Best laptops to buy in 2023
Michael Passingham
Looking for the best laptop for your budget? We'll help you easily find a top laptop that ticks the boxes, won't break the bank and will last the test of time.
One of the biggest decisions will be how much you want to spend. The good news is that we know, thanks to our independent lab tests, that if the best laptop for you is a good all-rounder for day-to-day tasks, it doesn't have to be a lot.
We award Best Buys to our top-performing laptops, and our cheapest Best Buy laptops cost less than £500. Plus if you're willing to compromise a little, you can still find a good laptop for as little as £200.
Looking for the best laptop for your budget? We'll help you easily find a top laptop that ticks the boxes, won't break the bank and will last the test of time.
One of the biggest decisions will be how much you want to spend. The good news is that we know, thanks to our independent lab tests, that if the best laptop for you is a good all-rounder for day-to-day tasks, it doesn't have to be a lot.
We award Best Buys to our top-performing laptops, and our cheapest Best Buy laptops cost less than £500. Plus if you're willing to compromise a little, you can still find a good laptop for as little as £200.
See our expert pick of the best laptops below and keep scrolling to read our expert advice on how you can find the best laptop, whatever your budget.
Best laptops for 2023
We only recommend the best laptops that excel in our tough lab tests. Here are the best laptops that impressed us enough to make our expert pick, selected for a range of budgets. Our reviews also reveal the results of our annual laptop owners' survey - we uncover which brands develop the least faults and which ones owners would buy again.
- BEST BUY
Apple’s latest 13in MacBook Pro is a refresh of its 2020 13in Pro and features the upgraded M2 chip. There’s a slight improvement in sound quality, but we found that the battery didn’t last quite as long. Don’t be fooled, however, it’s still an excellent laptop to consider if it’s within your budget.
- BEST BUY
If you’re after one of the best general-purpose laptops around, this MacBook Air is well worth a look. It will power through all manner of office tasks and comfortably edit your photos/videos – all without breaking a sweat. Its four-speaker sound system is fantastic and superior to its predecessor. It’s also slightly lighter and more compact, so it makes an excellent travel buddy
- BEST BUY
Lenovo
Yoga 7i 14ITL5
£799Test score 83%
For the money, there are very few laptops as good as the Lenovo Yoga 7i. Its excellent screen, fast processor, good speakers and versatile 2-in-1 design, plus its included stylus, make it a brilliant laptop for just about anybody.
- BEST BUY
Framework
Laptop
£1,049Test score 79%
A refreshingly unique laptop that had to make the list. The Framework laptop is portable, fast and has a great screen. Its USP is that it can be customised, upgraded and repaired, so is a long-term investment.
- BEST BUY
This ultra-lightweight laptop is great for everyday use and will have no problem keeping up with you, be it multitasking with lots of tabs open or the occasional spot of the video and photo editing (although you’ll want an adaptor for transferring your camera shots). The non-HD screen is slightly underwhelming, and you’ll need your charging cable to hand as the battery life isn’t great.
- BEST BUY
Dell
Inspiron 16 5625
£509Test score 75%
While it's not perfect, this is still one of the best 16-inch models we’ve seen, though, and offers a great balance of performance and features for its mid-range price point. If you're after a laptop to replace your desktop, start by looking at this one.
- GREAT VALUE
The Swift 1 is a firm favourite, and the 2021 edition continues that trend. It comes in at well under £500 (sometimes under £300 when on offer) but has some really useful features not often found on laptops this cheap. It includes a fingerprint reader, a Full HD screen and a half-decent processor, along with excellent battery life. It's the pick of the bunch when it comes to cheap laptops.
(Table updated December 2022.)
- Didn't see the model you're interested in? Browse and compare laptop reviews from our independent lab tests
- On a tight budget? We can help - see our expert pick of the best cheap laptops
- If you're a student, you will have specific requirements for your laptop, depending on your course and needs. Head to the best student laptops
Which? Don't Buy laptops
Cheap but not cheerful, and packed with slow processors, limited Ram, unpleasant keyboards and screens that are hard to make out. These are laptops to avoid.
- DON'T BUY
Fusion5
T90B+ Pro
£199Test score 45%
Fusion5 is apparently popular on Amazon, but our tests reveal this budget laptop is a completely false economy. It’s slow and poorly made and the battery life is awful. Other than that, it’s great.
- DON'T BUY
Our testing indicates this is a really poor model. The laptop we looked at was slow, had terrible battery life, an appalling screen and bad speakers. There are many better laptops for the same money. Avoid this one.
Video: How to buy the best laptop
Need more time? Watch our two-minute video for the most important laptop-buying tips to help you buy the best laptop for your needs.
How much should I spend on a laptop?
- Less than £200 – Intel Celeron or Atom processors, 2GB of Ram and 32GB of storage. Won’t be particularly fast, but fine for very light note-taking and browsing the internet.
- Less than £300 – Newer Intel Celeron processors, 4GB of Ram and up to 64GB of storage. Again, won't be hugely fast but offers a better level of performance for lightweight tasks.
- Less than £450 – Intel Pentium, Core i3, AMD Ryzen 3, 128GB of storage and 4GB Ram. Fast enough for web browsing and research work. Aim for a Full HD screen and an SSD if you can.
- Less than £600 – Intel Core i5, i7, AMD Ryzen 5, 7, 256GB of storage and 8GB of Ram. It should be ideal for photo editing and some light video work. Look for a thin and light design, a Full HD screen and an SSD.
- Less than £800 – As above, but in increasingly high-end designs. Look for great battery life on premium ultrabooks and perhaps 512GB of SSD storage.
- More than £800 – Some stunning designs, great screens and good speakers. High-end laptops will suit more intensive tasks, such as video editing or playing games. You can buy Apple MacBooks from £899 and above.
What type of laptop should I buy?
There are three major players when it comes to the software (operating system) your computer runs on. You can find out more in our guide to MacOS, Windows and ChromeOS, or look at our brief summaries below.
A Windows 11 laptop is the best laptop for you if…
- You prefer the familiarity of Windows
- Have specialist software you can’t live without
- Want a big variety of laptops to choose from
If you're buying an older model, particularly if you're buying refurbished or second-hand, check if it's going to be compatible with Windows 11. See our free Windows 11 requirements checker.
New Microsoft Surface laptop and tablet - what you need to know about these MacBook and iPad rivals
A MacBook is the best laptop for you if…
- You have a budget of at least £899
- Value longevity and build quality
- Use other Apple products, or are happy to learn a new operating system
MacBooks are expensive, but you can cut the cost. See our top 5 ways to save money on a MacBook
A Chromebook is the best laptop for you if…
- You’re on a budget
- Value simplicity
- Don’t mind working in web-based applications
Check out our expert Chromebook reviews.
What is a good processor speed for a laptop?
In a nutshell:
- If you need a laptop for light use and note-taking, look for Intel Pentium or Intel Core i3 and at least 4GB of Ram for a great experience
- Go for Intel Core i5 and i7 and AMD Ryzen 5 and 7 and at least 8GB of Ram if you’re a heavy user
- Look for dedicated graphics from Nvidia and AMD if you want to game.
Laptop processors
This really matters if you’re planning on using a laptop for photo or video editing, or if you're a very heavy user, opening lots of programs and browser tabs. When looking at laptop processors, you’ll see two main specifications beyond the product name: clock speed (measured in Gigahertz or GHz) and the number of cores.
Think of clock speed as the speed limit on a road and the number of cores as the number of lanes. As on a road, depending on traffic conditions – the tasks being done on your computer – a road might see a greater benefit from more lanes or a higher speed limit.
In the simplest way possible, more of both is better, and each of our laptop reviews will help you out by making it clear what sort of tasks a laptop is good for.
Ram
Think of Ram (Random Access Memory) like a desk and your hard drive like a filing cabinet. You pull files out of the cabinet and it takes a while, but once they’re on your desk, you can reach for them instantly.
The same is true of Ram; once you have loaded a file from the hard drive, it’s now in the Ram and can be accessed almost instantaneously.
The bigger the desk you have, the more items you can access more quickly - the same goes for Ram. Most mid-range laptops come with at least 4GB of Ram, and we’d tend to recommend 8GB for people who are heavy web users or usually have lots of documents and pictures open. You can manage with less, but you’ll have to rein in your use.
If you fill up your Ram, some of the things you’re working on will be moved back to the hard drive, making things feel a lot slower. Some cheap computers come with 2GB – this is usually fine on a cheap Chromebook, but some Windows laptops will struggle. Plus you need 4GB for Windows 11.
When you close a program or file, it is removed from the Ram and makes room for other things to be accessed immediately. This is part of the reason why closing programs you aren’t using can make your computer faster.
How to buy a laptop that lasts - 6 things you need to know
What laptop screen size and resolution should I buy?
In a nutshell:
- Unless you have a very low budget, don’t settle for less than Full HD, no matter the size.
The graphic shows the four main screen resolutions you'll find on laptops and what they are often called.
A laptop’s screen is one case where bigger isn’t always better. If you want a longer-lasting battery and a more portable device, you may want to go for an 11, 12 or 13-inch display; most of these will weigh between 1kg and 1.5kg. The largest you're likely to see is 15 or 17 inches, with weight increasing to around 2kg to 3kg.
Most new models over £300 now have a Full-HD 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution display, and high-end models can have even sharper screens with even more pixels up to and beyond 4K Ultra HD. Generally, the higher the resolution, the sharper the picture.
Only cheaper laptops should have a lower screen resolution of 1,366x768. This is okay and usually usable, but these screens not only lack fidelity; their cheap nature means they're also lacking when it comes to how well colours are displayed.
We also test computer monitors - you can hook one up to your laptop to use as a second screen. See our guide to the best computer monitors to get the low-down on how to pick one.
How much storage do I need on a new laptop?
In a nutshell:
- Go for an SSD if you can - eMMC is slower and has lower capacity and should only be chosen if you're on a tight budget.
Storage capacity determines how many things your PC can hold. Documents, photos, music, movies, programs – they all take up space.
Bigger is usually better, although solid-state drives (SSDs) are often more expensive for considerably less space. This is because they load much quicker and are completely silent.
We're also seeing a lot of cheaper laptops (including Chromebooks) carrying eMMC (embedded Multi-Media Controller) flash storage, which is slower than SSDs and gives you very little storage space.
A hard disk drive's storage capacity is measured in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB, equal to 1,000GB).
If you cleared out all the stuff on your computer you don’t actually need, how much space do you think you’d have? How much do you have now? Check ‘This PC’ in the File Explorer window if you’re using Windows to gauge how big your next laptop’s storage needs to be.
Most laptops over £350 will come with at least 128GB of storage, with 256GB becoming common above £500.
Which laptops have the best battery life?
In a nutshell:
- Manufacturer battery claims aren’t useful unless you’re only comparing models from the same brand. Use our reviews to get the full picture.
Manufacturers often make heady claims about how long their laptops' batteries last. Our tests ignore the manufacturer's claims and involve multiple battery rundowns while simulating web browsing and watching videos.
If you're buying a laptop that you intend to use when out and about, make sure the battery life is at least six hours based on our reviews. We've tested some models that last for more than 15 hours before they need recharging.
Battery stamina on large, desktop-replacement models won't be as crucial, as they'll almost always be near a power socket. But we still mark them down if they run out of juice in under four hours.
We have previously found that laptop battery life claims versus reality are seldom remotely comparable, so you should always take these claims with a pinch of salt and use our reviews to assess how different laptops' batteries compare to one another.
Our in-depth battery tests give you the real picture when it comes to battery life on a laptop. Make sure you check our laptop reviews to find a great model that will last.
Best place to buy a laptop in the UK
Argos, Currys, John Lewis and Laptops Direct are some of the most searched-for laptop retailers at the time of writing. We’ve included links to these retailers because of their stock availability, best-value price, or warranty options.
Argos
As well as stocking a variety of laptops costing between £200-£3,000, Argos offers free, same-day, in-store collection at selected Sainsbury's stores, where you can bump up your Nectar points, too. Or, if you'd rather have your product delivered, prices start at £3.95.
Argos also offers free returns to any Argos store within 30 days of purchase. Most laptops come with a manufacturer guarantee of at least one year.
Browse laptops from Argos here.
Currys
Currys stocks over 300 laptop brands including HP, Dell, Apple and Lenovo. Prices start at under £200.
Click & Collect orders are free, with options to have your laptop delivered to your car in the car park or walk-in store service. Standard anytime-day delivery is also free, and next-day delivery starts at £5.
The Currys Price Promise ensures that if you find a product cheaper elsewhere, Currys will match the price or beat it, as well as match discount codes.
Most laptops come with a manufacturer guarantee of at least one year.
Browse laptops from Currys here.
John Lewis
If you buy from John Lewis, you will receive a free two-year warranty on a range of over 200 laptops from a huge selection of brands, including gaming, 2-in-1, and home office models. John Lewis also provides a technical support service to answer your queries seven days a week.
Plus, if you find a product cheaper at a different high street store, you can make a price match request online, in-store, or over the phone.
John Lewis also offers a variety of shipping options. Standard UK mainland delivery is free when you spend £50 or more (it's £3.50 on orders under £50). If you need your order quickly, next-day delivery will cost you between £6.95-£10.95.
Click & Collect deliveries will send your product to a select pick-up point (usually a Waitrose or Co-op), and are free for orders over £30 (orders under £30 come with a £2 fee). Alternatively, for £3.50, John Lewis' Collect+ service will send your product to a close shop of your choosing, such as your local corner shop.
Browse laptops from John Lewis here.
Laptops Direct
This computing specialist sells thousands of both new and refurbished laptops, from over 30 brands, with prices starting from a couple of hundred pounds.
There's free delivery to most of the UK.
The 'No Quibble' policy at Laptops Direct entitles customers to a full refund for up to 14 days after purchase. And there's expert technical support available over the phone, seven days a week.
Browse laptops from Laptops Direct here.
When buying a laptop, make sure you're handing your money over to a reputable seller. Check the retailer's returns policy and pay attention to customer feedback and reviews.
ARTICLE SOURCE: WHICH.CO.UK
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