Best Windows laptop 2023: Top Windows machines money can buy

If you’re a Windows loyalist and don’t fancy converting over to a Chromebook or MacBook, then you’re in the right place. We’ve assembled this list of the very best Windows laptop options that we’ve reviewed in recent years.
Every laptop that we recommend has been thoroughly tested by one of the experts on our team. We make sure each laptop is powerful enough for your desired workloads via industry-standard benchmark tests, while also using professional equipment to check out the screen specs and battery life.
We also acknowledge that a single laptop can’t meet everyone’s criteria, so we’ve made sure to make the list as varied as possible. We’ve included everything from small productivity laptops, to 16-inch monsters that can blaze through heavy workloads.
Still can’t find a Windows laptop to your liking? No cause for concern, as we’ll be updating this list as soon as we publish more high-scoring Windows laptop reviews. With that in mind, it may be worth bookmarking this article for future reference.
And if you’re looking for something more general, then why not check out our Best Laptop, Best Ultrabook, Best Student Laptop and Best Budget Laptop pages? And if you’re losing your patience with Windows, it’s also worth betraying Bill Gates and checking out the Best Chromebook and Best MacBook pages.
Best Windows laptops at a glance
- Best overall: Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED
- Best value: Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 – check price
- Best 14-inch: Huawei MateBook 14s – check price
- Best 16-inch: LG Gram 16 (2022) – check price
- Best for video editing: Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED (2022) – check price
How we test
Every laptop we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.
These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted tests, plus a series of real world checks, such as how well it runs the most frequently used apps.
We also make sure to use every laptop we review as our primary device for at least a week to ensure our review is as accurate as possible.
- Excellent performance, even for gaming
- Dazzling OLED screen
- Remarkably thin and light
- Great battery life
- Poor port offering
- Can run hot and loud under strain
- Beautiful display with great resolution
- Lightweight and very portable
- High-quality keyboard
- Webcam issues from the MateBook 16 has been fixed
- Sometimes goes to sleep when unplugged
- Fan can get a little noisy
- No option for a discrete GPU
- A market-leading OLED display
- A fast, capable Core i9 processor
- The keyboard is comfortable and innovative
- Impressive build quality and connectivity
- Poor battery life when compared to Apple laptops
- A large, bulky laptop
- OLED display could be brighter
- Fantastic value for money
- Extremely portable design
- Smooth performance for basic tasks
- Better battery life than the original
- Low-resolution display
- Lack of keyboard backlight
- No fingerprint scanner on base configuration
- Unbelievably light design
- Big, bold and beautiful display
- Excellent port selection
- Super speedy SSD
- Not as fast as other modern laptops
- Shorter battery life than predecessor
- Noticeable deck flex

Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED
Best overall Windows laptop
Pros
- Excellent performance, even for gaming
- Dazzling OLED screen
- Remarkably thin and light
- Great battery life
Cons
- Poor port offering
- Can run hot and loud under strain
The Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED is a true powerhouse of a laptop, not only a great option for office-based productivity tasks, but also for the likes of video editing, too.
Inside, you’ll find it features one of AMD’s all-new Ryzen 6000 laptop processors that we found during testing to offer a super-speedy performance that was pushing Apple’s M1 chip with its benchmark scores. This meant it was superb at casual browsing as well as even more intense tasks such as video and photo editing.
Alongside some rather beefy internals, we found this Asus laptop’s display to be sublime. As an OLED panel, it offered up truly vibrant colours and unparalleled black levels, which made it especially fantastic for watching videos. Colour space coverage also proved to be incredible, ensuring that the Zenbook 13 S OLED’s display is one of the best for creatives.
In addition, the battery life proved to be some of the best we’ve seen, with this laptop lasting for 13 and a half hours or so with our PC Mark 10 Modern Office benchmark test.
It might be argued that the design of this beast of an ultrabook is a little plain, with a nondescript metal deck that could suggest it’s a little cheaper feeling than other ultrabooks out there. With that being said, the Zenbook S 13 OLED is slimmer than other 13-inch laptops such as the Dell XPS 13 OLED (2021) at just 14.9mm thick.
While this makes it look ultra modern, it has the unwanted effect of meaning this laptop has very little in the way of ports – there’s only three USB-C connections and a headphone jack. Anything larger doesn’t seem to be present, and for those, you’ll need to plug in dongles.
Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2
Best value Windows laptop
Pros
- Fantastic value for money
- Extremely portable design
- Smooth performance for basic tasks
- Better battery life than the original
Cons
- Low-resolution display
- Lack of keyboard backlight
- No fingerprint scanner on base configuration
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 is one of the most affordable Windows laptops on the market, with a retail price as low as £529 – that’s half the cost of the MacBook Air.
Despite its affordable price, the Surface Laptop Go 2 offers a lot of quality, with a fantastic design that feels robust and sturdy. The small 12-inch screen also makes this laptop incredibly portable, which is useful whether you’re a student who needs to move between lecture halls, or an office worker with a hybrid working arrangement.
The 11th Generation Intel Core chip isn’t quite as speedy as processors found in other modern laptops, but it’s still snappy enough to speed through basic tasks. If you’re happy to stick to the likes of word documents, emails, streaming video and other productivity/entertainment apps, then this laptop is perfectly capable. You’ll only encounter an issue if you want to push it with demanding creativity apps or games.
There are a couple of minor issues, with the low-resolution display making it a poor choice for Netflix addicts, and the lack of keyboard backlight making after-dark typing a nuisance. But when you consider how cheap and portable this laptop is, it’s sure to be a popular option for those on a budget.
Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Surface Laptop Go 2 review

Huawei MateBook 14s
Best 14-inch Windows laptop
Pros
- Beautiful display with great resolution
- Lightweight and very portable
- High-quality keyboard
- Webcam issues from the MateBook 16 has been fixed
Cons
- Sometimes goes to sleep when unplugged
- Fan can get a little noisy
- No option for a discrete GPU
The Huawei MateBook 14s is a fantastic Windows laptop for those looking for an ultra-portable device.
A weight of 1.43kg makes this relatively light for a 14-inch laptop, although we found its metal build and general heft to make this a sturdy choice. We found the keyboard to be tactile and offer good feedback, while the trackpad was roomy and responsive. Port selection here isn’t too bad with a selection of Thunderbolt-capable USB-C connections, as well as an HDMI and headphone jack.
The display here is also excellent with the MateBook 14s’ panel looking vibrant and bright, with the resolution clocking in at 2520×1680. The 90% screen to body ratio also meant you get a lot of screen real estate with some small bezels that we found to look especially good. Moreover, the 14-inch screen size proved perfect for productivity, although its sub-par Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 colour coverage means this isn’t the best laptop to be used for the likes of professional video editing.
The Intel Core i7-11730H processor offered a speedy performance in our benchmark tests and in the real world too. SSD read and write speeds also proved to be snappy, meaning this laptop should be able to load and save files incredibly quickly, and we also found it to boot up in an instant too.
The only real disappointing thing with the MateBook 14s is its battery life, although we must stress that it’s perfectly serviceable. In testing, it lasted just over 9 hours, which means you’ll be able to get through a working day with juice to spare, and will survive those days where you forget to bring in a charger.
Reviewer: Gemma Ryles
Full review: Huawei MateBook 14s review

LG Gram 16 (2022)
Best 16-inch Windows laptop
Pros
- Unbelievably light design
- Big, bold and beautiful display
- Excellent port selection
- Super speedy SSD
Cons
- Not as fast as other modern laptops
- Shorter battery life than predecessor
- Noticeable deck flex
Generally speaking, the larger the screen the heavier the laptop, but the LG Gram 16 does away with this rule by fitting a 16-inch screen on a laptop with a 1.2kg frame. This LG laptop is so lightweight that it actually holds a Guinness World Record for being the lightest commercially available 16-inch laptop. However, its magnesium-alloy construction does have some flex under pressure, but that’s the price for such a lightweight laptop.
That massive 16-inch panel comes with a high 2560×1600 resolution. We found this to offer incredibly sharp images, especially compared to a more standard Full HD screen. With 356 nits of measured brightness, this is also quite a vibrant panel and offers good contrast, too.
The inclusion of the Intel Core i7-1260P processor should mean the LG Gram 16 is reasonably powerful, although in testing, we found it to lag behind some of the competition that comes with exactly the same chipset. It’s still perfectly serviceable for productivity tasks, but just note that the lighter nature of this laptop means its cooling isn’t as up to scratch as heavier laptops that will give you better performance.
The battery life on offer is good too, as we found the Gram to last for just shy of 11 hours, which is easily enough to get you through the working day.
Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: LG Gram 16 (2022) review

Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED (2022)
Best Windows laptop for video editing
Pros
- A market-leading OLED display
- A fast, capable Core i9 processor
- The keyboard is comfortable and innovative
- Impressive build quality and connectivity
Cons
- Poor battery life when compared to Apple laptops
- A large, bulky laptop
- OLED display could be brighter
The Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED is a great Windows-flavoured alternative to the MacBook Pro, packing powerful components that enable it to churn through heavy workloads such as video editing and 3D animation. Our benchmark results showed the Intel Core i9 chip to be almost just as powerful as Apple’s processor, emphasizing just how powerful this laptop is.
It also features a glorious 16-inch 4K OLED display that our tests show can present a wide range of colours with an impressive level of accuracy. This ensures it meets the standard of professionals who deal with colour-sensitive workloads.
You’ll also find a unique Asus dial on the bottom-left side of the chassis. This offers support with creative applications such as Adobe’s creative suite, providing the user with finer control when adjusting various settings.
As with any laptop that offers this level of performance, it doesn’t have a long battery life. It’s also fairly heavy, so may not be the best option if you need a laptop you can carry to and from the office on a daily basis. But if you’re looking for a Windows laptop that can offer a similar performance to the MacBook Pro when on creative duties, this is a fantastic option worth considering.
Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review
We also considered…
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See all reviewsFAQs
There isn’t really one particular brand that is the ‘best’ as each company produces such a great range of different laptops. Dell’s XPS range has been highly rated in recent years, but laptops from Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung and plenty more have also achieved great scores.
We’d suggest aiming for around 8GB of RAM if you just want a laptop capable of speeding through basic productivity tasks. If you want to edit video or play games, then it may be worth opting for at least 16GB of RAM instead.
The Intel Core i9-12950HX is currently on the most powerful processors in a laptop. You’ll typically only find this processor in gaming laptops such as the ROG Strix Scar 17 SE. Of course, upgrading your RAM and GPU can also have a big impact on a laptop’s performance.