Lenovo makes some of the best Windows laptops in the business, and I should know—I review laptops for a living here at Tom's Guide.
My team and I review dozens of laptops from the top companies every year, and I'm consistently impressed by Lenovo's handiwork. If I had to pick a favorite overall I'd recommend the readers ask for my favorite I like to suggest the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i because it's a lovely creator laptop with a gorgeous 3K OLED touchscreen that functions like a jack-of-all-trades thanks to its capable performance and Nvidia GeForce laptop GPU.
If you'd prefer a cheaper, less flashy laptop for work I recommend the Lenovo Slim 7 because it's comfy to type on, light enough to carry with ease and yet sports a beautiful OLED touchscreen that goes easy on the battery, ensuring it lasted 10+ hours in our testing.
But if you want something a little cheaper that's a great value, check out the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x. It's an affordable Lenovo laptop that still offers the company's trademark comfy keyboard, good performance and most impressively, an amazing 16+ hours of battery life in our testing lab. All this for under $800 (or cheaper if you find it on sale) is a bona fide deal.
No matter which device you end up choosing, make sure to check our Lenovo coupon codes page for the latest discounts on Lenovo products before you buy!
The quick list
In a hurry? Here's a brief overview of the laptops on this list, along with quick links that let you jump down the page directly to a review of whichever laptop catches your eye.
The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i is my top recommendation and overall favorite Lenovo laptop thanks to its gorgeous 3K OLED touchscreen, capable performance and comfy keyboard.
The Lenovo Slim 7 is my most recommended business laptop because it gives you a lovely 14-inch OLED touchscreen, 10+ hours of tested battery life and a laptop that's comfy to type on for $1,000 (or less on sale).
I recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x for folks on a tight budget because it offers great battery life, good performance and a comfy keyboard for under $800.
If you want a Chromebook instead of a Chrome tablet, I recommend the Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus because it supports Google's AI features, has a lovely touchscreen and the keyboard feels good to type on.
The best Lenovo laptops you can buy today
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The best overall
I'm a big fan of the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i. In fact, I'm writing this entry on one right now, because I just love how comfy the full keyboard feels under my big hands.
But there's more to like about this creator laptop than one of Lenovo's great keyboards. First and foremost, I love the 3K OLED touchscreen because it makes everything you do on the laptop look better. The colors are eye-catching, and I appreciate the option to reach out and tap on things when I get tired of typing or using the touchpad.
I also recommend this as the best Lenovo laptop for most folks because it has an older Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU on board and 32GB of RAM, giving it a bit of extra muscle to run games or demanding apps. While it can't compete with the best gaming laptops, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i is a handy all-rounder that can game, code apps and run AI applications pretty well.
Finally, I really appreciate the variety of ports you get on this laptop. With a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, a pair of USB-A ports, an HDMI out and an SD card reader this laptop is pretty versatile and can be helpful if you're a creator, student, remote worker or photographer.
While the battery life isn't the best I've ever seen in our testing, the fact that it lasted nearly ten hours (9:45, to be specific) means you can get away with taking it to class or work without lugging a charger with you.
Read our full Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i review.
The best business laptop
I often recommend Lenovo's Slim 7 as the best business laptop I've used because its easy to carry, comfy to type on and offers good performance and battery life (10+ hours tested).
But just between the two of us, what I really love is the 14-inch OLED touchscreen, which makes everything you do on the device look lovely. I also like a good touchscreen because it gives you the freedom to take your hands off the keyboard and trackpad to tap and swipe when you feel like it.
You can find this specific model of Lenovo Slim 7 we reviewed at Costco for roughly $999, but if you can't find it there (or don't have a membership) there are similar models on sale at Amazon and Best Buy.
Read our full Lenovo Slim 7 review.
The best value
If you're on a tight budget, my top recommendation for the best Lenovo laptop to spend it on is the IdeaPad Slim 3x.
Here's why: it gives you a fully functional Windows 11 laptop with amazing battery life, decent performance and a comfy keyboard for under $800.
Now, there are drawbacks to buying this laptop. The screen is a bit dim and the speakers are underwhelming, for example. It doesn't run games very well either, in large part because it's powered by an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon chip and thus has compatibility issues with many games and some x86 apps.
But if you can handle those drawbacks, what you get for your money is a reliable productivity laptop that's great for remote learning or getting work done. First and foremost, that Snapdragon chip helps the IdeaPad Slim 3x achieve killer battery life - up to 16 hours in our testing lab.
That's amazing for a laptop this cheap, and it ensures you can carry this thing to work or school without having to lug the charger with you.
Plus, the Snapdragon CPU can achieve pretty good performance in productivity tasks, and you'll be happy typing for hours on the comfy Lenovo keyboard.
It's a great budget laptop for the price, and if you can find it on sale it's a bona fide steal.
Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x review.
The best Chromebook
The Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is a no-nonsense Chromebook that has everything you need for surfing the web, streaming movies and getting work done.
I like this Chromebook because it punches above its weight in terms of performance, giving you access to Google's Chromebook Plus AI features as well as plenty of speed for browsing the web, running web apps and getting work done.
I also like the bright 1200p touchscreen, and when we got it into our testing lab and pointed our instruments at it we found the Flex 5i gets brighter and more color-accurate than competing Chromebooks like the Acer Chromebook Plus 515.
Finally, this machine has a good port selection for a budget-priced Chromebook. You get both USB-C and USB-A as well as a microSD card reader and a headphone jack, ensuring you can crack this bad boy open in a coffee shop or conference room and not feel like you're handicapped by the laptop.
Read our full Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus review.
Also tested
We test and review dozens of laptops every year, and just because they don't all make this list of the best Lenovo laptops doesn't mean they aren't good machines.
No, there are loads of great Lenovo laptops that don't quite achieve the level of excellence needed to be leaders of the pack. That's why I've gathered all the good options we've tested which don't quite make this list (but are still great alternatives well worth considering) below!
Don't let the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i's futuristic looks fool you: this dual-screen laptop is surprisingly sturdy and usable on the go, once you get the hang of it.
Sporting a pair of 13-inch OLED displays joined together, the Yoga Book 9i offers a bevy of different usage modes meant to boost your productivity. This Lenovo looker can work as a traditional Windows 11 laptop (with either the touchscreen keyboard or the bundled Bluetooth keyboard) or tablet, plus it can go into tent mode for presentations.
Thanks to the included folio kickstand, you can use the Yoga Book 9i with two displays stacked on top of each other or spread the two panels side by side. It even comes with its own mouse, making this remarkable laptop something of a value when you consider you get two screens, a carrying case, a keyboard and a mouse in one package.
Read our full Lenovo Yoga 9i Book review.
How to choose the best Lenovo laptop for you
Performance: If you only need something basic for surfing the web, consider a Chromebook like the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 because it's plenty good enough. But if you need to get more demanding work done, lean towards something more premium with a modern CPU, at least 16GB of RAM and at least a 1TB hard drive, like the Lenovo Yoga 9i.
Graphics and gaming: Most Lenovo laptops feature integrated graphics, which can handle lightweight titles such as Minecraft and Fortnite, but aren't ideal for intensive AAA games or heavy visual work. For that, you'll want a laptop with a discrete graphics card, like the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with its discrete Nvidia GPU options.
Size: Consider how mobile you want your laptop to be. Machines such as the Chromebook Duet 3 or Slim 7 are incredibly light or thin (respectively) but struggle to handle demanding tasks like gaming or video editing. Beefier laptops like the Lenovo Yoga 9i are heftier, but offer more power.
Operating system: Lenovo laptops don't run on macOS, so the biggest decision you have to make re: operating systems is whether to go with Windows or ChromeOS.
ChromeOS is simpler, easy to learn and runs on basically everything, but it requires an Internet connection for most of its features to function correctly. If you don't think you'll have reliable Internet access, stick with a Windows 11 laptop like the Lenovo Slim 7 or Lenovo Yoga 9i.
Battery life test results compared
Battery life is one of the key things you should look at when deciding which laptop to buy, which is why we run every laptop we review through a series of battery tests to see how long it lasts on a full charge.
These tests do not reflect real-world use patterns since we have to set every laptop to the same settings in order to do fair comparisons. Thus, while the times listed here are accurate and useful as a comparison point, your own experience with a laptop's battery life will likely vary.
This is because when we run our battery test we set the laptop's display to 150 nits of brightness and have it endlessly browse the web via Wi-Fi until it dies. However, when you use your laptop you're likely adjusting brightness on the fly, doing all sorts of different tasks while perhaps listening to music or watching a video at the same time, and generally putting the machine through more of a workout than it gets in our test.
So while I stand by our testing and the battery life results we compare in the chart below, I want to be clear that your own experience will vary!
Laptop | Battery life (tested) |
Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i | 9:45 |
Lenovo Slim 7 | 10:03 |
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x | 16:29 |
Lenovo Yoga Book 9i | 9:18 (two displays) | 12:13 (one display) |
Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus | 7:36 |
How we test the best Lenovo laptops
To find the best laptop, we run every machine through a rigorous suite of benchmarks and real-world tests to gauge how it will perform during everyday use.
We measure the average brightness and color quality of each laptop's display using our in-house light meter and colorimeter. For general performance, we run our machines through tests that include Geekbench 5 (CPU performance), as well as various 3DMark tests to measure graphics capabilities. We also run a file transfer test to measure how fast a machine's hard drive is, and a custom battery test that has the machine browse the internet over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice.
When testing dedicated gaming laptops, we run benchmarks for popular games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077.
For more information, check out our how we test page for Tom's Guide.
Alex Wawro is a lifelong journalist who's spent over a decade covering tech, games and entertainment. He oversees the computing department at Tom's Guide, which includes managing laptop coverage and reviewing many himself every year.
