Some of the best laptop deals at the moment are courtesy of Best Buy's 3-day sale. A whole host of different laptops from popular brands are on sale right now so there's something for everyone. If you're looking for a cheap laptop for occasional use or you're seeking out a high-end gaming laptop, Best Buy has something that's going to suit you. We've picked out some of our highlights below.
Asus 14-inch laptop -- $130, was $250
If you've having trouble choosing between laptop deals and tablet deals for your next mobile device purchase, why not get the best of both worlds by going for the Microsoft Surface Pro 9? It's an even more attractive option because of Best Buy's $100 discount that makes it more affordable at $900 from $1,000, and every purchase comes with a free Surface Pro Signature keyboard that enables the transformation from tablet to laptop. The offer won't last forever, so take advantage of it as soon as you can.
The best Windows laptops are light enough to carry all day, powerful enough to tackle your daily workload without lag, and power-efficient enough that you don't need to worry about unplugging to get some work done on the go. A great screen and a comfy keyboard are also key components.
We have our full list of the best laptops overall, which includes MacBooks and Chromebooks, but those who prefer Windows should stick with this list. At Tom's Guide we review dozens of laptops from the top manufacturers every year. We evaluate every system in the testing lab and in the real world, running benchmark tests, display tests and battery life tests. And only the very best Windows laptops are recommended here.
Based on our testing, these are the best Windows laptops you can buy, and you can read our full review of each machine to help you make a buying decision. If you're looking for more options, check out our best Chromebooks page and best MacBooks list.
The Dell XPS 17 (2020) stands out from its smaller siblings with more powerful graphics options that make it an ideal Windows laptop for game enthusiasts and content creators. While it can get quite pricey if you trick it out with high-end components, the XPS 17 is one of the best laptops to buy if you want beastly performance and a huge, gorgeous InfinityEdge display united in a slick, svelte design.
Performance and features-wise, this beauty is a beast. Its stunning 13.3-inch display looks gorgeous for movies and TV shows and crushed our color and brightness tests. Its 8th-gen Intel CPU isn't the latest, but it can handle everyday workloads without issues, and its keyboard is one of the most pleasant we've ever typed on. There's also its incredibly epic battery life of more than 12 hours (with the four-cell version of the battery, which costs about $22 extra), which beats top competitors like the MacBook Air and XPS 13. The Dragonfly is on the expensive side with a starting price of $1,629, but those who are willing to pay a premium will be rewarded with one of the best laptops on the market.
The Asus ZenBook Duo 14 is an intriguing bit of design that's ideal for anyone who wants a second screen but doesn't want an external display. Asus pulls off this feat by putting a 12-inch touchscreen above the keyboard. This screen is a great place for your secondary apps, such as Spotify, Slack, Discord and more; it can also be used by creative apps from the likes of Adobe, who put touch controls there. It's so cool that it won a recommendation for best laptop breakthrough in our Tom's Guide Awards 2021.
When we hear a laptop is incredibly thin and light, it makes us worry about how long it can last on a charge. But there's nothing to worry about with the shockingly light 2-pound Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano, which lasted 12 hours on our battery test, making it competitive with some of the very best Windows laptops on the market today. And that's quite impressive when you remember that even the svelte, high-performance XPS 13 crowning this list weighs in at 2.9 pounds, almost a whole pound heavier.
Performance: If performance isn't important to you, say because you only need a laptop for browsing the web, you can save a lot of money by choosing a cheap Windows laptop with an Intel Core i3 processor and 4GB of RAM. Most of the laptops we've suggested here can't be bought with anything less than a Core i5, so we recommend you check out our guide to the best laptops under $500 if performance isn't your priority. But if speed and performance are important to you, pick a laptop with starting specs such as a Core i5 CPU, 8 to 16GB of RAM and at least a 256GB to 512GB SSD.
The best Windows laptop should offer the perfect balance between performance and versatility. These machines can handle your most basic everyday computing tasks, but many of them also have the processing power to handle much more intensive workloads - whether that's powering through 3D rendering or editing 4K video footage.
It's worth bearing in mind that we're looking at all sorts of Windows-powered laptops here, but if you're after something a bit more specific, you may want to check out our rankings of the best 2-in-1 laptops or the best gaming laptops - the majority of which run on Windows 11.
We've accounted for plenty of key factors in deciding our ranking of the best Windows laptop and update it whenever we review a laptop that we feel deserves a spot on the list. Performance is naturally a major factor, but we also examine durability, aesthetics, user experience, and most importantly pricing. In the current economic climate, affordability is vital for many tech buyers - if you're shopping on a budget, be sure to check out our best laptop deals too!
Still not sold on it? Well, the 4K 120Hz display is absolutely magnificent, giving more expensive gaming laptops a serious run for their money. The keyboard has full RGB lighting, which is aesthetically appealing but not over-the-top, and while the battery life isn't spectacular, it outstrips the majority of gaming laptops in its weight class. The Alienware m17 R5 AMD Advantage is one of the best Windows gaming laptops you can buy right now - end of story.
When it comes to working on the go, Microsoft's Surface 4 Laptops are a superb buy and perfect laptops for students. The more powerful options also make for ideal coding laptops, which is why we ranked the Surface 4 laptop highly on our best laptops for coding and programming list.
At CNET, our laptop experts have collective decades of experience testing and reviewing laptops, covering everything from performance to price to battery life. This hand-curated list covers the best laptops across various sizes, styles and costs, including laptop computers running on Windows, MacOS and Chrome.
If you want more laptop brands and options for a particular category, we also have specialized lists you can look at, including the best gaming laptops, best 15-inch laptops, best two-in-ones and best Chromebooks, as well as the best laptops for college students, designers and the best MacBook Pro alternatives. If you need to stay as low as possible on the price of a new laptop computer, check out our best budget laptop and best budget gaming laptop picks.
This best laptop list is updated periodically with new models we've tested and reviewed. If you need advice on whether a particular type of laptop or two-in-one is right for you, jump to our laptop FAQ at the bottom of the list, and if you're looking to save some money on your purchase, be sure to check out our best laptop deals page.
Thanks to a new design, a larger display (13.6 inches versus the previous 13.3 inches), a faster M2 chip and a long-awaited upgrade to a higher-res webcam, the 2022 version of the MacBook Air remains our top choice for the most universally useful laptop in Apple's lineup, with one caveat. At $1,199, the $200 increase over the traditional $999 MacBook Air starting price is a disappointment. That's why you'll still find the M1 version of the Air retains a spot on our best laptop list. Still, we like everything else about it and it's our first choice if you're considering an Air and don't mind spending more.
There's a lot to love with the Razer Blade 14, which incorporates one of the fastest mobile CPUs available (for now, at least), the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, and top-end mobile graphics with the GeForce RTX 3070 or 3080. Its display can go pixel-to-pixel with the MacBook's. And its high-quality build is up there with the best MacBooks but, like an Apple, it's not necessarily the best laptop deal, even compared to other premium laptops.
The XPS 17 combines the same slim, premium design of its 13-inch linemate but with increased performance possibilities. It can be configured with up to a 12th-gen Intel Core i9 processor, 64GB of memory and a 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics chip. The best part: Dell trimmed up the chassis so much that you get a 17-inch display in a body that's the size of an older 15-inch laptop. You're getting a lot of power and a big screen in the smallest possible package.
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.
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