Laptop Gift Guide 2024: Tested Picks for Everyone on Your List

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 picks up where some of the best business laptops of all time have left off, with a sublime OLED display, booming sound (for a work laptop), and enough speed to get out of the way of deadlines. Plus, Intel’s first-generation Core Ultra processor can accelerate your workflows with onboard AI processing. That dazzling display and peppy performance are complemented by lengthy battery life, a feathery carbon-fiber chassis for top-end portability, and a remarkable soundbar hinge that adds visual and audible appeal. This is the ultimate laptop gift for the demanding professional in your life.

The Dell Precision 5690 would be a generous gift for the working professional in your life. Thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and 32GB of memory, this workstation maintains portability while allowing roaming users to sustain high performance. The laptop’s brilliant 16-inch 4K OLED screen makes crunching through big spreadsheets or other strenuous work more bearable. While the Precision 5690 gives up a couple of comforts of larger workstations, it’s a better travel partner than most.

While we gave the Editors’ Choice award to its 16-inch cousin this year, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 processor is the better gift for a broader set of creative-type recipients, based on its lower price alone. MacBook Pro laptops aren’t cheap, but you get quite a lot for the money, like unparalleled performance in creative tasks like Photoshop and video editing. While not as powerful as the M4 Pro or M4 Max options, the baseline MacBook Pro still enjoys the Retina XDR display—now with an optional nano-texture layer for glare reduction—and still-better chip speeds than many comparable Intel-based options. The MacBook Pro is a steeply priced gift even at its starting price, but Apple hardware has always commanded a premium for its reputation of reliability and quality.

Lucky you if the Apple user in your life doesn’t need quite so much power! At the time of writing, we’ve seen the 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip for just $999. However, even if you cannot snag that exact deal, this is the best overall value for university students, a laptop with the reliability and long-term staying power to survive an entire degree’s duration. The 15-inch screen variety is more helpful overall without drastically impacting portability, so it’s worth plumping for the extra weight and screen space. This is the ultimate college companion, ready to be your student’s ride-or-die from freshman through senior year.

You’ll find a vast range of performance levels when shopping for a gaming laptop gift, but for the average gamer wanting a middle-road system, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9 checks all the boxes. This laptop sits just above entry-level pricing and delivers excellent all-around performance, capable of pushing steady frame rates at high settings in modern games of all genres for less than $1,500. In the most cutting-edge titles, you’ll have to dial down some of the visual frills to boost the frame rate, or play in 1080p instead of its native 1600p. But otherwise, this is a capable plug-and-play laptop with an excellent screen and lengthy battery life.

For those who can extend their gift budgets further, the Alienware m18 R2 is one of our top picks, especially if a big screen is a priority. Our review configuration housed top-end parts, but with a $1,899.99 starting price, not all configurations need to be as ambitious. If you opt for the base model, you still get one of the more premium gaming laptop builds around, a sharp and roomy display, and plenty of power. Given the monitor-like screen size, this system can be more than a gaming machine, making it a practical one-stop solution for all big-screen use cases.

Finally, the Titan 18 HX presents peak laptop power if cost is no object for that lucky someone. Simply put, this is as potent and pricey as it gets. Our review model is eye-watering in both cost and performance, packing an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, 128GB of memory, 4TB of storage, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, and a 4K 120Hz mini LED display. This is a desktop replacement, pro workhorse, and entertainment hub all in one.

This 2024 convertible model is the best Chromebook overall. The Plus Spin 714 is worth its relatively high price and stands as the ultimate gift for die-hard Google fans and high-end bargain hunters. This Chromebook’s 2-in-1 design adopts an appealing all-metal frame and a crisp 14-inch touch screen that looks sharp in both laptop and tablet modes. The power plant is an Intel Core Ultra processor, paired with 8GB of memory and a 256GB solid-state drive. This is topped off with support for Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6E, which makes the Plus Spin 714 our first five-star Chromebook. If your loved one owns a Google Pixel or other high-end Android phone, they’ll love the Spin 714.

What do elementary school-age kids want out of a laptop gift? They want something that can help them get homework done and then launch into their next Roblox session—in that order, of course. While it can’t handle much more complicated games than that, this Lenovo LOQ budget gaming rig is ideal for both tasks at an excellent price for parents and guardians. With Intel Arc discrete graphics, this is definitely “Jack or Jill’s First Gaming Laptop” material that’s still capable of getting work done. Just keep an eye on Windows’ parental control settings.

The Yoga name has meant the best in hybrid computing for quite some time, and the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 maintains Lenovo’s legacy. While priced accordingly, for that premium, the laptop features a ritzy OLED touch screen, a speedy Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, nearly 18 hours of battery life, and plenty of ports in a svelte design with a soundbar hinge. Lenovo even includes its Slim Pen stylus in the box for digital doodling, note-taking, and drafting. If you have an artist in your life who frequently uses digital drawing tools, then this is the gift for them.

If someone in your life may enjoy this device and you’re not breaking the bank to gift it, take the plunge. We’ve seen several dual-screen laptops over the last few years, and this is easily our favorite. The Asus Zenbook Duo’s twin OLED touch screens extend to make one larger display, or can connect with a wireless keyboard overlaid on the bottom screen to work like a standard laptop. All the while, the Zenbook remains surprisingly lightweight and portable. Its Core Ultra 7 processor, 16GB of memory, 1TB of storage, and helpful connectivity enable honest work, too. With all that, it’s still not nearly as expensive as expected: Our review model is a fine deal on the parts alone, before even accounting for the second screen. This can be one of those memorable gifts that a loved one might never buy for themselves but end up thrilled with.