Asus takes top honors in laptop showdown — beating Dell and Apple

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

When you think of top laptop brands, you probably think of mainstays like Dell, Apple and HP. But Asus rose above them all to become the best laptop maker of the year, according to our friends at Laptop Mag.

The Taiwanese company took top honors in Laptop's Best and Worst Laptop Brands showdown, an annual feature that ranks all the major laptop brands based on a number of factors. Those include how well the company's laptop performed in reviews, the quality of customer support and how a brand is pushing things forward on design and innovation.

After a second place finish in 2019, Asus finally rose to the top spot by offering a range of quality laptops with truly distinct and innovative designs. The company has had an especially strong year on the gaming front with machines like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and the wild ROG Mothership, and continued to release exciting dual-screen laptops like the ZenBook Duo.

Other highlights from Laptop's annual report include MSI, who rose a whopping 7 spots to take 4th place thanks to its expanded selection and refreshed flagship notebooks. And while Apple continues to release quality notebooks, it landed at a low 10th place due to its lack of variety (especially on the budget front) and innovation. Check out Laptop's full best and worst brands report for the whole breakdown.

It's not hard to see why Asus came out on top in Laptop's rankings. The Zephyrus G14 is our pick for the best gaming laptop, thanks to its superb battery life and great overall performance. And the Asus Chromebook Flip C434 tops our list of the best Chromebooks, sporting one of the best designs and displays you can find on a Chromebook. Now that Intel Tiger Lake chips are incoming, we're eager to see how Asus and its peers make a go for the top spot in our own best laptop rankings.

Michael Andronico

Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored. He was formerly Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, where he wrote extensively on gaming, as well as running the show on the news front. When not at work, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.