At present, I think the best Windows laptop for most people is the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 powered by the Snapdragon X Elite chip. It’s a stylish workhorse with enough power to handle demanding workloads and has a premium build as well as an amazing all-day battery life (outdone by just two other models). Even the M4 MacBooks can’t keep up. Beyond that, I have other picks for users with different budgets, use cases, and design preferences.
I chose my picks based on hands-on testing conducted by myself and other Mashable staff and contributors. We’ve reviewed dozens of PCs on the basis of performance, build quality, battery life, and value over the years, and the ones I’m recommending are the cream of recent-gen crops. Most of them scored high enough to secure a Mashable Choice Award, the highest honor we give to the gadgets we review.
Why now is a good time to buy a new Windows laptop
AI data centers have gobbled up DDR5 RAM and SSDs in recent months, leading to a shortage of such components for consumer devices — laptops included. Experts predict that PCs will get pricier over the coming months or ship with lesser specs, as Mashable’s Alex Perry reported. Remember the dark days when mid-range laptops started with just 8GB of RAM? That’s looking like a possibility again. (Yeah, it’s bad out there.)
This is all to say that I recommend buying a new Windows laptop sooner rather than later, and to consider a storage or memory upgrade if you can afford it. You’ll add some extra future-proofing while avoiding imminent price hikes amid the persistent AI boom.
On a more positive note, now is the time of year when I typically see many current-gen laptops go on sale at deep discounts. They’re about to be refreshed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a huge tech industry trade show that happens in early January, so retailers price them to move. Act snappy and you could score a great laptop at a great price before the RAM and SSD shortage (probably) makes everything a worse value.
What’s new
As of December 2025, I’ve added a couple new picks based on our latest round of testing. The Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 14 (Gen 10) is our new favorite Windows laptop for students, and the HP OmniBook 5 14 is our new battery life champ. Both are new categories for this guide.
I’ve also removed the Acer Swift X 14 (2024) as our top pick for photo and video editing, as it’s getting difficult to find in stock. The newer Acer Swift 14 AI isn’t a good replacement because it lacks a powerful dedicated GPU, has an ARM-based processor that might pose software compatibility issues, and doesn’t have a microSD card slot or HDMI port. I’m currently on the hunt for a new winner in that category.
What didn’t make the cut?
We’ve tested other very good-but-not-great Windows laptops so far this year. They might meet some users’ needs or have a couple of standout features, but our top picks outclass them in their respective categories.
The Acer Predator Helios 16 is a powerhouse with a stellar thermal design and a matte display, but its obnoxious, gamer-y look is a turnoff.
The Alienware 16 Area-51 (RTX 5080) is another lightning-fast gaming laptop. It has fun, customizable RGB lighting, tons of ports, and an excellent keyboard, but it’s hot, loud, and clunky.
The Dell XPS 13 (9530) has a fantastic tandem OLED display and a slick edge-to-edge design — it’s such a striking laptop, and a very portable one, too. Unfortunately, its keyboard is cramped, its touchpad is glitchy, and it’s scant on ports.
The Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 (AMD) is an impressive performer for the price, but it has poor speakers, a crude webcam, and a cheap feel to it.
The Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1 is configurable with a gorgeous mini-LED touchscreen, but it has a mediocre battery life and a creaky build.
The Dell 14 Premium is a powerful, well-made laptop with an oh-so-sexy design, but it’s heavy for a 14-inch laptop, its battery life isn’t great, and it has a frustrating capacitive touch function row.
Similarly, Dell 16 Premium (RTX 5070) is beastly and drop-dead beautiful, but it’s too heavy, too expensive, and needs to ditch that capacitive function row. Plus, we got better graphics performance from cheaper last-gen gaming laptops.
The HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is a handsome convertible with a velvety touchpad, a springy keyboard, and a rich 3K OLED touchscreen, but it underperforms for the price and has some strange port placements on its corners.
The HP OmniBook X Flip 14 is another pretty 2-in-1. Its thin, travel-friendly design features a vivid 2.8K OLED touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate and an aluminum chassis that doesn’t cling to fingerprints, and it comes with a stylus. However, its battery life disappoints, and its lattice-style keyboard takes a while to get used to. It’s a runner-up to the Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 14 as a good pick for students.
The HP Omnibook X Flip 16 is an oversized hybrid laptop with a vibrant 3K OLED touchscreen, a strong hinge, and an above-average battery life. But it’s weighed down by an awkward zero-lattice keyboard, middling performance for the price, and a heavy build. If you really want a 16-inch hybrid laptop, I’d go with this one before the two others on this list.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 5i 2-in-1 16 (Gen 10) has a solid battery life, but most of the other convertibles we’ve tried offer better build quality, performance, and future-proofing.
The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 OLED (Gen 10, RTX 5080) is the fastest Windows laptop we’ve ever tested. Its 240Hz OLED display, RGB keyboard, and port selection are all wonderful, but it’s really expensive and overkill for the average PC gamer.
The MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo is extremely lightweight and compact, and it has a nice (albeit overly glossy) 2.8K OLED display. But it otherwise felt and looked cheap, and isn’t an impressive performer compared to cheaper models. It doesn’t take much to get its fan to turn on, and you can feel it whir through the keys.
