Best 15-inch laptops 2024

The best 15-inch laptops are the ideal candidates for those seeking a great blend of performance and portability. Especially as more and more of these mid-sized machines seem to be locked in a space-race-like dash to provide thinner chassis and more powerful components to you — the consumer.

It’s rare to come across a manufacturer that doesn’t deliver a 15-inch laptop in at least one of its line-ups. In fact, 15-16 inch laptops are the most popular size of laptop thanks to their best-of-both-worlds approach when competing against teeny-weeny 13-inch ultrabooks and more gargantuan 17-18 inch desktop replacements.

There are a number of 15-inch laptops that fall on our best laptops and best gaming laptops page. Unfortunately, even with Intel's latest 14-inch Gen chipset, there aren't too many 15-inch laptops coming through, but we're your eye in the sky keeping you abreast of the situation.

Our selection of 15-inch laptops spans all brands, uses, and price ranges. Whether you intend to spend and little or a lot — there’s something here for you. Make sure you’re picking up a device you can rely on for years to come with our selection of the best 15-inch laptops in 2024.

Curated by

Curated by

Rami Tabari

Rami has been swimming in laptops for most of his adult life, which is wild to think about, but excellent for you, those of which that need a new rig in their life. Rami knows that a good 15-inch laptop is a balance between portability and performance. The days of carrying a bag of bricks on our back are long over, so bigger can be better. Rami knows which are the best 15-inch laptops to choose, whether you're going big or going home.

Quick list

The best 15-inch laptops you can buy today

The following text are vignettes highlighting each of the best 15-inch laptops currently available. We have exhaustive testing for each 15-inch laptop, and while we will guide you in this buying process, you can look at the facts and numbers to judge for yourself.

Best overall

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Who said 15-inch laptops are bulky and heavy? Not anymore, baby. The LG Gram SuperSlim comes in with that gorgeous 15.6-inch, 1080p, OLED display packed in a laughably light and thin chassis. It measures up to 14 x 8.95 x 0.43~0.49 inches and weighs a measly 2.18 pounds. It’s practically a paperweight — except it’s a powerhouse as soon as you lift that lid.

Its 15.6-inch, 1080p, OLED screen delivered spectacular coverage of 139% DCI-P3 and averaged 384 nits of brightness. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’ll have a rainbow and floodlight at your beck and call. 

The Intel Core i7-1360P may be a last-gen model, but it wrecked the competition on the Geekbench overall performance test, scoring 9,783. That’s 2,000 points faster than the average premium laptop at the time of the review. Its 512GB SSD also took a speedy 16 seconds to duplicate 25GB of multimedia files, boasting a transfer rate of 1,692 megabytes per second.

It’s also as portable as it is long-lasting — surviving 11 hours and 38 minutes on our battery life. You can’t beat how desirable this 15-inch laptop is when you consider work, school, or travel. If you’re looking for an alternative to the MacBook Air, it’s right here.

The only issue you’ll have to contend with is the keyboard. The keys are a bit shallow, but it’s not so terrible that you couldn’t get used to it. We test over 100 laptops a year — that’s over 100 keyboards, so we can get a bit picky. To the average user, the LG Gram SuperSlim is the perfect 15-inch laptop. The best part is that the SuperSlim is super affordable.

See our full LG Gram SuperSlim review.

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Best MacBook

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Whether you're looking at a lightweight MacBook Air or a powerful MacBook Pro, Apple makes some of the best laptops you can lay your hands on. The 15-inch MacBook Air holds to that claim, delivering exceptional M3 performance at a price that won't break the bank.

Let’s talk about the most important feature first — the display. The MacBook Air’s 15.3-inch, 2880 x 1864, Liquid Retina display is brighter than the sun (cannot confirm). No, but seriously, this screen clocked in 482 nits of brightness — you won’t miss a beat when you rewatch that incredibly dark episode of Game of Thrones (no, I’m not over it). It’s not wildly colorful, covering 77.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, but it’s reliable enough to produce solid contrast.

Even for an Air, that M3 performance is punchy. On the Geekbench overall performance test, the MacBook scored 12,052, which flew by its M2 predecessor (9,993). Apple keeps innovating, and the numbers don’t lie — it’s working.

Despite its powerful performance, it didn’t skimp on battery life. Apple has been excelling regarding longevity — arguably the greatest thing to come out of Apple ditching Intel. The MacBook Air lasted 15 hours and 3 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test.

Let's not forget how remarkably thin this machine is as well, coming in at 0.45 inches thick. Unfortunately, it's also slim on ports. But that doesn’t take away from how portable this machine is.

Consider the price as well — MacBooks are notoriously expensive, but since the Air series is slightly less powerful, it’s also more affordable. It starts closer to the $1,000 mark than any MacBook available. So while you might’ve thought these laptops were unobtainable luxurious items before, this is not the case now.

See our full MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review.

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Best 2-in-1

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Ooo baby, let’s talk about the HP Envy x360 — a gem of a 2-in-1 that boasts a 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel OLED touchscreen. That’s not the only component that packs a bunch — it’s also the AMD Ryzen 7 7730U processor. You might think that because it’s a last-gen model that it’ll underperform. It’s all about context — at under $1,000, this machine is a killer.

Its OLED display powered through our tests, covering 128.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and clocking in at 378 nits of brightness. You can watch a blockbuster film on this thing and fool yourself into thinking you’re at the theater.

Don’t let the price fool you. This machine looks premium as hell. We’re talking a uniform, edgeless chassis with an alluring luster that cannot be denied. It punches in at 14.1 x 9 x 0.7 inches and 4 pounds.

Packed in that chassis is the aforementioned Ryzen 7 CPU, which achieved a multi-core score of 7,748 on the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test — which just beats the average laptop in its class. Its SSD also performed surprisingly well, featuring a transfer rate of 1,245 megabytes per second.

Despite not making the double digits in terms of battery life, the HP Envy x360 2-in-1 lasted 9 hours and 17 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. 

What you will have to sacrfice is a decent set of speakers — we weren’t fond of how quiet these were, and it also had trouble pumping out bass. You might not like the touchpad, either. It offered a nice click, but the pad itself had too much resistance. It was like pushing against leather.

But overall, those are worth dealing with for a laptop as affordable as this one.

See our full HP Envy x360 2-in-1 review.

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Best gaming

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The MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbow Six Extraction Edition does a great job of balancing its design elements without making overt references to its source material. Whether you’re a fan of the game is irrelevant because this 15-inch gaming laptop looks cool as hell and runs hot with killer performance (for better and worse). 

Let’s start with that 15.6-inch, 2560 x 1440, 165Hz display. Stunningly smooth and dripping with color. It reproduced 116.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut — that’s a fever dream worth of vibrancy. It’s decently bright as well, coming in at just 300 nits of brightness. It’s dimmer than the average gaming laptop, but it’s not unbearable. And just try to ignore those thick bezels.

Yeah, the specs are a little older, coming in with the Intel Core i7-12700H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, but this is a one of a kind laptop. And even if you want the stunning display on this sci-fi-looking machine, you’re not going to suffer from poor performance. The Crosshair 15 raced through Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at 78 fps, Red Dead Redemption 2 at 67 fps, Borderlands 3 at 82 fps, Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 92 fps, and Far Cry New Dawn at 94 fps.

Just because this is a gaming laptop doesn’t mean you have to tether yourself to a wall. That’s right, the MSI Crosshair 15 lasted 7 hours and 3 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. You can last nearly a full workday before you have to plug this in. (Let’s be honest, workdays shouldn’t be that long.)

Apart from some gripes with the panel, we didn’t like the smaller keys on the keyboard and the machine can get a bit hot while gaming.

However, if you need something that won't break the bank and fulfills that solid 15-inch space, we absolutely recommend the Crosshair 15.

See our full MSI Crosshair 15 R6E review.

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Best budget gaming

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At a glance the MSI Katana 15 looks like any other mid to high-range gaming laptop, its keyboard is adorned with RGB, its chunky chassis screams "there's power inside," and there's a reasonable amount of ports to suit all your gaming peripherals.

On paper, everything checks out too. A beastly 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor resides alongside 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a mighty Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Everything's coming up Milhouse with this one. Nothing here seems out of the ordinary, that is, until you catch sight of this machines price tag — and pull a double take hard enough to break the sound barrier.

All of this for a price below $2,000? Not bad at all. All of this for a price way lower than $2,000? Hot damn.

The picture I've painted here sounds a little too good to be true, and in all fairness, it is. The MSI Katana 15 is not a picture of perfection, it has a lackluster display and a dire battery life to name it's two most prominent flaws. But if all you're concerned about is getting the most bang for your buck? Look no further.

See our full MSI Katana 15 review.

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Best performance

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Dell's XPS laptops have been some of the best you can buy for some time, and its latest lineup refresh is keeping that legacy strong. Whether it's video or photo editing, grafting through a days work, soaking up the latest entertainment, or even gaming on some of the higher configurations, the XPS 15 (9530)  is a 3.5K laptop that has a lot going for it in terms of overall and graphical performance.

That power radiates from the XPS' solid internals that feature a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a sizable 1TB of rapid SSD storage. The sum of which is a powerful notebook that can just about do it all. If you're looking for a catch-all computer then Dell's machine should be front and center when it comes to your shortlist.

See our full Dell XPS 15 (9530) review.

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How we test laptops

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management.

In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 5 and 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. 

To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 10 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise. 

These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming. 

We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on. 

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it. 

Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.