Best Windows laptop 2023: Top Windows machines money can buy

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

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

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

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

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