Choosing the best laptop for you
Our continually updated list of all the best laptops available today.
With Windows 8 around and the Windows 8.1 update, Ultrabooks taking off in popularity and laptop-tablet hybrids seeing more releases, choosing the right laptop is even more confusing than ever.
Cheap laptops are more powerful and capable than before, while high-end devices are often perfectly good replacements for your desktop computer, able to cope with more intensive programs.
Those after a fast boot up time and a lightweight machine to carry might drool over an Ultrabook.
Serious gamers will want a machine tailored to their graphical and processing needs, while those after flexibility might fancy a convertible laptop-tablet hybrid. Speaking of hybrids, check out some of our picks for the best of 2013 in video form:
All of the machines listed here are laptops. Although we have listed the convertible laptop-tablets that fall more on the side of laptop than tablet, we haven't listed those that are more tablet-like. You can find those in our tablet reviews page and buying guides. Similarly, all-in-one touchscreen computers and other desktop PCs are in our PC and Mac desktop reviews page.
Our list contains the best laptops that really excelled in our extensive testing processes this year. We've arranged them into categories to help you find the one that best suits your needs.
Please note that the prices listed here are for guidance only and aren't guarantees of availability at a certain price, and the hardware you order on your laptop will always determine the bottom line cost.
Best budget laptops and Chromebooks
1. Samsung Series 3 Chromebook - $300
The Chromebook doesn't run a conventional operating system such as Windows 8, Mac OS X Mountain Lion or even a straight Linux distro such as Ubuntu. Instead, it's essentially a computer that does one thing: run a web browser. In this case, of course, the web browser in question is Google Chrome.
It's a slim, light, cheap, long-lasting little laptop that is very secure - partly it only runs a web browser and isn't based on Windows.
What's more, if you live your life in web apps such as Facebook and Google Docs (or think you could), or especially if you're already immersed in the Google ecosystem, it's worth considering.
Read our Samsung Series 3 Chromebook review
2. Asus X102BA - $249
At this price point, the Asus X102BA is surprisingly good. We fully expected a similar performance to that of its closest rival, the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11, but it betters it in almost every respect – its in-Windows performance is better, the screen is superior and it's much lighter too.
It's not the ideal option for business users, but for students or young kids this is almost the perfect device, thanks to its ability to function as both tablet and useable laptop when needed.
Your only dilemma now, thanks to competition from Acer, is whether you buy this or go for the almost identical offering – both in spec and price - in the form of the Acer V5-122P.
3. Acer C720 Chromebook - $200
By far and without question, the main attraction of the Acer C720 Chromebook is its low price. It's easy to afford, and it wouldn't mean bankruptcy were it to be lost or stolen. Plus, all your data would be backed up to Google Drive.
Web pages load so quickly on this Chromebook that we can easily imagine people preferring it to fancier computers. The Google account log-in gives each person a personalized environment, and it takes just a few keystrokes to completely wipe the system.
That said, the keyboard is mushy and cheap feeling; the trackpad is even worse. The display is washed out and has limited viewing angles. This is very much a budget laptop through and through, but it's one of best at its price point.
Read our Acer C720 Chromebook review
4. Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 Touch - $600
This Windows 8 Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 Touch includes just what its name suggests: the added kudos of a touchscreen panel.
The big surprise here though, especially given the IdeaPad's rather sober-looking styling, is the fact that it packs a discrete graphics unit inside its sizeable chassis.
That's not to say it's the perfect machine, since there are a few annoyances here and there, but it's definitely worth considering if you're in the market for a well-priced 15.6-inch laptop - and you don't plan on playing overly demanding games.
Read our Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 Touch review
5. HP Chromebook 11 - $280
Even if you're used to high end computers such as the MacBook Pro or Samsung ATIV Book 9, every time you pick up the HP Chromebook 11 you get a little jolt of pleasure.
It feels solid – light yet sturdy. The keyboard is genuinely very good. The IPS screen's colors are rich and vibrant. The styling feels fresh, simple, clean and friendly. It feels, in short, like a beautifully made, simple to use computer.
Our only major complaint was about power. It's not unreasonable to be demanding a full eight hours' use from a laptop today, though the microUSB charging is a nice touch. It's a quarter of the price of even the cheapest 11-inch MacBook Air and it's far more than a quarter as lovely.
Read our HP Chromebook 11 review
Best laptop-tablet hybrids
1. Lenovo Yoga 11S - $750
The 11.6-inch Lenovo Yoga 11S laptop is a flexible machine that can fold over from a typical laptop stance to a stand position, to a position with the keyboard behind the screen, ready for delivering presentations.
It comes with HDMI, SD card and USB ports, and boasts a surprisingly impressive Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for storage. The screen is sharp and bright, though not full HD, and works well with Windows 8. It's also nicely light and small for portability.
You can easily use the Yoga 11S as you would any other laptop, replete with a full QWERTY keyboard.
Read our Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S hands on
2. Microsoft Surface Pro 2 - $900
The Microsoft Surface Pro 2 still straddles the middle ground between laptop and tablet, but a lack of identity doesn't mean that it should be shunned - far from it.
This is an incremental upgrade from the Surface Pro. One of the main plus points of the Surface Pro 2 is that it can simply do more thanks to increased battery life, RAM, storage and improved graphics.
If just one change is made to the next Surface Pro should it, er, surface, we want it to be slimmer. At any rate, those seeking a fresh form factor that offers real productivity gains (in addition to on-hand entertainment) will find lots to love with the Surface Pro 2.
Read our Microsoft Surface Pro 2 review
3. Asus Transformer Book TX300 - $1,500
The Asus Transformer Book TX300 is encased in brushed aluminium, giving it a quality sleek finish, enabling it to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the MacBook Air in the looks department.
However, it has a hidden trick up its sleeve. The screen unclips from the keyboard base to turn this 13-inch laptop into a 13-inch tablet, for playing games, surfing the web or watching movies.
Along with 4GB of RAM, the chip inside is an Ivy Bridge Intel Core i7 3517U 3rd Generation model. The 4th Generation, nicknamed Clover Trail, which came out in early 2013, boasts better speeds and dramatically improved battery life.
Read our Asus Transformer Book TX300 review
4. Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro - $1,000
With the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, we can now confirm that 3,200 x 1,800 pixels is delicious indeed. On top of the winning Yoga form factor, we loved the solid performance, backlit keyboard, and the snappy SSD, creating mobile device-like response times.
However, in our experience, a Haswell-based ultrabook this thin should run twice as long as the Yoga 2 Pro does on a full charge; we got about five hours in our testing. Even with cloud services like Google Drive, a 128GB SSD is hard to recommend for even your grandparents.
Drawbacks considered, the Yoga 2 Pro is a winner of a laptop, pure and simple. At the $1,000 price point, you could put the Yoga 2 Pro in just about anyone's hands and make them feel quite pleased.
Read our Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro review
5. Sony Vaio Duo 13 - $1,400
From the slim line and attractive design to the top-notch components included, the Sony Vaio Duo 13 looks every inch the expensive product. We also really liked the improvements to the sliding design, which makes it much easier to open and close.
While the sliding design has improved, it still feels a tiny bit delicate around the hinges, which isn't great for such an expensive product. Having the hard drive filled with bloatware is also an avoidable annoyance.
Regardless, the Vaio Duo 13 is one of the best laptop-tablet hybrids we've seen yet. Just be prepared to pay the big bucks for that experience.
Read our Sony Vaio Duo 13 review
Best Ultrabooks
1. HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook - $1,200
HP is certainly not messing about in terms of the Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook's initial wow factor. It's thin - of course it is, it's an Ultrabook - with a deliciously brushed metal lid and wonderfully tactile silicon-coated base.
It's great for work, with a splendid keyboard, enough resolution real estate to pin fully usable windows to either screen edge, and storage aplenty. The fact that it's packing a hybrid drive means Windows 8 boots quickly and the HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook is up and running in a couple of seconds.
2. Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D - $1,000
You'll be amazed at how thin the Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D actually is when you hold the 13-inch laptop. It looks every bit as stylish as rivals like the MacBook Air, and competes favorably on price.
The Series 9 isn't a cheap laptop though, and has the specs you'd expect from a premium machine. It used to be the case that ultraportable laptops were somewhat underpowered, but thanks to processors that use less power but offer higher performance, this is no longer an issue.
Despite some issues, we believe the NP900X4D is a good buy, if not a truly excellent one. You won't walk out of the shop feeling like you've been ripped off, but you certainly won't feel like you've got the steal of the century, either.
Read the full Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D review
3. Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga - $1,400
This is the most stylish ThinkPad we've ever seen. And thanks to a 128GB SSD, Haswell chip and 4GB of RAM (all standard), the ThinkPad Yoga had no trouble keeping up with our web-heavy workloads.
That said, the ThinkPad Yoga's three tablet-esque use modes would be much more compelling if Lenovo created apps that took better advantage. If you already question the utility of a laptop-tablet hybrid at home, then this changes nothing.
Despite the ThinkPad Yoga lacking focus, this is a Windows business ultrabook that you'll be glad to whip out on your commute, even if you don't flip it over or tent it up.
Read our Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga review
4. Dell XPS 13 - $1,000
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The Dell XPS 13 is a pleasure to look at, and at first glance it's hard to see the differences between it and an Apple Macbook. Thanks to the latest components, this Ultrabook will handle pretty much anything you can throw at it.
Dell has added wonderful FHD screens to its XPS 12 and XPS 15 products, but the XPS 13 only gets a 1,366 x 768 panel. This is something of a letdown when you consider that Sony, Asus and Acer are all on 1080p.
The Dell XPS 13 is still one of the best laptops you can buy, offering top performance, brilliant battery life and excellent build quality. But touch-happy users might want to hold out for a touch panel update.
5. Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus - $1,100
Samsung makes great Ultrabooks (obviously, since there are quite a few Sammies on this list) and the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus is one of them. Albeit a bit on the pricey side, it's to be expected from the premium 13.3-incher.
The biggest talking point with the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus has to be its screen - it's a thing of beauty, with perfect viewing angles at 3200 x 1800 pixels, coined by Samsung as QHD+. That puts the resolution firmly into 4K territory (3840 x 2160) and it helps to elevate an already impressive screen into something we've not seen before.
Underneath that slender aluminium chassis is a splendid selection of components, including a Core i5 4200 running at 1.6GHz, which can happily throttle to 2.6GHz for a temporary burst of speed. There's also 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD.
Read our Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus review
High-end laptops
1. 13-inch MacBook Air - $1,145
Like most recent MacBook Air refreshes, the mid-2013 update brings us four new models; two with 11-inch screens and two with 13-inch displays. All use Haswell 1.3GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processors, replete with Intel HD Graphics 5000, the latest version of Intel's integrated graphics chipset.
The cheaper model in each of the two screen sizes has 128GB of solid state storage, the more expensive version has 256GB, and all offer 4GB of RAM.
The benchmarks weren't as great as we hoped but the newest MacBook Air is a definite step up from last year's release. The battery life is little short of incredible - business travelers taking long flights and students who need it all day for lectures, and then throughout the evening for writing an essay will love its all-day power.
Read our 13-inch MacBook Air review
2. Samsung Series 7 Chronos - $1,000
The Samsung Series 7 Chronos model is an update to Samsung's premium 15.6-inch performance laptop, which adds a touchscreen to the existing sleek, brushed metal body. It's for anyone who needs true computing power, for running multiple programs and being creative, but who still wants to take advantage of all Windows 8's super new touchscreen features.
So what's under the hood of this Korean-made beast? Well, the specs are impressive indeed. Firstly, there's an Intel Core i7 3635QM processor chip, which is one of the fastest you'll find out there, clocked at an impressive 2.4GHz. This will handle pretty much anything you throw at it, and is perfect for power-hungry users who want to edit video, images and run rich websites all at the same time.
Back that up with the 8GB of RAM that comes as standard and you have one nifty laptop.
Read our Samsung Series 7 Chronos review
3. Asus N56V - $900
Beneath the stylish exterior of the Asus N56V, there lies a sleeping beast - a brand new Intel Core i7-3720QM 2.6GHz processor. This new hardware means staggeringly fast load and response times, unfaltered HD video playback, seamless photo editing and even high frame rate gaming.
It features dedicated graphics and a strong battery life compared to its rivals, along with clear Bang & Olufsen speakers and easy to use input options. An impressive high-end machine that handles multitasking well.
4. Sony Vaio S Series 13P - $1,000
The features of this laptop, not to mention the asking price, establish the Sony Vaio S Series 13P in the top tier of ultra-portable, ultra-premium notebooks. The boxy, executive design might not appeal to all, but usability and portability are enviable.
If you need a powerful, portable business machine, the Sony Vaio S Series 13P should be topping your list. But if you want a media machine for streaming movies and so on, look elsewhere.
Read our Sony Vaio S Series 13P review
5. MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina display - $2,000
The new Apple MacBook Pro's most exciting feature is, of course, its Retina display. With a 2880 x 1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch, it crams over 5.1 million pixels into its 15.4-inch screen. That's over three million more than an HD TV.
However, it does mean that after-market upgrades are almost impossible, and sacrifices have been made, such as the lack of a hard drive, optical drive and Ethernet or FireWire 800 ports. Clearly aimed at video editors, photographers and graphics professionals, the Retina screen is beautiful, but the laptop's high price tag will put some off.
Read our 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display review
Best gaming laptops
1. MSI GS70 Stealth - $1,900
The MSI GS70 Stealth breaks away from familiar desktop replacement conventions: instead of being bulky, heavy and ugly, it's little thicker than an Ultrabook and half the weight of some rivals - and it's one of the best-looking laptops we've seen for quite some time.
The GS70 is only 22mm thick, but it includes an Intel Haswell processor, current-generation Nvidia graphics card and two SSDs. The high-end specification and superb design means that the GS70 isn't cheap, but it'll be well worth your money.
Read our MSI GS70 Stealth review
2. Asus G750JX - $1,800
The Asus G750JX boasts top-end components across the board, but nowhere more so than at its hugely capable heart - there's a Core i7-4700HQ processor on board from Intel in there. Launched mere months ago, this 2.4Ghz quad-core processor has plenty to offer gamers.
The 17.3-inch display is Full HD, so you won't be lacking in resolution and it has a terrific viewing angle (Asus quotes 140°). Although the laptop boasts Windows 8, the screen doesn't have the touch capability.
The display is also backed up with Nvidia's latest GeForce GTX 770M mobile graphics processor, which offers 3GB of extra memory.
3. Alienware 14 - $1,100
The Alienware 14 is an attempt to create a serious but portable gaming laptop. It's been designed specifically for serious gamers - it has a roster of specs to die for and a price to match.
As you'd hope, there's a full HD WLED Full HD anti-glare screen with superb viewing angles. The colors on the Windows 8 Start screen still look awesome even when viewed from an extremely acute angle. The anti-glare coating can make pale colors look a little grainy at first glance, but games still look superb on it.
4. Gigabyte P25W - $1,750
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The Gigabyte P25W is one of the most powerful gaming laptops we've reviewed in a while, enough to play the majority of games at higher settings. This is thanks to a Core i7 processor, plenty of RAM and the ability to run with dual SSDs in RAID 0.
A few minor complaints: The trackpad isn't the best, nor is the matte LCD screen which is a touch grainy. This laptop doesn't have the 'premium' feel that you might expect at this price range.
There's not much else out there that can compete with the P25W. If you're after a gaming PC but your budget won't stretch too far, then you could do worse than take a look here.
5. Razer Blade - $3,170
The standout feature on the Razer Blade is its Switchblade touchpad interface - a unique feature that turns the Blade's touchpad into a fully functioning small second screen that you can use to check your email, watch YouTube videos or amplify your gaming experience.
The Intel Core i7-3632QM CPU is powerful, and the sound is crisp, but it is expensive, the keyboard is a little stiff and the touchpad placement to the side takes some getting used to. But its long battery life and comparatively lightweight chassis makes portable, quality gaming possible.
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