Best Value: Hp Envy 17t
Plain and simple, the HP Envy 17t is a well-built laptop that makes few compromises on its specs. It’s a real alternative to Apples MacBook Pro, although this machine comes in almost $1,000 cheaper. While it might not be the most travel-friendly PC given its short 1.5-hour battery life, this 17-inch laptop makes an excellent desktop replacement. It packs a 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM plus 16GB of memory and a 1TB hard drive. That’s a decent offering at this price.
Design-wise, the HP Envy 17t a bit heavier than a MacBook at 6.75 pounds. It’s housed in a sleek aluminum and magnesium chassis and has a beautiful, backlit keyboard and a large touchpad. Perhaps most gush-worthy is its 1080p display, which looks spectacular under edge-to-edge glass. It gets plenty bright, but our testing found it loses brightness and contrast quickly when viewed at an angle.
HP has also partnered with Bang & Olufsen for better-than-average bass-boosting built-in speakers. Where many 17-inch laptops put the speakers on the bottom, these are up front. While they sound a bit tinny, our reviewer said audiophiles who know their way around EQ settings can potentially squeeze more performance out of them.
Size: 15.71 x 10.2 x 0.76 inches | Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080 | Processor: Intel Core i7-720QM | RAM: 16GB | GPU: None | Storage: 1TB SSD
Lifewire / Jonno Hill
The Best Laptop Of 2022
The latest MacBook Air, powered by Apples M2 processor, is the best laptop for most people.
The base model, which includes 8GB of memory, 256GB of storage, an 8-core CPU, and an 8-core GPU, starts at $1,199. A model with 512GB of storage, which is what we recommend for most people and will let you keep using the laptop for longer, costs $1,399.
The Air has lost the wedge-shape design that was its calling card for years but retains many of the other excellent features of years past, including MagSafe charging, Touch ID, and the scissor-switch keyboard, and adds a new 1080p webcam and two new color options.
The M2 processor inside isnt as fast or powerful as the M1 Pro or M1 Max you get in the larger MacBook Pro models, but its still mighty fast. In our testing, it was able to handle intense office workloads with little to no heat or slowdown. Given how thin and light this device is, it delivers a combination of power and portability that youll be hard-pressed to find in many other machines out there.
The M2 Air didnt give us quite as much battery life as the 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook did in our rundown testing, but we would still expect it to last most people a full day of continuous use.
Apple is continuing to sell the M1 MacBook Air, which was released in 2020. If the M2 MacBook Air is out of your price range, we recommend that you consider the M1 model, which is listed further down.
- $1,199
The Best Laptop For Business Travel
In many ways, the ThinkPad X1 Nano is a run-of-the-mill ThinkPad. Its got a solid sturdy chassis, discrete clickers, a physical privacy shutter, a red TrackPoint in the middle of the keyboard, and all kinds of business-specific security and management features.
But the Nano is special because its the lightest ThinkPad Lenovo has ever made. Its also one of the lightest laptops you can buy, at just 1.99 pounds. Youre not sacrificing performance to get that mindblowing weight: The Nano kept up with our heavy testing workloads without any fan noise or noticeable heat. If youre looking for a reliable business laptop that will feel like nothing in your briefcase, this is the one for you.
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Why Trust Our Journalism
Founded in 2004, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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Agree To Continue: Lg Gram 17
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it contracts that no one actually reads. Its impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit agree to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people dont read and definitely cant negotiate.
To start using the LG Gram 17 , youll need to agree to the following:
- A request for your region and keyboard layout
- Windows 10 license agreement
You can also say yes or no to the following:
- Wi-Fi
- Microsoft account
- Privacy settings
- Option to customize your device for gaming creativity, business, schoolwork, or entertainment
- Allow Microsoft to collect personal information for Cortana, including location and location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, content and communication history from Microsoft services, messages, and apps.
- Your Phone setup
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The Best Laptops In 202: 20 Top Picks Tested And Rated
The best laptops are capable enough to tackle your day-to-day work, comfy enough to use all day and power-efficient enough to ensure you won’t run out of juice unexpectedly.
Finding the best laptop for you can be tricky, because you’ve never had more choices. You can get a compact, speedy 13-inch ultraportable for not a lot of money, and those who can afford to spend a bit more have access to a smorgasbord of the best laptops from the likes of Apple, Dell, HP and more.
That’s why we test and review dozens of laptops from the top manufacturers every year, then gather the very best together here in one easy-to-read list to help you make a smarter buying decision.
How Much Ram Do I Need
We recommend 8 GB of memory for most people. That should be enough for web browsing, editing documents and spreadsheets, light gaming, and occasional video and photo editing. But consider stepping up to 16 GB if you regularly use high-end applications like Adobe Photoshop or Premiere, if you play visually demanding games, if youre doing 3D drafting, or if you work in web and app development. Many laptops cant have more memory added after you buy them, so be sure to get one with 16 GB of memory now if you think youll need it that usually adds $100 or $200 to the price tag.
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Which Type Of Laptop Is Best For You
General laptops: Where the best cheap laptops are found, devices that focus more on practicality than style, portability or power. Thats not to say they cant be fast, but youll typically find a non-Ultrabook clamshell laptop with an HD screen and spinning drive-based storage for less than $600 or £400.
Ultrabooks: Where youll find thin-and-light notebooks sporting SSD storage and display resolutions that exceed 1080p. Paired with powerful, albeit mobile-centric components and especially long battery life, the best Ultrabooks will cost a pretty penny $700 or £500 to $2,000 or £1,800.
2-in-1 laptops: Where notebooks that double as tablets are located. The Surface Book 2 might be a ways off , but many of the best 2-in-1 laptops are available right now. Outfitted with both detachable and 360-degree rotating hinges, these hybrids are the most versatile way to experience Windows 10 on a touchscreen.
Chromebooks: Where youll find the best Chromebooks running Chrome OS. These do much of what Windows and macOS can in the browser, focused on cloud storage over local, while recently getting Android app support for touchscreen models. They generally cost less than $300 or £200 and some can even withstand a slight tussle.
What Are The Best Laptops
The new MacBook Air M2 is the best laptop overall based on our testing. It delivers speedy M2 performance in a design that’s 20% smaller by volume and just 0.44 inches thick. You also get a bright and colorful 13.6-inch display and over 14 hours of battery life in our testing. At $1,199, the new Air is pricier than the Air M1, but we think it’s well worth the premium for the performance boost, MagSafe charging and sharper 1080p webcam.
Our pick for the best Windows laptop overall is the Dell XPS 13, which packs speedy performance and a gorgeous bezel-less display into an incredibly slim and lightweight design with decent battery life. If you can afford the more expensive model with an OLED touchscreen, it’s well worth the expense.
If you love the idea of an OLED laptop but want something a bit more affordable, Asus has an OLED-equipped Zenbook 13 that packs great power and amazing battery life, and it’s usually a few hundred bucks cheaper than the XPS 13.
If you want a laptop right now that’s guaranteed to run Windows 11 and show it off to full effect, the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio is a great choice. It’s a powerful, well-built 2-in-1 that can do some decent gaming or video editing.
If you’re willing to splurge, the MacBook Pro 14-inch with M1 Pro takes performance to new heights, and its 120Hz Liquid Retina display is gorgeous. This is the Mac for all the pros out there who want HDMI out and an SD card reader without having to use a USB-C adapter.
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The Best Laptops For Going Back To School
Summer is here, which means lots of us are thinking about beaches, barbeques and back to school sales. The best laptops are always in high demand as school starts up again, so it pays to start shopping as early as possible. Whether youâre heading off to college or going back to school, youâll want a great laptop suitable for both work and play.
Many of our favorite picks are currently on sale, making now a great time to buy some of the best laptops. Be sure to follow our back to school guide for all of your shopping needs this season.
Best Gaming Laptop: Dell Alienware X15 R2
For the gamers out there, the Dell Alienware X15 R2 is one of the best options you can get today. It offers a fantastic blend of performance and a sleek design considering its powerful specs. Alienwares X series is still relatively new, and it was already fantastic in its first iteration, but now its even more powerful and better cooled.
Of course, the Alienware X15 packs seriously powerful specs, featuring 12th-generation Intel Core H-series processors, all the way up to a Core i9-12900H, which has 14 cores, 20 threads, and boost speeds up to 5GHz. Paired with that, you can get up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU with 16GB of GDDR6 memory. Thats about what youd expect for a gaming laptop, but to keep things running cool and smooth, Alienware has also created a brand-new thermal compound using something it calls Element 31. This is a gallium-silicone liquid metal compound, and Alienware says it performs 25% better than competing thermal solutions on the market. That means the laptop can stay cool for longer, and thus, sustain its peak performance for longer so you dont start seeing your frame rate drop. Of course, you can also get up to a 4TB SSD and 32GB of RAM.
The webcam above the display is unfortunately still a 720p camera, but it does include Windows Hello facial recognition, which isnt always present on gaming laptops. If youre interested in streaming, though, you might still want an external webcam.
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Acer Chromebook Spin 311 Convertible Laptop
Offering a simple design well-complemented by a plastic silver chassis, this laptop by Acer functions quite well both as a laptop and a tablet. The 11.6-inch screen produces high-definition images and is apt for those who like to consume multimedia content while on the move. This convertible laptop has been provided with features that would appeal greatly to younger users.
The design of the laptop is decent but looks a little clumsy because of the presence of overtly thick bezels. The device has a weight of 2.6 pounds which makes it relatively easy for one to carry around. The keyboard is pretty smooth however, there could have been more distance between the keys. The touchpad is also very responsive.
Why Should You Buy This?
- This device is a good investment for those who neither have a laptop nor a tablet at home.
- If you prefer small-sized screens that can deliver sharp images, this laptop would be a good buy.
Pros
How To Find The Right Laptop
When shopping for a laptop, there’s a lot to consider. To help you choose a system, we’ve put our up-to-date list of favorite notebooks above, along with five points to keep in mind when choosing a system.
Budget: What you get for the money.
You can find good cheap Windows laptops and high-quality Chromebooks for under $500. However, better mainstream laptops usually cost more than $700 and premium Ultrabooks can run over $1,000. The best gaming laptops can cost $2.000 and up, but you can play the latest titles at decent frame rates on gaming laptops under $1,000.
Screen Size: 12 to 14 inches for Portability
Knowing a laptop’s screen size tells you a lot about its portability overall. If you want to use your computer on your lap or carry it around a lot, go for one with a 12, 13 or 14-inch display. If you want to use the computer on tables and desks and won’t carry it around much, a 15-inch model may give you more value. Some gaming rigs, media machines and workstations even have 17 or 18-inch screens, but those are hardest to carry.
2-in-1 or Clamshell?
More and more of today’s laptops are 2-in-1swith screens that either bend back 360 degrees or detach so you can use them as tablets. If you like the idea of using your laptop in slate mode for drawing, media consumption or just using it standing up, a 2-in-1 could be for you. However, you can often get better features or a lower price by going with a traditional clamshell-style laptop.
Battery Life: 8+ Hours for Portability
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Is It Worth It To Get A Gaming Laptop
Absolutely. Gaming PCs are no longer incomparable, thanks to mobile devices getting smaller yet also more powerful. If you need something that’s space-saving and/or portable yet powerful enough to tackle your favorite games, no matter if those are not-so-demanding games or the most graphically-intensive titles, one of the best gaming laptops is worth considering.
How Much Does A Good Laptop Cost
Setting a budget is a good place to start when shopping for the best laptop for yourself. The good news is you can get a nice-looking, lightweight laptop with excellent battery life at prices under $500. If you’re shopping for a laptop around $500 or less, check out our top picks here, as well as more specific buying advice for that price range.
Higher-end components like Intel Core i-series and AMD Ryzen processors and premium design touches like thin-display bezels and aluminum or magnesium bodies have made their way to laptops priced between $500 and $1,000. You can also find touchscreens and two-in-one designs that can be used as a tablet or a laptop — and a couple other positions in between. In this price range, you’ll also find faster memory and ssd storage — and more of it — to improve performance.
Above $1,000 is where you’ll find premium laptops and two-in-ones. If you’re looking for the fastest performance, the best battery life, the slimmest, lightest designs and top-notch display quality with an adequate screen size, expect to spend at least $1,000.
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Warranty And Other Considerations
We recommend all the laptops here: there isnt a duff one among them. However, we urge you again to read through the full review before spending your hard-earned cash. None is perfect and what will best suit your needs might not be the device ranked at number one.
Battery life and warranty vary between laptops. The latter may differ depending on where you buy the laptop from, too. John Lewis, for example, tends to offer longer warranty than rivals.
After-sales service is something you should consider for everything you buy. Check whether the company has a UK-based support line, and forums are an ideal place to ascertain whether a manufacturer is generally good or bad at carrying out work under warranty.
Dell Xps 13 Software And Warranty
Dell bundled a solid suite of useful branded software with the XPS 13. Dell Power Manager lets you manage power consumption via preset profiles to extend battery life or to squeeze every bit of performance out of the system. Customer Connect is your conduit to a Dell technician if you need system assistance. Digital Delivery keeps track of all your software downloads and restores them after a system wipe or crash.
The company recently updated Dell Mobile Connect so it now plays nice with the iPhone. Now everyone can swap images, documents and videos seamlessly between your smartphone and laptop.
Third-party apps include Killer Control Center, which lets you set network bandwidth priority. The laptop also comes with a 20GB of free Dropbox storage for a year. There is, of course, some Windows 10 bloatware such as Netflix, Farm Heroes Saga and Candy Crush Saga.
The Dell XPS 13 ships with a one-year hardware warranty with onsite and in-Home service after remote diagnosis. See how Dell fared during our annual special reports: Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands.
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