The Best Laptops to Work and Play Wherever You Are

If none of these laptops quite rings your bell, that's OK! There are far more laptops than we have time to test. To help you make smart choices, we put together a complete laptop buying guide. We also have the details about all the CPU and GPUs you need to know about for 2025. We recommend sticking to these guidelines:

RAM: In most cases, make sure you get 16 GB of RAM. Upgrading to 32 GB is even better and means you never have to worry about running out of memory.

CPU: In the world of Windows laptops, you have three CPU brands to choose from: Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm. Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 launched in late 2024, providing a huge increase in battery life. It also has the best integrated graphics of the three. AMD chips are primarily reserved for gaming laptops, as they’ve struggled to take much ground from Intel. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, however, have challenged Intel in a serious way over the past year with its Arm-based chips, offering some of the best battery life we've ever seen on Windows machines

Discrete graphics: Want to play AAA PC games or edit video on your laptop? You’ll likely want a standalone graphics processor, and at this point, Nvidia is the primary option. The RTX 5090 recently launched as the most powerful new GPU available, but the 40-series still remains a good option. Integrated graphics have improved significantly over the years though too, especially with Apple's M4 line.

Screen: The display depends on the size of the laptop. A 1200-pixel resolution (HD+) screen on a 13- or 14-inch laptop looks sharp enough, but you’ll want more pixels on larger displays. While IPS screens will be good enough for most people, OLED or mini-LED are becoming more common, which provide better color accuracy, contrast, and even decent HDR performance.

Connectivity: Ports are important; though everyone needs something different. For most people, though, we suggest at least two USB-C ports and at least one USB-A and HDMI for those legacy devices. (Remember that nearly all laptops today use one of those USB-C ports for the power adapter.) Thankfully, most laptops still have headphone jacks, but always check, because a few daring machines have dropped it. Lastly, make sure there's Wi-Fi 6E support or newer. Even if you don't have a Wi-Fi 6E router yet, it's a good bet you will in the future (see our Best Routers or Best Mesh Routers guides if you need a new one).

Battery life: Battery life is extremely competitive these days, with Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel all making highly ambitious battery life claims. Most laptops with the latest chips (and without discrete graphics) will get you over 10 hours of battery life, or many more if your workload is lighter.

You are not alone in your confusion over this new laptop spec, which has been the biggest news to hit the PC space in a while. First, you might note that almost all new Windows laptops have a Copilot button to the right of the space bar—tapping on it opens Microsoft’s “everyday AI companion,” Copilot. Surprise! This does not, however, mean you’re using a Copilot+ PC.

Copilot+ PC is not a button but rather an AI-focused Microsoft specification that manufacturers can receive by packing their laptops with an on-device AI processor capable of at least 40 TOPS (trillion/tera operations per second) plus “all-day battery life.” Qualcomm's Snapdragon Elite and Plus CPUs were initially the only ones to fall under this classification but now Intel and AMD machines can also be Copilot+ PCs with the right hardware. 40 TOPS is a bit of an arbitrary number, of course, and we’ll likely see the next generation of chips surpass it.

What can a Copilot+ PC do? In a nutshell, it uses a piece of hardware called an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that can accelerate AI tasks right on the device without having to leverage those servers of GPUs we always hear about. While third-party developers have been adding more features that support the NPU, Microsoft started by launching a handful of AI features that the NPU could take advantage of, including Cocreator image generation in Microsoft Paint, Windows Studio Effects in video calls, and Live Captions for translation. Copilot+ PC’s most talked-about feature is Recall, which lets you find that one piece of information you know you saw three days ago but can’t remember where; it’s still yet to be broadly available yet (after many delays and backtracks due to privacy and security concerns).

The available on-device AI features to try out might be disappointing, but the improvements to battery life are massive. For the first time since Apple silicon launched in 2020, Windows laptops are finally able to compete with MacBooks in battery life, and that even includes the new Intel chips.

Do you need a Copilot+ PC? No, but if you’re buying a new Windows laptop, you should buy one. Not only do they get great battery life, they also come with on-device AI and start with 16 GB of RAM.

I have been reviewing laptops for a decade, and WIRED contributor Chris Null has been testing these machines for 25 years. We test each laptop we review in a variety of situations, including both synthetic benchmark tests, real-world use cases, and comparisons against similar equipment. We don’t consider hardware in a vacuum: Our reviews aim to match laptops with the users that will benefit from them the most, taking performance, usability, portability, and price all into account.

We put every laptop through a gauntlet of tests before writing a review and assigning them a rating. That test methodology includes answering the following questions (and more):

How durable is the laptop? What is it made out of? Does the screen flex when you attempt to bend it? What color options are available?

What are the specs of the laptop and how do they compare to similar machines? This includes: CPU, RAM, storage capacity, graphics processor, and ports. Are the specs for the ports (such as USB) up to date?

How is the input experience? Does the keyboard respond well or is it mushy? Are keys placed where they should be (including the arrow keys)? Is there a numeric keypad? How about the trackpad? Is it responsive and easy to click? Is it too small? Too large?

How bright and detailed is the screen? What is the resolution of the screen, and is this sufficient given the size of the panel? If the unit has a touchscreen, is it responsive and easy to work with?

How is the unit’s performance compared to similar (and similarly priced) laptops? Our testbed includes more than 20 synthetic benchmarks, though this is constantly evolving and is dependent on the unit’s CPU and operating system, as macOS and Snapdragon-based laptops have fewer benchmarks available. Those benchmarks include various tests within the latest versions of Geekbench, PCMark, 3DMark, Procyon, GFXBench, Superposition, Cinebench, and various gaming-related tests. Note that WIRED does not, in general, report raw benchmark scores.

How long does the battery last? We test all machines by playing a standard video on YouTube at full screen brightness and recording when the battery dies. How does this compare to the industry?

How heavy is the laptop and how thick is it? Thickness is measured at the widest point of the laptop, including any legs or standoffs on the underside of the unit. Again, how does this compare to the market?

What is the system like in day-to-day use? Are there any quirks to report—such as oddly placed ports, a surfeit of preloaded shovelware, or unexpected problems that make using the laptop difficult? Are there any bugs or crashes to mention?

How loud is the unit’s fan under load? How are the speakers? Can they fill the room or is the laptop good only for close quarters listening?

Given all of the above, does the laptop represent a good value or a poor one? Is the unit on sale frequently? Can it be configured to order with upgraded or downgraded specs?