1. The list in brief
2. Best overall
3. Best under $500
4. Best gaming
5. Best ultraportable
6. Best dual-screen
7. Best business
8. How to pick a Lenovo laptop
9. How we test
10. Why Trust Laptop Mag
The best Lenovo laptops consistently rank near the top of our overall best laptops rankings and as we start 2024 that is unchanged. Whether you are considering a ThinkPad business laptop, a sleek Yoga notebook, or an affordable IdeaPad laptop, Lenovo offers something for every user.
From the best business laptops to the best 2-in-1 laptops, Lenovo is a consistent presence among them all. It comes as no surprise that Lenovo makes some of our favorite laptops, from the business-focused ThinkPads to the gaming-centric Legion laptops.
While Lenovo unleashed a torrent of new laptops at CES 2024, we are just starting to see some of those models arrive now and more will be coming throughout the year. Personally, I cannot wait to see what the company does with its upcoming Yoga products, especially since the Lenovo Yoga 9i was my favorite laptop of 2023.
Business customers can peruse our best Lenovo ThinkPad guide for the top models geared toward professionals. However, for the full spectrum of Lenovo laptops for consumers and beyond, just scroll down for a closer look at our favorites across every category.
Momo Tabari graduated with a bachelor's degree in Journalism & Media Studies at Brooklyn College and has been covering tech for four years. She has written over fifty reviews and has plenty of experience testing and critiquing laptops.
Quick List
Best overall
The Yoga 9i is the product of a few years of Lenovo’s hard work on making the 2-in-1 formula as awesome as possible. It packs a gorgeously vivid 2,880 x 1,880-pixel display, 10+ hours of battery life, and excellent performance metrics.
Best under $500
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus delivers fast performance in an affordable 13-inch package. And with nearly 10 hours of battery life for under $500, this is a solid productivity machine.
Best gaming laptop
Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is the perfect gaming laptop, boasting powerful RTX 4070-performance, a gorgeous display, sturdy build, and an exceptional keyboard for the average gamer.
Best ultraportable
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 3 is a luxury ultraportable, packing solid power and a bright 2K display into a miniscule, 2.2-pound frame. Seriously, you’ll be left scratching your head at how small and capable this is.
Best dual-screen laptop
The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i may be the perfect productivity laptop, giving users many options to remain productive, push documents, and create content. From its impressive specs to its sleek, elegant form factor this dual-screen laptop is easy to love.
Best Lenovo business laptop
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) is the best business laptop overall, so naturally it is the best Lenovo business laptop. Add nearly 14 hours of battery life, to a thin, light, and durable chassis and a bright 14-inch display.
The best Lenovo 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 Lenovo laptop
The Yoga 9i is a superb 2-in-1 laptop that quickly soared in the ranks as one of Laptop Mag's most beloved of 2023. In fact, it's my favorite laptop ever, achieving excellence on all fronts without sacrificing key elements of its compelling design.
Its balance between a gorgeous 2,880 x 1,880-pixel OLED touchscreen, phenomenal productivity performance with its Intel Core i7-1360P processor, excellent aluminum build, and great speakers make the ideal system for those picky about their experience using a laptop. After all, spending potentially thousands of dollars on anything can be terrifying. But this one will fulfill your needs, as when lifting the lid on the Yoga 9i and going to town on studying, working, or watching films/TV, it never feels as if my experience is lesser.
Its OLED display channels a mouthwatering 142.1% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, absolutely demolishing its competition in panel vividness. While its 353 nits of brightness isn't quite as high as some might like, it's still bright enough to take on the go without issue.
If you're worried about it dying prematurely, we tested it at 10 hours and 10 minutes of battery life in the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness.
If your 2-in-1 feels like it might snap every time you extend its 360-degree hinge, you'll likely have an anxiety attack whenever moving the lid. Thankfully, the Yoga 9i is amazingly sturdy, with its aluminum hinges providing no shakiness as I poked and prodded at the lid.
If you're a gamer, on a tight budget, or just one something unique, you may need to look further down this list, but for the average user, the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 8 is the best of the best, and don't worry about the rest.
See our Lenovo Yoga 9i (Gen 8) review
Best Lenovo laptop under $500
A Lenovo laptop for under $500? No, this isn't a trick, the budget-friendly IdeaPad Flex 5i with an Intel i3-1315U processor delivers some of the best elements of the IdeaPad lineup at a much lower price than we're used to.
Some of those features include excellent battery life at 9 hours and 50 minutes, a lightweight 14-inch build that comes in at 3.57 pounds, and surprisingly good performance for this price range. You can also expect the potency of Google's AI-enhanced ChromeOS to pack a great performance boost.
Chromebooks get a bad reputation as being lower quality, but considering how lightweight its operating system is, it perfectly compliments the reduced cost for a laptop. Its Geekbench 6 multi-core performance score of 5,384 isn't fantastic by any means, especially when compared to the Yoga 9i's 9,954, but the price difference is massive enough that the former is worth it for those who need something affordable.
The one criteria in which we would never recommend the IdeaPad Flex 5i is if you're a stickler for quality displays. It covered a startlingly low 46.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and while you might think that's normal for this type of laptop, it's actually below the 64.8% Chromebook average. Its 306 nits of brightness isn't awful, but having a panel that can handle bright sunlight is vital for some users.
Its port selection includes two USB Type-C ports, a Kensington Lock, microSD card reader, 3.5mm audio jack, and a USB Type-A port. If you're in need of Thunderbolt 4, this budget laptop will absolutely not satisfy you on that front.
There are much more powerful laptops on this list, but when it comes to value, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i is hard to beat.
See our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus review
Best Lenovo gaming laptop
The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is one of the best gaming laptops of 2024 and it's no contest. It possesses superb RTX 4070 performance that outperforms its many competitors without a sweat, alongside excellent productivity scores to satisfy your needs in everyday tasks.
The Legion 5 Pro also has a personal favorite keyboard, and I even went as far to call it my keyboard soulmate in 2023. By giving the arrow keys its own little nook, featuring its own touchpad, and having a wonderful feeling 1.5mm of key travel, it stands out and excels as one of the best.
And while the Legion 5 Pro doesn't have the best display, it is surprisingly high quality for a laptop at this price point. Managing a DCI-P3 score of 82.4% and 319 nits of brightness at this cost is often unprecedented. It even has a surprisingly powerful audio system.
With a AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD, this laptop excels with a Geekbench 6 score of 13,063, alongside only taking 4 minutes and 5 seconds to convert a 4K video into 1080p resolution through the HandBrake app. And with the final cherry on top being 2,150 megabytes per second transfer rate, every aspect of its performance is unbelievable.
But what really impresses us is that the Legion 5 Pro goes above and beyond competitors that similarly use an RTX 4070. For example, In Borderlands 3, it managed 110 frames per second when compared to the Razer Blade 14 (98 fps), Origin EON16-S (106 fps), and MSI Katana 15 (99 fps). It similarly managed first place against these same laptops in tests for games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Metro Exodus, Dirt 5, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Grand Theft Auto V. It was only defeated once against the EON16-S in Far Cry 6.
See our full Lenovo Legion 5 Pro review
Best ultraportable Lenovo laptop
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 3 takes the concept of ultraportable to a new level, built with a total weight of 2.2 pounds in a 11.5 x 8.2 x 0.6-inch frame. If you're in need of something truly light and capable, look no further.
It's built with a Intel Core i7-1360P processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage space, and a 13.3-inch 2K-pixel IPS touchscreen at $1,599 for the model we reviewed. Its Geekbench 5.5 multi-core performance of 9,268 puts it in a pretty solid spot, but it's important to keep in mind that it's packing a processor from the previous generation.
And since it's an ultraportable, you will naturally be taking it on the go. It's important for laptops of this kind to have a bright panel that can handle the sunniest days, and the Nano does exactly that. With a 483-nit peak brightness, we were amazed by how bright this thing can get. Its 70.9% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut isn't quite as impressive, but it's fine
On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits), it managed a subpar 8 hours and 28 minutes. This is pretty weak compared to the original's 12 hours of battery life, and is significantly below the 9 hour and 45 minute ultraportable average.
You should also expect a lack of ports, with it only featuring two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an audio jack. As this is a thin, lightweight laptop, it's not too surprising that it has a small selection. Worst case scenario, we recommend investing in the best laptop docking stations to get the most of the laptop without
See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 3 review
Best dual-screen Lenovo laptop
If you need power, versatility, and aesthetics in a productivity laptop the Yoga Book 9i can absolutely meet those standards. It's a convertible 2-in-1 with dual 13-inch OLED displays that combine to give you a 16-inch WVA 3K OLED that can flex from business to creative needs.
While the Yoga Book 9i is a bit pricier than your average 2-in-1, you are getting twice the display. While the battery life could be better, the Yoga Book 9i lasted 9 hours and 18 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. So it can survive a full work day with both displays on.
And for those who need to create content, the Yoga Book 9i's dual OLED displays cover 136% of the DCI-P3 color gamut which is well above the premium laptop average of 93.3%. While the displays are a little dim at 335 nits for the top display and 344 nits for the bottom panel, they are within range of the 392 nit premium laptop average. So you'll have all the color accuracy and brightness you need.
In the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test, the 9i scored 7,765, which is decent enough for its Intel Core i7-1355U processor, which is pretty close to the 7,767 premium laptop average. And since the true appeal of the laptop is its dual-display, you won't be disappointed as you handle separate tasks on two screens.
See our full Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review.
Best Lenovo business laptop
When it's time to get down to business, no one does it better than Lenovo. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 reclaimed the venerable laptop lines top spot on our best business laptops list last year. What had managed to unseat it you ask? Why another Lenovo ThinkPad of course.
The X1 Carbon reclaims its spot on the Carbon throne thanks to a combination of features that make it the perfect fit for most business users. That includes nearly 14 hours of battery life, a host of security features including a fingerprint reader, an optional Windows Hello-compatible IR camera and a TPM 2.0 chip. It's also MIL-SPEC tested to ensure that an accidental spill of the liquid or drop variety won't have you immediately in the market for a replacement.
At just 2.6 pounds and 0.6-inches thick commuters and frequent travelers are going to love that the X1 Carbon Gen 11 doesn't weigh down a laptop bag. Speaking of not cluttering your laptop bag, the pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, pair of USB 3.2 Type-A ports, HDMI port, Kensington lock slot, and headset jack mean you shouldn't need to toss a USB-C hub in there either.
I haven't even gotten to the excellent keyboard or its bright 14-inch display. Our only knocks against this excellent laptop are the weak webcam (consider one of the best webcams) and the display could be more vivid. On that last point, it's not washed out, it just doesn't hold up to more entertainment-focused premium laptops, but the shading on your spreadsheets will still look great.
Read our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 review.
How to pick a Lenovo laptop
Lenovo's often been our top-rated laptop brand for good reason. The company offers an extensive product lineup with some of the best notebooks you can get from any manufacturer. Lenovo makes laptops for just about every type of user, from children in school to gamers and business executives.
We've listed our favorite current Lenovo laptops above, but if you're doing research, it helps to know the difference between the company's major product lines.
- ThinkPad: Lenovo's business laptops have some of the best keyboards in the world and many have extremely long battery life. They're a great choice, even if you're not planning to use them for work.
- Yoga: These premium 2-in-1s have great designs, colorful screens, and strong battery life.
- Legion: The gaming line offers solid performance at reasonable prices.
- Flex: A line of 2-in-1s that is less expensive than Yoga, but still full-featured.
- IdeaPad: These mainstream consumer laptops range in price from low-end budget systems to more premium Ultrabooks.
How we test Lenovo laptops
We put each Lenovo 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 5.0 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 25GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm 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 a 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.
