Buying any laptop is a big decision. Most of us go years between making purchases of this magnitude, and there are many makes, models, and chip configurations to choose from. Lucky for you, we’ve tested many of the new releases in the past year. These are our top picks for the best laptops you can buy right now.

If you don’t know exactly what you need or what all the various hardware jargon means, be sure to read our How to Buy a Laptop guide. Check out our many other computing guides, including the Best MacBooks, Best Cheap Laptops, Best Gaming Laptops, Best Linux Laptops, and Best Laptop Backpacks.

Updated November 2024: We’ve added the MacBook Pro, Asus Zenbook S 16, and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition.

Photograph: Christopher Null

Best Windows Laptop

Asus Zenbook S 16 (2024)

The reality is that there is no such thing as a “best” Windows laptop. Every user needs something a little bit different. More power. Better portability. All-day battery life. Low price. And so on. Asus’s new 16-inch dazzler (8/10, WIRED Recommends) comes as close as anything on the market right now to meet all those needs and more. It’s got an AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 CPU and Radeon 880M graphics, plus a hefty 24 GB of RAM. In combination, they give the system considerably more power than most other machines in both its price and weight class, even on AI tasks like real-time translation and AI image creation. Better still is the laptop’s battery life. With over 14 hours of running time, you won’t readily find this kind of longevity elsewhere on the market either.

With the Zenbook S 16, Asus has also rolled out a new material used for the laptop’s chassis. Ceraluminum is the company’s name for a hybrid of ceramic and aluminum, which makes for an incredibly thin but very durable material that feels like plastic but has the rigidity of metal. It’s only on the top lid for now, but it’s an enticing sign of things to come, and today it helps keep the laptop to a svelte 3.4 pounds. As an all-around workhorse, I love the machine, but if the 16-inch model is too large for your bag, the Zenbook S is also available in 14- and 13-inch versions—just know that the smaller laptops use Intel CPUs with integrated graphics.