions are important too, but more often than not, that is determined by the screen size.
Ports: Many laptops are limited to USB-C and a headphone jack these days, with some exceptions that include USB-A or HDMI. Make sure your laptop has what you need, or you’ll need a USB Hub or laptop docking station to add ports or increase external display support.