We found the 7 best Windows laptops (Sept. 2025)

The laptops we review get put to work as our primary computers. We also subject them to a multi-app/tab stress test and Primate Labs' Geekbench 6, which measures CPU performance in common tasks. Gaming laptops get put through additional graphical benchmarking.

To gauge a laptop's stamina, we conduct a battery rundown test that involves playing a looped 1080p version of Tears of Steel, a short open-source Blender movie, at 50 percent brightness and 50 percent volume. Ideally, we hope to get at least nine hours of battery life from a Windows laptop.

As we're using a laptop, we zero in on certain components to evaluate its build quality. These include the display, keyboard, touchpad, webcam, speakers, and ports. We also assess its overall aesthetic and portability.

We determine the ultimate value of a laptop by comparing its performance, design/build quality, and battery life to other laptops with similar pricing, specs, release dates, and use cases. We consider any accessories it comes with, any upgrades from its predecessor(s), and its future-proofing.

Read Mashable's full review of the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7.

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition is a huge W for the Copilot+ PC series and a worthy candidate for anyone who needs a well-rounded Windows 11 laptop. It overachieves on performance, battery life, and build quality, making its premium price tag easy to stomach. (That said, it's very easy to find on sale.) Just make sure it works with your favorite apps before you make it your new daily driver.

How much time do you have? "Apple must be sweating through its armpits with the launch of the Surface Laptop 7 because — holy cow — this is one hell of a laptop," wrote former Mashable Tech Editor Kim Gedeon. The upgraded Snapdragon X Elite variant she tried is faster than 85% of the models in our laptop testing database (when in Best Performance mode), scoring on par with the M4 Apple MacBook Air in a Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark.

The Surface Laptop 7 also outlasted most other laptops with a battery life of nearly 23 hours per charge. The only laptop with more stamina is the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition, our top 2-in-1, which beats it by 44 minutes. For comparison's sake, the 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro is our longest-lasting MacBook at 20 hours and 51 minutes.

Looks-wise, "[the] Surface Laptop 7 oozes sophistication and polished refinement," said Gedeon. Its stylish and sturdy aluminum design is available in four fingerprint-resistant aluminum finishes. And its vivid 120Hz touchscreen display is plenty bright.

We tested the 13.8-inch model, which starts at $1,399.99 with the Snapdragon X Elite chip and $1,199.99 with the lesser Snapdragon X Plus chip. Microsoft also makes a 15-inch Surface Laptop 7 for those who need more screen space (or a microSDXC card slot) and a cheaper, more compact 13-inch version. All sizes can get expensive fast as you add more RAM and storage, but they're often on sale often at retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.

As with all laptops powered by ARM-based Qualcomm chips, there's a tiny asterisk next to our recommendation of this Surface Laptop 7 because it isn't compatible with certain specialty apps. This is mainly a problem for students and PC gamers. (Microsoft also makes an Intel version, but it's geared toward businesses and significantly more expensive than its Qualcomm counterpart; we haven't tried it.) Double-check before you commit to the Surface Laptop 7, but if you don't think you'll run into any workflow hangups, it's the Windows 11 laptop to beat in 2025. Google Drive, Adobe Photoshop, Spotify, Netflix, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Zoom are all a go, for what it's worth.

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The Asus Zenbook A14 is a great buy for undemanding everyday users on a sub-$1,000 budget who want a beautiful Windows laptop they can take with them anywhere. (It's priced at $999, but it frequently goes on sale at Best Buy for much less.) Its all-day battery life and remarkably lightweight yet durable design make it an exemplary ultraportable. We just wish it had better speakers.

Our favorite laptop from CES 2025 lived up to the hype: The Zenbook A14 is a pretty ultraportable that can go all day. Its 14-inch chassis is made from a unique material called "Ceraluminum" that's durable, scratch-resistant, textured matte, and embellished with metallic, jewelry-like accents. This gives it an elegant, minimalist look and a feathery (but not fragile) feel. The base configuration, which comes in Zabriskie Beige with a Snapdragon X Plus chip, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB storage, weighs just 2.4 pounds. Its overall build quality impressed me in testing; I especially liked its clicky keyboard and silky touchpad.

The Zenbook A14 earned a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 11,256 in our CPU benchmark, making it the fastest Windows laptop under $1,000 in our database (excluding any gaming models). It's not quite as powerful as the M4 MacBook Air, which also starts at $999 — its more on par with an M3-era model — but it one-ups Apple with a vivid OLED display, an HDMI port, double the starting storage, and an even "airier" design (coming in 0.3 pounds lighter). It also has a better battery life, lasting 21 hours and 47 minutes in our video rundown test.

The Zenbook A14's speakers are its Achilles' heel: They sound so, so bad; don't use it without a good pair of headphones. As a Qualcomm-powered laptop, you also run the risk of possible compatibility problems, depending on the apps you use.

A second Iceland Gray variant of the Zenbook A14 boasts an even lighter design, weighing only 2.18 pounds. It comes with a lesser Snapdragon X processor but double the RAM and SSD space (32GB and 1TB, respectively). In testing, it was only 7% slower and lasted 20 minutes less than the $999 "Plus" variant. It feels like a fair buy at $1,199 if you want an even lighter laptop with oodles of memory and storage, but the cheaper model is a tad more competitive at its price point and adequately specced for most people.

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Read Mashable's full review of the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition.

Need a sleek, flexible laptop that just won't quit? Look no further than the latest iteration of Lenovo's premium convertible, which can handle a full day of moderate productivity on a single charge — including tablet-oriented tasks like drawing and note-taking. In fact, it has the longest battery life of any laptop we've ever tested, outlasting every single MacBook and Windows laptop tried to date.

The Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition is our battery life champ. It held out for 23 hours and 34 minutes in a video rundown test. It easily bests MacBooks, as well as all of the Snapdragon-powered Windows laptops we've reviewed, which are famously efficient. So, if your ideal PC doesn't chain you to an outlet or leave you panicking when you forget your charger, this one perfectly fits the bill.

That unrivaled stamina is especially impressive when you take into account the Yoga 9i's display, which is a super bright 2.8K OLED touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate. (You'd expect it to slurp up its battery life much faster.) It sits on a strong hinge that lets the device flip around into tablet and tent modes, and it works equally well with fingertips and styluses. A free Yoga Pen is included.

The Yoga 9i's keyboard is another highlight: Its island-style keys are "well-spaced, pleasantly bouncy, and responsive," said Mashable contributor Sarah Chaney, our reviewer. "It almost feels like I’m typing on a minimalist mechanical keyboard, like the Logitech Mechanical MX Mini with tactile switches, because of the slight travel and noticeable actuation."

The Yoga 9i's outstanding battery life comes with one notable trade-off. Our review unit's Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor got a Geekbench multi-core score of 10,765, ranking right in the middle of our testing database. It's a hair slower than our budget pick, the Asus Zenbook A14, which costs $750 less; if you'd prefer a MacBook comparison, it's most akin to the M2 MacBook Air from 2022.

I will say that most of the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors we've tried have scored similarly, so the Yoga 9i isn't an outlier here, and it's not going to be sluggish. It has at least enough power to handle some exclusive "Aura Edition" AI features that can flag peeping toms, silence distracting notifications, and analyze your posture. (Chaney also noted that the Yoga 9i runs super quiet even with multiple apps and tabs open.) It just won't be as great for demanding apps and multitasking as higher-scoring laptops.

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Read Mashable's full review of the Acer Swift X 14 (2024).

As the best Windows laptop for photo and video editing, the Acer Swift X 14 is a lesson in not judging a laptop by its boring gray chassis. Photo and video editors with intense workload needs will appreciate its beautiful OLED display, unassuming brawn, and reasonable price (starting at just $1,299.99). We also believe it's the best Windows laptop for college students for similar reasons: With a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card and an Intel (non-ARM) processor, it ticks the most important boxes for students enrolled in programs that require specialty software. As a bonus, gaming is also on the menu.

The "Swift" in this laptop's name is not false advertising. With a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 13,386, the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H configuration is faster than 81% of the laptops in our testing database (including all but two Windows models that have newer Intel processors). While it can't quite compete with Apple's overachieving M4 chips, it's significantly more powerful than the M3 MacBook Pro we tried back in late 2023, which scored 11,998.

All this power means the Swift X 14's fans can get quite noisy, but fortunately, its battery life doesn't take too big a hit. It lasted for about 8.5 hours in our trial, which "isn't half bad for a laptop with discrete graphics," Gedeon wrote in her review. (Most gaming laptops we've tried last one to three hours tops.) Our testing unit with an RTX 4070 GPU was out of stock at the time of writing, but RTX 4050 and 4060 variants are readily available for $1,299.99 and $1,499.99 with 512GB and 1TB of storage, respectively.

Media editors and other creative types will also make good use of the Swift X 14's ample port selection (including a microSD card slot and an HDMI port) as well as its 14.5-inch OLED display. With a 120Hz refresh rate and a crisp 2.8K resolution, and Gedeon deemed it "a visual treat." However, the same can't be said of its overall design — this is an objectively boring-looking aluminum laptop, so seek artistic inspiration elsewhere.

Acer has released a newer version of this laptop called the Swift 14 AI, but I'd steer clear if you're shopping for one of the aforementioned use cases. It runs on ARM processors that may not work with certain apps and lacks the OLED display, microSD card slot, HDMI port, and dedicated GPU for graphics-intensive tasks.

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Read Mashable's full review of the Alienware m16 R2.

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