The 7 Best Business Laptops - Fall 2024

The best work laptop we've tested is the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024). This premium 2-in-1 laptop features a sturdy all-aluminum chassis with a thin and light design, which makes it a great choice for those who travel a lot. Using Intel's new Meteor Lake processors, light productivity tasks like text processing, web browsing, spreadsheets, and presentations are a breeze, and its NPU (Neural Processing Unit) accelerates AI features like Windows' Copilot. Battery life is excellent, so you don't need to worry about charging it throughout the workday. You can charge the laptop over USB-C, giving you the freedom to use a wide range of compatible chargers.

The overall user experience is great. You get a sharp 2.8K OLED display with touch and pen input, an excellent haptic touchpad, and a 4k webcam. A fingerprint sensor and facial recognition camera are also included for quick logins. Port selection is decent, including one USB-A and two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s, so you can transfer files quickly and connect multiple peripherals and external displays. There's also support for Wi-Fi 7. Unfortunately, the RAM isn't user-replaceable, so make sure you get enough for your needs upfront. Lastly, remember that OLEDs are susceptible to permanent burn-in, and their flickering can be bothersome to some.

Our mid-range pick is the HP Pavilion Aero 13 (2024). You can configure this 13-inch ultraportable with an AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 CPU, which are more than adequate to handle light tasks like text processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Display options include an FHD+ and a QHD+ IPS panel; both look sharp and get bright enough to provide good visibility in well-lit settings. Its 1440p webcam produces a sharp but slightly overexposed image, so you'll have to tweak the settings or lighting a bit to look your best on video calls. Windows Hello facial recognition support is present, which is great if you want to avoid typing your password in public areas. The battery lasts around 10 hours of light use, and you can charge the laptop over USB-C, so you won't have to deal with a proprietary charger.

The biggest compromise for this model's more budget-friendly price is its build quality, which is a significant step down compared to our picks above. Its aluminum and plastic chassis exhibit a fair amount of flexing, and the device as a whole feels hollow. Also, the finish scratches easily from everyday use. Another minor complaint is the touchpad; it's plastic and doesn't track continuous inputs all that well, like when dragging and dropping items across a long distance.

The best laptop for business we've tested for when you're shopping on a budget is the ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 (2023). This ultraportable feels well built for the price and isn't overly bulky for a 16-inch device, so it's still easy to carry around. You can get this laptop with an AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPU, which are more than adequate to handle general productivity tasks. As for the RAM, it has 8GB soldered onto the motherboard and a SO-DIMM slot, so if you can't find a model with 16GB, you can always get an 8GB model and upgrade it yourself. Battery life is okay at around eight hours of light use, which means you may need a quick charge to get through a typical workday, depending on your usage.

This model delivers a pretty good user experience overall. It has a spacious full-size keyboard with a Numpad, which is handy for those working with lots of numbers, as well as a large and responsive touchpad. You get Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity, a fingerprint sensor for quick logins, and a decent port selection with three USB-As, a USB-C, and an HDMI. Unfortunately, the USB-C doesn't support video output, so you'll have to use the HDMI port to connect an external display. The main drawback of this laptop is the display. Its 1080p resolution looks reasonably sharp at this screen size; however, it's quite dim at around 250 cd/m² of brightness, so visibility may be an issue in well-lit rooms. It also looks washed out due to its narrow color gamut.

If you want to spend as little as possible, get the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook 14 (2023). This 14-inch Chromebook is a great option for anyone needing a simple device to do light work like responding to emails, text processing, spreadsheets, and video playback. The Core i3 configuration (paired with a FHD touch-sensitive display, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage) is often on sale for around $400 directly from Lenovo. There are cheaper configurations; however, we don't recommend them unless you have an extremely light workload and don't mind compromising on the display quality.

The touch-sensitive FHD display gets bright enough for well-lit settings and is reasonably color-accurate. Above the display sits an excellent 1080p webcam, so your colleagues and clients can see and hear you clearly on video calls. The keyboard feels spacious but a tad mushy, and the touchpad is small and not always responsive. For those new to Chrome OS, know that this operating system is limited in the type of applications you can install, so you must ensure you can do everything through a Chrome browser or Android app.

Although Windows is the most used operating system in the corporate business world, some of you may prefer or have the option to use a MacBook, especially in this remote work era. If so, we recommend the Apple MacBook Air 15 (2024), one of the best laptops for business and personal use we've tested. This laptop is an incredibly well-built ultraportable that comes with Apple's M3 silicon; its performance is excellent for most productivity tasks, including some light photo or video editing. Its 15-inch display gives you plenty of room for split-screen multitasking and gets bright enough to combat glare, even outdoors in broad daylight. It also features best-in-class battery life, so you can comfortably get through a full workday on a single charge.

The user experience is great. The keyboard feels spacious and tactile, and the touchpad is large and responsive. You get an excellent 1080p webcam, so your colleagues can see and hear you clearly on video calls. Port selection is the major pain point here, as you only get two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports; while you can use these to connect to two external monitors, this only works if the lid is closed. If you plan to use an external monitor with the laptop closed or prefer a more compact device for on-the-go use, you can get the Apple MacBook Air 13 (2024). It's cheaper, but the speakers don't sound as good. Unlike the 15-inch model, Apple still sells the Apple MacBook Air 13 (2022) with the M2 SoC as a budget-friendly option, coming in $100 USD cheaper than the 2024 model.

For people needing to do a bit of everything, including graphic design, photo editing, and maybe even making short videos for their website, we recommend the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023), one of the best laptops for small business use that we've tested. This 14-inch workstation is available with Apple's M3 Pro/Max SoCs, which are fast enough to handle demanding tasks like video editing and complex graphic design, making it a great option for small business owners needing to do a little bit of everything. Its 120Hz Mini LED display provides good visibility in well-lit settings and is well-calibrated out of the box, so you can get straight to work without further calibration. You get the same niceties as the Apple MacBook Air 15 (2024) above, like the keyboard, touchpad, and webcam, as well as a wider port selection for peripherals and external displays.

If you prefer a Windows laptop, get the Dell XPS 16 (2024). Available with Intel Core Ultra 7 or 9 CPUs and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 discrete GPU, this premium workstation is well suited for intensive workloads like programming and 3D modeling. RAM and storage max out at 64GB and 4TB, respectively. The memory isn't user-replaceable, but the SSD is, so you can add more storage later. Display options include an FHD+ IPS and a 4K+ OLED panel—we recommend the latter for color-critical work, as it has full DCI P3 and Adobe RGB coverage. The overall user experience is good; however, it might take some time to get used to the keyboard's edge-to-edge keys and the invisible touchpad. Port selection is more limited than the MacBook Pro, as you only get three USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s and a MicroSD card reader.

If you want a versatile work device that you can also use as a tablet for media consumption, get the Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition (2024), one of the best laptops for business and personal use we've tested. Unlike our top pick above, the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024), this is a tablet PC with a detachable keyboard. Removing the keyboard makes the device easier to hold as a tablet and takes up less space on a table. The downside is that it's a bit more unstable when using it as a laptop on your lap. Like previous Surface Pro type cover keyboards, the new Flex keyboard feels spacious and comfortable, and it now works even when disconnected from the device, giving you more flexibility to position the tablet to your liking. It also has a new haptic touchpad that's larger and easier to use. Unfortunately, the keyboard is still a separate purchase; the same goes for the stylus.

An important consideration for business use is this tablet uses an ARM processor. The Snapdragon chips are more than adequate to handle general productivity tasks, and they're quite power-efficient, giving you an all-day battery life. That said, you need to ensure that the apps you use are compatible or run well enough through Microsoft's Prism emulation layer to get your work done. There are two display options; models using the Snapdragon X Plus have an IPS panel, while the X Elite models come with an OLED panel. The OLED display will give you deeper blacks, but it exhibits the 'screen door effect,' meaning the digitizer is visible, creating a grid-like pattern that some may find distracting. Also, remember that OLEDs are susceptible to permanent burn-in. Other than that, this is a great device overall. You get an excellent 1440p webcam, an IR facial recognition camera, Wi-Fi 7, and clear-sounding front-facing speakers.