The best laptops for 2025, tested by experts

Choosing the best laptop is a largely subjective decision that comes down to your primary use cases, your preferred operating system, and your budget. In other words, there's no such thing as a universally best laptop.

This is an annoying fact of life for both laptop shoppers and those of us doling out "best laptop" recommendations, since we can't make custom judgment calls for everyone in need of a new machine. (I would love to, but I've got a thing after this.) However, I can confidently point you in the right direction of some standouts that I and other members of the Mashable team have vetted and approved.

Our top picks

As of February 2025, Mashable's top laptop overall is the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, a sophisticated Copilot+ PC with incredible performance, an unrivaled battery life of nearly 23 hours, and some fun AI features, if you're into that sort of thing. Note that Microsoft recently announced an Intel version of it that may appeal to users wary of Windows on ARM for app compatibility reasons, but it's a business-oriented model with a significant markup.

For card-carrying members of Team Apple, we think the best MacBook for most people is the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air, a sleek, peppy notebook with a scrumptious keyboard and closed-lid support for two external displays. We also recommend the 16-inch, M4 Pro-powered MacBook Pro as the best laptop for photo and video editing — it's stupid fast, beautifully made, long-lasting, and configurable with a stunning nano-texture display.

The best laptops we've tried further include several hybrid devices. Our 2-in-1 frontrunner is the Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 (Gen 9), a solid performer with a gorgeous 2.8K OLED display, a rotating soundbar, and a superb webcam. Creative professionals may be better served by the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2, a sturdy convertible with a unique pull-forward design that can turn it into an easel, while heavy multitaskers should look into the 2024 Asus Zenbook Duo. It features two OLED displays, performs well for its price point, and includes accessories like a stylus and a detachable keyboard.

For those on a budget, the Lenovo Yoga 7i 14 (Gen 9) is our newly crowned "best cheap laptop" under $1,000: It's a 2-in-1 Copilot+ PC with ample power for everyday tasks, a good amount of ports, and a starting price of $899.99. It replaces our previous pick, the $799.99 Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3, which has a premium, ultra-portable design and an excellent keyboard but dated internals and a lousy 720p webcam. (It's still a passable option for brand loyalists with tight purse strings, but don't buy it unless it's on sale.)

If you're trying to spend less than $500, look into the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch: With a large, colorful display, cool everyday performance, and some useful AI features, it's the best Chromebook we've tried.

Finally, we think the Alienware m16 R2 leads the pack among the best gaming laptops we've used. It's a super snappy mid-ranger that's capable of being toned down for everyday use when you're done playing Cyberpunk 2077.

After spending countless hours reviewing laptops across popular brands, we've decided to recommend these models because they're well-made, powerful enough for their respective use cases, and priced fairly. At the very least, we think they can be useful archetypes within different categories of computers. Don't start from square one if you don't have to, you know?

What's on deck

We're currently trying the Dell XPS 13, a Lunar Lake PC with a tandem OLED display. (It'll be the last of its kind: Dell is phasing out the XPS name.) We'll also soon review the latest Framework Laptop 13, a popular modular and repairable laptop with a Mashable Choice Award-winning predecessor. I'll update this story once our testing is complete.

Further down the pipeline is the Asus ZenBook A14, an all-new MacBook Air competitor with a durable "Ceraluminum" chassis and a ridiculous rated battery life of up to 32 hours per charge. I briefly checked it out at CES 2025, and it took home our Best of CES laptop category award. Suffice it to say, I can't wait to put it through the paces of our full testing process.

What we've tested lately (that didn't make the cut)

I recently tried the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14, a 2-in-1 Lunar Lake laptop priced at $1,899.99 as tested (with an Intel Core Ultra 258V processor, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage). It's an absolutely stunning machine with a colorful 3K OLED touchscreen display, a satisfying keyboard, a velvety touchpad, and a dark aluminum chassis that gives it a moody and elegant look. It also lasted an impressive 15 hours in our battery life test. That said, it has some baffling port placements, mediocre bottom-firing speakers, an oversaturated webcam, and disappointing performance benchmark results.

In a Geekbench 6 multi-core test, my OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 scored slightly lower than the M2-powered MacBook Air from 2023, our current favorite budget MacBook, and significantly lower than its own predecessor. That would be last year's HP Spectre x360 14, which had a mid-range Core Ultra Series 1 processor as tested. I expected way more from a machine with Intel's freshest upper mid-range CPU.

Ultimately, I rated the OmniBook Flip 14 a 4.2/5 — respectable, but not quite a Mashable Choice Award winner. It's a flashy premium hybrid for splurgers who want a future-proofed laptop they won't work very hard, but the zippier Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 feels like a better value for most people at $1,449.99 as tested.

If you're choosing between the two HP models, I'm also inclined to recommend the Spectre x360 14 over the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14. It offers more power and better top-firing speakers for a comparable price.

Read on for Mashable's in-depth guide to the best laptops of 2025. FYI: We've listed the pricing and specs of our testing units, which may not apply to each laptop's base model.