Read Mashable's full review of the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air (M3).

Who it's for:

Apple's current MacBook Air is the model most people should buy in 2024, especially now that it starts with 16GB of memory by default. That includes "creatives, professionals, and students who need robust performance that can handle their multifaceted workflows," Gedeon said. MacBook Pros are nice, but they're overkill for non-specialty users, realistically.

Why we picked this:

The 15-inch MacBook Air deserved way more fanfare than Apple gave it at launch. (Seriously? Just a blog post?) Its M3 chip was about 20 percent faster than the previous-generation M2 chip in our testing, and it features support for WiFi 6E as well as two external displays — though its lid has to stay closed when you use it that way. Plus, its midnight finish comes with an anodization seal to avoid picking up fingerprints.

The M3 MacBook Air is otherwise a carbon copy of its M2 predecessor, but that's actually a pro: Apple didn't need to change anything about its vibrant display, 1080p webcam, rich speakers, or snappy Magic Keyboard. (It could still use more ports, though.) Its price also carried over from the M2 era, with double the base RAM as of Nov. 2024. As a complete package, it's a decidedly "worthy refresh" that continues the MacBook Air line's Mashable Choice Award-winning streak, per Gedeon.

Note that the M3 MacBook Air also comes in a 13-inch size that starts at $1,099; it has two fewer speakers (four instead of six).

Read Mashable's full review of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3.

Who it's for:

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Go 3 is "ideal for students and busy-bee travelers in need of a portable notebook" with major style points, Gedeon wrote. It also goes on sale quite often, which makes it easier to rationalize its outdated internals.

Why we picked this:

Can you fall in love with a laptop based on its keyboard alone? It happened to Gedeon, who called the Surface Laptop Go 3's keyboard "one of the best" she's ever tested. It's the cherry on top of its excellent and ultra-portable design, which features a crisp touchscreen and has the sort of lightweight, premium feel you'd expect from a higher-end machine. "[It] should be called 'Windows Air,'" she wrote.

The specs under the Surface Laptop Go 3's hood are decidedly more underwhelming, mostly because they're largely unchanged from those in 2022's Surface Laptop Go 2, our previous top budget pick (including the same dim touchscreen display and 720p camera). It's powered by a "newer" 12th-generation Intel Core CPU, but that's now two generations removed. And while its base model does have double the storage space and memory of the previous model, it's also more expensive. If you can, try to find it on sale; it's frequently $100 off at Amazon and Best Buy.

Read Mashable's full review of the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 (Gen 9).

Who it's for:

This luxe, fairly lightweight laptop/tablet hybrid is the primo pick for users who value flexibility, audio quality, display quality, webcam quality, and processing power in about that order. Just don't work it too hard or for too long.

Why we picked this:

The 14-inch Lenovo Yoga 9i is a mid-range convertible with upscale, above-its-tax-bracket fixings. It comes standard with a 120Hz 2.8K OLED display that looks so nice, most users needn't bother with its optional 4K OLED upgrade, said Mashable contributor Sarah Chaney. (That downgrades it to a 60Hz refresh rate, anyway.) Its immersive rotating Bowers & Wilkins soundbar was another high point for Chaney: "I've never been more impressed by a laptop's speakers," she wrote. And its remarkably sharp, clear 5MP webcam makes it fantastic for video calls.

On the performance front, the Yoga 9i's Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU handled heavier workloads and multitasking with ease, but a few catches. Chaney said it got "very hot" after 30 minutes of use and "sounded like it was getting ready for takeoff" with 12 Chrome tabs open simultaneously. It ran a bit quieter when unplugged, but that won't be a realistic setup for a full workday: It only lasted just over seven hours in our battery life benchmark.

Still, those felt like forgivable sins to Chaney when stacked against its premium features, especially for less than $1,500 all-in. (Also worth mentioning: It comes with a free Lenovo Slim Pen worth $59.99.) She called it "an excellent deal" at full price, and we handed it a Mashable Choice Award.

Read Mashable's full review of the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch.

Who it's for:

HP's Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch is a low-cost, large-screened laptop for those who work in the Google productivity ecosystem and watch a lot of YouTube in their free time. If you like numpads, all the better.

Why we picked this:

This HP Chromebook Plus is helmed by a huge, vibrant display that blew me away when I reviewed it: "The colors are intense, with good contrast and rich blacks, and an anti-reflective panel preserves that quality at most viewing angles," to quote my write-up. I loved using it for movie-watching and light gaming (via Xbox Game Pass). On the clock, it was fast enough to handle my daily workflow, which involves a lot of Gmailing and Google Meeting, though its battery life disappointingly drained before the end of my eight-hour shift. I also found it hard to listen to anything playing on it while naked-eared: Its speakers stink.

As a Chromebook Plus, this puppy comes with some interesting software extras like File Sync, AI-powered webcam settings, and support for some multimedia tools (including Google Magic Eraser and Adobe Express). None of them felt revolutionary in my testing, but they're decent value-adds for such a cheap machine.

As of Oct. 2024, the Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch also now has Google's Help me write and Help me read tools, a Live Translate feature, generative AI wallpaper and video call backgrounds, a Recorder app, and Gemini access within its app shelf. I haven't tested these yet.

Read Mashable's full review of the Alienware M16 R2.

Who it's for:

Dell's latest Alienware m16 R2 is a competent, fairly priced Triple-A machine for those who usually wear headphones while gaming and rarely play on the go. Maybe you need a new every day (non-gaming) laptop, too — know that it's also easily tone-down-able.

Why we picked this:

The m16 R2 might best be described as the Clark Kent of gaming laptops. Its 2024 redesign brings a smaller footprint (sans thermal shelf) and a "Stealth Mode" hotkey that ditches its RGB lighting, so it can be as subtle or showy as you'd like. It also includes an MUX switch that lets users switch between its integrated and dedicated GPUs for different tasks. (Nvidia's Advanced Optimus feature can do this automatically, too.) It's basically designed to lead a double life as an everyday workhorse and gaming champ.

Going deeper into the gaming front, our review unit "[output] impressive performance numbers on demanding games" for its mid-range specs, Gedeon said. (It packed an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and an RTX 4070 GPU.) While its 240Hz display felt a tad bit dim to her, it was otherwise smooth and punchy: "I was impressed with the contrast and vivid colors" while playing CyberPunk 2077 on it, she wrote. Its springy keyboard and responsive touchpad also got her seal of approval.

Some of the bigger bummers about the m16 R2 are its tinny speakers, shoddy webcam, and lousy battery life; it only lasted 51 minutes in our video rundown test. It also weighs in at a hefty 5.75 pounds, so forget about taking it on the go — whether you use it for work or play, it'll shackle you to an outlet. Yet none of these were dealbreakers in the eyes of Gedeon, who ultimately deemed the m16 R2 "the ultimate RTX 4070 beast of a gaming laptop you can get." It's a Mashable Choice Award winner.

Read Mashable's full review of the 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro (M4 Pro).

Who it's for:

A majestic piece of modern machinery, Apple's jacked new 16-inch, M4 Pro-fueled MacBook Pro is a future-proofed investment for creative professionals who run intense multimedia-editing apps and software on a regular basis.

Why we picked this:

Put simply, this MacBook Pro is a beauteous behemoth. With a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 22,758, it's the most powerful laptop we've ever tested by a not-close margin. (The runner-up, Lenovo's $4,485 Legion 9i, scored a 17,711.) It "can handle heavy workloads without a single stutter," said Gedeon. It's also incredibly long-lasting, surviving for nearly 21 hours in our battery life benchmark.

While it may look like a pretty standard MacBook on the outside — minimalist, relatively thin, made from aluminum — Apple's tacked on a few subtle but noteworthy design upgrades. For one, it now comes with three next-gen Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports for zippy data transfer speeds. (These accompany an HDMI port, an SDXC card slot, a MagSafe 3 charging port, and a headphone jack.) Two, it can hit up to 1000 nits of SDR brightness, a bump from 600 nits in its M3 Pro predecessor. There's also a new option to add a glare-reducing "nano-texture" display finish, which wowed Gedeon when she took the laptop into her backyard: "I didn't have to squint, adjust angles, nor play hide-and-seek with shadows," she wrote. And three, the new MacBook Pro's camera is now a 12MP Center Stage shooter (up from 1080p) with support for Desk View, a new feature that produces an overhead view of the user's desk.

Its six-speaker setup is the same one you'll find in the M3-era Pros, but no complaints there. Gedeon likened its audio quality to a "gourmet apple pie ... piping hot, golden, and worth every sinful calorie."

And by calories, we mean dollars. It's tempting to recommend the M4 Pro MacBook Pro to anyone who values power efficiency in a laptop, but its price point keeps it firmly in "experts-only" territory. (Our upgraded testing unit with 48GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and a nano-texture display came in at $3,649; the base configuration goes for $2,499.) Don't bother with the splurge unless you'll make full use of it on the daily. For what it's worth, though, we also like the new 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro for those with less strenuous workloads; that one starts at $1,599.

Read Mashable's full review of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2.

Who it's for:

The Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 is an unconventional and versatile machine for deep-pocketed professional artists. Gedeon also "[recommended] this laptop for differently abled users who could take full advantage of [its] adaptive touch trackpad feature."

Why we picked this:

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is, as its name suggests, a laptop. But the unique pull-forward design of its 120Hz, 14.4-inch touchscreen display means it can also "transform into a digital easel and a tablet," Gedeon said, "[making] it an artist's playground." Just like its predecessor from 2021, it's fine-tuned for drawing, sketching, and other creative work — though it still doesn't come bundled with a stylus, which feels like a silly omission on Microsoft's part. (It does have built-in storage and charging for the Surface Slim Pen 2, at least.) Notably, though, its silky-smooth haptic touchpad has an adaptive touch mode for users with limited mobility; it's the same one on the Surface Laptop 7.

Things start looking more familiar once you move inside the Surface Laptop Studio 2, as far as higher-end laptops go. There's a desktop-grade Intel Core H-Series processor and an Intel Iris Xe graphics card in the base model, which you can opt to upgrade to a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU for more oomph. It's not technically a Copilot+ PC, but it does have an NPU that equips its 1080p webcam with Windows Studio Effects. It also counts a microSD card reader among its ample array of ports. All that machinery means it's quite a bit heavy, so it'll probably pass on plein air doodling sessions in favor of staying parked on a desk. That said, it has a surprisingly decent battery life for how brawny it is.

Read Mashable's full review of the Asus Zenbook Duo (2024).

Who it's for:

Asus' latest Zenbook Duo is the tops for zealous multitaskers who need more screen real estate than a standard laptop can provide, but don't want to haul around a separate monitor. It'll also appeal to those who simply appreciate a good, fair value: It feels like a machine that costs more than $1,500, a number that includes useful accessories to boot.

Why we picked this:

The Mashable Choice Award-winning Zenbook Duo features two bright OLED displays stacked on top of one another, a detachable Bluetooth keyboard that works with both of them, and a built-in kickstand that allows it to shift into different positions. This design could feel super gimmicky if it wasn't executed smartly, but Asus nailed it — and for well under $2,000. "[Single]-display laptops are now cancelled," said Gedeon, who confessed to feeling "spoiled" after testing this one in her everyday workflow. "How can I work on my MacBook Air, my daily driver, without missing the masterful app-juggling capabilities of the Zenbook Duo?"

Speaking of MacBook Airs: The base Intel Core Ultra 7 155H configuration of the ZenBook Duo performed on par with Apple's M2 chipset in testing. (That's the one powering our current favorite "budget" MacBook.) Its quiet speakers and dull webcam won't dazzle anyone who's defecting from Team Apple to Team Windows, but those are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things. For productivity pros, the Zenbook Duo shines where it matters most: screens, speed, and selling price.