1. The list in brief
2. Best overall
3. Best budget
4. Best Chromebook
5. Best Ultrabook
6. Best 2-in-1
7. Best business
8. Best gaming
9. Benchmark comparisons
10. Recently reviewed
11. How to choose
12. FAQs
13. How we test laptops
14. Why trust Laptop Mag
The best 14-inch laptops in 2025 hit the sweet spot between a 13-inch laptop's portability and a 15-inch laptop's performance. They handle complicated spreadsheets and dozens of browser tabs with ease while keeping everything large enough to read. I've seen this size's popularity rise since I started reviewing laptops in 2018, and it's become my favorite for all those reasons.
Apple's MacBook Pro 14 M4 — which we gave a rare five out of five stars — has all of those qualities in spades: outstanding battery life, performance, and overall build quality, but also the base model now (finally) comes with 16GB of RAM.
If you're a gamer looking for a powerful and portable laptop, check out the Asus TUF Gaming A14. With an Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card, it can output a smooth 60 frames per second in most graphically intense games without upscaling — and it has remarkably long battery life for a gaming laptop.
Are you on a budget but need something powerful enough for your browser tab-hoarding habits? The Acer Swift 14 AI has plenty of performance and battery life to handle your digital clutter. I've seen this laptop on sale for $750, too — a fantastic deal.
With CES 2025 on January 7-10, new 14-inch laptops are expected, but that also means great deals on some of our current favorite 14-inch laptops. Most laptops announced at CES won't arrive for months either, so if you need something soon, our current top picks remain excellent choices in early 2025.
This page is constantly updated based on our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag's current picks for the best 14-inch laptops in 2025.
The Quick list
Best overall
Apple's best keeps getting better. The MacBook Pro 14 M4 is hands down the best 14-inch option available right now, especially if you're not tied to the Windows platform.
Best budget
For $1,000 or less, the Acer Swift AI provides more performance and longer battery life compared to many of its pricier rivals. This Windows on ARM laptop is a win-win!
Read more below
Best Chromebook
Sturdy and as reliable as ever, one of Acer's most popular Chromebooks now comes with a free trial of Gemini Advanced, which includes access to Google's enhanced AI model and 2TB of cloud storage.
Best ultrabook
Power, price, battery life, and a stellar OLED display make this Asus Zenbook S 14 the best ultraportable laptop we've tested so far.
Read more below
Best 2-in-1
Nothing's perfect, but some things get pretty close. One such thing is the HP Spectre x360 14. Its sleek design, stunning 2.8K OLED display, and superb battery life are hard to rival.
Read more below
Best business
The Asus ExpertBook P5's fast keyboard, slew of ports, bright display, and long battery life help keep deadlines in check — and its price won't set off red flags on your next expense report.
Read more below
Click to reveal our final selection
Best gaming
The Asus TUF Gaming A14 is a delicate balance of performance, price, battery life, durability, and portability — perfect for gaming anywhere.
Read more below
Joanna Nelius has reviewed laptops and computer hardware since 2018. Her work has appeared in The Verge, USA Today, Gizmodo, PC Gamer, and Maximum PC. She holds an MFA from Chapman University and works as a creative writing instructor.
The best 14-inch laptops in 2024
Why you can trust Laptop Mag Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Best overall
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 lets you have your cake and eat it too. It has exceptional performance, stellar graphics capabilities, fantastic power efficiency, and has one of the longest-lasting batteries in a laptop we've reviewed in recent years.
✔️ You want a lighting fast, multipurpose laptop. Web browsing, video calls, photo and video editing, and even gaming — if you need a single device that can do all those things quickly and reliably, this laptop has you covered.
✔️ You want seemingly endless battery life. The MacBook Pro M4 lasted over 18 hours in our battery test. If you like leaving your charging cable at home (or constantly forget it), you won't have to worry about this laptop dying in the middle of a presentation or lecture. (Taking notes by hand — the horror!)
✖️ Your face is your laptop password. Unlike the iPhone, the MacBook Pro M4 doesn't have FaceID. If you prefer or rely on facial recognition to log into your laptop, you won't be able to do that here.
✖️ You're on a tight budget. The configuration we reviewed costs nearly $2,000. There Windows on ARM alternatives that cost half as much (or less) that offer equally-stellar performance and battery life.
As Laptop Mag managing editor, Sean Riley, said in his review, the MacBook Pro 14 M4 is a "5-star laptop that goes above and beyond in so many categories that it almost seems unfair to the competition." It sets the bar high for other 14-inch laptops — especially now that the $1,599 base model comes with 16GB of RAM. (Finally!)
The latest MacBook Pro still has its iconic design, keyboard, and plus-sized trackpad (if it's not broken, why fix it?), in addition to powerful speakers, a fantastic high-resolution webcam, and a stunning 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display.
But Apple's M4 chip makes this laptop nothing short of incredible. Its consistent, breakneck performance handles a wide variety of tasks, from productivity to creativity — and even a little gaming, too.
On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, the MacBook Pro 14 M4 churned out a staggering score of 15,114, making it 21% faster than its M3 predecessor. In our real-world video transcoding test, it converted a 4K video to 1080p in 4 minutes, a whole minute faster than the M3.
As an anecdotal testament to this laptop's speed, my fiancé recently upgraded from an M2-series MacBook to an M4 and he was so blown away by the processing performance he kept opening and closing programs because he was amazed laptop opened them that fast. There was that much of a noticeable difference between his old MacBook and his new M4.
The battery life on this thing is unreal, too. On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits, it lasted 18 hours and 32 minutes before dying. This is phenomenal, making it one of the longest-lasting laptops we've reviewed in years.
Its display doesn't cover as much of the DCI-P3 color gamut as other laptops we've tested (80.2%), especially OLED, but it still produces beautiful, vibrant colors and sharp images. The upside to Apple's mini-LED panel is that the display gets remarkably bright — an average SDR brightness of 556 nits and a peak HDR brightness of 1,096 nits.
But if you prefer to keep the brightness down to conserve battery power or because you have sensitive eyes, Apple offers an optional nano-texture display for an extra $150. It made a meaningful difference in reducing glare during our testing.
See our full Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 review.
Best budget
Acer Swift 14 AI is a productivity speed machine, outperforming most Intel and AMD notebook processors (even Apple's M3). It has one of the longest battery lives we've seen in recent years (17 hours and 30 minutes), and it also offers the best value compared to other Windows on ARM laptops currently on the market.
✔️ Your main concern is cost, but need something more robust than a Chromebook. This laptop provides still the core Windows experience, but is cheaper than many of its Copilot+ PC competitors, both Windows on ARM and Windows x86.
✔️ You are a heavy multitasker. The Acer Swift 14 AI's processor is an absolute thrasher when it comes to running multiple apps at once — even notoriously resource-hungry browsers. No lag, no stutters.
✖️ A native ARM64 version doesn't exist for your most-used apps. Snapdragon laptops run Windows on ARM, while Intel and AMD machines run the x86 version. While Windows on ARM can emulate many x86 apps, that doesn't mean they will run reliably — or at all.
✖️ You want powerful graphics. The Snapdragon X's integrated graphics are far less capable than Intel, AMD, and Apple chips. Don't try to game on this laptop; it averaged 21 frames per second during our Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (Medium, 1080p) benchmark, below our 30 fps threshold.
The Acer Swift 14 AI is part of the first wave of Copilot+ PCs to feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor. These laptops are particularly known for their speed and battery life, even against well-established competitors. However, they are also known for delivering the goods at lower prices, which makes the Swift 14 AI the best budget 14-inch laptop for anyone who wants a robust operating system (not a Chromebook) and the power of a full-fledged laptop.
We've seen the Swift 14 AI go on sale for as low as $900 — a steal considering its commendable CPU performance compared to the MacBook Air M3 and other Windows laptops, including other Snapdragon machines. On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, the Swift 14 AI (14,531) is 33% faster than the average premium laptop (9,853). It also surpasses some of its notable direct competitors: the MacBook Air M3 by 18% (12,052), the Zenbook 14’s Intel Core Ultra 7 155H by 13% (12,707), and the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus' Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 by 9% (13,281).
The Swift 14 AI also rocked our real-world transfer tests. It needed only four minutes and 46 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake — nearly two minutes faster than MacBook Air M3 (6:30), Zenbook 14 (6:36), Inspiron 14 Plus (6:23), and the average premium laptop (6:36).
Data transfer? That was a piece of cake for the Swift 14 AI, too: 1,891 megabytes per second compared to the category average of 1,493 MBps, which is 22% faster. It's also much faster than the Zenbook 14’s 1TB SSD (1,236 MBps) and the Inspiron 14 Plus’ 512GB SSD (1,510 MBps).
All that's impressive, but its battery life really highlights the Acer Swift 14 AI's power efficiency. Even with such a speedy processor (the faster the CPU, the more power it needs) the battery still lasted 17 hours and 30 minutes on our battery test, which involves continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. We typically recommend productivity laptops that last between 9 and 10 hours; obviously, the Swift 14 AI goes way beyond that. Even the more expensive MacBook Air 13-inch M3 lasted only 15 hours and 13 minutes!
Where other budget laptops usually trade performance to reach sub-$1,000 prices, the Acer made cuts in other areas, notably to the Swift 14 AI's 2560 x 1600, 120Hz display. Our editor, Rami Tabari, said it best in his review. The display "skirts the line between vivid and dull, between bright and dim [...] but at the very least you get to watch content on a high-res, high-refresh screen." The screen does have a higher maximum brightness compared (367 nits) to our previous best budget pick, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (339 nits), though!
See our full Acer Swift 14 AI review.
Best Chromebook
The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 combines a powerful, Intel Core Ultra processor with a stylish and comfortable design. It's 2-in-1 form factor is an added bonus for those who love to write by hand, too.
✔️ You use (and like) Google's AI features. This laptop comes with a free, 1-year subscription to Gemini Advanced that includes 2TB of cloud storage.
✔️ You need a Chromebook with a great keyboard. With a comfortable layout and pleasantly tactile keys, this keyboard is a far cry from most Chromebooks' mushy keyboards.
✖️ You need longer battery life. While this laptop does reach over nine and a half hours, that's still on the short-side compared to some other Chromebooks and some Windows laptops.
✖️ You prefer using a touchpad to a mouse. The one in this Chromebook wasn't as responsive as we would have liked to see. From finger touch to on-screen action, it lagged a bit every now and then.
This Chromebook is "ideal for students or professionals who mainly work through web browsing." Definitely agree with our reviewer, Stevie Bonifield.
Its Intel Core Ultra processor handles multiple open Chrome tabs, video streaming, and other basic tasks with legerity. In the Geekbench overall performance test, the Spin performed admirably with a score of 6,335, making it 8% faster than the average Chromebook (5,246) and in-line with our real-world experience.
Typing with its keyboard feels comfortable and crisp. Movie dialogue comes through its speakers loud and clear. This Chromebook can be a tablet, too, thanks to its 2-in-1 form factor — great for certain Google Docs features like handwritten annotations.
While we wish its battery life was longer, it can still last through a typical day at work or school — but that's dependent on how bright you set the display and how often you'd use this Chromebook throughout the day.
For our battery run down test, we set the display to 150 nits of brightness and have the laptop continuously cycle through a series of web pages until the battery runs out of power. The Spin made it 9 hours and 30 minutes before powering down. If you have the display set to its maximum brightness of 355 nits, that number can be shorter. Still, that number is higher than some Chromebooks we've tested in the past.
As an added bonus, buyers get a free, 1-year subscription (normally $20 per month) to Gemini Advanced, Google's suite of AI tools like Deep Research.
See our full Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 review.
Best Ultrabook
The Asus Zenbook S 14 has an incredible amount of power inside its equally incredible thin and light chassis. The entire device weighs just 2.6 pounds and is only 0.47 inches thick at its thinnest point. It's also one of the fastest laptops we've recently tested, gets nearly 14 hours of battery life, and has a stunning OLED display.
✔️ You regularly watch movies or stream video on a laptop. Its OLED display produces stunning, vivid colors with great accuracy and clarity. It also has surprisingly good speakers for such a thin laptop. It didn't struggle to produce a good bassline.
✔️ You bring your laptop everywhere you go. It weighs next to nothing and barely takes up space in a bag. You shouldn't have to worry about straining a muscle carrying it around.
✖️ You like tactile keyboards. Its chiclet-style keys have 1.1mm of travel, and a lack of physical feedback made typing feel mushy.
✖️ You need PC games to hit at least 60 frames per second. Even with a new Intel Core Ultra 200V series chip its Arc iGPU averaged 48 fps across the games we tested at Medium graphics on 1080p. This laptop fared the worst in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at just 19 fps.
Laptop Mag's Madeline Ricchiuto sums up the Asus Zenbook S 14 nicely in her review: "This is an impressive launch laptop for Intel Lunar Lake and a win for Asus." Nearly everything about it — its design, portability, performance, battery life, and OLED screen — makes it the best-balanced, thin and light laptop in its class.
On the Geekbench 6 cross-platform CPU benchmark, the Zenbook S 14's Core Ultra 7 258V (Intel's new Lunar Lake chip) is evenly matched in single-core performance with the the Asus Zenbook S 16's AMD Ryzen AI 9 chip, 2,751 to 2,765, respectively — that's about a 0.5% difference, so feel free to load the Zenbook S 14 up to its gills (or grills) with browser tabs and simultaneously running apps. It'll handle that just fine.
Unfortunately, the Zenbook S 14 couldn't best the MacBook Pro 14 M3 (3,163) as it's about 14% slower in single-core. But it's evenly matched with the Dell XPS 13's Snapdragon X Elite chip (2,797, so about a 1% difference), and it's 11.5% faster than last-gen's Asus Zenbook 14 OLED with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (2,435).
This laptop's story is flipped when it comes to multicore performance, though. Against the MacBook Pro 14 M3, it scored 11,157 to 11,968, or about 7% slower — but it trails behind the Asus Zenbook S 16 (13,282, or 16%), Dell XPS 13 (14,635 or 24%), and Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (12,707 or 13%). That's disappointing to see, especially compared to Intel's last-gen Meteor Lake chip.
But the Zenbook S 14 makes up for that with its quick SSD, taking just 17.8 seconds to complete our 25GB File Copy test at a transfer rate of 1,513 MBps. That's three to four seconds faster than the XPS 13 and Zenbook 14 OLED, and almost 12 seconds faster than the Zenbook S 16.
It's OLED display and battery life are this laptop's most impressive features. The glossy, 3K display produces rich and accurate colors. Its peak brightness (342 nits), though dimmer than some of its competitors, is still bright enough to ward off the harsh glare of fluorescent office lighting. The 3K display also helps conserves power, while still looking as crisp and clear as 4K; the Zenbook S 14 lasted just under 14 hours in our web surfing battery test.
While that's not as long as some of its competitors, it's impressive how Asus fit a large, 72Wh battery inside the laptop's incredibly thin chassis. That definitely has a hand in powering this laptop past the 10-hour mark.
See our full Asus Zenbook S 14 (UX5406) review.
Best 2-in-1
HP Spectre x360 14 is a marvelous 2-in-1 laptop. It looks beautiful, has pleasantly tactile keys, great speakers, battery life, performance, OLED display — it ticks nearly all the need, want, and nice-to-have checkboxes.
✔️ You have the money. Seems obvious, sure, but it's uncommon to see a convertible laptop have this many fantastic features. Where other brands sacrifice audio or display quality, or even performance, the Spectre x360 14 has nearly everything an ideal laptop should have.
✔️ You regularly use laptops in your actual lap. It stays pleasantly cool, rarely exceeding our 95-degree threshold. The warmest bit was one spot on the underside, but the keyboard doesn't exceed 94 degrees.
✖️ You need a lot of ports. It has one USB-A port, two USB-C ports, and a power port. That's it.
✖️ You need a good drawing tablet. While 2-in-1s are, of course, designed to be tablets as well as laptops, the display color accuracy on the Spectre x360 14 isn't the best. It covers only 85.8% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is well below what the average premium laptop offers.
Once in a while, we're blessed by the emergence of a 2-in-1 that crushes expectations in every conceivable manner. In this case, the HP Spectre x360 14 is not only the ultimate 14-inch 2-in-1 laptop, but it's the best of the year, period. "It's a star, and a hell of a one at that," as Laptop Mag editor, Rami Tabari, called it in his review.
This is thanks to the culmination of phenomenal battery life, a stunning OLED display, powerful speakers, a sleek design, and solid performance, thanks to the Intel Ultra 7 155H and a satisfying keyboard.
On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits, we saw the Spectre x360 last 11 hours before running out of juice. For context, our previous best 2-in-1, the Lenovo Yoga 9i (Gen 8), lasted 10 hours and 10 minutes before dying.
Thanks to the power of OLED, you don't have much to worry about if you're a fan of a solid-looking display. It features a 2,880 x 1,800-pixel resolution touchscreen with OLED technology, meaning blacks are far deeper and inkier.
On the colorimeter, the HP Spectre x360 covered 86% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is solid but not the best compared to competing laptops like the Lenovo Yoga 9i (136%). However, anything with an 80% or higher DCI-P3 coverage is usually more than enough to enjoy a nice and vivid panel and OLED historically performs lower on DCI-P3 testing. Its brightness of 366 nits isn't super high, but that's unsurprising, considering OLED panels are typically a tad dimmer.
Of course, its Intel Ultra 7 155H performance delivers excellent scores and real-world speeds. On the Geekbench 6.1 overall performance test, the Spectre x360 managed a multi-core score of 12,358. That's stellar and absolutely crushes previous-generation chips, even pulling ahead of the MacBook M3 (11,968).
See our full HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) review.