The best 10 laptops in comparison

Buying a new laptop is a significant investment, and you want to make sure that you've put in the work to select a product that caters to your needs – and that doesn't necessarily mean getting the latest model from a trendy brand. Your chosen laptop will hopefully be by your side for years to come, and you want it to work in your favor, whether in work or leisure (or both). With so many options in the market and, for most human beings, a budget to keep in mind, we know this isn't an easy purchase, but we hope to lighten your load by sharing tips for things to take into account.

Operating system

This one almost goes without saying, but it's a valid reminder. We won't be getting into the age-old debate about whether Mac, Windows, or other platforms are better. Each has pros and cons, and some Apple fans wouldn't give thought to buying from another brand: if this is the case, you can narrow down your search by looking specifically for Apple products.

A sleek design is guaranteed with Apple's MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air, although Apple is not the only brand to invest in top-notch laptop design. If you're open to Windows and other operating systems, you have plenty more options to choose from and may get the same (or more) power for fewer bucks.

Design

It goes without saying: design matters, and most of us would rather have sleek-looking computers that match our individual design preferences. But functionality is also a crucial part of any design, aside from whether or not you really think there's a difference between a 14-inch laptop and a 15-inch laptop.

First of all, it would be beneficial to have a clear understanding of how you're going to use your laptop. Will it stay at home or in the office, or will you carry it with you on your daily commute and when traveling? If you plan to take the laptop to various places, then you already know that a smaller and lighter model is a more suitable option: laptops sized 14 inches or smaller would be your best bet. Two options would be the Dell XPS 13 13.3" Intel Core i7-8550U 1.8GHz / 16GB / 512GB SSD and the Microsoft Surface Book 2 13.5" Intel Core i7-8650U / 16GB / 1TB.

You can check for specific screen sizes, as well as weight and thickness, by using our filter feature. If you don't intend to move your laptop around and you don’t want to depend on an external monitor for tasks such as video and photo editing, as well as gaming, you may want to look into a laptop with larger displays – such as the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 15.6" UHD Intel Xeon E-2176M 2.7GHz / 32GB RAM / 1TB SSD, the Asus ROG Strix Scar II 17.3" Intel Core i7-8750H 2.2GHz / 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, and Apple MacBook Pro (2018) 15" Touch Bar & Touch ID / Intel Core i9 2.9GHz / 32GB RAM / 4TB SSD.

Now that you have a clearer idea of your ideal laptop size, there are still several design features to evaluate. For instance, would you be interested in a model with a detachable keyboard, which allows you to turn your laptop into a tablet? Or perhaps a flip-and-fold design sounds interesting to you – it's also a way to turn a laptop into a tablet, but in this case, by folding the screen over, without detaching the keyboard. Such models typically include a touch screen (otherwise, you couldn’t use them as tablets).

Other design features range from backlit keyboards, which make it easier to use your computer in dimly lit environments (these days, a common feature), to quieter or even silent models with power-efficient components that make cooling fans unnecessary.

Display

A laptop display means much more than the size of its screen. While the resolution of most current laptops is suitable for everyday tasks (such as web browsing, text editing, e-mailing), it may be a key feature to examine if your laptop is your main screen to watch movies, and especially if you're a gamer or do video and photo editing work. In this sense, pixel density and refresh rates would also be worth assessing when choosing a product. In both cases, a higher value is more desirable.

Pixel density determines the number of pixels grouped within a space, suggesting that the higher the value, the sharper the images. A specification that gamers might want to pay special attention to, the refresh rate indicates how many times per second a display can show new images. With that in mind, a high refresh rate generally implies smoother images, while low refresh rates can result in unpleasant flickering.

Finally, consider if the already mentioned touch screen feature matters to you and if you would benefit from anti-reflection coating (which is especially helpful for gamers and movies and series fanatics).

Performance

As graphics and general system processing become more demanding, and apps grow larger, performance is not only critical but also an indicator of durability. Laptops are no throwaway items, and you most certainly want yours to be a lasting resource. That being said, you may need to compromise on performance if you, for instance, have decided that a smaller laptop suits you best. Still, it is possible to have an efficient device without the highest specs; as always, it's a matter of evaluating your needs and priorities.

CPU speed, or total clock speed, is one of the essential performance elements to give thought to. Also known as clock rate, total clock speed is measured in gigahertz (GHz), and indicates how many processing cycles can be executed per second – meaning that the higher the value, the faster the laptop can process data and execute tasks.

Next, we highly recommend that you verify a laptop's RAM speed. Once again, in this case: the more the merrier. As we've explained in our glossary, RAM (an acronym for random-access memory) saves information that is currently in use, so data reading and writing processes can happen quickly, no matter where the data is stored within the system.

We can think of RAM as quick-access, temporary virtual storage for faster data access, and processing. Unless you're searching for a budget model to help you with basic daily tasks, you might want to consider an option with at least 4GB – although that would still not be sufficient for high-performance tasks. For gaming, video editing, and other demanding tasks, a minimum of 8GB of RAM would be appropriate.

Storage

Now, we must also talk about your future laptop's storage. You'll find products with different kinds of storage: those with flash-based storage such as SSDs (solid-state drives) typically offer a smoother, more responsive, and more silent operation, while traditional HDDs (hard disk drives) have lower data transfer rates, higher latency, and are rapidly becoming less popular. It may be, however, that other priorities or your budget tell you to go with an HDD, and that's fine, as long as you adjust your expectations.

Besides its type, the amount of internal storage is a critical spec to examine. Do you make consistent use of cloud storage or other storage and backup services (such as a home backup server and external hard drives), or would you want your laptop to store most of your files? If your case is the latter, you may want at least 500GB of internal storage (a conservative estimate, we would say). Whichever the situation, we would advise you to never rely on just one storage solution for all your files. Backing up is a must!

Connectivity

This is a matter that many don't pay attention to when choosing a laptop, but you will be happy to have kept your connectivity needs in mind when finally proceeding with your purchase.

For starters, do you rely on USB ports to connect other devices? If so, how many USB ports would be ideal for you, and would you require any (or all) ports to be USB Type-C? Besides these questions, it’s also helpful to take into consideration that smaller and slimmer laptops tend to have fewer ports. Furthermore, consider that even some wireless devices, such as a wireless mouse, rely on USB receivers to connect to your computer (which would keep one USB port in use whenever you wanted to use a mouse). Finally, if you're looking for faster USB data transfer, a laptop with USB 3 ports would make you more satisfied.

We hope your USB requirements are now clearer. However, there's more to connectivity than USB ports – for instance, an HDMI output is crucial if you'd like to plug your laptop to an external monitor or TV. Beyond ports, connectivity also includes Bluetooth support and Wi-Fi – features that practically every current laptop is expected to have, but it doesn't hurt to double-check once you choose a model to purchase.

Battery

Battery life is a key feature to evaluate, especially for those who need to take their laptops on the go. You can't always expect to have a power socket close to you, and with an adequate laptop battery life, carrying a power cable won't always be necessary. Lighter models often offer superior battery life in comparison to bulkier, high-performance laptops. Consider the situations in which you may use your laptop and opt for a product that suits your needs.

Another battery-related feature worth paying attention to is "sleep and charge." This technology allows you to charge other electronic devices via your laptop's USB ports even when the laptop is on standby or switched off.

Security

As consumers' concerns regarding data privacy increase (with reason), security features beyond antivirus and malware protection applications have become more valuable for those looking to buy a new laptop. Hardware features that allow for biometric data protection are at the forefront of device security; by biometrics, we are mainly talking about features such as face and iris recognition, fingerprint scanning, voice recognition, and behavior characteristics recognition.

When it comes to laptops, the purpose of these features is to ensure that the person trying to access the device (as well as sensitive data) is an authorized user. Depending on the biometrics technique, cameras, sensors, and microphones may be used to store a user's patterns (be them unique physical attributes, voice patterns, or even movement patterns), so that they can be compared upon each access request.

Although additional security features are always welcome, biometrics are not infallible. Still, there's hardly such a thing as being overzealous when it comes to digital security and privacy these days, and you may want to choose a laptop that has a built-in fingerprint scanner.

As an example, Apple has been implementing the TouchID fingerprint scanning technology on its devices since 2017 – this is available on MacBook Pro laptops with a Touch Bar, and MacBook Air models released after 2018. Your fingerprint's information is stored directly on a secure, separate component on the chipset (instead of cloud services), and you can use it to make purchases and payments, as well as to switch on, restart, put to sleep, and shut down your laptop.

Another proprietary security tech is available for laptops operating on Windows 10: Windows Hello, which allows users to authenticate access via fingerprint, iris, or facial recognition. To prevent spoofing attacks, Microsoft's Windows Hello employs 3D structured light and other advanced data-protection and authentication techniques. Keep in mind, however, that there are hardware requirements for Windows Hello: a fingerprint scanner and a camera with the ability to capture two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy.

Unlike Apple's TouchID, Microsoft's Windows Hello is not restricted to the manufacturer's devices, and an increasing number of compatible devices and apps have been hitting the market over the past years.

Other features

Besides what we've already covered, there are a few extra features that you may want to keep an eye out for and evaluate whether they're something you'd need. Some examples are stereo speakers, a 3.5mm audio jack for wired headphones or wired external speakers, a GPS, an optical disc drive, and an integrated camera. Although the latter makes video calls effortless, privacy concerns have made many of us cover their laptop cameras with tape or sliding covers.

Still, no matter how hard we try to protect ourselves, there's always a chance that our gadgets are recording everything we say and do...And if that thought is too spooky for you, you may as well try to live a tech-free life – which does sound tempting if resulting from an option (and not lack of means), but also seems genuinely unfeasible to most of us.