CPU: Intel Core i7-1355U | RAM: 32GB LPDDR5 | Graphics: Intel Iris Xe | Storage: 1TB SSD | Display: 13.3-inch OLED | Resolution: 2,880 x 1,800 | Refresh rate: 60Hz | Battery: Up to 10 hours | Weight: 2.2 pounds

Best for: Everyday web browsing, office use and watching movies on a brilliant, sharp screen.

The Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED is a laptop that does exactly what it should do without weighing you down with unnecessary hardware. That keeps the price low and the battery life high. It has a thirteenth-generation Intel processor and it comes standard with a boatload of memory—32GB of DDR5 RAM—making it perfect for heavy multi-tasking and having as many browser tabs open as you want. To top it all off, it has a 2.8K OLED screen, so images look ultra crisp with inky blacks and vibrant colors. That makes this laptop the perfect tool for work, entertainment and content creation.

This laptop doesn't let you down elsewhere, either. The battery life gets you an average of 10 hours of mixed use, and at only two pounds, this laptop is super light and portable. It doesn't have a dedicated graphics chip, so while the onboard Intel Iris Xe GPU can handle very light casual gaming, it's not a great laptop for gaming. For anything else, though, this is a great laptop to get.

Pros:

• Great performance
• Crisp, vivid OLED display
• Extremely light

Cons:

• Lacks an onboard GPU for gaming

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7320U | RAM: 8GB DDR4 | Graphics: AMD Radeon | Storage: 256GB SSD | Display: 14-inch | Resolution: 1920 x 1080 | Refresh rate: 60Hz | Battery: Up to 7 hours | Weight: 3 pounds

Best for: Homework, home office use and casual web browsing.

The Asus VivoBook Go is a lightweight, portable laptop with good performance in just about any task. Its screen doesn't get particularly bright, but at 1080p across 14-inches, the display looks detailed and crisp, whether you're watching a movie or reading an article. The CPU is an upgraded version of AMD's Zen 2 architecture, which is a few years out of date, but with a new process node, it's efficient and still powerful enough for everyday use. With four cores and eight threads, you can have plenty of browser tabs open at once.

The onboard Radeon GPU isn't powerful, but it has enough power for casual gaming and esports play. Its 256GB SSD is small, but it’s fast enough to give you a quick boot time and a fast wake up from sleep mode. The real perk with this laptop though is its low price. At less than $500, it's in Chromebook territory and it is far, far faster than they will be. Better yet, it has full access to Windows apps, so you can use Word and any other features you're used to.

Pros:

• Cheap for a Windows laptop
• Good performance despite dated hardware
• Portable and relatively lightweight

Cons:

• Lacks modern hardware
• Small storage size
• Bendy plastic chassis

CPU: Intel Core i7-13900H | RAM: 16GB LPDDR5 | Graphics: Nvidia RTX 4080 | Storage: 2TB SSD | Display: 16-inch | Resolution: 2,560 x 1,440 | Refresh rate: 240Hz | Battery: Up to 5 hours | Weight: 5.1 pounds

Best for: Playing all your games at the highest detail settings.

Th Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 is a gaming laptop that does everything well. It has high-powered hardware for playing all your favorite games at the highest of detail settings, a super high refresh rate for buttery smooth gameplay and all the storage space you need for your expansive game library. You may have noted that the GPU is not the most powerful one available—there is an RTX 4090 configuration if you want it—but the price leaps so high for that model and the thin-and-relatively-light design of this laptop means that the higher-end GPU just can't stretch its legs like we'd like. It’s better to save hundreds and get an almost-equal GPU.

The 16-inch display is incredibly bright, rated for over 1,100 nits at its peak, and though that does sap the battery, the rest of the hardware does a good job of reducing battery life, too. Don't expect more than a few hours of use between charges, and if you're gaming and don't have the charger handy, you'll drain the battery in less than two hours and won't get the full power of this laptop besides. For desk gaming though, the Zephyrus M16 is the best Asus gaming laptop available today.

Pros:

• Top notch gaming performance
• Lots of storage space
• Super bright and fast screen

Cons:

• Expensive
• Not as high-performing as the most expensive gaming laptops

CPU: Intel Core i5-1235U | RAM: 16GB LPDDR5 | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics | Storage: 256GB UFS | Display: 14-inch | Resolution: 1920 x 1080 | Refresh rate: Unknown | Battery: Up to 10 hours | Weight: 3.2 pounds

Best for: Working on documents, casual web browsing and light image editing.

For those looking for the absolute best Asus Chromebook available, take a look at the Asus CX34. Asus’ most recent launch uses AI-powered features to enhance your video conferencing, from reducing background noise to improving the lighting on the Full HD camera.

The Chromebook comes with double the memory—256GB—and offers an impressive 16GB RAM for multitasking and light video editing. The latter works well with a partnership with Adobe, which brings Adobe Express to its ChromeOS. You can create social graphics on the Full HD 14-inch screen and share straight to your social channels, or use Google’s extensive software network to work in Google Docs, Sheets and more.

What our editors say: Tech Editor Rebecca Isaacs says, “During a hands-on with the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34, I got to see how fast and responsive the device was. I especially enjoyed being able to work with Adobe Express to work with—and with AI, generate—images.”

Pros:

• Improved RAM and storage capacity
• Built-in Adobe Express
• ChromeOS easy to use

Cons:

• Pricey for a Chromebook
• Adobe Express requires a subscription