Other good laptops we’ve tested
Dell 14 Plus costs $1,100: This is the first laptop in Dell’s major rebranding effort, and it’s a follow-up to the Dell Inspiron Plus 14. The Dell14 Plus (6/10, wired review) is a solid mid-size laptop, meaning it has a clean but versatile design and solid performance without some bells and Whistles that make Laptop feel good. The IPS screen is good, as does performance and battery life. The only real problem is that all available configurations come with 1 TB of storage, which is why boot configurations under $1,000 are available. Although new, I have seen a significant drop in prices, making it worth more.
Microsoft Surface Pro 12, priced at $770: While it’s a tablet, the Surface Pro 12 (6/10, wired review) is also designed as a real laptop replacement, which is why it’s on this list. Its $779 price is great for a fanless machine running on the Snapdragon X chip, but it doesn’t tie to the keyboard. Once added, this will become a premium laptop. Still, for the right person, this is a killer travel device to work with you on the road.
The ASUS ROG Flow Z13 costs $2,100: This is too expensive for most people, but with regard to the ROG Flow Z13 (7/10, Wired suggestion), I found a lot to like. This game is no one asked for, it is a 2-in-1 1-inch. Performance isn’t a full throttle, but the Z13’s use features surprisingly AMD integrated graphics make it stronger than you think while keeping the heat away from your hands.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition (Copilot+ PC) for $1,300: The first Intel-based Copilot+ PC we tested (7/10, wired review) was a winner in all respects, with excellent AI and graphics performance and some of the best battery life we’ve seen on Intel Hardware. With its slightly weird 15.3-inch screen, it hits the high point without breaking the library, despite the large fan and the system may be bigger than you want.
The ASUS Zenbook A14 costs $750: This is one of the lightest laptops we’ve ever experienced, thanks to Asus’ dirt materials. The Zenbook A14 (8/10, wired recommendation) is also the company’s first A-series laptop, which features Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X chipset, the weakest and presumably the most affordable in the Snapdragon X series. Although this laptop performs well in terms of build quality, portability and good battery life, the chipset is tedious and only works on average web browsing tasks. It’s priced as low as $750 during the sale event, so try avoiding the $1,000 MSRP.
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Photo: Brenda stolyar
Microsoft Surface Laptop (Ed. 7, 2024) at $1,200: Want a window laptop straight from the horse’s mouth? Buy the seventh edition of the surface laptop (7/10, wired review). Performance is stable, so is battery life, and you get a smooth 120 Hz display. This is too expensive for what you get, so try capturing it. Read our guide to the best surface laptops for more information.
Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (2024) at $1,050: We were pleasantly surprised to see more low-cost laptops still incorporate some AI-centric performance tweaks. The latest product in the company’s affordable, pointless laptop (7/10, wired review) of the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (7/10, wired review) is less than $1,000 and uses the new AMD Ryzen 7 CPU (model 8840HS). It’s a small portable machine (3.1 lbs and 19mm thick) and despite its slim form, it still packs in a lot of ports. There are two USB-C ports (one is required to charge), a full-size USB 3.2 port, a full-size HDMI output and a microSD card reader. The keyboard has small arrow keys, but it can be turned on otherwise.
Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED priced at $950: Unlike the Zenbook 14 OLED, this 14-inch machine offers an OLED panel for a reasonable price of under $1,000. The Vivobook S 14 (8/10, wired recommendation) is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 9 Series 1 chipset, which has 16 GB of RAM and a 1-TB SSD. It can handle most daily tasks without any problem, although the screen may become brighter. The battery life is OK, with an average usage time of up to 12 hours. Unfortunately, the machine is a fingerprint magnet, so you will keep wiping it. It has many ports.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge costs $1,750: listen. I’m not saying you should buy a Copilot+ PC. These are laptops with Microsoft’s new name, running Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets, and tweaking for several new AI features. If you decide you need one, Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge (8/10, wired suggestion) is our King of the Mountains. Yes, it suffers from problems affecting most Snapdragon-powered copilot + PC hardware, namely, shrinking graphics performance and compatibility issues – but these issues are largely overcome by many other advantages of the device. For beginners, it has the best overall performance of any Copilot+ PC laptop we’ve encountered so far, and the larger 16-inch Amoled screen even gives you room for a numeric keyboard without having to feel cramped on the keyboard. In AI-powered tasks such as Microsoft’s real-time subtitles, the Galaxy Book4 Edge has a quick conversation in the way other Copilot+ PC devices we tested. It also remains cool and quiet while playing full-screen YouTube videos while playing 14 and a half hours of battery life. It’s a little more expensive than the competition, but you can choose the smaller 14-inch model to save some cash.
The Dell XPS 14 costs $1,200 and the XPS 16 costs $1,700: Dell’s 2024 XPS Laptop (7/10, cable recommendation) targets MacBook jealous Windows users. The design, specifications and sizes are perfectly consistent with Apple’s products. Both the XPS 14 and 16 have a gorgeous, stylish design, a very bright and sharp OLED screen (with a 120 Hz screen refresh rate), and are quick in daily tasks. Unfortunately, when it comes to more intensive tasks, such as video editing, the MacBook’s benchmark runs circles around the XPS 14. The larger XPS 16, which uses the more powerful RTX 4070 graphics card, performs much better, but costs much more than a similarly powerful MacBook. The XPS 14 and 16 are both exquisite, well-designed machines. While heavy gamers and video editors will want to look for most use cases elsewhere, they have enough capabilities. They are expensive for what you get, but if you don’t mind paying a premium price for top-notch build quality with a clean, eye-catching design, the XPS 14 and 16 are the sturdy laptops.
Acer Chromebook Plus 515 costs $399: This is a 15-inch Chromebook Plus model (8/10, wired recommendation) with the same internal components as the Lenovo we suggested above. The battery life is a stable 8.5 hours of full-screen video playback time. ACER offers an HDMI 1.4 output jack instead of Lenovo’s MicroSD card slot, which can be a better choice if you often need to make a demonstration or otherwise use an HDMI port. There is also a smaller Chromebook plus 514 ($380), which is also great.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra costs $3,000: There are a lot of lovers here (7/10, wired reviews), but that price. Ouch. You can at least get what you pay with the new Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, the current top-notch processor in Intel’s Core Ultra CPU family, and the NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4070 graphics card. The 16-inch AMOLED 2880 x 1800 pixel touch screen works well and performance blows up everything else we tested out of the water. But that price.
Acer Swift for $1,000: This is very similar to our highest budget laptop, Asus Zenbook 14 OLED. We found that Asus was faster and had better build quality, but the Swift Go still offers great performance, especially given the price (7/10, wired review). It also has an impressive 15-hour battery life. The downside is the speakers, which are not great, and overall, the body feels a bit plastic. But this is the cheapest Intel Core Ultra laptop we’ve tested for a few dollars, so if the budget is tight, a quick GO will be worth considering.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x copilot + PC, priced at $1,200: Lenovo’s Svelte Slim 7x (7/10, wired review) isn’t exciting, but it offers the best price ratio for many copies we’ve tested + PCs. Battery life and performance are outstanding, although the fans do tend to run loudly.
Laptops should be avoided
Amazon is full of laptops you shouldn’t buy. Just type “Best Laptop” into the Amazon search box and you will find a lot of cheap laptops that no one buys. This includes most Windows laptops under $500, all of which use three to four generations of CPUs.
Things get worse when you search for “gaming laptops” on Amazon, which introduces some cheap laptops that don’t even have discrete graphics. No matter what a company or retailer is trying to say, you shouldn’t expect your laptop to play modern games without a discrete GPU. Some of them include laptops from counterfeit brands you’ve never heard of, for example. Just no reason to buy something from an unknown brand.
Generally speaking, when it comes to gaming laptops, I don’t recommend you buy RTX 30 Series or above graphics. You should still be able to find some nice RTX 40 series laptops that are better than the new RTX 50 series laptops.
Finally, there is the topic of renovating laptops. Online retailers are full of old laptops that are marked as refurbished or “updated.” These able It’s a good choice, especially when they are heavily discounted, such as this M1 MacBook Air. However, there are always some risks when buying a refurbished purchase. Make sure you read the retailer’s return policy. However, there are only one or two older models, please pay attention to the specifications carefully, especially when it comes to RAM capacity. For example, some older M3 MacBook Air models will only show up to 8 GB of RAM without reflecting the increase in price.
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