Best Ultrabooks and Premium Laptops 2024
Laptops are some of the most important tools people use today. Whether you’re a student submitting homework, at work typing away at documents, spreadsheets or presentations, or you’re just someone who wants to access resources online and connect with family and friends, you want a notebook with the components and features you’ll need to get the job done. That means a great screen, a comfortable keyboard, and long battery life (nice design doesn’t hurt, either!). If you’re looking for a powerful laptop that easily fits in your bag and doesn’t break your back, you’re looking for what some call an “ultrabook.”
The “ultrabook” moniker was originally coined by Intel in 2012 and used to refer to a set of premium, super-thin laptops that met the chipmaker’s predefined standards. Much of this occurred as the PC world was first catching up to the original MacBook Air. However, just as many people refer to tissues as Kleenexes or web searching as Googling, the term ultrabook commonly refers to any premium ultraportable laptop, whether it carries Intel’s seal of approval or not.
Of course, there’s always new tech coming down the pipe. Intel’s most recent chips are its Intel Core Ultra chips and 14th Gen Core HX processors. The former are in productivity and gaming machines, while the latter are for high-performance gaming.
AMD’s first 8000-series “Hawk Point” processors are in devices like the Asus Zephyrus G14, and we saw the first Strix Point machines at Computex. On Macs, Apple’s top chips are the M3 series. The standard M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max can be found in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineup. The recently announced M4 is only in iPads, for now. Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Samsung and more will support the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Plus series chips, so we’re likely to see the laptops wars heat up again this summer.
Best Ultrabooks and Premium Laptops You Can Buy Today
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The HP Spectre x360’s new 14-inch incarnation makes some changes from prior versions, introducing a 16:10 display instead of 3:2 and switching to in-house speakers, but it’s still our favorite Windows laptop out there. You will have to save up a bit for it, though.
HP has a bright, colorful OLED, 2880 x 1800 screen, which we love even though several people on the Tom’s Hardware team were fans of the old aspect ratio. The new 9MP webcam is one of the best we’ve ever tested. And the aluminum design feels like a premium product should.
On this laptop, HP has switched from Bang & Olufsen to speakers from Poly, which it owns. Our reviewer still found that the speakers were excellent, loud, and balanced.
There aren’t a ton of ports on the Spectre, but HP did manage to squeeze a USB Type-A port in there with a drop-jaw hinge.
Our review unit came with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD for $1,899, which is a bit pricey, though HP offers customization options on its website.
Read: HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) Review
The Lenovo Yoga 9i (Gen 8) is a 14-inch 2-in-1 with an attractive, portable design, a bright display and a mix of ports. Its rounded corners aren’t just about form, they make it comfortable to use, and still leave from for Thunderbolt 4 and USB Type-A.
The screen is beautiful. On our colorimeter, it covered 201% of the sRGB gamut and 142.1% of the DCI-P3 spectrum.
Lenovo throws a stylus in the box, so those who want the option to take notes by hand or with a keyboard won’t need to buy any extra accessories. We did find the keyboard to be a bit stiff, however.
And Intel’s Core i7-1360P offers strong performance, with a speedy SSD and strong single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
Read: Lenovo Yoga 9i (Gen 8) Review
Apple’s MacBook Air line has long been a popular go-to for entry-level Mac users, and now Apple has two sizes — 13-inch and 15-inch — on the same upgrade schedule. The two systems use most of the same components, differing primarily on display size and speakers. They’re both excellent, portable, and powerful.
Both laptops have bright displays, use Apple’s squared design, and lasted over 15 hours on our battery test. Each has the same set of ports and sues MagSafe, a magnetic power connector. They also both have a notch in the display to house the 1080p webcam.
Outside of the displays, the big difference is audio. The 15-inch laptop has six speakers and force-cancelling woofers, while the 13-inch laptop has just four speakers.
The fanless design is totally silent, but it also means the M3 chip isn’t actively cooled. That means yes, the chip will throttle for intense work like video editing and rendering. (In our testing, we found the 13-inch laptop throttled faster possibly because the 15-inch Air has more surface area to cool the chip). But for most tasks, like email, documents, and spreadsheets, you shouldn’t have any worries.
Read: MacBook Air (M3) review
Apple’s MacBook Pros on Apple Silicon haven’t changed much in design, except now they come in Space Black. (And Space Black looks great!). Apple’s latest changes are still on the inside, with its latest M3 Pro and M3 Max chips.
We tested the 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Max and were impressed by its battery life: 17 hours and 11 minutes on our battery test, even while powering a vivid Mini-LED screen. The chip is efficient.
This latest MacBook Pros retain the wide variety of ports, including HDMI and an SD card slot, that we loved last year, as well as a bright, vivid Mini-LED display.
While the design hasn’t changed, that means you also get excellent speakers and a comfortable keyboard with full-size function keys. But it also means that there’s still a notch in the display to hold the 1080p webcam, which some might find to be distracting.
For those who need more graphics power, you may want to step up to the M3 Max, goes up to 40 graphics cores. If you want more battery life, the 16-inch MacBook Pro has a larger battery (100 WHr vs the 14-incher MacBook Pro’s 72.4 WHr), and endured.
If you prefer a smaller screen, you may want to consider the 14-inch Macbook Pro, which also comes with your choice of M3 Pro or M3 Max. We haven’t had the chance to test the new entry level MacBook Pro — a 14-incher with a regular M3 and fewer ports — but that one is expensive for the amount of RAM you get in it, and with upgrades benign so pricey, you may want to start with the more powerful options anyway.
Read: MacBook Pro (16-inch) Review
It’s easy to impress us with a great screen or fast performance, and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED delivers both. But where it really shows off is its price. You get an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $1,299 as of this writing. Many other companies would charge you hundreds of dollars more.
Beyond those specs, you get a light laptop at just 2.82 pounds (1.28 kg) that feels pretty sturdy, though the “ponder blue” metal body is a bit of a fingerprint magnet.
We found that Asus’ laptop offered fast, bursty performance, hitting a single-core score of 1,809 and a multi-core score of 10,962 on Geekbench 5. But when we stress tested the laptop with Cinebench, we found that the chip throttled in continuous testing. So the laptop is fine for bursts of speed, but not for long-term heavy workloads.
The keyboard is a bit mushy for our liking, but otherwise, you’re getting pretty high level specs for that $1,299 price tag. Other laptop companies should take note on the pricing.
Read: Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405M) review
There are plenty of reasons why the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a classic. It’s thin design and strong build quality are beloved by ThinkPad diehards. The latest model, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11), offers long battery life and great speakers.
Perhaps most critically, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon offers an excellent keyboard. Lenovo’s reputation was built on great typing experiences, so this is crucial. For those who love Lenovo’s TrackPoint, it’s still here, allowing you to move the mouse without ever taking your fingers away from the home row on the keyboard.
The latest version comes with Intel’s 13th Gen Core processors. We reviewed it with a Core i7-1355U, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD.
The one real issue we had is that the base screen could benefit from being a bit brighter. Those who want the most vivid experience can opt for an OLED panel, but at a higher price.
When shopping for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11), keep an eye out for Lenovo’s frequent sales, as there’s often a deal available.
Read: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) Review
Asus has begun to refine the dual screen laptop. Sure, there’s a more powerful version, but for a laptop with two screens, this one is fairly light, and ran for over 10 and a half hours on a charge.
Windows 10 doesn’t yet natively support dual screen software, Asus’s ScreenPad Plus launcher has improved since launch, with easy flicks and drags to move apps around the display. For Adobe apps, there’s custom dial-based software.
The keyboard and mouse placement are the big compromises, as there isn’t a wrist rest and they can feel cramped. But if you want two-screens, this is as good as it gets for now.
Read: Asus ZenBook Duo 14 UX482 Review
The Dell XPS 13 has long been known for its design. Dell has stuck with the curious choice of making the function row touch-based, so now it can be known for something new: battery life. Our review unit lasted 19 hours and 31 minutes on our battery test, making it the longest-lasting laptop we’ve ever tested.
You still get high-quality design, though yes, the function row is effectively a second-rate Touch Bar from MacBooks back in the late aughts.
The Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 in our sample provided strong performance and power efficiency, though some of that longevity is likely due to the 1920 x 1200, IPS screen. Dell also offers higher resolution, OLED panels that probably wouldn’t last as long.
Other features include Wi-Fi 7 support and a pair of USB 4 Type-C ports. This new version of the XPS 13 may not have the old design we prefer, but with this battery life and these technologies, it’s one we can recommend for those who don’t want to plug in.
Read: Dell XPS 13 (9345) review
Microsoft may push the Surface Pro as a do-it-all AI machine, but the truth is it’s just a really nice, portable, slim PC that lasts a long time on a battery and includes a beautiful OLED display. It’s definitively one of the Surfaces to date.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors offer enough performance to keep up with x86 competitors, making this one of the first Arm-based Surfaces that doesn’t feel like it’s lacking. Add on more Arm-compatible apps than ever, including the Chrome browser, and there’s far less to miss from previous Intel models. That’s not to say it’s perfect — there are still some gaming issues, as well as drivers for specialized peripherals that may need to be rebuilt for the new platform.
The 45 TOPS NPU powers some of Windows 11’s Copilot+ features, like Cocreator, Live Captions, and Windows Studio effects. None of these are showstoppers, but they’re cool tricks.’
If you want a premium tablet running Windows 11, the Surface Pro is one of the only premium games in town. And that means paying a premium for a separate keyboard. But for those who love this form factor, the Surface Pro remains the best option out there.
Read: Microsoft Surface Pro review
If you want something sleek and slim like a Mac, but prefer Windows 11, Samsung may have the answer for you. The Galaxy Book 3 Ultra has clean lines and an aluminum unibody chassis, and a massive touchpad so big it might make MacBook Pro users a bit envious. It also has two things Apple doesn’t currently offer – an AMOLED display and a number pad.
While its 9:03 battery life couldn’t touch the MacBook Pro, it was competitive among Windows devices. And our review unit’s Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, GeForce RTX 4050, 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD delivered solid performance among competitors.
Like the Macs and a number of other thin Windows laptops, like the Dell XPS 13, the RAM is soldered down. Samsung has limited the Galaxy Book Pro to one display, with a resolution of 2880 x 1800, which is nice but not as high as what you can get on some Windows and macOS-based competitors. But if you want the style to go along with the performance, the Galaxy Book Ultra is worth considering.
Read: Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra Laptop Review
- Get a good keyboard: Whether you’re using an ultrabook to browse the web, send emails, code, write, or do other productivity work, the keyboard is one of your primary ways of interacting with your computer. Get something with responsive keys that aren’t mushy. Low-travel is ok if the keys have the right feel to them, but the last thing you want to do is “bottom out” while typing. Ideally, you can try out a store model before buying.
- Consider what you need in a screen: At a minimum, your laptop should have a 1920 x 1080 screen. Some laptops offer 4K options, though it’s sometimes harder to see the difference at 13-inches or below. While 4K may be more detailed, 1080p screens give you much longer battery life. OLED screens are becoming far more common on laptops, with deep blacks and bright colors, but often at the cost of battery life. Many laptop screens still use a 16:9 aspect ratio, but consider 16:10 or 3:2 if you want a taller screen that shows more of your work at a time. 16:10 has become increasingly popular over the last several years, while 3:2 is more rare.
- Some laptops can be upgraded: While CPUs and GPUs are almost always soldered down, some laptops let you replace the RAM and storage, so you can buy cheaper now and add more memory and a bigger hard drive or SSD down the road. But the thinnest laptops may not have that option, so buy with the future in mind. Some, like the Framework Laptop 13, are designed around being easily upgradeable.
- Battery life is important: Aim for something that lasts for 8 hours or longer on a charge (gaming is an exception) at a bare minimum. For productivity, many laptops easily surpass this number, so 10 hours would be even better. But be wary of manufacturer claims, which don’t always use strenuous tests. Some laptops are starting to add fast charging, which is a nice bonus that tops you off more quickly.
Finding Discounts on the Best Ultrabooks
Whether you’re shopping for one of the best ultrabooks or a laptop didn’t quite make our list, you may find savings by checking out our lists of the latest Dell coupon codes, HP coupon codes, Lenovo coupon codes, Best Buy promo codes or Newegg promo codes.
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