The best laptop of 2023 can come with a variety of brands, prices, and features. Whether you’re looking for a business notebook, a Chromebook, a 2-in-1 convertible, or something else entirely, our recommendations below should have you covered.
Our current pick for the best laptop of 2023 is the MacBook Air. It’s a device that does just about everything right. While it’s certainly not perfect, there are no major flaws. It’s a great pick for productivity, browsing, and even light gaming.
It’s getting harder to buy a bad laptop, but what separates the best laptops from good laptops is how they balance power, efficiency, portability, and comfort. The top laptop should have a fantastic keyboard and trackpad — after all, those are the two biggest reasons you’d choose a laptop over a smartphone or tablet. Its display should be easy on the eyes, bright, and sharp enough that you aren’t distracted by jagged edges and visible pixels. It should be powerful enough for most anything short of intensive video editing and advanced gaming. It should be easy to carry around from place to place, and it should be able to last all day without needing to be plugged in.
Our other picks for the best laptops, Chromebooks, and 2-in-1s include the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15, the MacBook Pro 16, and the HP Spectre x360 14. Check out the full list of best laptop picks below or our roundup of the best gaming laptops, if you’re looking for a powerful machine that doesn’t sacrifice portability.
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Apple MacBook Air (M2)
The latest MacBook Air, powered by Apple’s 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 isn’t as fast or powerful as the M1 Pro or M1 Max you get in the larger (and more expensive) MacBook Pro models, but it’s 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 you’ll be hard-pressed to find in many other machines out there.
The M2 Air didn’t 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. Read our MacBook Air review.
MacBook Pro (14-inch and 16-inch)
The 16-inch MacBook Pro is an expensive laptop, but now that the 2023 model is out, we expect that shoppers will be able to find discounts. If you can find one, you’ll almost certainly be satisfied with what this machine can do.