The 6 Best Laptops For Working From Home - Black Friday 2024

The best laptop for working from home we've tested is the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023). This premium workstation has tons of processing power to handle nearly any workload and provides an amazing user experience. It has a sharp, bright, 120Hz Mini LED display, a spacious and tactile keyboard, and Apple's industry-leading haptic touchpad. The webcam is among the best on the market, so your colleagues can see and hear you clearly on video calls. The battery lasts around 15 hours of light use, allowing you to work in different rooms or even out in your backyard without dragging the power adapter around. If you don't plan on using an external monitor and prefer a larger laptop, you can get the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M3, 2023), which is essentially the same device but with a larger 16-inch screen and better-sounding speakers.

If you prefer or need to work on Windows, get the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 (2024), also a premium workstation laptop that can handle intensive tasks like 3D graphics and simulations. Its 16-inch display gives you plenty of room for multitasking, though none of the available panels get as bright as the MacBook Pro's, so visibility won't be as good when working outdoors. You get Lenovo's much-beloved keyboard and Trackpoint, a large haptic touchpad, an excellent 1440p webcam, and tons of ports for peripherals and external displays. Its battery life is shorter but still very respectable at around 12 hours of light use. One advantage this device has over the MacBook Pro is that its RAM and SSD are user-replaceable, so you can upgrade or add more later.

For those with a lighter workload that consists mainly of tasks like text processing, web browsing, spreadsheets, and video playback, get the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition 15 (2024). This 15-inch ultraportable has an incredibly sturdy build and a battery life of around 17 hours of light use. Its 120Hz 15-inch display looks sharp, gives you plenty of room for split-screen for multitasking, and gets bright enough for use in most settings, even outdoors in broad daylight. You get a comfortable keyboard that you can type on all day, a responsive haptic touchpad, and one of the best webcams you can find among Windows laptops. Its port selection is likely sufficient for most people, though there's no Thunderbolt 4 support. This laptop uses an ARM SoC, which means some programs might not work or will run poorly through emulation, so it's best to check for compatibility first.

The alternative for Mac users is, of course, the Apple MacBook Air 15 (2024). Its M3 chip is still blazing fast and more than adequate for general productivity tasks. Plus, it has a fanless design, allowing you to work in complete silence. It's very compact for a 15-inch device, so it's easy to carry if you need to go to the office. At around 11 hours of light use, its battery life is excellent but not as good as the Surface Laptop's. The overall user experience is amazing; it has a nice, well-calibrated Retina display (60Hz refresh rate, unfortunately), Apple's amazing haptic touchpad, and an excellent 1080p webcam. The keyboard feels spacious, though its short key travel might not be to everyone's liking. Our main gripe with this laptop is the port selection, which is still limited to two USB-Cs located on the same side of the laptop.

If you don't want to spend too much on a premium model like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition 15 (2024) or the Apple MacBook Air 15 (2024), the Acer Swift Go 14 (2024) is a more affordable option with only a few compromises. Fortunately, you don't have to sacrifice on performance; it features Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs, which are powerful enough to handle general productivity tasks and more demanding workloads like programming. You can get up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage—only the latter is user-replaceable, so ensure you get enough RAM for your needs upfront. It comes with Wi-Fi 6E, a 1080p webcam, and a fingerprint sensor.

The build quality, as well as the overall user experience, is where this laptop feels a tad inferior compared to the picks above. Its chassis doesn't feel quite as premium or rigid, as there's more plastic in the construction, and it also has a slightly mushier keyboard and a non-haptic, diving board touchpad. You can choose between an FHD+ IPS or a 2.8k OLED display; the OLED looks much sharper, but keep in mind that it's susceptible to permanent burn-in and will drain the battery faster. It also flickers, which might bother some people. Its outstanding port selection includes two USB-As, two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s, a MicroSD card reader, and an HDMI. The battery lasts around 11 to 12 hours of light use—you can charge the laptop via USB-C.

The best budget laptop for working from home we've tested is the ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 (2023). This 16-inch Windows ultraportable feels well-built for its price, and it isn't overly bulky or heavy, so it's still easy to carry around when you need to go to the office. It's available with an AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPU, which are more than adequate to handle light productivity tasks like text processing, web browsing, spreadsheets, and video playback. You can get this laptop with 8GB or 16GB of RAM, though the 16GB models can be hard to find. If you can't find one, you can always upgrade the RAM yourself via the SO-DIMM slot. Its battery life is okay; it lasts a little over eight hours of light use, so depending on your workload, you may have to plug it in for a quick charge.

The overall user experience is good. It has a comfortable keyboard, a large and responsive touchpad, and a decent 720p webcam. Its 1080p display looks reasonably sharp; however, it doesn't get very bright, so visibility may be an issue in well-lit rooms. 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 best cheap laptop for working from home we've tested is the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook 14 (2023). This 14-inch Chromebook is a great option for those with a light workload, like text processing, web browsing, and video playback. We recommend the Core i3 configuration (paired with a touch-sensitive FHD display, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage), which you can regularly find on sale for around $400 to $500 USD on Lenovo's website. You can get one of the cheaper configurations (Intel N100 or N200 CPU and/or 4GB of RAM) if you have an extremely light workload; just know that you'll experience more slowdowns when multitasking.

The touch-sensitive FHD display on the aforementioned Core i3 model looks very sharp and gets bright enough for use in most indoor settings. Above the display is an excellent 1080p webcam, so your colleagues can see and hear you clearly on video calls. Unfortunately, the keyboard feels a little mushy, and the touchpad is small and sometimes unresponsive. Its battery life is outstanding at around 13 hours of light use or 12 hours of video playback. Lastly, Chrome OS is limited in the type of applications you can install, so just make sure you can do everything through a Chrome browser or Android app.

If you want a versatile device that you can use as a tablet for media consumption, get the Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition (2024). Unlike convertibles with a 360-degree hinge, 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, and you can simply pop it back on when you need to type something. 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, and the same goes for the stylus.

The most important thing to know about this device is that it runs on 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. Another thing to consider is the display. The Snapdragon X Plus models come with an IPS panel, while the X Elite models come with an OLED panel. The OLED display will give you deeper blacks, but it exhibits what's commonly known as 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.