Best Windows laptops that we tested (February 2025)
The best Windows laptops are running an impressive range, Qualcomm propulsion work flesh who refuse to die with duplicate duplicaters and subtle game stations. (Some of them dare to say, will even try the most devoted Apple MacBook Disciples.) Users who need a new laptop for daily productivity, creativity or entertainment are not lacking in options. And it’s for better or for worse.
To help you choose your next PC in the world Window Market, we broke out our best laptops Recapier in this guide separated from the best Window The machines of 2024. All these laptops have been completely tested by members of the Mashable team for performance, quality of construction and battery life, and we support their value – or at least think they are worth the trouble to track down for sale.
Our best choices
In February 2025, Mashable’s favorite laptop is the 13 inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7An elegant workhorse powered by the impressive processor of the Snapdragon X series. It has a high -end power, a high -end design, interesting AI features and an incredible battery life. It is actually the most sustainable laptop we have ever examined: even the brand new M4 Macbooks I can’t follow.
For almost as Snapdragon punch At a lower price, opt for the HP Omnibook X 14The best mid -range Windows laptop. It is not much to look at, but it is a lot of power in power and equipped with an excellent keyboard. It also comes with the same AI tools as the surface laptop 7.
Those who have an even tighter budget should examine the Lenovo Yoga 7 14 (Gen 9): Solid performance, a good amount of ports and a 2-in-1 versatile design made it our new favorite Cheap windows laptop. It dethrones our previous choice, the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3An ultraportable enough with specifications that are too dated for 2025 buyers.
If you shop for a convertible on all prices, Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 (Gen 9) is our best 2 -in -one laptop as a whole, winning praise from our criticism for its magnificent 2.8 km OLED touch screen, its swivel processor (although heating), and its Clear Bowers & Wilkins sound bar. For a touch on the hybrid factor, we also highly recommend 2024 Duo Asus ZenbookA magnificent double screen.
We have additional choices for specialized users – the Alienware M16 R2 is the Best game laptop We have tested so far, and the Acer Swift X 14 is our essential Windows laptop for modifying photos and videos.
What’s on deck
We have several more recent Windows laptops by hand for tests, including a lunar lake Dell XPS 13 With an OLED tandem screen and the replicable framework laptop and update 13. We will update this guide in the near future if we think that one of them is worthy choices.
We are also waiting for an examination unit of the new Asus Zenbook A14, which made its debut in January These 2025 As “the lightest copilot in the world + PC” and supposedly lasts up to 32 hours on a single load. (He ended up winning our Best of these Reward in the category of laptops.) Have I briefly tried In the private showroom of the Asus CES, I am extremely impatient to pass it as for an in -depth comparative analysis.
What we have tested lately (this has not done the cut)
I am cool by testing the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14A new smooth convertible with an impressive quality of construction, a large battery life and a beautiful design that includes an OLED 3K touch screen. It is a Knockout, but its strange port investments, its ugly speakers, its supersaturated webcam and its Multi-Fonde score of Geekbench 6 intermediary prevented him from winning a Mashable choice prize. (I estimated it 4.2 / 5 in total.)
To give more context to this last point, my $ 1,899.99 test unit had an Intel Core Ultra 258V processor with 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. (It is a brand new mid -range processor.) In our geekbench 6 reference, it marked a little worse than the 15 inches M2 Mac MacBook Air From 2023 and clearly worse than its predecessor, last year HP spectrum x360 14who had an Intel Core series 1 mid -range processor as tested. For almost $ 2,000, I wanted much more omnibook.
I think that the Ultra Flip 14 omnibook is a decent madness for future impressions, but it is not well balanced enough to be one of our best choices. Stay with yoga 9i 14 if you are looking for the best hybrid laptop, or look in the X360 14 spectrum 14 if you want to stay within the HP family – it offers better performance and audio quality for about the same price as the model Omnibook.
Read the continuation for the in -depth mashable guide on the best Windows laptops of 2025. Fyi: we have listed the prices and specifications of our test units, which may not apply to the basic model of each laptop.
How we tested
Mashable staff submitted all the laptops of this list to rigorous practical tests, which involved inspecting their quality of construction and using them as part of a daily workflow for several weeks at the same time. This included work in different types of documents, checking emails, searching for videos, taking photos on their webcams, participation in video calls, listening to music (via Spotify ), reading games (if possible) and experimenting with all unique software functionalities or use cases that they claimed to support.
In addition, all laptops presented here have been designed to manage standard reference software. We execute these benchmarks because they reproduce real world tasks to produce scores that we can use to easily compare the performance of different laptops. We have recently started implementing these bearings in our tests, and you can expect to see them in all our new laptops criticism Move forward.
Performance benchmarks
We assess the overall performance of Windows laptops by having them executed the Windows version of Labs Primate Geekbench 6which measures the performance of the processor in a handful of common tasks. We record each of their multi -core scores in our criticism – the higher the score, the better.
To get an idea of the graphic prowess of the laptops of play, we too play Cyberpunk 2077 on them. We chose this game because it is a graphically intense Title Triple-A This pushes many systems to their performance limits. If the laptop has a discreet / dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics card (as opposed to an integrated GPU which is integrated into the processor), we play Cyberpunk Once with sound Dlss Tech off and again with DLSS on the use of high preset without tracing of shelves. This tests the power of the gross GPU of the machine and its performance with an increase in AI, respectively.
We follow that with The time spy of 3dmark Benchmark for the PCS game and record their scores. Again, higher, it’s better.
Battery benchmarks
We seek to see around nine at ten hours of battery life in the Windows laptops that we examine, with more than 12 hours being ideal. The laptops of playing is another story: they only have to last at least two hours per load to obtain our approval, winning additional brownie points to reach the four -hour brand.
We have evaluated the endurance of laptops in some different ways in the past. (More things about this shortly.) On the Alienware M16 R2 and the Duo Asus Zenbook, we ran Ul ‘solutions PCMARK 10 battery life test. This reference has the machine to complete a series of applications and functions until it takes place.
On the Acer Swift X 14, HP Omnibook X, Lenovo Yoga 9i 14, Yoga 7i 14 and Microsoft Surface Comptopop 7, we carried out a video dilapidation test involving the reading of a 1080p version of 1080p of 1080p Steel tearsA short open-source opening film, 50% brightness.
In order to normalize the battery life test methodology, we will only use the Steel tears Rundown on all Windows laptops in the future. We will stay with the PCMARK 10 battery life test for laptops for playing.
Final reflections
After having evaluated the practical results and results of the reference tests of a laptop, we make our final recommendations depending on whether we think they offer good overall value for money. A too expensive laptop will sometimes get a pass if we think it looks like and works so much that it is worth finding it on sale.
It should be mentioned that these are not the only windows laptops We have tried – we are constantly testing new models in different categories, and many do not make the final cup. In that spirit, you can expect this guide to evolve on a fairly continuous basis. We are always looking for new best candidates.
