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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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 around $700 or so. 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.
Framework Laptop 13 Pro for $1,599: We’ve always loved Framework laptops at WIRED, mainly because their internal components are so repairable and upgradable. Users can easily swap out nearly every part, including the CPU. The Framework Laptop 13 Pro uses the same internal structure as the basic Framework Laptop 13, but upgraded with a haptic touchpad, an aluminum chassis, and a brighter (and sharper) display. The result is the Framework Laptop I’ve always wanted, especially with an all-black aesthetic that hints at ThinkPad inspiration. But most of all, if you’re going to try and make a laptop last for many years, it makes sense that it would be something more premium. This one actually feels like it’s worth the investment.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 13.8 for $1,149: The Surface Laptop 13.8 (also known as the 7th Edition) was one of my favorite laptops throughout 2024 and 2025, primarily because of its premium build quality, great battery life, and 3:2 aspect ratio screen. And while I still love this laptop, it’s risen dramatically in price and no longer feels like a great value, especially since it’s two years old now. The 2024 model now starts at $1,200, though I’ve occasionally seen it dip under $1,000. The next-generation model with the Snapdragon X2 chips costs $1,700. I have seen that price come down as low as $1,350 on discount.
Dell 14 Plus for $1,179: There was a time in 2025 when the Dell 14 Plus was as affordable as $600. It was easily the best deal in the world of Windows laptops, primarily because the Dell 14 Plus has a 2560 x 1600 display and a smooth touchpad—two things laptops at that price typically lack. These days, it’s up to over $1,000, though for a 1 TB configuration, that is still a reasonable price. The XPS 13 is the better overall laptop, but the Dell 14 Plus offers more ports and storage for the price.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Ultra for $2,250: I like this laptop quite a bit. The OLED screen is sharp, bright, and quite colorful—very similar to the HP OmniBook Ultra. It also has many of the other great features on premium Windows laptops these days, including a haptic-feedback touchpad and a very slim profile. Unfortunately, it’s only available right now in a very expensive, maxed-out configuration with 32 GB of RAM and at least a terabyte of storage. I don’t think that’s a good pairing for this ultra-light laptop. Even with half the memory and storage, though, this would be too expensive compared to the competition.
Asus Zenbook A16 for $2,200: The Zenbook A14 and A16 are Asus’ ultralight laptops, weighing just 2.16 pounds, making them some of the lightest laptops you can buy right now. This second-generation Zenbook A16 is still incredibly light and now comes with second-generation Snapdragon X2 chips. It’s unique for its portability, and the Qualcomm chips deliver great battery life and performance. However, given the dramatic price increase, I’d suggest buying the 2025 model instead, which consistently comes in under $1,000.
Alienware 16X Aurora for $1,950: Another solid gaming laptop with the typical Alienware flair. Its standout features are its higher-resolution display and great build quality. The price fluctuates frequently, though, and in most cases, the LOQ 15 is the better option (unless you really want that higher-resolution screen).
Laptops to Avoid
Dell 14S: This is the 2026 successor to the Dell 14 Plus, which I recommended above. This is a solid laptop with a premium design and a highly reflective OLED display. It also performs well, thanks to the latest Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip. But it’s far too expensive right now. Until the price comes down, I prefer just about every other Dell option, including the Dell 14 Plus, Dell XPS 13, or Dell XPS 14.
Lenovo LOQ 15 Essential: This is a “new” model that came out this year, even though it uses a CPU from 2023. But honestly, this is just too expensive. I’ve seen it on sale for under $1,400, but even then, the standard LOQ 15 costs about the same and has a far superior display.
MacBook Pro M5: It’s not a significant step up from the MacBook Air in performance, and it’s much thicker. You’re paying for the Mini-LED screen and extra ports. Unfortunately, it got the biggest price bump, up $300 to $1,999. It’s not a bad laptop, but you’re better off with the MacBook Air or a more powerful M5 Pro/Max configuration.
Acer Swift 16 AI: This is one of the few laptops you can buy with the powerful, efficient new Intel Core Ultra X9 chips. However, the Acer Swift 16 AI takes an experimental approach with its oversized trackpad, making it very difficult to use. Even at a discount, you’ll find it frustrating.
Asus TUF Gaming A14: There’s a lot I like about this gaming laptop. The design is portable yet modern, and the display is sharp. And while the TUF Gaming A14 is impressive technically (using the interesting AMD Strix Point chip), the lack of a discrete graphics card doesn’t provide enough gaming performance to justify its very high price. I haven’t tested the options with dedicated graphics cards, but they tend to be more expensive than counterparts from Lenovo, Acer, or Alienware.
Asus Vivobook 14: I recommended this laptop a lot throughout 2025, but it doesn’t hold up as well these days. While the Vivobook 14 has great battery life, the HP OmniBook 5 14 offers a much better display and similar specs, making it a better laptop.
How Much Should You Spend on a Laptop?
If you’re shopping for a laptop, you probably already have a budget. But some context might help put things in perspective. The cheapest laptops cost around $200, but laptop prices can range as high as $5,000. Meanwhile, the average amount people spend, according to the best data we have, is around $750. That lands decidedly in the midrange, splitting between the more expensive devices that are more than $1,000 and the budget-tier machines you find below $700.
When we talk about pricing, it’s often the “starting” price of the laptop, meaning the lowest-priced configuration. This is really important to consider, as you want to compare devices apples to apples as much as possible. For example, a cheaper laptop might start at $750 with 256 GB of storage, while a more premium laptop might start at this same price but come with 512 GB or even 1 TB of storage. Increasingly, you can find some really decent laptops around this price, some of which we’ve listed.
If your budget needs to be under $750, though, there are still good options. Laptops below this price tend to come with compromises. Most commonly, it’s the quality of the display and touchpad that suffers, as these are things you can’t gauge from a spec sheet or reference photo. Or it might be a performance-related issue, such as the 8 GB of memory in the MacBook Neo. If you’re shopping for something under $500, Chromebooks often give you the best bang for your buck.
So, why spend more? Well, there are two primary reasons. First, you might want a more premium design, perhaps one that has a more daring aesthetic or high-end components. Take the MacBook Pro, for example. It starts at $600 more than the MacBook Air but comes with a brighter mini-LED screen, significantly better speakers, and more ports. The second primary reason to spend more than $750 or so is to get more performance. Whether for gaming or content creation, laptops with discrete GPUs cost more, which is why it’s hard to find a worthwhile gaming laptop for less than $1,000. If you’re buying a gaming laptop, plan to spend a few hundred bucks more.
What Are the Best Laptop Brands?
Unlike the smartphone world, the biggest laptop brands have been around for more than 40 years. Besides Apple, four laptop brands stand out for adopting the latest technology and trends while providing reliable support and service.
Lenovo is the biggest PC brand in the world, at least in terms of global shipments. It’s perhaps most well-known for its familiar sub-brands like ThinkPad and Yoga, but it also isn’t afraid to take risks with more experimental designs and advanced technology. Lenovo has also made a name for itself in the gaming space with its Legion laptops, known for balancing performance and features at competitive prices.
Asus has quickly become a favorite, notable for the sheer number of laptops available in the consumer market. The company takes a similar approach to Lenovo, which has led Asus to innovate quickly on new technology and designs while also launching premium laptops at more affordable prices than its competitors. Gaming, in particular, is a space Asus has come to dominate, with the ROG Zephyrus, Strix, and TUF brands leading the way.
Dell and HP are generally more conservative, but both have recently undergone significant rebranding. In 2024, HP replaced its Spectre and Envy lines with the OmniBook name. Meanwhile, Dell briefly retired its well-known Inspiron and XPS sub-brands in 2025, though it has since reversed course and brought the XPS line back.
Other notable laptop brands include Microsoft Surface, Samsung, Acer, LG, and MSI, though none have the same global footprint as the top four.
How Do I Choose the Right Laptop?
If none of these laptops resonate with what you're looking for, 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 also cover the CPUs and GPUs you need to know. We recommend sticking to these guidelines:
RAM: We recommend 16 GB of RAM. That’s become the new standard, even in more affordable laptops. Upgrading to 32 GB is even better, so you won't have to worry about running out of memory, especially if you’re a gamer or video editor. The recent memory shortage has led to some dramatic price increases, largely based around configurations of RAM. Apple’s launch of the 8 GB MacBook Neo this spring has led to the return of high-end 8-GB Windows laptops as well, such as the Dell XPS 13.
CPU: For Windows laptops, you have three CPU brands to choose from: Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm. Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 launched in late 2024 and delivers a huge boost to battery life. It also has the best integrated graphics of the three. Core Ultra Series 3 is just now rolling out and, based on my testing, is extremely impressive in performance and efficiency. While AMD chips are primarily used in gaming laptops, they’ve struggled to gain ground on Intel elsewhere.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, however, have seriously challenged Intel over the past year with their ARM architecture, offering some of the best battery life we’ve ever seen on Windows machines. The second generation, Snapdragon X2, was announced last fall and rolled out slowly throughout 2026. They improve performance, but in many cases, they've led to more expensive laptops, while previous-gen laptops are still available that cost less.
Starting this year, there's also the choice of Nvidia’s new RTX Spark platform, which gives you the option of 18-core or 20-core CPUs. More on that in the GPU section below.
Apple Silicon is what powers all the modern MacBooks, the latest of which is the M5 chip. Read our in-depth guide on Which MacBook to Buy for more information
Graphics: Want to play AAA PC games, edit video on your laptop, or run local AI models? You’ll want some powerful graphics on hand. At this point, Nvidia is the primary option. The RTX 5090 launched in 2025 is still the most powerful new GPU available, but the 5040-series still remains a good option.
Integrated graphics have improved significantly over the years, though, especially on processors made by Apple, AMD, and Intel, such as the Apple M5 or the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H. Nvidia's RTX Spark platform uses a single “superchip” that provides unified memory to both the CPU and GPU to improve AI performance.
Screen: The display depends highly on the size of the laptop. A 1,200-pixel resolution (HD+) screen on a 13- or 14-inch laptop looks sharp enough to get by, but you’ll want more pixels on larger displays, such as a 2560 x 1600, 2880 x 1800, or 3840 x 2400. While IPS screens are good enough for most people, OLED and Mini-LED are becoming more common, offering better color accuracy, deeper contrast, and excellent HDR performance.
Connectivity: We generally recommend at least two USB-C ports, along with one HDMI and one USB-A port for legacy devices. (Remember that nearly all laptops today use one of those USB-C ports for the power adapter.) Thankfully, most laptops still have headphone jacks, but always check, because a few models have dropped them. Lastly, make sure it supports Wi-Fi 6E or newer. Even if you don’t have a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 router yet, you'll likely have one in the future (see our Best Routers or Best Mesh Systems guides if you need a new one).
Battery life: Battery life is extremely competitive these days, with Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel all making highly ambitious battery-life claims. Most laptops with the latest chips (and without discrete graphics) will get you more than 10 hours of battery life, or many more if your workload is lighter.
Intel vs. AMD vs. Qualcomm
As mentioned, in Windows-based laptops, there are three primary options for CPUs: Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. All three companies offer good processors, but it really depends on the type of laptop. For premium laptops, you’ll want something like the Intel Core Ultra 258V or Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite. Meanwhile, for budget laptops, Snapdragon X is the best choice. And for gaming laptops, I’d recommend something from AMD, such as the Ryzen AI 9 365. All three companies have announced next-gen chips for 2026, and there’s some exciting stuff coming soon.
Intel’s latest chips, known as either Core Ultra Series 3 or codename Panther Lake, are slowly rolling out in new laptops, such as the Dell XPS 14. These chips represent a massive leap forward in both CPU and integrated graphics performance. While highly impressive, they will soon face fresh competition from upcoming AMD and Qualcomm releases.
Qualcomm made a major impact in 2024 with its Snapdragon X chips. Similar to Apple's M-series, these ARM-based processors prioritize efficiency to drastically improve battery life. This has been a game-changer for Windows laptops across different price points. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite is the highest-end option for performance, but the Snapdragon X Plus and base Snapdragon X still offer equally strong battery life, despite showing up in much cheaper laptops. The sequel was unveiled in late 2025, and now in 2026, we’re seeing those laptops roll out. Unfortunately, like Intel’s latest chips, laptops with this next-gen silicon tend to be significantly more expensive than their predecessors.
AMD has grown into a competitive player in the gaming laptop space. Its latest processors, including the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D, are the most powerful gaming chips you can find in a laptop. Unfortunately, it’s still hard to find many laptops supporting these killer chips. AMD also offers its Ryzen AI 300 H and HX chips, which are more commonly found in gaming laptops. While they also offer a mainstream Ryzen AI 300 series, these chips aren’t found in many laptops and currently fall short of the battery life offered by Intel and Qualcomm.
Nvidia's RTX Spark platform just hit the scene, promising to deliver power and efficiency especially when running AI-based operations. It's not as ubiquitous as Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm chips, but it's something to watch for.
How I Test Laptops
I have been reviewing laptops for well over a decade, and WIRED contributor Chris Null has been testing them for 25 years. We test each laptop we review in a variety of situations, including both synthetic benchmark tests and real-world use cases. We make comparisons against similar equipment. We don’t just look at the specs—our reviews evaluate performance, usability, portability, and price to help you find the right laptop for your needs.
We put every laptop through a gauntlet of tests before writing a review and assigning a rating.
Hands-on use: We evaluate the exterior of the device. We compare how thin and light it is against other laptops. We repeatedly open and close the lid to test the quality and ease of the hinge. We push on weak points like the keyboard and lid to test build quality. We also extensively test the keyboard and touchpad for comfort and precision. By using each laptop as our daily driver for days or even weeks, we can spot real-world quirks—like awkward port placement, excessive bloatware, or unexpected problems that may make the laptop difficult to use—that you won’t see on a spec sheet.
Sights and sounds: Once we boot up the device, it’s all about the sights and sounds. The screen is paramount, as it’s your window into everything the laptop has to offer. While you can tell a lot about brightness, color, and contrast just by looking, we go beyond subjective testing. We use a Spyder colorimeter to precisely measure brightness, contrast, color saturation, and accuracy. For HDR-capable screens, we also test peak brightness with HDR content. Finally, we evaluate the webcam and speakers to ensure they are ready for your video calls and streaming sessions.
Performance testing: Finally, we test performance. We always evaluate a laptop based on what it’s intended for—we don’t expect a $500 budget laptop to run like a gaming powerhouse, or a gaming rig to get 18 hours of battery life. Our testbed includes more than 20 synthetic benchmarks, which we constantly adapt based on the device's CPU and operating system. These include tests within Geekbench, PCMark, 3DMark, Procyon, GFXBench, Puget Bench, Superposition, Cinebench, and various gaming-related tests such as 3DMark and Cyberpunk 2077. While we don’t generally report raw scores, we pay close attention to what they tell us. We also monitor fan noise, surface temperature, and overall battery life during these tests.
It’s a lot, I know. But we’re thorough, because we want to stand by our recommendations and ensure that the laptops we rate highly are worth the money.
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