The best laptops 2025, tried and tested by our tech critics

The MacBook air remains Apple’s most popular laptop for a reason. It’s slim, light and brilliantly portable, and in testing the M4 version felt quicker and more responsive in every task I threw at it, from everyday browsing to heavier jobs like photo and video editing. That extra headroom means it’s better placed to handle Apple Intelligence features as they arrive.

Battery life is one of the air’s biggest strengths. I found it easily lasted through full workdays without a charger, making it a reliable travel machine. The new webcam impressed too, with Apple’s Centre Stage tech keeping me framed during calls and even showing what’s on the desk when needed.

The design hasn’t really changed, but that’s no bad thing. The flat profile is still sleek and practical, the Magic Keyboard is comfortable to type on, and MagSafe charging is as handy as ever. The new sky blue finish is the one cosmetic shake-up, and it looks great. It’s subtle in some lights, and striking in others.

The price drop seals it. Starting at £999 for the 13in model and £1,199 for the 15in, the air is not just faster and more capable than last year’s version, but also better value.

Read the full Apple MacBook air M4 review

Budget varies from person to person. For some, £1,000 is a minimum, for others it is a maximum. With the Acer Chromebook plus 514, the whole equation is upended. It starts at a mere £349, and often sells for less thanks to frequent sales. That’s very cheap by laptop standards, and that’s because of a huge caveat.

The laptop runs ChromeOS, a stripped-back operating system. It essentially reduces your computer experience to Google’s popular Chrome browser. If you have an Android phone, it offers lots of convenient integrations by default. But it goes without saying you’ll need a Google account to set it up. This means you cannot use many common software – the big one is that you can’t use Photoshop. You can access the Microsoft suite through Google Play, but some of these apps aren’t very well optimised.

So, while it isn’t for power users with specific needs, it’s perfect for more casual users. If you simply need a laptop for surfing the web, streaming TV, and editing the occasional document in Google Docs, it does the job. That also means this laptop works particularly well for teens, who will likely use Google Classroom.

While lots of software won’t run on this machine, a big bonus of using ChromeOS is its excellent battery life. I’ve found that you usually get around 12 hours of mixed use across a busy day, with instant on and off as well.

The Chromebook plus is not a laptop meant to turn heads; it comes in grey and without any ornamentation. Despite that, it feels solid if lightweight, and the keyboard is surprisingly satisfying to type on, though a bit mushy. At 1080px, the display doesn’t set any resolution records; however, it is sharp enough for everyday use and gets sufficiently bright to be used comfortably indoors.

If you need a general-purpose machine and don’t want to break the bank, the Chromebook plus 514 can be an excellent choice.

Apple’s latest MacBook pro doesn’t look dramatically different from the M3, but the upgrades inside are big. I spent several weeks using the 16in model with the new M4 pro chip, and it was blisteringly fast. Whether loading up hefty editing software, juggling video calls or just ploughing through writing and browsing. Even under pressure, the fans rarely spun up, and the machine stayed cool.

The mini-LED display remains stunning, but now you can choose an optional nano-texture coating that cuts glare outdoors. In practice, it gives the screen a more subtle matte look without losing the punchy colours or sharpness. Apple’s attention to detail stretches as far as including its polishing cloth in the box, since nano-texture panels need a gentler clean.

Battery life is exceptional. Apple claims up to 24 hours of video playback on some models, and in my testing, the MacBook pro comfortably lasted through long stretches of heavy use without reaching for the charger. Add in the extra USB-C port across the range, a sharper upgraded camera and the handsome new space black finish, and this is easily one of the best laptops money can buy.

It is, of course, expensive, and the MacBook air will be more than enough laptop for most. But if you want the best mix of performance, design and stamina, the M4 MacBook pro is unmatched.

Read the full Apple MacBook pro M4 review

This laptop is perfect for writers. At 120Hz, the display is snappy, and with more than 1080px resolution, all content looks sharp. However, it’s the aspect ratio that makes a huge difference. At 3:2, it is taller than most displays, so if you spend your days writing articles, essays, or emails, the extra vertical screen space is a godsend.

Paired with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage by default, it has enough power to see you through most tasks, but as with other laptops with Snapdragon chips, there’s a big caveat. Unlike Intel and AMD processors, the Snapdragon processors aren’t optimised for lots of older programs. That means programs you might expect to run might not work as intended, especially niche software.

It’s especially apparent when gaming; some games will refuse to launch, and when they do, they display some compatibility issues, even where compatibility is supposedly guaranteed. The apps that have been optimised run perfectly, but for the moment, not everything works.

It’s a shame, because this laptop has exceptional battery life. The Surface laptop can turn on or off instantly, entering sleep mode with minimal power drain. It made it through a 12-hour work day without issue during testing.

On top of that, the all-metal design is classy, and the lid opens luxuriously with one hand. There’s a spacious trackpad, dual powerful speakers and a really excellent keyboard with pleasant travel and spacing.

If you are looking for an excellent all-rounder, the Surface is a great choice, unless you need to use software that isn’t compatible with the Snapdragon chip.

The Lenovo yoga slim 7x lives up to its name. This thin laptop is 1.29cm thick, and light enough at 1.28kg to disappear into nearly any bag.

That it also has a truly excellent keyboard, good speakers and a great trackpad is just icing on the cake. The webcam is of exceptional quality, and the ‘cosmic blue’ chassis looks great, while the frame is intended to be able to take knocks and bumps, graded in MIL standard tests.

Battery life is fantastic. It’s fast charging, and I found that it lasts over 18 hours between charges on average. That’s two full workdays for many people, giving it a versatility that is often hard to come by.

Unfortunately, as with others in this list, this is a Snapdragon laptop. For the vast majority of people, that doesn’t matter. If you just use your laptop for shopping and writing emails, you won’t notice any issues. For others, this is a huge issue. It means you can’t use some software, games, and VPNs, and while this issue has been fixed for software like Adobe After Effects, it might still affect printer drivers.

Gamers certainly need to look elsewhere; the chip handles older titles, but modern releases proved to be too much, often not launching at all when installed. Complex apps which aren’t compatible may exhibit poor performance.

However, many apps are getting native support, so you may think this is no longer an issue. If you use a VPN, game, or need to use intensive image or video processing software, steer clear. If you need a simple laptop that does the trick, this is a fair choice.

The Thinkpad line of laptops is as ancient as a laptop can be. Decades old, a lot of people are prejudiced against Thinkpads. These laptops are usually given out en masse as work laptops rather than personal computers. Many of us see a Thinkpad and recoil at the utilitarian construction and ever-divisive red trackball nub.

But with the X9 aura, Lenovo has thrown the rulebook out the window. It’s interesting, practical, and above all, pretty. Unlike older Thinkpads, the X9 aura feels truly svelte at just 1.7cm thin. The screen is only 14in across and it weighs only 1.2kg, so it’s perfect for commuting. Though light and thin, it doesn’t feel cheap or insubstantial. The design is all metal, the lid can be opened with one hand, and the gunmetal grey colourway gives it a professional feel.

The screen is touch-sensitive and becomes bright enough to combat sunlight. The OLED tech keeps colours nice and saturated, and there is HDR support too. As for the keyboard, it is well-spaced with excellent travel and, true to the Thinkpad line, is great to type on. Unusually for a laptop, the webcam is brilliant as well.

Lastly, thanks to the Intel Core Ultra 7 processor inside, paired with a minimum of 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, any tasks short of high-end gaming or complex design work were a breeze. At around 11 hours of mixed use, battery life was a high point, too.

If you need an ultralight machine to get you through work and play across a busy day, it should be near the top of your list.

The Lenovo Legion pro 7 is perfect for gaming. Despite rocking a slightly older graphics card in the RTX 4080, it has more than enough power to bring out the best of every game in ‘Ultra’ quality. Whether competitive e-sports or an intense single-player experience, it has the oomph to keep up and impress.

The graphics card is combined with an Intel Core i9-14900Hx processor, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, while the GPU has a healthy 12GB of video RAM to itself.

The 16in 2K, 240Hz screen is a treat, fast enough to keep up with the action while also rendering content crisp and smooth. The rest of the design isn’t the usual gaming monstrosity either. There is a rainbow RGB keyboard backlight, but otherwise, the Legion 7 pro is office-appropriate.

It weighs in at 2.8kg, so it’s pretty heavy, but that’s to be expected of a high-end gaming laptop. The build quality is great, with no flex or give, and the keyboard is a surprise hit too. The trackpad left a little to be desired, and of course, there is another factor to consider: the price. At more than £2,000, this isn’t one for casual browsing. For gaming, however, it’s a godsend.

If you work in the creative industries on video editing, Blender work, or AUTOCAD, finding a laptop which fits all of your needs can prove to be a real challenge. There are machines which are powerful, but those tend to be heavy, and there are those which are portable, but lack power. Finding a Windows machine which balances the two is a difficult proposition.

Luckily, the Acer swift 14 comes close to solving the problem. At 1.78cm thick, it’ll fit easily into most bags, and weighing 1.5kg, it’s surprisingly lightweight.

The GPU is a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 with 6GB of video RAM, paired with 32GB of system RAM and a minimum of 256GB of storage and at least an Intel Core Ultra 5, plenty of power for most creative applications.

In general use, it was able to handle 4k video editing without too many issues, and handled photo editing like a champ. Other laptops I’ve tried were able to crank out more performance, but, for the most part, those were much heavier or more expensive. It was also able to handle games at 1080p with little issue, though it did get hot in the process.

As a Windows machine, it has access to every creative app on the market today, except for those that are Apple-exclusive. It also has a good keyboard, a high-quality 2k 120Hz display, and good speakers, which is a pleasant surprise.

There is evidence of corners being cut; however, the trackpad is plasticky and a little unpleasant to use, while the webcam is soft and doesn’t have the best dynamic range. It was also able to squeak through a full workday with light use, not the most impressive result given the competition, and if you do use creative programmes, it is a given that you will need to be plugged in at all times. There’s the rub, too, that at over £1,500, it doesn’t come cheap.

However, should you need a capable, portable Windows machine for creative work, the Acer swift X 14 is an excellent pick.

All of the laptops on this list have something in common: their form factor. Every single one is a clamshell with a display on top and a keyboard underneath. There’s nothing that breaks the mould, which tries to be different.

But the Surface pro 11 is essentially a high-end tablet with a custom keyboard case. Included within are the full guts of a laptop, a powerful processor, a big display, a large battery and more, but you can detach the main display and totally change its function.

This is a machine that is just as comfortable being used to drive a work-from-home set-up as it is being positioned as a YouTube machine in the kitchen, especially when paired with the separate keyboard case. With the pen too, it becomes a great quality option for budding digital artists or note-taking at college, university, or work.

Beyond its versatility, it has power too, enough to make it through anything short of more complex work or gaming – for the purposes of web browsing, word processing, and email, it has enough grunt and then some. As it has a Snapdragon processor, however, there are the usual issues with compatibility, which may improve with time, but which remain an issue at the time of writing.

The OLED 2k 120Hz panel is a treat to use, coming with full HDR compatibility, which is a relative rarity for Windows machines. Whether composing a document or watching a movie, it’s immersive and sharp. True to the Surface line, the build quality is excellent. The Pro is solidly constructed and fetching in the blue colourway in particular.

Battery life, as is typical for Snapdragon machines, was a high point, making it through a full workday easily, clocking up a total of 12 hours of use, with instant wake from sleep too.

If you want something sharp, powerful and versatile, you need look no further.