The Best Laptops to Work and Play Wherever You Are

If none of these laptops quite rings your bell, that's OK! There are far more laptops than we have time to test. To help you make smart choices, we put together a complete laptop buying guide. We also have the details about all the CPU and GPUs you need to know about for 2025. We recommend sticking to these guidelines:

• RAM: Make sure you get at least 16 GB of RAM. 32 GB is even better and means you never have to worry about running out of memory.
• Intel Core Ultra 7 or 9: The 2024 launch of the Intel Core Ultra line brings a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to the laptop experience, and while few users will need one today, within a couple of years we’ll all probably be leaning on them pretty heavily. If you don’t opt for a Core Ultra 7 or 9 CPU now, at the very least grab the 13th generation Intel Core, preferably an i7 instead of the slower i5 or i3. You’re likely to find good closeout deals on these if you shop around.
• … or, AMD Ryzen 7: AMD and Intel continue to spar for mainstream CPU dominance, and the Ryzen 7 line, with model numbers in the 8000s, is today’s bare minimum. These machines are affordable enough that it doesn’t make sense to look to slower or older AMD processors if you can even find them.
• Discrete graphics: Want to play video games on your laptop? You’ll need a standalone graphics processor, preferably an Nvidia GeForce 4000 series or better. No matter what vendors say, integrated graphics won’t cut it, and they probably never will.
• Screen resolution: The display depends on the size of the laptop. A 1080p (HD) screen on a 13-inch laptop looks good enough. A 1080p screen on a 15-inch laptop does not. If you spend all day staring at your screen, a higher-resolution screen (like a 4K screen) can ease eyestrain. Brightness is measured in nits, go for at least a 300-nit display if possible, though 500 nits is ideal.
• Connectivity: Ports are important; we suggest at least two USB-Cs and prefer to have at least one USB-A for those legacy devices. (Remember that most laptops today use one of those USB-C ports for the power adapter.) Also, make sure there's Wi-Fi 6E support or better. Even if you don't have a Wi-Fi 6E router yet, it's a good bet you will in the future (see our guide to routers if you need a new one).
• 10 hours of battery: Make sure it's advertised to get at least 10 hours of battery life if not more. Realistically, that should be enough to get you through a workday.

You are not alone in your confusion over this new laptop spec, which has been the biggest news to hit the PC space in a while. First, you might note that almost all new Windows laptops have a Copilot button to the right of the space bar, the tapping of which opens Microsoft’s “everyday AI companion,” Copilot. Surprise! This does not mean you’re using a Copilot+ PC.

Copilot+ PC is not a button but rather an AI-focused Microsoft specification that manufacturers can receive by packing their laptops with an AI processor capable of 40 TOPS (trillion operations per second) and coupling that with “all-day battery life.” Qualcomm's Snapdragon Elite and Plus CPUs were initially the only ones to fall under this classification but now Intel and AMD machines can also be Copilot+ PCs with the right hardware.

What can a Copilot+ PC do? It can run Cocreator inside Microsoft Paint, where you draw something and the AI finishes it for you (or tries to, anyway). Windows Studio Effects can clean up video calls and provide creative filters. And Live Captions can translate— in real-time—44 languages into English either from a streaming source or from the laptop’s microphone. Copilot+ PC’s most talked-about feature is Recall, which lets you find that one piece of information you know you saw three days ago but can’t remember where; it’s not broadly available yet (after delays due to privacy and security concerns).

It all sounds great, right? Well, the problem is that the Snapdragon CPU can’t exactly run everything that the big boy CPUs can because the CPU architecture is ARM, not x86. Though it has an emulation system built in to translate apps from x86 to ARM, there are lots of apps that Copilot+ PCs choke on. The Snapdragon chip's graphics performance is the worst of any major CPU too. The good news is that the promise of “all-day” battery life is no joke. It’s the one place where Copilot+ PCs do come through on their claims. You now also have more options with Intel and AMD laptops.

So, do you need a Copilot+ PC? Well, do you want to be able to sketch out a crude picture of a leprechaun that you dreamed about last night and have Windows fill in the details for you thanks to the power of AI? Maybe don’t answer that.

We put every laptop through a gauntlet of tests before writing a review and assigning them a rating. That test methodology includes answering the following questions (and more):

• How durable is the laptop? What is it made out of? Does the screen flex when you attempt to bend it? What color options are available?
• What are the specs of the laptop and how do they compare to similar machines. This includes: CPU, RAM, storage capacity, graphics processor, and ports. Are the specs for the ports (such as USB) up to date?
• How is the input experience? Does the keyboard respond well or is it mushy? Are keys placed where they should be (including the arrow keys)? Is there a numeric keypad? How about the trackpad? Is it responsive and easy to click? Is it too small? Too large?
• How bright and detailed is the screen? What is the resolution of the screen, and is this sufficient given the size of the panel? If the unit has a touchscreen, is it responsive and easy to work with?
• How is the unit’s performance compared to similar (and similarly priced) laptops? Our testbed includes more than 20 synthetic benchmarks, though this is constantly evolving and is dependent on the unit’s CPU and operating system, as MacOS and Snapdragon-based laptops have fewer benchmarks available. Those benchmarks include various tests within the latest versions of Geekbench, PCMark, 3DMark, Procyon, GFXBench, Superposition, Cinebench, and various gaming-related tests. Note that WIRED does not, in general, report raw benchmark scores.
• How long does the battery last? We test all machines by playing a standard video on YouTube at full screen brightness and recording when the battery dies. How does this compare to the industry?
• How heavy is the laptop and how thick is it? Thickness is measured at the widest point of the laptop, including any legs or standoffs on the underside of the unit. Again, how does this compare to the market?
• What is the system like in day-to-day use? Are there any quirks to report—such as oddly placed ports, a surfeit of preloaded shovelware, or unexpected problems that make using the laptop difficult? Are there any bugs or crashes to report?
• How loud is the unit’s fan under load? How are the speakers? Can they fill the room or is the laptop good only for close quarters listening?
• Given all of the above, does the laptop represent a good value or a poor one? Is the unit on sale frequently? Can it be configured to order with upgraded or downgraded specs?

Collectively we’ve been testing laptops for decades (25 years for me alone), with a continuous database of testing results that spans more than 350 individual machines. We test each laptop we review in a variety of situations, including both synthetic benchmark tests, real-world use cases, and comparisons against similar equipment. We don’t consider hardware in a vacuum: Our reviews aim to match laptops with the users that will benefit from them the most, taking performance, usability, portability, and price all into account.