Best laptops 2023: Top picks by the PC experts

ThinkPads are generally hailed as being awesome business laptops because of their comfortable keyboards and silent operation. With its quiet keyboard, security features, and booming audio, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 is one such laptop. It’s packing a quad-core Core i7-1185G7, 16GB of RAM, and integrated Iris Xe graphics. That means it’s well-equipped to handle “Office and other productivity apps” and “a variety of multitasking scenarios.” The real star of the show is the 16:10 display, though, as it gives you plenty of room to work with. If you consider yourself a business professional, you’ll definitely want to pick this one up.

With its affordable price point, decent performance, and robust build, the Acer Aspire 3 is a good budget option for most people. It might not be the most aesthetic laptop, but the build is surprisingly rugged. It has a solid, durable feel reminiscent of laptops with much higher price points. The full-size keyboard is nice, too. It has a spacious layout, which is perfect for longer typing sessions. With a budget laptop you will need to accept sacrifices in terms of performance, but the Aspire 3 is plenty fast enough for general use tasks like writing emails and browsing the web. If you’re shopping around for a solid everyday laptop that won’t break the bank, the Aspire 3 offers plenty of bang for relatively few bucks.

The Dell XPS is not only an excellent ultraportable, but it comes with leading-edge performance and a stunning OLED panel. The 14-core Intel Core i7-1280P CPU means it’s no slouch in processing performance either. It’s not only great for general-use, but it can easily handle photo editing tasks as well. This device also comes equipped with Intel Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage.

Despite being only 13.4 inches, the OLED touchscreen is absolutely gorgeous. With a resolution of 3456×2160, the picture is sharp and vibrant. Unfortunately, since the design is so compact, it lacks some connectivity and the battery life is only mediocre. If you can forgive those limitations, then the Dell XPS 13 Plus is a good option for most people who need a laptop to travel with.

Want the attractive design, high efficiency, and strong performance of a MacBook Pro but in a Windows device? Then you should definitely consider the HP Dragonfly Pro. It comes about as close as possible to Apple’s line of premium laptops. HP partnered with AMD to trick out this laptop with a next-gen Ryzen 7 processor with eight high-performance cores and a Radeon 680M graphic card, making it much more powerful than its slim 0.7-inch thick figure would make you believe.

It impresses with an attractive design and high-quality feel made from aluminum and polycarbonate. You’ll even find that HP took a cue from the MacBook’s minimalist approach to ports as there are only two USB 4 Type-C ports and one USB-C 3.2 port. This makes for a clean look, but it may not appeal to users since it makes plugging in a lot of accessories a bit tricky. And while the display is good enough, it unfortunately can’t live up to Apple’s best. Still, for a laptop that is significantly cheaper than the current line of MacBook Pro models, this Dragonfly Pro laptop from HP is a more than worthy competitor—plus you have the flexibility of Windows and the ability to play games during your downtime.

The Lenovo Yoga laptops have always been excellent 2-in-1s, but the latest Gen 8 version has outdone itself. Lenovo’s new Yoga 9i not only remains one of our favorite convertibles, but manages to surpass the high bar set by previous versions. Under the hood, it comes loaded with solid performance features like a 13th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The Yoga 9i also has a svelte design that measures just over half an inch thick and weighs about 3 pounds. And if that wasn’t enough, it comes with some great extras too, such as the 1080p webcam and a superb 2880x1880p OLED touchscreen display.

Sure, it’s a bit more expensive than its previous Yoga versions, but its performance and features make it good value for the money. If you’re looking to get a 2-in-1, the Yoga 9i should be at the top of your list.

The Razer Blade 17 (2022) is a gamer’s ultimate dream. It’s a robust laptop with a stunning 240Hz display and a wide array of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4. Plus, you can expect awesome gaming performance thanks to the Intel 12-gen i7 CPU and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU. That’s some serious power. However, you’re going to pay out the nose for it, as it costs thousands of dollars. If you’re willing to shell out the big bucks, then the Blade 17 is phenomenal option. If your budget is more limited, check out the ASUS VivoBook Pro 15 OLED below, which is our best budget gaming laptop pick.

The MSI Titan GT77 HX 13V is the ultimate gaming laptop in terms of pure performance. It has just about everything you could ever dream of in a gaming rig including the latest gen Core i9 processor, a monster RTX 4090 graphics card, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 2TB PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD. If that wasn’t enough, it also has a gorgeous industry leading 4K IPS Mini-LED display capable of a 144Hz refresh rate. There’s plenty of connectivity options as well and a fantastic Steelseries mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches built-in. If we were to nitpick, we’d say that the only downsides are a mediocre 720p webcam and a short battery life (if run during power hungry 3D gaming or intense workloads).

All of that high end hardware comes with a price though and you’ll need to pay a premium for MSI’s best. With such a steep price tag, this laptop isn’t a practical choice for most people. But if you want the best in performance and have a lot of money to burn, there currently nothing that can rival the MSI Titan.

The ROG Zephyrus G14 is both lightweight and powerful—a very rare combination. It weighs just a little over three pounds, which makes it a capable traveling laptop. Between the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS processor and AMD Radeon RX6800S GPU, you can expect strong performance as well. The only weakness is the keyboard. It feels a little mushy and the backlighting is rather unimpressive. That said, if you’re in the market for a portable laptop that delivers zippy performance, the Zephyrus G14 is a great pick.

Looking for a reliable budget gaming laptop? The ASUS VivoBook Pro 15 OLED is a fantastic option. According to our tester, this laptop is great for “gaming, streaming, and day-to-day productivity.” Thanks to the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 (4GB GDDR6) GPU, we were able to hit 60 frames-per-second at 1080p on high graphics during the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark. Plus, the OLED display is absolutely beautiful and battery life is surprisingly good. There are a few minor shortcomings, however.

The overall design is a little plain and the port selection is limited, and you’ll need to drop down to Medium or High graphics in strenuous modern AAA games on the RTX 3050. Nitpicks aside, if you’re looking for reliable performance on a gorgeous OLED screen, the VivoBook Pro 15 is where the party’s at. If you don’t mind giving up those luscious OLED visuals for a bit more graphics firepower, you should take a look at the Acer Swift X, which is our next entry.

Want a giant 18-inch screen on your laptop? How about if that giant screen is a QHD+ display with a refresh rate of 240Hz? Well, you already had us at 18-inch screen. The Asus ROG Strix G18 is about as close to a true desktop replacement as you can get. This laptop is absolutely loaded with great performance features that include a Core i9-13980HX processor, an RTX 4090 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. But that’s not even the best part—the ROG Strix G18 comes with a mouth-watering 18-inch QHD+ (2560×1600) ROG Nebula panel with 100% DCI-P3 and sRGB coverage and an outstanding 240Hz refresh rate.

At first glance, the price of the Asus ROG Strix G18 might turn some people away, but it can be found for a lot cheaper than some competitors’ models such as Razer and MSI with the same configuration. The size can either be an upside or downside depending on what you’re looking for from a laptop, but if you want a desktop replacement complete with an outstanding display then there are currently none better than the Asus ROG Strix G18.

If you’re looking for a great convertible laptop, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 will surely fit the bill. You can either prop it up like a tent or fold the screen all the way back and use it like a tablet. We were also impressed with its vibrant display, all-day battery life, and diverse selection of ports. The design is a little utilitarian, but this is the kind of machine that favors function over aesthetics. The build is robust and there was hardly any flex in the keyboard tray. There are a couple of downsides like the loud fan noise and the lack of a physical privacy shutter on the webcam, but these issues are relatively minor. Overall, the Spin 713 is a solid convertible laptop that performs well.

Dell’s updated XPS 17 boasts a huge 17-inch screen, 13th-gen Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, and a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Not only is that enough performance to breeze through all of your content projects, but it also brings a 1TB SSD giving you plenty of storage for all of them as well. By packing its 4K, touch screen panel into such a compact laptop, and loading the notebook itself with every feature professionals ask for (hello, SD card reader and abundant Thunderbolt 4 ports), the XPS 17 is the poster child for what a content creation workhorse laptop should be.

The one real downside is that the XPS 17 weighs just under five and a half pounds, so it’s a real beast. The webcam is only 720p, as well, which may be a downside if you have to do any online classes or video-conferencing. Buy if you can live with those minor shortcomings, the latest XPS 17 is a phenomenal choice for all content creators.

If you’re looking for a big screen on a modest budget, the Acer Swift 3 is a fantastic option. It features an attractive 16-inch 1080p display, a solid chassis, and an enjoyable keyboard and touchpad. However, battery life is subpar, so you’ll want to keep the charger on hand. This is unfortunate, as the Swift 3’s slim profile makes it a good laptop for travel. If you don’t mind the battery life, this is a great laptop for watching movies and streaming shows.

Microsoft’s Surface tablets were already atop our list of best 2-in-1 laptops, but Microsoft reworked the Surface Pro 8 in numerous ways by adding a larger, higher-resolution, faster screen, a pair of Thunderbolt ports that replace the legacy Surface Connector, and a new inking experience, among other features.

While this generation of the Surface Pro tablet forgoes an always-connected LTE option as well as the choice of a cheap Core i3, performance still soared to the top of the heap. Benefits like how the increased display refresh rate improves inking are subtle improvements that matter, too. It’s the most dramatic revamp of a Surface in years and it’s all for the better.