RAMageddon is making it harder to find the best Windows laptops....

See how the Asus Zenbook A14, Dell XPS 14, and other top-rated models compare.

on July 29, 2026

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the asus expertbook ultra against an aqua background

Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

Windows laptops run an impressive gamut from slick ultraportables to beastly gaming stations to approachable modular systems. They're more customizable than Apple's MacBooks and compatible with a broader range of software. Moreover, some newer models trounce MacBooks on battery life — a feat made possible by the latest Intel and Qualcomm processors.

Shopping for a new Windows laptop is no cakewalk these days. New AI data centers are hogging memory components, fueling a global RAM shortage that's led to steep PC price hikes. After testing nearly 50 Windows laptops (and counting) in the past two years, including models from top brands like Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, we've identified eight that are definitively worth it for various use cases. Read on for our complete list of the best Windows laptops to buy in 2026.

Overview

These are the tech, tools, and products — from laptops to e-readers, from earbuds to robovacs, and more — that Mashable ranks best in class.

What's new this month

In late July 2026, I updated this guide with one fresh pick. I also replaced or removed three previous picks that were no longer available. The Asus Zenbook A14 remains my top choice for most people.

The Asus ExpertBook Ultra is my new favorite Windows laptop for work: It's incredibly thin and light yet impressively powerful, and its display is dreamy. The Acer Swift Edge 14 AI succeeds the sold-out Lenovo Yoga 7 14 as the best Windows laptop for college students. Its ultraportable design, decent battery life, and competitive value won over our reviewer.

I'm currently looking for replacements for Acer Aspire 16 AI and the Alienware 16X Aurora, our former picks in the budget and gaming categories, respectively. Both of them were out of stock at the time of writing.

As a quick note before we get into the picks, Mashable evaluates laptops on the basis of performance, battery life, design/build quality, and value. We do so using a combination of synthetic benchmarking and real-world usage. You can read more about our testing process below.

Our Pick

the Asus Zenbook A14 against a pink background

The Good & The Bad

Incredibly impressive performance in any everyday scenario
Amazing battery life
Super lightweight
Pretty OLED display
Creamy keyboard
A great value

Some compatibility issues
Average webcam and speakers

Who it's for

The 2026 Asus Zenbook A14 is the best general-purpose Windows laptop for most people needing an attractive, lightweight, and affordable everyday driver. It's also my first choice for folks looking for the best MacBook Air alternative.

Why we picked this

I loved the original Zenbook A14 from 2025, and this year's model is even better. It's a very well-rounded ultraportable with a very fair MSRP. I challenge anyone to find a faster, longer-lasting, and better-made Windows laptop for the regular retail price of $1,349.99.

A new Snapdragon X2 Elite CPU adds some extra pep to this 14-incher's step. It can now keep up with modern MacBooks in both basic single-core and demanding multi-core scenarios, something only one other Windows laptop can claim. (That would be its 16-inch sibling, the Asus Zenbook A16, below.) It's actually slightly faster than the M5 MacBook Air in multi-core tasks like light video editing, which is nuts. It beats 90 percent of all the laptops in our testing database on this metric, including much pricier models meant for gamers and creatives.

The new Zenbook A14 also comes with a massive 80-TOPs neural processing unit (NPU) that can chew through local AI tasks. That's double Microsoft's TOPs requirement for Copilot+ PCs.

The Zenbook A14's stamina got even better this year, too. It lasted 27 hours and 36 minutes in our battery life benchmark, a video rundown test, which makes it our third-longest-lasting laptop of all time. For reference, last year's model couldn't compete with same-gen MacBooks and died just before the 22-hour mark.

The Zenbook A14's chassis is still made from a unique material called "Ceraluminum," which is durable, scratch-resistant, textured matte (almost like pottery), and remarkably lightweight. The base configuration I tested weighs just 2.4 pounds, but doesn't feel fragile. It comes in a modern-organic "Zabrinskie Beige" finish that's embellished with metallic, jewelry-like accents — a nice change of pace from your standard silver PC. Other highlights include a creamy keyboard, a silky touchpad, and a vivid OLED display.

Details

the HP OmniBook 3 16 against an aqua background

The Good & The Bad

Absurdly good battery life — best of any laptop we've ever tested (by a lot)
Pretty thin for a 16-inch laptop
Large, surprisingly colorful display
Above-average speakers
Snappy, comfortable keyboard

Very boring design with a plastic keyboard deck
Display is a little dim
Competitors offer better performance
Expensive for what it is (but easy to find on sale)
Some compatibility issues

Who it's for

Our reigning battery life champ, the HP OmniBook 3 16 is a mid-range, big-screened Windows laptop that will appeal to on-the-go workers who hate being tethered to outlets. It's best-suited for those who don't need a ton of processing power.

Read Mashable's full review of the HP OmniBook 3 16.

Why we picked this

I love seeing people's reactions when I tell them that this 16-inch laptop ran for over 40 hours before dying. Forty hours! That number is so high it seems fake. Only one other Windows laptop we've tried has surpassed the 30-hour mark. (That would be last year's OmniBook 5 14.) Moreover, the latest MacBooks are capped at about 21 hours per charge. We've known for a while that Snapdragon X-powered laptops offer great battery life, but this one's is stupidly good.

Design-wise, OmniBook 3 16 is a basic silver laptop. Its IPS display isn't super sharp, but it's huge and punchy. (I actually thought it was an OLED display at first.) Its comfy island-style keyboard is an almost-perfect mix of snappy and cushy, almost like it's trying to do an impression of one of Lenovo's premium thocky keyboards. I love that its backlighting doesn't cost extra, like it did on the OmniBook 5 14. It also doesn't suffer from the same rattling trackpad issue. It has a pretty average weight, but it's relatively thin for its size.

My testing unit cost $1,629.99 on HP's website — a steep price for a partially plastic laptop with an entry-level CPU. However, it came with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which is overkill for most everyday users. You can safely bump that down to 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD, or even 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, depending on your needs. (It starts at $999.99.) Try to buy it on sale, when it becomes a better value than usual.

Details

the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI on a table

The Good & The Bad

Soooo portable; ridiculously thin and light
Gorgeous 2.8K anti-glare OLED touchscreen
Great battery life
Velvety keyboard
A very good deal for plenty of RAM and storage
No compatibility issues

Competitors offer better performance
Feels a little plasticky (even though it's not made of plastic)
Mediocre speaker and webcam

Who it's for

College students who need or prefer Windows will appreciate this laptop's decadent screen and featherlight build. It'll hardly take up any space in your backpack.

Read Mashable's full review of the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI.

Why we picked this

The Acer Swift Edge 14 AI is a beautiful, remarkably portable notebook that's easy to tote across campus. It comes in at just 0.37 inches thick and 2.18 pounds, making it the sleekest laptop we've ever tried. It's 0.06 inches thinner and 0.22 pounds lighter than the Asus ExpertBook Ultra. Compared to the 13-inch MacBook Air, which has a smaller footprint, it's 0.07 inches thinner and over half a pound lighter. Acer somehow worked in an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, and two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports, too.

The Swift Edge 14 AI comes in a pearly white finish with gold accents that gives it a unique, modern-minimalist look — and as an added bonus, it's very good at resisting fingerprints. Mashable contributor and reviewer Sarah Chaney noted that its chassis felt very sturdy, which surprised her given its svelteness. She also appreciated the "velvet-like" feel of its keys; Acer said its keyboard has a first-of-its-kind "soft-touch" UV-cured coating.

The Swift Edge 14 AI isn't nearly as fast or long-lasting as the Asus Zenbook A14, but it gets you twice the RAM, more storage, and a luxe 120Hz 2.8K OLED touchscreen for only $150 more. (At $1,500, this is a very fairly priced laptop.) It also runs on an x86-based Intel chip, so you don't have to worry about ARM compatibility issues. Its battery life is still pretty great for an Intel laptop, offering almost 21 hours of use per cycle. You probably won't need to charge it during an all-nighter.

Details

the asus expertbook ultra against an aqua background

The Good & The Bad

Stellar performance; runs very cool
iGPU is powerful enough for AAA gaming
Beautiful and bright 2.8K OLED touchscreen with matte finish
Smooth haptic touchpad
Keyboard has a UV coating so its keys don't look greasy
Impossibly thin and lightweight design with plenty of ports (including double-sided charging ports)
Solid battery life

Expensive
Lousy webcam

Who it's for

The new Asus ExpertBook Ultra is a great bet for business users who need an ultraportable PC that does basically anything. Preferably, you'll pay for it with the company card.

Why we picked this

The ExpertBook Ultra is a mind-boggling laptop — an impossibly light, impossibly thin machine with the best display I've ever seen, over two shifts' worth of battery life, and just as much brawn as an entry-level gaming laptop. It has virtually no flaws, aside from a muddy webcam... and a sky-high price, though it feels mostly warranted all things considered.

Its design is striking. It has a magnesium-aluminum chassis with a matte "Nano Ceramic" coating that's scratch- and finger-print resistant. It only weighs 2.4 pounds and measures 0.43 inches thick at its thinnest point, yet it's solidly made and packed with ports. (There are even double-sided Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports for convenient charging.) It has a velvety haptic touchpad and an island-style keyboard with a UV coating that prevents its keys from looking greasy. A pulsing LED lighting effect appears on the bottom of the display when it starts up, which gives it a futuristic vibe.

Speaking of that display: I just adore it. It's a rich OLED touchscreen with a crisp 2.8K resolution, a peak brightness of 1,400 nits for HDR content, a 30 to 120Hz variable refresh rate, and a matte finish that prevents distracting glares and reflections. It's my new five-star standard.

Given its sleekness, it's amazing that Asus was able to cram so much power into the ExpertBook Ultra. It runs on the new Intel Core Ultra X7 385H chip, which is a decently strong single-core performer but a standout in multi-core scenarios. If you're working through a huge Excel file on a Teams call, for example, it'll feel just as fast as a MacBook Pro. A wind tunnel-like thermal design with big fans that spin slowly keeps it surprisingly cool and quiet all the while.

The Core Ultra X7 comes with the Intel Arc B390, a very capable integrated graphics card. iGPUs aren't normally much to shout about, but this one is on par with a lower-end discrete GPU. If you crank on AI upscaling tech like Intel XeSS Super Res 2.0, the ExpertBook Ultra can run AAA games at 1080p well above 100fps. (I used it to play CyberPunk 2077 in my testing.) On a laptop this lean, that's actually kind of wild.

Details

the Dell XPS 14 against a pink background

The Good & The Bad

Impeccable build quality; so sleek
Great performance
iGPU is powerful enough for AAA gaming
Luscious tandem OLED display option; refresh rate drops to 20Hz when you're viewing static content
No compatibility issues

Expensive; got a price hike because of RAMageddon
Battery life is mediocre (depending on the task)
Scant on ports

Who it's for

The revamped Dell XPS 14 is the best option for well-heeled shoppers who want an extremely elegant and well-made Windows laptop — one that looks just as good as a MacBook, maybe even better.

Why we picked this

Can a laptop be sexy? One look at the new XPS 14 and you'll say, "Absolutely, yes." In one of the best tech comeback stories of recent memory, Dell revived and refined the minimalist XPS 14 for 2026. It's thinner and freed of past design burdens like a capacitive touch function row. It's more polished than before and more pleasant to use. It's also newly configurable with a gorgeous 2.8K OLED touchscreen (optional, but highly recommended). In short, its build quality is better than ever — you can see and feel the attention to detail in its construction.

I tried out two different variants of the XPS 14: the base model with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 CPU and a 2K IPS display ($1,999.99), then an upgraded model with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H CPU and the crisp OLED touchscreen ($2,899.99). The former had a much better battery life but lackluster performance and a duller picture. Overall, I thought the upgraded version did a much better job of justifying its premium price tag. (If you are leaning toward the base model, I would look into the Dell 14S instead.)

That Core Ultra X7 358H chip has impressed me in just about every laptop I've tried it in so far. It's not quite as fast as Apple's M5 chip in single-core scenarios, but among x86-based CPUs in Windows laptops, it's one of the snappiest for basic tasks. It's even better in multi-core workloads, vying with the latest MacBooks and even some recent gaming laptops. Since it's paired with the Intel Arc B390 iGPU, you can play AAA games on this bad boy, too.

The Core Ultra X7-powered XPS 14 only lasted about 10 hours in our usual video rundown test, which is well below our current 14-hour median for the Windows laptop category. However, you should get more juice out of it when it's not looping a video: The OLED touchscreen can dip from 120Hz to 20Hz for static content.