The 10 Best Laptops of 2026

Tom's Guide UK and other UK reviewers consistently rank the Blade 16 the most portable credible Windows gaming flagship. RTX 5090, AMD Ryzen AI 9, 240Hz QHD+ OLED, all in a 14.9mm aluminium body that finally feels like a flagship rather than a tank. Trusted Reviews flag battery as the weak point — under two hours away from the wall — but on AC power, no other laptop on this list comes close to its frame rates.

If your work involves sustained CPU loads — Final Cut renders, Logic sessions, large code compiles — the M4 Pro is the laptop reviewers consistently rate above the Air. The 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR is the best display on a workhorse laptop, Thunderbolt 5 future-proofs the I/O, and 24GB unified memory is enough for most professional workflows. Tom's Guide UK note 12-hour real-world battery even under sustained load — unprecedented in this class.

TechRadar and other UK reviewers consistently rank the Zephyrus G14 the gaming laptop most readers should actually buy. The 14-inch chassis is 1.5kg — light enough for a daily commute — but the RTX 5070 still hits 100+ fps at native 3K on most modern titles. The 120Hz OLED is gorgeous, the keyboard is one of ASUS's best, and battery life on AMD silicon is the best of any RTX gaming laptop. Build quality is the trade-off versus a Razer at the premium tier.

The Zenbook 14 OLED is the underrated pick of this list. Stuff and other UK reviewers consistently describe it as the laptop reviewers buy with their own money — Core Ultra 9 285H performance, a 14-inch OLED touchscreen at the price most rivals charge for IPS, and 32GB RAM as standard. Battery life isn't as good as the MacBook Air, but the screen is arguably better and the price saving over the Mac is meaningful.

Twenty-five years on, the X1 Carbon is still the laptop your IT department prefers. MIL-STD-810H carbon-fibre body, vPro security, the best laptop keyboard money can buy, and 1.09kg of weight — among the lightest 14-inch laptops on the market. Trusted Reviews flag the average display as the only black mark. If you live in spreadsheets, code editors and Teams calls, this is the laptop you'll keep for five years.

If you want the Zephyrus G14's RTX 5070 performance but the Razer Blade's larger 16-inch screen at a meaningfully lower price, the Legion 5 is the value play. Notebookcheck rate the cooling system best-in-class for its tier, and the WQXGA 165Hz OLED panel is excellent. Build quality is plastic-rather-than-aluminium, but for an RTX 5070 in this size class at the mid-range tier, it's hard to argue.

The Pavilion Plus 14 is the budget-tier OLED laptop reviewers keep returning to. Ryzen 7 7840U handles everything most users throw at it, the 2.8K 120Hz OLED is a step up from any IPS at this price, and the chassis is genuinely portable. Tech Advisor flag battery as merely OK, but for an OLED panel at this tier, the value is hard to beat.

A genuine surprise. Stuff and Wired UK both rate the Chromebook Plus 515 as the best ChromeOS laptop they've tested at the budget tier. Twelve months of Google AI bundled in, a Core i5 processor that handles browser-based productivity comfortably, a 15.6-inch Full HD screen at desk-laptop size, and 10-hour real-world battery. Don't buy it as your only computer if you do creative work — but for a student, a kitchen-table laptop, or a backup machine, it's an easy budget-tier recommendation.