The best laptops we've tested and reviewed: Look for these models during Prime Day

From Apple MacBook Air to Asus Zenbook, your dream machine is out there—and probably on sale.
By Haley Henschel  on 
All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.

Overview

Best Windows laptop

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024)

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Best gaming laptop

Razer Blade 14 (2024)

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Best dual-display laptop

Asus Zenbook Duo (2024)

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Best laptop for photo and video editing

Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3)

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Best laptop for creative pros

Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2

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Best repairable laptop

Framework Laptop 13

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See 4 More

Table of Contents

There's no such thing as a universal best laptop. Whether a laptop works well for you — and there could be several that fit the bill— is a largely subjective decision that comes down to your primary use cases, your preferred operating system, and your budget.

This is an annoying fact of life for both laptop shoppers and those of us doling out "best laptop" recommendations, since we can't make custom judgment calls for everyone in need of a new machine. (I would love to, but I've got a thing after this.) However, after spending countless hours reviewing popular laptops, we can confidently point you in the right direction of the best laptops that stand out for meeting important, impartial standards for performance and build quality.

We think these laptops will serve most people well, and at the very least, we think they can be useful archetypes within different categories of computers (from MacBooks to Windows PCs, budget laptops, gaming laptops, and Chromebooks). Don't start from square one if you don't have to, you know?

Take advantage of Prime Day pricing and competitor sales

If you're particularly hung up on the "budget" part of laptop shopping, know that mid-summer is one of the best times to buy a laptop. Partly, that's because of ongoing back-to-school discounts — even the Apple Store partakes — but it's also due to the hubbub surrounding Prime Day, Amazon's flagship summer sale for Prime members. (You can sign up for a free 30-day trial if you don't want to commit to a paid membership.) This year's festivities are scheduled for July 16 and 17.

Normally slim on laptop deals, Amazon peppers its listings with better-than-usual discounts while Prime Day runs its course, giving extra attention to MacBooks and Chromebooks. Many models fall to new or year-round lows that we don't normally see outside of Black Friday.

Perhaps more importantly, Prime Day also spurs other tech retailers like Best Buy into running their own sales with competitive pricing that matches or beats Amazon's, giving diligent shoppers more opportunities to save. Cross-checking these offers will be your best line of defense against overpaying, but if you don't want to sift through the sea of sales yourself, we'll also be tracking the top Prime Day laptop deals ourselves.

Need help picking a laptop? Read on for Mashable's hands-on tested guide to the best laptops of 2024.

FYI: We've listed the pricing and specs of our testing units, which may not apply to each laptop's base model.

Our Pick

Read Mashable's full review of the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air (M3).

Who it's for:

Apple's older M2 MacBook Air remains an excellent laptop despite losing its "best Macbook" title, especially now that its base configuration is only $999. (The arrival of the M3 version prompted a permanent $100 price drop.) But if you're not on a strict budget, the brand-new M3 model is the MacBook most people should buy in 2024. That includes "creatives, professionals, and students who need robust performance that can handle their multifaceted workflows," wrote Mashable tech editor Kim Gedeon.

Why we picked this:

The new 15-inch MacBook Air deserves way more fanfare than Apple gave it at launch. (Seriously? Just a blog post?) Its M3 chip was about 20 percent faster than the previous-generation M2 chip in our testing, and it brings new support for WiFi 6E as well as two external displays — though its lid has to stay closed when you use it that way. Plus, the midnight finish now comes with an anodization seal to avoid picking up fingerprints.

The M3 MacBook Air is otherwise a carbon copy of its predecessor, but that's actually a plus: Apple didn't need to change anything about its vibrant display, 1080p webcam, rich speakers, or snappy Magic Keyboard. (It could still use more ports and start with a bit more RAM, though.) Its price has also carried over from the M2 era. As a complete package, it's a decidedly "worthy refresh" that continues the MacBook Air line's Mashable Choice Award winning streak, Gedeon said.

Note that the M3 MacBook Air also comes in a 13-inch size that starts at $1,099; it has two fewer speakers (four instead of six).

The Good

The Bad

Details

Read Mashable's full review of the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024).

Who it's for:

The new HP Spectre x360 14 is almost everything a Windows loyalist could want in a laptop (or a tablet, for that matter — it's a 2-in-1). It's powerful, versatile, long-lasting, and great at making you look good on Zoom meetings. The included stylus cements its status as a fantastic all-in-one buy.

Why we picked this:

The Spectre x360 14 stunts on all of the other Windows laptops we've tried. There's a zippy new Intel Core Ultra processor with at least 16GB of RAM inside, and our Ultra 7 155H testing unit lasted more than 11 hours on a single charge. (If its $1,869.99 price tag gives you sticker shock, know that the base configuration goes for under $1,500.) It has a 120Hz OLED touchscreen display with a generous 16:10 aspect ratio, which you can flip open on its hinge to switch between laptop, tablet, and tent modes. Its large touchpad offers "the perfect balance of smoothness and resistance," said Gedeon, while its keyboard is straight-up "addictive." Its color-accurate, wide-angle 9MP webcam is the icing on the cake.

Notably, the Spectre x360 14 also comes with its own stylus — the $76.99 HP Rechargeable MPP 2.0 Tilt Pen, which attaches to it magnetically — for drawing and note-taking.

These were all big factors in this machine's Mashable Choice distinction — and we think they're enough to make anyone forget about its fingerprint-loving finish, weirdly crowded port setup, and heavy (for a convertible) frame.

The Good

The Bad

Details

Read Mashable's full review of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3.

Who it's for:

It may not have the most up-to-date internals, but Microsoft's Surface Laptop Go 3 is "ideal for students and busy-bee travelers in need of a portable notebook" with major style points, wrote Gedeon. If you can, try to find it on sale for at least $100 off. (Fortunately, that happens often at Amazon and Best Buy.)

Why we picked this:

Can you fall in love with a laptop based on its keyboard alone? It happened to Gedeon, who called the Surface Laptop Go 3's keyboard "one of the best" she's ever tested. (In her book, the only keyboard that rivals it is that of the HP Spectre x360 14.) It's the cherry on top of its excellent and ultra-portable design, which has the sort of lightweight, premium feel you'd expect from a higher-end machine. "[It] should be called 'Windows Air,'" said Gedeon.

The specs under the Surface Laptop Go 3's hood are decidedly more underwhelming, mostly because they're largely unchanged from those in 2022's Surface Laptop Go 2, our previous top budget pick (including the same dim touchscreen display and 720p camera). It is powered by a newer 12th-generation Intel Core CPU, but that's now two generations removed in 2024. And while its base model does have double the storage space and memory of the previous model, it's also more expensive.

The Good

The Bad

Details

Who it's for:

If you're in the market for a gaming laptop that's basically an ultraportable rig, look no further than the Razer Blade 14 — but be prepared to pay up. This would be a good one to bookmark for Prime Day and Black Friday.

Why we picked this:

The latest Razer Blade 14 is a quiet and handsome 14-inch gaming laptop that starts at $2,199; our upgraded review unit came in at an excruciating $2,699.99. Wait, don't go: It justifies that sticker price with premium specs, including a brawny new AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor that can plow through AAA titles and content creation with finesse. (It has a dedicated neural processing unit, or NPU, for AI tasks.) That CPU is joined by a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series GPU; a 240Hz display for silky-smooth gameplay; and an RGB keyboard you can customize via its free Razer Synapse software. This thing is a beast — and you probably couldn't tell just by looking at it. At only 0.71 inches thin and 4.05 pounds, it's one of the most compact gaming laptops on the market.

The Razer Blade 14 has another important thing working for it, which is its battery life: It clocked in at four hours of gaming and over 10 hours of regular use in our testing. Those numbers aren't earth-shattering, but they're definitely above average in both respects, so the "on-the-go usefulness" value is there. This isn't the run-of-the-mill PC gaming machine that will shackle you to an outlet.

The Good

The Bad

Details

Read Mashable's full review of the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch.

Who it's for:

HP's Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch is a low-cost, large-screened laptop for those who work in the Google productivity ecosystem and watch a lot of YouTube in their free time. If you like numpads, all the better.

Why we picked this:

This HP Chromebook Plus is helmed by a huge, vibrant display that blew me away when I reviewed it: "The colors are intense, with good contrast and rich blacks, and an anti-reflective panel preserves that quality at most viewing angles," to quote my write-up. I loved using it for movie-watching and light gaming (via Xbox Game Pass). On the clock, it was fast enough to handle my daily workflow, which involves a lot of Gmailing and Google Meeting, though its battery life disappointingly drained before the end of my eight-hour shift. I also found it hard to listen to anything playing on it while naked-eared: Its speakers stink.

As one of eight new Chromebook Plus devices, this puppy comes with some interesting new software extras like File Sync, AI-powered webcam settings, and support for some multimedia tools (including Google Magic Eraser and Adobe Express). None of them felt revolutionary in my testing, but they're decent value-adds for such a cheap machine.

The Good

The Bad

Details

Read Mashable's full review of the Asus Zenbook Duo (2024).

Who it's for:

Asus' latest Zenbook Duo is the tops for zealous multitaskers who need more screen real estate than a standard laptop can provide, but don't want to haul around a separate monitor. It'll also appeal to those who simply appreciate a good, fair value: It looks (and performs) like a machine that costs more than $1,500, a number that includes useful accessories to boot.

Why we picked this:

The Mashable Choice Award-winning Zenbook Duo features two bright OLED displays stacked on top of one another, a detachable Bluetooth keyboard that works with both of them, and a built-in kickstand that allows it to shift into different positions. This design could feel suuuper gimmicky if it wasn't executed smartly, but Asus nailed it — and for well under $2,000. "[Single]-display laptops are now cancelled," said reviewer Kim Gedeon, who confessed to feeling "spoiled" after testing this one in her everyday workflow. "How can I work on my MacBook Air, my daily driver, without missing the masterful app-juggling capabilities of the Zenbook Duo?"

Speaking of MacBook Airs: The Zenbook Duo comes with a new Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, which was as swift as Apple's M2 chipset in testing. (That's the one powering our current favorite "budget" MacBook.) Its quiet speakers and dull webcam won't wow anyone who's defecting from Team Apple to Team Windows, but those are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things. For productivity pros, the Zenbook Duo shines where it matters most: screens, speed, and selling price.

The Good

The Bad

Details

the 14-inch, m3 pro apple macbook pro on a wooden table next to a houseplant
Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3)

Best laptop for photo and video editing

Read Mashable's full review of the 14-inch Apple MacBook Pro (M3). Read our deep dive into the differences between the M3 MacBook Pro and the M3 MacBook Air while you're at it, too.

Who it's for:

The M3 Apple MacBook Pro is probably overkill for casual users, and it can get expensive fast once you start adding more memory. That said, it's a great investment for creative professionals who run intense apps and software on a regular basis.

Why we picked this:

The M3 chipset in the current MacBook Pro "translates to an uptick in performance" over the previous M2 generation, wrote Gedeon, "whether you're diving into photo retouching, video editing, [or] other tasks." Its 10-core GPU features hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing so that games can render more realistic-looking lighting effects. And it's incredibly power-efficient: We got over 16 hours of battery life out of it. (That makes it the longest-lasting laptop we've tried.)

On the outside, you're looking at a pretty standard MacBook Pro — albeit one with a bright and gorgeous 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display; that's Apple-speak for a mini-LED screen with ProMotion technology, aka a 120Hz refresh rate. Gedeon called the accompanying speakers "immaculate," adding: "I see why the MacBook Pro is highly recommended for music producers, podcast hosts, and other audio-focused professionals." There's also a good array of ports built into its base, including an HDMI port and an SDXC card slot.

We do think Apple should add more RAM and a USB-A port the next time it revisits the MacBook Pro, but this was another Mashable Choice Award shoo-in.

The Good

The Bad

Details

Read Mashable's full review of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2.

Who it's for:

The Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 is a machine that's begging to be pushed to its creative limits, and as such, deep-pocketed professional artists are its target audience. Gedeon also "[recommended] this laptop for differently abled users who could take full advantage of [its] adaptive touch trackpad feature."

Why we picked this:

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is, as its name suggests, a laptop. But the unique pull-forward design of its 120Hz, 14.4-inch touchscreen display means it can also "transform into a digital easel and a tablet," said Gedeon, "[making] it an artist's playground." Just like its predecessor from 2021, it's an especially versatile device for content creation — though it still doesn't come bundled with a stylus, which feels like a silly omission on Microsoft's part. (It does have built-in storage and charging for the Surface Slim Pen 2, at least.)

Speaking of: While the original Surface Laptop Studio was a great laptop, it was pretty outdated by the time its successor arrived in October 2023. This second iteration fortunately features a slew of upgrades like 13th-gen Intel Core H-Series CPUs, optional NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs, and an NPU. (The latter adds "Windows Studio Effects" to its 1080p webcam, including blur and eye contact features.) Microsoft also equipped it with a much-needed wider variety of ports and a silky-smooth haptic touchpad with an adaptive touch mode for users with limited mobility. It is quite a bit heavier than its predecessor, so it'll probably pass on plein air doodling sessions in favor of staying parked on a desk.

The Good

The Bad

Details

Note: We'll soon review the next-gen Framework Laptop 16. Preorders for it are now live.

Read Mashable's review of the Framework Laptop (2021).

Who it's for:

DIYers, tinkerers, and anyone sick of buying a new laptop every few years will consider the Framework Laptop a sweet buy (or a sweet relief). We've also pegged it as a good budget laptop, as its long-term value is unrivaled.

Why we picked this:

Repairability doesn't seem like a big deal until your MacBook's battery conks out and you have to haul it into the Genius Bar to replace the entire bottom half of the machine. The Framework Laptop 13 is the current version of a previous Mashable Choice Award-winning device that's specifically designed to be fixable at home, even if you have zero prior repair experience, with replaceable CPUs, memory, storage, keyboards, displays, and even expansion cards for ports. What's more, these components can all be individually upgraded whenever Framework introduces new ones — it doesn't get more future-proof than that.

The pre-built, ready-to-use Framework Laptop 13 features a 13.5-inch matte display, improved hinges, and a better battery life than the previous iterations, and it starts with a 13th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage space, and Windows 11 Home. You can also opt for the DIY Edition, which can be customized with the specs (even operating system) of your choosing.

The Good

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Details

How we tested

Mashable staff subjected most of the laptops on this list to varying degrees of hands-on testing (save for the Framework Laptop 13 — we tried a previous version). At minimum, this involved inspecting their build quality and using them for a variety of real-world tasks for several weeks at a time. This included working in different kinds of documents, checking emails, watching videos, taking photos on their webcams, participating in video calls, listening to music (via Spotify), playing games (if possible), and experimenting with any unique software features or use cases they claimed to support.

Additionally, most of the laptops featured here were made to run industry-standard benchmark software. We recently started implementing these benchmarks in our testing, and you can expect to see them in all of our new laptop reviews going forward. (The exceptions were the Framework Laptop 13 and the Razer Blade 14; we tried the latter before deciding on these benchmarks.)

Performance benchmarks

We evaluate a laptop's overall performance by running the appropriate version of Primate Labs' Geekbench 6 (macOS for MacBooks, Windows for Windows laptops, and Android for Chromebooks). This test measures CPU performance in a handful of common tasks, and we record the resulting multi-core score. The higher the score, the better.

Battery life benchmarks

One way we assess the stamina of MacBooks and Windows laptops is by putting them through UL Solutions' PCMark 10 battery life stress test. (The former run it via Parallels Desktop, since there's not a native macOS version of PCMark 10.) This test runs a series of apps and functions until a laptop conks out. We look to see about 11 to 12 hours of battery life in the MacBooks we test, for reference, with 15-plus hours being exceptional, and nine to ten hours in the Windows laptops we review, with 12-plus hours being ideal.

For Chromebooks, the respective portion of Principled Technologies' CrXPRT 2 benchmark is our go-to battery life test. Eight hours is our baseline, but nine to ten hours is best.

After evaluating a laptop's benchmark testing results, we make our final recommendations based on whether we think they offer a good overall value for the money. A too-expensive laptop will sometimes get a pass if we think it looks and works so great that it's worth the trouble of finding it on sale (one example being, again, the Razer Blade 14).

Finally, it should be noted that these aren't the only laptops we've tried — we're constantly testing and assessing new models across different categories, and many don't make the final cut. With that in mind, you can expect this guide to evolve on a pretty continuous basis. We're always on the lookout for new top pick contenders.

Frequently Asked Questions


Ultimately, your budget should reflect your laptop's primary use case(s) and your preferred operating system. Here's what you can expect at different price ranges:

  • Laptops that cost $300 to $600 are budget Windows notebooks and Chromebooks reserved for word processing, web browsing, and email sending. Models on the lower end of this price range tend to be clunkers with pokey Intel Celeron N Series CPUs and eMMC storage; spending a little extra can get you a sleeker machine with a better entry-level processor, more battery life, SSD storage, and a backlit keyboard.

  • Laptops that cost $600 to $1,000 are mostly Windows models and high-end Chromebooks with crisper displays and mid-range CPUs that are good for schoolwork, streaming, and casual gaming.

  • Laptops priced at $1,000 to $1,500 are peppy Windows ultrabooks, MacBooks, and gaming laptops with plenty of storage space, bright, pretty displays, enough power for light photo and video editing, and great graphics.

  • Laptops that cost more than $1,500 are beautiful, beefy, and blazing-fast MacBooks Pros and Windows desktop replacements that can handle professional content creation and intense gaming.

If you want to stretch your budget beyond these usual constraints, bookmark our guide to the best laptop deals across major retailers and tech manufacturers: We update it biweekly with fresh discounts.


If you commute daily or travel often, a lightweight, slim, and compact laptop in the 11- to 13-inch range will serve you best. If you're a huge movie buff, a gamer, or a creator who doesn't normally take their laptop on the road with them, you can bulk up to a 15- to 17-inch model with heft that affords it more power.


You get what you pay for, but some brands' budget laptops can take you pretty far these days, and certain use cases don't necessitate the latest or most powerful specs. For more intel, check out our guides to the best cheap laptops and the best budget laptops under $500.

Mashable Image
Haley Henschel
Senior Shopping Reporter

Haley Henschel is a Chicago-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable who reviews and finds deals on popular tech, from laptops to gaming consoles and VPNs. She has years of experience covering shopping holidays and can tell you what’s actually worth buying on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. Her work has also explored the driving forces behind digital trends within the shopping sphere, from dupes to 12-foot skeletons.

Haley received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and honed her sifting and winnowing skills at The Daily Cardinal. She previously covered politics for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, investigated exotic pet ownership for Wisconsin Watch, and blogged for some of your favorite reality stars.

In her free time, Haley enjoys playing video games, drawing, taking walks on Lake Michigan, and spending time with her parrot (Melon) and dog (Pierogi). She really, really wants to get back into horseback riding. You can follow her on X at @haleyhenschel or reach her via email at [email protected].

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