Buying the right laptop can be stressful. It’s likely one of the bigger tech purchases you’ll make, and there are a ludicrous number of models, sizes, form factors, and configurations to pick from. We review and test a wide swath of them here at The Verge, and we’re constantly considering what’s the best and who it’s best for.
Our overall pick for most people has been, and continues to be, the MacBook Air — particularly, as of March 2025, the M4 model. Unless you’re forced to use Windows for specific software needs or you fancy yourself a hardcore gamer, it remains the best option for the average user who wants something portable with excellent battery life and great performance for productivity tasks.
Though the MacBook Air is the easy recommendation for most people, that doesn’t make it the answer for everyone. What if you need more power for video or photo editing, or crunching large datasets? What if you prefer to run Windows? What if you play lots of games and want to take them with you? Or what if you just want something unique — or even, gasp, repairable? We’ve got some recommendations, including a Chromebook or two, a laptop with two screens, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop with a Snapdragon X Elite chip.
What we’re looking for
All manufacturers offer configurations that cost a small fortune, but the best laptops are usually worthwhile even at their base level. Sometimes, we’ll recommend going beyond the base configuration for a little RAM, more storage, or a graphics card upgrade, but at a certain point the value proposition typically nosedives. Our goal is to find those sweet spots.If you’re buying new and spending $1,000 or more, you should be getting a machine with performance that meets your needs, and components like a trackpad, keyboard, screen, and speakers that are good to great. Remember, you’re likely to be using this device for many hours every day. And if any of a laptop’s core features are lacking, then something else — like a great price or excellence in another area — should make up for it.
How much performance you really need may be subjective, but the more headroom you have, the more a laptop can adapt to your evolving needs and the longer it can last before things feel sluggish. At the baseline, your laptop should be fast enough to do the things you use a laptop for, without feeling like it’s struggling on a daily basis. Any productivity laptop should be able to multitask with a bunch of browser tabs open while editing some spreadsheets or other documents. A content creation machine should be able to quickly churn through Photoshop files with lots of layers or a Premiere Pro timeline with plenty of post-processing. And a gaming laptop should be able to play the latest games with nice looking visuals and good frame rates (at least 60 fps, but ideally more on less graphically intensive games).
The keyboard and trackpad are the main interfaces you use with any laptop, and they should be good, even in a desktop replacement you mostly use with an external mouse and keyboard. The whole point of a laptop is you can bring your work and play with you, so you’re relying on these built-in components at some point. A laptop with a bad keyboard and trackpad might as well be a penalty box.What makes a good keyboard and trackpad? It’s slightly subjective, but a quality keyboard should have a logical and efficient layout, enough key travel to make typing feel good and lower the risk of double-presses, and ideally be backlit for easier use in the dark. Any worthwhile laptop should have a good trackpad that easily delivers accurate clicks and swipes, with gestures for better multitasking. Trackpads often come in two styles: hinged at the top (like a piano key) or haptic (where it doesn’t actually move, and the haptic vibration you feel emulates a physical click). Either can be great when well executed.
In a perfect world, every laptop would have a large and bright OLED screen capable of displaying true blacks, with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 or higher and refresh rate of 120Hz (or greater). But a panel like that comes with heavy costs, both in money and often in battery life. Not every laptop can have that ideal setup, but any good one should be sharp with accurate colors, enough brightness for some outdoor use (typically that means 400 nits or greater), and free of annoying anomalies like ghosting or bad off-angle viewing. Aside from OLED, Mini LEDs also make a great laptop panel that can be a big step up from the more typical IPS display, and an even bigger step up from the dim TN panels on truly cheap laptops.Unless a touchscreen is essential to a laptop’s design (like one that converts into a tablet), they’re usually a nice bonus, rather than a requirement. Ideally they’d work with a stylus for more flexibility. MacOS laptops never have touchscreens, but they’re fairly common on Windows machines, Chromebooks, and some Linux laptops.
Laptops are meant to be thrown in bags and taken out into the world, and they should be able to withstand some wear-and-tear. We expect a solid build that doesn’t feel creaky, cheap, or have lots of flex when picked up and handled. It should have a sturdy hinge that opens easily. A less refined design can be slightly forgiven if it’s made up for by a lower price or better-than-expected performance, but these should be devices that look and feel like they’re worth the money spent.We also take into account what a laptop is designed for, and if it meets those goals: an 18-inch desktop replacement is going to be heavy and less mobile; a 13-inch thin-and-light should be, well, thin and light.
We expect most laptops we test to last at least eight hours of web browsing and office work. The harder a laptop works, the more power it uses, so we don’t expect to play games all day without plugging in, or render video for eight hours straight. But if a laptop can’t last a standard work day there’d better be a good reason. We use a battery rundown test that cycles through a large number of Chrome tabs with the screen set to 200 nits that gives us a 1:1 comparison to take into account. More importantly, we record how long the battery lasts over multiple days of regular real-world use — complete with the occasional video call and some music / podcast listening. Even if your machine is tethered to an outlet most of the time, great battery life and standby times makes life with a laptop much more flexible.
We expect all laptops to have at least two USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 ports, preferably on separate sides for a little added convenience. They should be able to charge over USB-C, even if they also have a proprietary charge port capable of higher wattage. And while USB-A ports are a bit more nice-to-have than necessity, there’s absolutely no good reason not to have a 3.5mm headphone jack.More powerful, more expensive laptops (picture something over $1,000 and 14 inches or larger) should probably have an HDMI 2.1 port and card reader, or a good reason for not having them.
$849
The Good
- Easily lasts a full day on battery
- Excellent choice for most people’s everyday needs
- Nails the basics in a thin-and-light while feeling like a nice place to be
The Bad
- Still starts with just 256GB of storage
- Still has limited ports
- Still prone to throttling under heavy creative tasks
CPU: M4 (10-core) / GPU: M4 (8- or 10-core) / RAM: 16GB, 24GB, 32GB / Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB / Display: 13.6-inch or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, 2560 x 1664 or 2880 x 1864 , 60Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches (13-inch) or 13.40 x 9.35 x 0.45 inches (15-inch) / Weight: 2.7 pounds (13-inch) or 3.3 pounds (15-inch)
Apple’s M4 MacBook Air is the best laptop for most people — Mac users, of course, but also the platform-agnostic or anyone who wants a no-fuss, straightforward machine that doesn’t bombard them with advertisements or bloatware. It’s a productivity laptop that can do a bit of everything. The 13-inch model starts with 16GB of RAM at $999, and it also comes in a 15-inch version for $1,199, for those who like their laptops a little larger. It’s hard to find another laptop that offers this kind of combination of performance and battery life in a thin and light chassis, especially at these prices.
Despite losing its way around the mid-2010s, Apple has a long history of sending quality MacBooks to market, and the Air M4 is no different. A smooth, almost ethereal trackpad, check. A chiclet-style keyboard that makes typing feel like a dance, check. Fast Wi-Fi adapter, color-rich display, and MagSafe charging, check. Those were also true on the previous models, but now with the M4 generation it also features the same 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam of the MacBook Pros, can use two external monitors with its lid open, and comes in a sky blue color (though it still looks silver in some light). And again, you get all this for less money than before.
The M4 Air is a great option for just about anyone who doesn’t need video editing, heavy gaming, or more than two USB-C ports. For those that do, look to the 14-inch MacBook Pro M4 — a great bang-for-your-buck laptop in its own right at $1,599. Opting for a Pro over an Air is best for students in creative fields and content creators needing more headroom and features like a third USB-C port, an SD card slot, and an even better screen.
Now that the M4 Air is here, Apple has fully discontinued the M3 and M2 models. You might still be able to find them at retailers like Best Buy, but they’re not worth it over the M4 unless substantially discounted. If you can afford an additional $200 on top of either the 13- or 15-inch M4 Air’s starting prices, that’ll net you 512GB of storage instead of 256GB — as well as the 10-core GPU on the 13-inch. The paltry base storage is the only remaining weak point of the MacBook Air. It’s definitely worth getting more, as the roomier SSD will make your life a little easier on a laptop that should easily last you five to seven (or even more) years.
$1049
The Good
- Easily lasts a full day on battery
- Excellent choice for most people’s everyday needs
- Nails the basics in a thin-and-light while feeling like a nice place to be
- Louder speakers over its smaller counterpart
The Bad
- Still starts with just 256GB of storage
- Still has limited ports
- Still prone to throttling under heavy creative tasks
Read our review of the Apple MacBook Air M4.
$669
Acer’s Spin Chromebook is configured with Intel’s first generation of processor with an NPU. It also has Google Gemini baked right into the OS, and if you sign up for a new Google One AI premium plan, your first year of service is free.
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 115U / GPU: Intel UHD / RAM: 8GB, 16GB LPDDR5 / Storage: 256GB, 512GB / Display: Touch 14-inch FHD 1920 x 1200, 60Hz IPS with stylus support, 340 nits / Dimensions: 12.35 x 8.84 x 0.71 inches / Weight: 3.21 pounds
Acer’s Chromebook Spin is the best Chromebook we saw in 2024 — and it’s still part of the Plus line of Chromebooks, which now have Google Gemini features integrated with ChromeOS. It also comes with a 12-month subscription to the Google One AI premium plan, which includes 2TB of cloud storage space and access to Gemini Advanced.
The Core Ultra 5 115U is slower than last gen’s Intel Core i5-1335U (the Ultra has eight cores with clock speeds up to 4.20GHz, while the Core i5 has 10 cores and goes up to 4.60GHz), but the Ultra Core has an NPU, which means it’s better suited for running AI-related tasks on-device. The new Spin Chromebook also supports the current LPDDR5 memory standard, which is faster than the previous generation in the 2023 Spin 714.
Acer upgraded some of the connectivity port options, too. The Spin 714 now has two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, instead of two USB-C 3.2 ports, for much faster data transfer and power delivery.
$832
The Good
- All-day battery life
- Great performance for most apps
- 16GB of RAM for the base model
The Bad
- Game support is limited
- AI features feel gimmicky
- Emulated apps can hit battery and performance
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100, Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 / GPU: Qualcomm Adreno / RAM: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB LPDDR5X (soldered) / Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB / Display: 13.8-inch touchscreen LCD, 2304 x 1536 120Hz, 600 nits / Dimensions: 11.85 x 8.67 x 0.69 inches / Weight: 2.96 pounds
Out of all the Snapdragon Copilot Plus PCs we’ve tested so far, the 13.8- and 15-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th edition stood out for their balance of performance, exceptional battery life and standby time, and quality components (120Hz screen, keyboard, webcam, trackpad, etc.). Microsoft was obviously gunning for Apple’s MacBook Air, and the Surface Laptop mostly delivers that level of hardware experience for a Windows machine. It’s the full package if you want a thin-and-light productivity machine running Windows that easily lasts all day and into the night. And if your budget is slightly tighter, there’s a new 13-inch model with pared-down features starting at $899 that’s still really good.
The greater concern with Snapdragon X-equipped laptops is whether Windows on Arm supports all the apps you need to get your work done. Most everyday apps work fine, via native Arm versions or emulation, but there can still be some outliers, especially in content creation apps. Also, if you like the idea of your productivity machine being able to pull light gaming duties (one of Windows’ advantages over Mac) then you’re likely better off with a laptop using Intel’s Lunar Lake or AMD’s Ryzen AI chips. Snapdragon X laptops can only run a fraction of the games you find on Steam and they can’t install games from Microsoft’s own Xbox app — just stream them if your subscribe to PC Game Pass.
Earlier this year, Microsoft launched Intel Lunar Lake- based versions of the Surface Laptop 7, but they’re a ridiculous $500 more expensive, and aimed solely at businesses. It’s a shame, because having this hardware with Lunar Lake’s compatibility might have been an appealing prospect.
Read our review of the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition.
The best 16-inch Windows laptop
$1800
The Good
- It’s gorgeous
- Incredibly thin and light for a 16-inch laptop
- Great performance, especially the integrated graphics
The Bad
- Shorter battery life than major competitors
- StoryCube doesn’t work
- Couldn’t get a sense of how fast the NPU really is
CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 / GPU: Radeon 890M, Radeon 880M / RAM: 32GB, 24GB / Storage: 1TB / Display: touch 16-inch 2880 x 1800, 120Hz OLED with stylus support, 500 nits peak HDR / Dimensions: 13.92 x 9.57 x 0.47 ~ 0.51 inches / Weight: 3.21 pounds
The 16-inch Asus Zenbook S 16 is the best-looking, best-performing Windows laptop we’ve tested recently; it’s also so thin and lightweight you wouldn’t know it just by holding it! It can handle a little bit of everything, from emails to graphic design work, and it tackles gaming surprisingly well for a laptop without a separate graphics card. It’s a lovely, catch-all device.
There are only two Zenbook S 16 models as of now. The $1,800 one comes in gray with AMD’s flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip and 32GB of memory, and the $1,400 model comes in white with the lower-tier AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 and 24GB of memory. Otherwise, they are identical. Both feature OLED touch displays with a native 2880 x 1800 (3K) resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, stylus support, 1TB of storage, and the same ports / Wi-Fi adapter. Everything but the Windows version. (The more expensive model gets Home; the cheaper one gets Pro.)
At just 11 hours, its battery life doesn’t last as long as similar laptops we’ve tested, such as the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and Dell XPS 14, but it’s a small tradeoff. There’s still no other Windows laptop that offers as much performance and versatility in a 16-inch chassis for the price.
Read our review of the Asus Zenbook S 16.
The best laptop for high-end gaming
$3200
The Good
- Great graphics performance in the latest high-end games
- Lots of ports and easy access to RAM / SSDs
- Animated lid and wraparound RGB are fun
- Very good QHD / 240Hz Mini LED screen
The Bad
- Typical gaming laptop issues (pricey, hefty, and not great battery life)
- Competition offers OLED screens
- Customizing lid animations is a pain
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX / GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 / RAM: 32GB / Storage: 2TB / Display: 16-inch Mini LED 2560 x 1600, 240Hz display / Dimensions: 13.94 x 10.55 x 0.9 to 1.21 inches / Weight: 6.17 pounds
I’m still testing a handful of different gaming laptops, including the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 and HP Omen Max 16, but the frontrunner so far (by a nose) is the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 with an Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU. From what I’ve seen so far, the 5080 is the sweet spot for high-end gaming laptops in this generation. The 5080 ROG Strix Scar is within earshot of the 5090 performance I saw in the new Razer Blade 16, and it’s $1,200 cheaper. The Asus is chunky and heavy compared to Razer’s svelte Blade, but that gives its GPU the space it needs to stay cool. Thinner laptops often thermally constrain a high-end chip like the 5090.
The ROG Strix Scar doesn’t have an OLED display like its direct competitors, which is indeed a bummer, but its 2560 x 1600 240Hz Mini LED panel is still sharp and bright, with some punchy colors. The 16-inch version of the Strix Scar eschews a number pad, giving its large keycaps plenty of space so typing isn’t cramped at all. Its trackpad is massive, and it houses a hidden touch-sensitive numpad you can call up with a long-press in the top corner — though it’s more useful for data entry than gaming needs.
The Strix Scar’s boisterous RGB light show is kind of fun in its garishness. In addition to wraparound underglow, it has a dot-matrix array of LEDs on its lid to display animations — as Asus has done before. A more useful feature is the way you can open up the laptop’s bottom plate like the hood of a car for easy, tool-free access to its two RAM slots and SSDs.
The best MacBook for photo and video editing
$2249
The Good
- Blazing speed
- Excellent battery life
- Rarely gets very hot or loud
- More base RAM, Thunderbolt 5, great webcam, and anti-glare screen option
The Bad
- Pricey
- Shame it’s got all those GPU cores and Macs still struggle with games
CPU: M4 Pro, M4 Max / GPU: M4 Pro, M4 Max / RAM: 24GB or 48GB (M4 Pro), 36GB – 128 GB (M4 Max) / Storage: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB / Display: 14.2 / 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR, 3024 x 1964 / 3456 x 2234, adaptive refresh up to 120Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 (14-inch) / 14.01 x 9.77 x 0.66 inches (16-inch) / Weight: 3.5 / 4.7 pounds (M4 Pro), 3.6 / 4.8 pounds (M4 Max)
If you need power for intensive creative work — like 3D rendering and working with ultra-high-resolution photos and video — the MacBook Pro is your best bet. Both the 14- and 16-inch models are available with powerful M4 Pro or M4 Max processors. There’s also a 14-inch Pro with a standard M4 processor, and while it’s a formidable step up from the MacBook Air as an everyman’s “pro” laptop, the M4 Pro and Max processors still outclass it in performance.
Processors aside, the MacBook Pro has remained largely unchanged since 2021. It has a bright, beautiful, color-accurate, high-res screen with HDR and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz; amazing speakers, a comfortable keyboard and trackpad; and a good port loadout: three Thunderbolt 5 / USB-C ports, plus HDMI 2.1 and an SD card slot. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is a few hundred dollars cheaper than the 16-inch, but aside from the very lowest processor options, most configurations are available in either size, so pick whichever works for you.
In our benchmarks, which test a variety of creative tasks including encoding, playback, and export time, the MacBook Pro 16 did better than any laptop we’ve ever used — the only other machines that have come close to matching this thing in some of our benchmarks are high-end desktop PCs. The battery life is also record-shattering. The top-of-the-line 16-inch M4 Max model easily lasted all day in our most recent testing, with no battery-saving features enabled and even keeping the screen on full-time.
Most people who need much more power than a MacBook Air — including all but the most demanding pro photographers — will be fine with an M4 Pro model, which starts at $1,999 for the 14-inch with a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD. The 16-inch starts at $2,499 for a 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 24GB of memory, and 512GB SSD. The M4 Pro chip can be configured with up to 48GB of memory and a 4TB SSD, at the usual absurd Apple markups, and it supports up to two external 6K displays.
If you absolutely need more GPU power — or more than two external monitors — you can step up to the M4 Max. The base M4 Max with 14 CPU cores and 32 GPU cores, plus 36GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, starts at $3,199 in the 14-inch and $3,499 in the 16-inch. There’s also an M4 Max with 16 CPU and 40 GPU cores, which starts at $3,699 and $3,999, respectively. The M4 Max models are configurable with up to 128GB of RAM and 8TB of storage and can support up to four external monitors. The vast majority of people don’t have workloads heavy enough to notice a significant difference between the M4 Pro and M4 Max; if you do, you probably know it.
$1429
The Good
- Everything good about last year’s model but better
- All the I/O of the pricier MacBook Pros
- More RAM
- New webcam is sharp and clear
- Nano-texture display is a nice add-on
The Bad
- Desk View webcam feature is low-res and overly distorted
- Space black finish can still be a little smudgy
- Apple’s price structure may still have you longing for M4 Pro / Max
Read our reviews of the MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro / Max and MacBook Pro 14 M4.
The best 14-inch gaming laptop
$1600
This 14-inch ROG Zephyrus is an astonishingly balanced gaming laptop for its performance and price. Its AMD Ryzen 9 CPU and Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU can push high frame rates and smooth graphics in games with its OLED display.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 8945 HS / GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, RTX 4070 / RAM: 16GB, 32GB / Storage: 1TB / Display: 14-inch OLED, 2880 x 1800, 60Hz and 120Hz, 400 nits / Dimensions: 12.24 x 8.66 x 0.63 inches / Weight: 3.31 pounds
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 4070 remains one of the most the most well-balanced 14-inch gaming laptop. It’s powerful enough to reach 60 frames per second on high to ultra graphics at its native resolution (with or without DLSS) and thin and lightweight enough without trapping too much heat in its chassis. Also, its battery can last up to 6.5 hours on a single charge, which is good for a gaming laptop.
Its display was upgraded from an IPS to an OLED, it has 1TB of SSD storage and 32GB of memory, and Asus put lighting back on the lid — not a dot matrix, but a strip of LEDs spanning diagonally across.
All that for $2,000 to $2,200 makes it hard to justify getting anything else, though you can save up to $500 if you get the RTX 4060 model. Though it has only half the RAM, it has the same great screen and build, and its frame rates are only about ten percent lower than the 4070 Zephyrus at 1080p/ultra.
If you spend up to $700 more on the Razer Blade 14, you’ll get higher frame rates, a 240Hz screen, and upgradeable RAM — but its battery life barely hits four hours in general use, and its display doesn’t support G-Sync or HDR.
There’s a new model of the Zephyrus G14 with new RTX 50-series GPUs, and not much else added. We haven’t yet tested it, but it’s probably a safe bet.
Read our head-to-head review of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14.
The best dual-screen laptop
$2000
The Good
- Bold design
- Great speakers for their size
- Included stylus and mouse
The Bad
- Awkward to put away
- Few ports
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 155U / GPU: Intel UHD (integrated) / RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X / Storage: 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD / Display: 13.3-inch (2880 x 1800) 60Hz OLED touchscreen w/ stylus support / Dimensions: 11.78 x 8.03 x 0.63 inches / Weight: 2.95 pounds
A dual-screen laptop is exactly what it sounds like: a laptop with a second screen where the keyboard normally goes.
The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i has a 360-degree hinge, which lets you use it as a regular laptop, a (large) tablet, and more. You can put it in clamshell mode and write or sketch on the bottom screen with a stylus or fold the keyboard folio into a stand to prop it up and take advantage of both screens. You can set it up at home with an external monitor as a three-screen desktop replacement, or take it on the go with the included Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Its touchscreen gestures are super responsive but too responsive for the virtual keyboard and trackpad. It’s easy to mistype and accidentally minimize windows.
The Yoga Book’s only real competitor is Asus’ Zenbook Duo. The Duo’s physical keyboard includes a trackpad and makes it look a lot more like a traditional laptop. Its 14-inch OLED screens are a little bigger and brighter, it has a ton of port options, it’s more powerful, and it’s a little easier to fold up and put away. But it’s also heavier (at 3.64 pounds), its top lid doesn’t fold back far enough to use it as a tablet, and its touchscreen gestures aren’t as responsive.
Read our head-to-head review of the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i and the Asus Zenbook Duo.
The best repairable laptop
$899
The Good
- Still the repairability champ with excellent, modular port selection
- Faster CPU performance over both Intel and previous AMD models
- High-res 3:2 aspect ratio screen is great for productivity
- Thin, light, and an overall great package
The Bad
- Radeon 860M iGPU performance is a little lacking
- Trackpad still feels a little cheap
- Screen is a little lacking in contrast and color quality
- Less repairable laptops offer more for similar prices or less
CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 5 340, AI 7 350, AI 9 HX 370 / GPU: Radeon 860M / RAM: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 48GB, 96GB / Storage: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB / Display: 13.5 inch IPS, 2256 x 1504 60Hz or 2880 x 1920 120Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 11.68 x 9.01 x 0.62 inches / Weight: 2.87 pounds
There’s no other laptop offering the kind of nerdy fun today that a Framework is. The Framework Laptop 13 isn’t just the only game in town when it comes to a notebook that’s fully repairable and upgradeable, it’s also a great productivity machine for everyday use and has been for several years now. For 2025, the Laptop 13 gets a processor upgrade with AMD’s “Strix Point” Ryzen AI chips, giving it higher performance than the last-gen Intel and AMD offerings with serviceable battery life. Otherwise, it’s much the same chassis as the prior generation — they’re indistinguishable from one another.
But that’s part of what’s so cool about a Framework: a new model means a new chip you can even put into the old model, if you want an upgrade and don’t mind opening up the chassis yourself. It’s actually much easier to do than you may fear, as Framework designs its laptops to give you full access to everything inside with just a simple screwdriver; including its mainboard, storage, RAM, battery, and some fun see-through bezels for a touch of customization.
If you opt for one of Framework’s DIY Editions it only comes partially built, but this allows you to choose from many more configuration options than its pre-builts. Personally, I think the DIY route is the way to go if you’re up for it, because experiencing the assembly (which took me less than 30 minutes) gives you a better awareness of what’s in your laptop and how to change something if you ever need to repair or upgrade it. But even if you choose a pre-built, you can pick from a wide array of modular ports to outfit it with.
The Laptop 13 isn’t as sleek as a similarly priced MacBook or Surface, which offer no upgradeability or modularity (aside from the SSD on some Surface Laptops), but the Framework by no means feels cheap. It’s thin enough and light enough to be very portable, and it’s got a great keyboard with a fine trackpad. Its screen has a 3:2 aspect ratio that’s ideal for productivity since you can see a bit more than the more typical 16:10.
You probably have to be really into the whole repairability and modularity concept to spend the same or more on a Framework Laptop 13 compared to other options out there, but anyone can appreciate picking your ports and being able to swap them around whenever you want.
Read our Framework Laptop 13 (2025) review.
The best laptop under $400
$319
The Good
- Excellent look and build
- Sharp 1080p display
- 1080p webcam with AI features and physical shutter
The Bad
- No touchscreen option
- Stiff touchpad
- Battery life could be a bit better
CPU: Intel Core i3-1215U / GPU: Intel UHD / RAM: 8GB / Storage: 128GB, 256GB UFS / Display: 14-inch IPS, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz, non-touch / Dimensions: 12.9 x 8.4 x 0.74 inches / Weight: 3.17 pounds
The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is still the least expensive laptop with Google’s Plus certification. At around $400 for a Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, it’s the baseline Chromebook you should consider if you can’t spend any more.
It’s so easy to get a bad Chromebook at this price, so it’s a relief that the Chromebook Plus CX34 is so good. Not only does it have respectable internals, but the 1080p screen and 1080p webcam are good for the price, the keyboard is great, and the trackpad is fine, if a bit stiff. Battery life is decent, too, and like all Plus Chromebooks, it comes with 10 years of software updates. You can spend more on a laptop, and you probably should, but don’t buy a Chromebook less powerful than this one.
Read our review of the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34.
Just like everything The Verge reviews, our laptop testing is primarily based on real-world use. We do run synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench, Cinebench, and 3DMark to get quantifiable comparisons between CPUs and GPUs. But, ultimately, the number-crunching is only part of it. The rest comes from actually using a laptop in our day-to-day routine, which can involve everything from Chrome tabs and Google Docs to photo and video editing and graphically-intense games — both on battery and plugged in.
Monica Chin, and Nathan Edwards also contributed to previous versions of this buying guide.
Update, June 6th: Swapped the last-gen Framework Laptop 13 with the new Ryzen AI 300 model for best repairable laptop, and best laptop for high-end gaming is now the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 with RTX 5080. Also revised the best Snapdragon X laptop category, including a mention of the new 13-inch Surface Laptop.
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