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Best MacBook
Apple MacBook Air (13 and 15 Inch)
Best Windows Laptop
Asus Zenbook 14 (2023)
Best Budget Laptop
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5
Best Linux Laptop
System76 Pangolin Laptop
Buying any laptop is a big decision. You may end up using it for several years before getting another, 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. And check out our many other computing guides, including the Best MacBooks, Best Cheap Laptops, Best Gaming Laptops, and Best Laptop Backpacks.
Updated August 2023: We’ve added the HP Envy 16, HP Envy x360, and Lenovo Slim Pro 9i.
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Photograph: Apple
Best MacBook
Apple MacBook Air (13 and 15 Inch)
Apple’s newest MacBook Air comes in two sizes: 13 inches (7/10, WIRED Recommends) and 15 inches (8/10, WIRED Recommends). Both are very similar, powered by the company’s second-gen M2 processor, and they feature larger and brighter displays, a 1080p webcam, a flatter, more modern design, and the return of the MagSafe connector—handy if you tend to trip over the charging cord. This is one of the very first lower-priced MacBooks with a large screen, and having all that screen real estate is fantastic for productivity. The bigger machine also has a slightly louder six-speaker sound system, but they’re otherwise the same.
Battery life remains ahead of the competition, and performance is breezy for most average tasks. You’ll notice some stuttering here and there if you push your devices hard with demanding apps, but this becomes less of an issue if you bump the unified memory to 16 GB instead of the base 8 GB. It’s a fanless design, so it won’t 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 M2, 8-Core or 10-core GPU, 16 GB of Unified Memory, 256-GB SSD
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Photograph: Asus
Best Windows Laptop
Asus Zenbook 14 (2023)
Asus Zenbook offers a good combination of performance, great battery life, and an OLED display—all for $700 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). The model we like uses an AMD Ryzen 5 7530U CPU, with 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 256-gigabyte SSD. That may not sound like much, but we were impressed with the performance, especially given the price. Graphics and gaming aren’t entirely workable, with rather pitiful frame rates throughout, but battery life is outstanding, clocking in at 12.5 hours (measured looping a YouTube video at full brightness).
This is a small, portable machine too (3.1 pounds and 19 mm thick), and it manages to pack 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. If you want to bump the specs, you can get the model with 16 GB of RAM and a 512-GB SSD for not much more.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 5 7000 series, 8 GB of RAM, 256-GB SSD
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Photograph: Lenovo
Best Budget Laptop
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5
Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5 range has been a tremendous value proposition for several years now, and things are no different with this 2-in-1 model. Alongside a tablet mode and a 360-hinge, accommodating a tent mode for better movie-viewing angles, there’s a snappy AMD Ryzen chip. It’s not enough for gaming or video editing, but these specs are plenty for typical office apps and web-based work. There are two USB-A ports, an HDMI, an SD card reader, one USB-C, a headphone jack, and a charging port (though you can use the USB-C to recharge the laptop too).
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 5 7000 series, 16 of GB RAM, 512-GB SSD
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Photograph: System76
Best Linux Laptop
System76 Pangolin Laptop
System’s Pangolin is a 15-inch, AMD-powered monster of a laptop (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s based around an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, with 32 gigabytes of RAM (soldered), and a 250-gigabyte SSD. You can configure the Pangolin with up to a whopping 8 terabytes of storage, and it offers every port a sysadmin could hope for—a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, three USB-A ports, a 3.5-mm headphone/microphone combo jack, a full-size SD card reader, HDMI 2.0, and Gigabit Ethernet. The battery life is good for the size, it lasts all day in most use cases, and the keyboard is fantastic (though I wasn’t a fan of the off-center trackpad). Otherwise, this is a beast of a Linux machine.
Read our Best Linux Laptops guide for more recommendations.
Specs to look for: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, 32 GB of RAM, 250-GB SSD
