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Best Laptops 2026: Our benchmarked picks for productivity, portability, and battery life

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Prime portable PCs for work, play, and general use.

Best Laptops
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
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Whether you're a student submitting homework, at work typing away at documents, spreadsheets, or presentations, or you're just someone who wants to access resources online and connect with family and friends, you want a laptop with the components and features you'll need to get the job done. That means a great screen, a comfortable keyboard, and long battery life (and nice design doesn't hurt, either!).

The laptop space is more competitive than ever. Windows machines come from many companies using silicon from three major CPU vendors: Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. Apple, meanwhile, has a range of powerful and portable systems based on its own Apple Silicon.

Andrew E. Freedman
Andrew E. Freedman
Senior Editor

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net. You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01

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11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • LordVile
    How isn’t the MacBook best for work exactly?
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    LordVile said:
    How isn’t the MacBook best for work exactly?
    Will the macOS seamlessly integrate with the work ecosystem?
    Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    USAFRet said:
    Will the macOS seamlessly integrate with the work ecosystem?
    Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
    Unless you’re managing a fleet of laptops then yes? You’re required to use office and a browser which macs do better than windows machines and they even have handy things like supporting H265 out of the box which windows doesn’t.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    LordVile said:
    Unless you’re managing a fleet of laptops then yes? You’re required to use office and a browser which macs do better than windows machines and they even have handy things like supporting H265 out of the box which windows doesn’t.
    Yeah..."unless".
    Reply
  • LordVile
    USAFRet said:
    Yeah..."unless".
    Unless what exactly?
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    LordVile said:
    Unless what exactly?
    Direct from your reply, for one:
    "Unless you’re managing a fleet of laptops"

    Where I work, a mac is a no go.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    USAFRet said:
    Direct from your reply, for one:
    "Unless you’re managing a fleet of laptops"

    Where I work, a mac is a no go.
    Which you're not as an individual purchaser that's an issue for business and if you're buying Macs as a business you don't have the issue because you'll only have Macs. All typical BYOL use cases require the office suite and access to a browser which macOS does just fine.
    Reply
  • dmylrea
    LordVile said:
    Unless you’re managing a fleet of laptops then yes? You’re required to use office and a browser which macs do better than windows machines and they even have handy things like supporting H265 out of the box which windows doesn’t.
    You sound like you haven't used Windows in the office much. Office for Mac SUCKS compared to the Windows versions (Word/Excel/Outlook classic). It always has and always will unless MS starts giving some attention to the Mac version apps. Secondly, there is a very small slice of the "office work" population that needs H265. Even you said Office apps and browser and unless you're watching movies in a browser, I can't think of a reason an office user needs H265.

    Lastly, most of the "Office" world connects to either a Windows server or an MS Azure cloud resource. Mac is "ok" in that respect (definitely not intuitive and there are issues), but Windows is made for it.

    There's no way that "macs do better than windows machines" in an office for the majority of office workers, and I say "majority" because some business, like Design shops, might prefer an all-Mac office. In my experience, in those environments, even the accounting dept uses Windows PC's.
    Reply
  • dmylrea
    I couldn't disagree more with the pick of the Dell XPS 14 as the "Best Windows Laptop". Just checking current prices at Dell, for $1600 you get the worst Series 3 Core Ultra 5, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD (with Windows Home) and a very mediocre 1200p screen driven by lame Intel Integrated Graphics, not even their ARC graphics. Like Mac, Dell has started really overcharging for their stuff. IMO, those mediocre specs should be around $1000. not $1600. For $1600, the ASUS Zenbook S 14 is sexy thin, twice the RAM, twice the SSD, and a 3K OLED 120hz display.

    The XPS 14, properly configured with better CPU and more RAM and storage is $2000.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    dmylrea said:
    You sound like you haven't used Windows in the office much. Office for Mac SUCKS compared to the Windows versions (Word/Excel/Outlook classic). It always has and always will unless MS starts giving some attention to the Mac version apps. Secondly, there is a very small slice of the "office work" population that needs H265. Even you said Office apps and browser and unless you're watching movies in a browser, I can't think of a reason an office user needs H265.
    I don’t think you’ve used it in Mac much.
    dmylrea said:

    Lastly, most of the "Office" world connects to either a Windows server or an MS Azure cloud resource. Mac is "ok" in that respect (definitely not intuitive and there are issues), but Windows is made for it.
    Which is typically set up via browser in this case so is effectively the same.
    dmylrea said:

    There's no way that "macs do better than windows machines" in an office for the majority of office workers, and I say "majority" because some business, like Design shops, might prefer an all-Mac office. In my experience, in those environments, even the accounting dept uses Windows PC's.
    Aside from they do as they’re more reliable, better on battery, don’t have to deal with Microsoft borking the OS every few months, can actually put it away without it being flat when you go to use it again and do all the work as good or better than the windows machine.

    I don’t think you’ve read anything I’ve said properly
    Reply