1. Best laptop 2024: MacBook Air M3 ↴
2. Best budget laptop: Acer Swift Go 14 ↴
3. Best student laptop: Asus Zenbook 14 OLED ↴
4. Best ultraportable: LG Gram SuperSlim ↴
5. Best high performance: MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max ↴
6. Best gaming laptop: Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 ↴
7. Best 2-in-1 laptop: HP Spectre x360 14 ↴
8. Best Chromebook: Acer Chromebook Spin 714 ↴
9. Best battery life: Dell XPS 13 9345 ↴
10. Best for work: MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo ↴
11. Recently reviewed ↴
12. How we test laptops ↴
13. How to find the right laptop ↴
14. Why trust Laptop Mag ↴
You've come to the right place to find the best laptops in 2024. At Laptop Mag, our experts review over a hundred laptops each year to give you the most informed recommendations. And these days, the market is more complex than ever before.
Following the explosion of generative AI, including chatbots like ChatGPT, AI PCs are sweeping the industry along with new chips geared toward AI like Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite, Intel's Lunar Lake, Apple's M4, and AMD's Ryzen AI 300-series. AI may soon supercharge your computing experience, but today, Laptop hasn't found many game-changing AI features, even with Microsoft's Copilot+ PC push. But we are seeing groundbreaking improvements in performance and efficiency thanks to these new chips.
The Laptop Mag testing team runs a series of rigorous tests on every laptop: Geekbench (synthetic CPU test), Handbrake (video encoding CPU test), 3DMark (graphics tests), display tests (brightness, color gamut), battery tests (custom battery rundown), and more. Laptops are then turned over to our reviewers to use in real-world situations. Our two-pronged review strategy gives a complete picture of each laptop and allows us to compare them thoroughly.
This page is constantly updated based on our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag's current picks for the best laptops in 2024.
Sean Riley has covered a wide variety of tech over his 13 years as a journalist but found his home at Laptop Mag in 2020. As the managing editor, he participates as a reviewer or editor in every laptop review published on Laptop Mag.
The best laptop for most people:
Weighing a mere 2.7 pounds, Apple’s smallest laptop features the M3 chip, which delivers a power and efficiency boost over its predecessor. This makes it my pick as the best laptop for most people.
The MacBook Air's 13.6-inch display is one of the brightest laptops around, and True Tone ensures excellent color accuracy, but its vibrancy falls short of some of the OLED competition. Rumors of Apple moving to OLED in the future abound, but not yet.
Like the M2 Air, the MacBook Air M3 is one of the thinnest laptops at only 0.4 inches. However, unlike many ultraportable laptops, it can keep up with an impressive workload thanks to the M3 chip. Whether it was our benchmarks or real-world usage, the Air M3 was up for any task.
Looking at the benchmarks, the MacBook Air M3 scored 12,087 on Geekbench 6.2, well above the category average. Our Handbrake video transcoding test took 7 minutes and 54 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. Again, this beats the average, but it's worth noting that some of its Intel Core Ultra-powered competition is passing the MacBook here. Apple also addressed the slightly slower SSD read/write performance of the Air M2, jumping from 2,800.1/2,210.6MBps on the M2 to 3,030.7/3,058.8MBps with the M3.
All that performance prowess doesn't hurt its battery life, either. If finding an outlet can be a challenge during your day, never fear. The Air M3 powered through over 15 hours of battery life testing in our lab.
If that’s not enough, you also get a 1080p webcam with Apple's latest software tricks helping to boost the hardware to higher heights. So what are the downsides? If you have a lot of peripherals, the pair of Thunderbolt/USB-C ports may be challenging, but at least you have MagSafe 3 to keep both ports free while charging. Starting at $1,099, the 13-inch MacBook Air M3 isn't cheap but remains a solid value. You may want to pay the extra $200 for 16GB of RAM, though multitaskers will appreciate the extra performance headroom.
If you want to save money, the 13-inch MacBook Air M2 sticks around at a new $999 starting price, and I expect to see it regularly discounted to $899 or less, so look at the best MacBook deals before picking one up.
Need more screen real estate? Look no further than the 15-inch MacBook Air M3. It mirrors all of the strengths of its smaller sibling but with a larger 15.3-inch display.
See our full 13-inch MacBook Air M3 review
See our full 15-inch MacBook Air M3 review
See our full 13-inch MacBook Air M2 review
More like this: Best Macbook 2024
Best laptop on a budget
Acer's Swift Go 14 is the easy choice for the best budget laptop. Starting at $749, the Go 14 isn't the cheapest laptop, but its value is incredible. We reviewed the slightly upgraded $999 configuration, but the main trade-off is moving from an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H to a Core Ultra 5 125H. The performance difference will be negligible if you stick to productivity work, browsing, and other general computing.
The design remains the same at either price, with the Go 14 coming in at just 2.9 pounds. The metallic all-aluminum chassis gives off a faint sparkle that looks and feels far more premium than its price. Popping it open, the contrasting black chiclet-style backlit keyboard looks and feels excellent. Acer also gives you ports aplenty on this portable laptop with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB Type-A ports, an HDMI port, a microSD card slot, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a Kensington lock slot.
The display lands just below the mainstream average for color at 79.1 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut (85.2 percent is average), but it beats the category average in brightness at 374 nits (354 is average). Again, factoring in the price, these are strong results. You could also opt for the 2.8K display configuration if you value a sharper image.
Performance with our review model was everything we've come to expect from the latest Intel Core Ultra. Our Geekbench 6.2 overall performance test scored 12,434, overtaking more expensive options like the MacBook Air M3 (12,087). It also scorched the competition for our Handbrake video encoding test at 5 minutes and 18 seconds, almost four full minutes under the category average (9:07), again besting the MacBook Air M3 (7:54).
So what are the drawbacks? The battery life isn't bad, at 9 hours and 50 minutes in our testing, but it is well below top options like the MacBook Air M3 (15:21) or the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (15:52). If you frequently travel or otherwise have difficulty plugging in, this could impact your decision. The built-in speakers are also less than stellar, so plan on some wireless headphones or earbuds.
However, these are minor concerns for most users, so if you are looking for the best laptop value, look no further than the Acer Swift Go 14.
See our full Acer Swift 14 Go (Intel Core Ultra) review
More like this: Best budget laptops 2024
Best laptop for students
Asus has been on a roll with the Zenbook 14 OLED line for a few years, so while it is no longer a surprise, this early 2024 Zenbook takes yet another significant leap forward.
This is in no small part due to the new Intel Core Ultra chipset inside, which puts the Zenbook 14 OLED on par with any productivity and light content creation laptops on the market. It also absolutely blew the roof off our battery life test, with 15 hours and 52 minutes in our test. That's the longest a traditional Windows laptop has lasted in recent memory.
Divining into some of the specifics on performance, it overtook the 13-inch MacBook Air M3 in multi-core Geekbench 6.2 (12,707 vs. 12,087). That wasn't its only win against the much-vaunted MacBook. The Zenbook also beat it in our Handbrake 1.6 test by converting a 4K video to 1080p in 6:36, over a minute faster than the Air M3's 7:54.
The OLED display looks excellent in person, but the benchmarking put it in the middle of the road when it comes to the DCI-P3 color gamut at 79.8 percent, that's below the mainstream average of 85.2 percent and just slightly ahead of the MacBook Air M3 (77.8 percent). It is extremely color accurate with a Delta-E of 0.21, relevant for content creators. Display brightness is a weak point against its competition at 339 nits, which is not a terrible result, but it's something we want to see Asus address for the next model.
The Zenbook weighs 3 pounds, not exactly an ultralight, but not something that will weigh you down too much going from class to class or while commuting. Overall, the Zenbook 14 OLED ticks just about every box we like to see for a student laptop while going above and beyond with its performance and battery life. This laptop should comfortably hold up through four years of college or for a high school student preparing to head to college in the next year or two.
See our full Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) review
More like this: Best laptops for college 2024
Best ultraportable Windows laptop:
The LG Gram SuperSlim puts every other so-called ultrabook on notice with its 15.6-inch display, 0.49-inch thickness, and unbelievable 2.18-pound weight. When you pick this thing up, it is mind-bending that there is a real functioning laptop inside.
Even more amazingly, it isn't a weak laptop that can't do more than browse the web and generate documents. The Intel Core i7-1360p processor, 32GB of RAM, 512GB of RAM, and an Intel Iris Xe GPU give you enough oomph to outperform the competition. Let's not forget that it also features a 15.6-inch OLED display while being lighter than many 13-14-inch ultrabooks.
The Gram SuperSlim proved its mettle in our benchmarks, delivering a Geekbench 5 score that cleared the mainstream premium laptop average and even the M2 MacBook Air! The SSD is no slouch either, providing a file transfer rate of 1,692.4MBps, well above the premium average of 1,362.7MBps.
Thin, light, and powerful? You're probably expecting to hear that it has terrible battery life. Think again! Apparently, LG also shoved a large battery in the pocket dimension inside the Gram SuperSlim, which lasted 11 hours and 38 minutes on our battery test.
So what's the downside? There's one magic trick that LG can't manage: creating extra depth for the keyboard, which our reviewer found a little shallow for their liking. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's worth considering if you are churning out thousands of words a day on the Gram SuperSlim.
That shallow keyboard is a small price to pay for the rest of what you get, though. That is why the LG Gram SuperSlim earned 4.5 stars and an Editor's Choice award. If you need an ultraportable ultrabook, look no further.
See our full LG Gram SuperSlim (2023) review
More like this: Best ultrabooks 2024
Best high performance laptop:
When it comes to raw performance, nothing can hold up to the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max. This laptop is a dream for creative professionals or amateurs with an expansive budget. But it shouldn't be limited to that capacity; you can harness its otherworldly performance for productivity work or any computing task.
Armed with up to a 16-core M3 Max CPU and 40-core GPU, this is the pinnacle of MacBook performance and crushes even Windows workstations. Our review configuration of the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max featured 48GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, but you can max those out at up to 128GB of RAM and an 8TB SSD. In the Geekbench 6 test, the MacBook Pro 16 M3 max hit 20,863; to put that in perspective, the premium laptop average is only 9,078. We haven't seen another laptop break 16,000.
Looking at real-world tasks, the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max exerts similar dominance. Our Handbrake test has the laptop transcode a 4K video to 1080p, the MacBook Pro finished in 2 minutes and 36 seconds. The premium laptop average is 7 minutes and 16 seconds. Even our favorite Windows creator laptop, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, couldn't keep up, taking 3 minutes and 53 seconds to complete the same task. If you do creative work and time matters, the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max is your choice.
With that kind of performance, the expectation is that the battery life will come crashing down. Not so for the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max. It's one of the longest-lasting laptops we've ever tested, managing to hold on for 18 hours and 5 minutes in our Laptop Mag battery test. The average premium laptop taps out at 11 hours and 17 minutes, while the aforementioned Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 could only make it 9 hours and 51 minutes.
So what are the downsides of the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max? Price and macOS are the biggest hurdles. The M3 Max configurations start at $3,499; it's expensive but not really out of line when you consider the performance and battery life is something you just won't find anywhere else. macOS is a great operating system, but if you have Windows-only apps that you need to use or you're business doesn't support macOS it could be a problem. Finally, while gaming support is better than it's been in the past, it's still nowhere near as good as on Windows. If none of these are dealbreakers for you, the MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max is the clear-cut performance champ.
See our full MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max review
More like this: Best Apple laptops 2024
The best gaming laptop overall:
When it’s time to game, and I mean really game — like obliterate everything in the level with wild abandon — look no further than the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18. This behemoth with an 18-inch, 2560 x 1600 display with 240Hz refresh rate is the way to go for buttery smooth rendering, which in those crucial moments can mean the difference between getting the kill shot or receiving it.
But the destruction you’ll unleash comes from the 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900HX and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with 16GB of VRAM. Both chips are the latest and greatest and very overclockable so you can squeeze every inch of power out of them. And while we’re here, I can’t overlook the pair of 1TB SSDs in RAID 0 configuration. This treacherous triad destroyed just about every benchmark we threw at it on both the overall and gaming performance.
Where the Strix Scar 18 hit a bit of a hiccup is the File transfer test and battery life. But about 4.5 hours is still pretty good for a laptop packing this much power. Outside of this, my only complaint about this system is the 720p webcam, sure I can use an external webcam $4,000, I expect 1080p –– hell 4K. But overall, this is the gaming laptop to beat.
Read our full Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 review
More like this: Best gaming laptops 2024
Best 2-in-1 laptop:
The Intel Core Ultra version of the HP Spectre x360 14 takes everything we've loved about this laptop line in recent years and turns it up a notch. Beyond the useful 2-in-1 form factor, you have a gorgeous 2.8K OLED touchscreen display for creating or viewing content.
The laptop weighs 3.2 pounds, pretty light for a 14-inch 2-in-1, but thanks to that power-sipping CPU from Intel, it still crushed our battery life test with over 11 hours on a single charge! That's one of the best results we've ever seen from a 2-in-1. Despite its frugal battery usage, the Intel Core Ultra and Arc GPU blew our reviewer away, putting up better Geekbench and 3D Mark results than many heavier clamshell laptops.
So why isn't it perfect? While the display is bright and colorful, we've seen better benchmarks from competitors. However, the rest of the package makes it impossible to argue with the HP Spectre x360 14 as the best 2-in-1 around, which is why the notebook earned 4.5 stars and our coveted Editor’s Choice award.
See our full HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) review
More like this: Best 2-in-1 laptops 2024
Best Chromebook overall:
This sub-$500 has a lot going for it, including nearly 13 hours of battery life. Plus, according to our reviewer, it's the most attractive Chromebook they've ever reviewed. That's high praise considering less premium laptops tend to look like unassuming gray or black slabs.
But let's leave the Spin 714's dark-gray finish with the gold accents for a minute and take a look beneath the chassis. With its Intel Core i5-1335U CPU, don't expect the system to do any heavy data crunching or run AutoCAD, but it can do productivity tasks, web work, or stream as much video as you like. On the Geekbench 6 test, it defeated the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook which costs $300 more — 6,335 vs. 4,263.
The tables were turned on the JetStream 2.0 benchmark, which tests how quickly large web pages load. The Chromebook Spin 714 achieved a score of 250.2, which beats the Chromebook average (240), but not the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook (256.7).
The Spin 714 also scored a win on our battery test lasting for 12 hours and 43 minutes, eclipsing the Dragonfly's time of 9:17. From a price-to-battery life standpoint, that's the best result we've ever seen.
As long as you don't need any Windows or macOS software, the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 is an outstanding and affordable option.
See our full Acer Chromebook Spin 714 review
More like this: Best Chromebook 2024
Best battery life:
The Dell XPS 13 9345 is one of the first generation of Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chipset. This gives you access to a variety of AI-fueled Windows features that promise to enhance work and play on your laptop. Even if you aren't sold on the AI revolution just yet, this laptop serves up a potent combination of features.
The battery life is the undeniable star of this show, coming in at 19 hours and 1 minute and an even more astounding 20 hours and 51 minutes after we installed the BIOS 1.7.0 update. The average premium laptop makes it to 11 hours and 13 minutes in this test. If you are a student or a frequent traveler who needs to stay powered up on the go, the Dell XPS 13 9345 is unmatched. The MacBook Air line is the only thing in its price range that comes close to it with 15 hours and 13 minutes.
Lest you think that battery life comes from a power-sipping processor, the Snapdragon X Elite also delivers an incredible 14,635 multi-core score in the Geekbench 6.3 overall performance test. That obliterates the premium laptop average of 8,927 and its nearest competitors like the MacBook Air M3 (12,087) or Zenbook 14 (12,707).
It's not the perfect laptop, though. Two ports will leave some users running for a docking station or USB-C hub. At just 66.9% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, the display is rather dull, and our reviewer found the keyboard to be cramped.
See our full Dell XPS 13 9345 (Snapdragon X Elite) review
More like this: Laptops with the best battery life in 2024
The best business laptop:
The MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo is one of the first AI-branded laptops that we tested last year and while it misses out on the Copilot+ program, it offers such outstanding performance and specs that you aren't likely to care.
When we reviewed the Prestige, the battery life jumped off the page when it came in from our lab testers, and our reviewer was similarly blown away after his real-world usage. Lasting for 13 hours and 22 minutes in our Laptop Mag battery test, it crushed our typical expectation of 10 hours. Long battery life usually means an underpowered laptop, but the Prestige 16 AI Evo bucks that trend. It scored 13,310 in the Geekbench 6.1 overall performance test, surpassing even the much-vaunted MacBook Pro 14 M3 (12,024).
The 16-inch 4K OLED panel on the Prestige 16 AI Evo is not something you typically expect on a business laptop with incredible color and brightness. Business laptops typically register around 80% or below for the DCI-P3 color gamut testing, so the 139.2% achieved by the Prestige 16 is like opening a dreary office curtain to a bright sunny day.
While the Prestige is capable of handling some creative work, rest assured that it is ready to be your spreadsheet-slaying workstation, too. The full keyboard with a number pad makes data entry a breeze, and our reviewer was thrilled with the comfortable and speedy chiclet-style keys.
Business users will appreciate the multiple secure login options with a fingerprint reader and Windows Hello login support from using the webcam. Frequent travelers are the only business users that may balk at the Prestige 16 AI Evo due to its larger 16-inch display and just over 3-pound weight, but if you aren't traveling that often or just don't mind toting a slightly larger laptop around then the Prestige 16 AI Evo should be an easy choice.
Read our full MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo review
More like this: Best business laptops 2024
Recently Reviewed
We review new laptops every week, but we don't make the best laptop selections lightly, so there aren't weekly changes to our picks. Here's a look at our recently reviewed laptops that didn't make the cut for this page, some were still excellent, while others missed the mark completely.
