There’s no shortage of the best gaming laptops out there, but you might have noticed a change in HP’s lineup. Newer gaming rigs carrying Omen branding now fall under the HyperX branding. One such machine is HP’s HyperX Omen 15 that I recently tested.

That might sound like a tongue-twister, but branding aside, this is one of HP’s flagship gaming laptops, and it’s a very good one. Though the RTX 5070 with 8GB VRAM might seem limiting, you get solid gaming performance if you aren’t looking for serious frame rates. This laptop also looks sleek, even if it’s not as flashy as some other options, and it packs a gorgeous OLED display.

I’m mainly a console gamer, but after a week of testing the HyperX Omen 15, I spent less time on my PS5 and more with this laptop. However, it has the usual gaming laptop tropes. It runs hot and loud, and it doesn't last too long on battery. That said, it's still one of the best gaming laptops for what it offers. Find out why in my full review.

HyperX Omen 15 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A mid-range 15-inch gaming laptop
• Who is it for? Anyone looking for their first gaming laptop or seeking an upgrade.
• What does it cost? The HP HyperX Omen 15 starts at $1,499 on HP’s website. Right now, it's on sale for $1,099. As configured, our review unit is valued at $2,800, but is currently discounted to $2,099.
• What do we like? The gorgeous OLED screen, performance, and design.
• What don’t we like? The fan noise, battery life, and bloatware.

HyperX Omen 15 review: Specs

HyperX Omen 15 review: The ups

The HyperX Omen 15 gets three huge things right. It has a glorious OLED display, an appealing design, and smooth 1080p performance.

Vibrant OLED screen

The standout feature of the HyperX Omen 15 is its 2880x1800 OLED display. Not all configurations of the laptop come with this screen, but our higher-end review unit did. The screen delivers super vibrant visuals, both for office work and for gaming.

I have a Samsung S85F OLED TV at home, and movies like Spider-Man: Far From Home and games like Forza Horizon 6 looked incredible on the HyperX Omen 15’s panel. I spent more time watching videos on this laptop than I did watching my actual TV. It’s refreshing to have a really good OLED display in portable form.

When replaying one of my favorite classics, Grand Theft Auto 4, I noticed how much livelier Liberty City looked on this laptop’s OLED display. This game is famous for its dark and shaded environments, and the HyperX Omen 15 makes them all look spectacular.

When flying a helicopter high over Liberty City, every little detail dazzled me — from the lights shimmering in Star Junction to river water rippling beneath my helicopter's propellers. If this laptop could make a 17-year-old game look good, it should make the PC titles you play look even better than you imagine.

As our lab results show, this is a super-bright and vivid OLED panel. It hits 460.2 nits of brightness, which, compared to some of the other OLED gaming laptops we tested this year, is the second-brightest.

Meanwhile, its 1022-nit HDR brightness makes it the third-brightest laptop in our comparison group. The color accuracy is also top-notch, hitting 186.8% of the sRGB gamut and 132.2% of the DCI-P3 gamut, beating out all the other comparative gaming or productivity laptops with OLED panels.

Great gaming performance for most titles

The HyperX Omen 15 I reviewed packs an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU, an Nvidia RTX 5070, and 32GB of dedicated RAM. You might be concerned about the 8GB of VRAM on that RTX 5070, but don’t let that fool you. This is an excellent upper-midrange gaming laptop.

I love racing games, and my go-to game on my PlayStation 5 is Forza Horizon 5. The latest entry in this series isn’t on PlayStation yet, so the HyperX Omen 15 was the go-to way to experience Forza Horizon 6. After five hours of racing on the Omen 15X, I never felt the laptop’s GPU was holding me back. It became hard to go back to my PS5 and Forza Horizon 5.

On the “Extreme” preset at full 2880x1800 resolution, I was getting a smooth 49 fps, and at 1080p, nearly double that, around 79 fps. Turning on DLSS and switching to the slightly more demanding “High with Ray Tracing” preset yielded better visuals and decent performance, with 39 fps at full resolution and 69 fps at 1080p. Combined with the laptop’s 120Hz display, I experienced no lag and had a pleasurable, winning experience in almost all my race entries.

Those results are indeed low, so it won’t really compete with RTX 5080-powered laptops, but it delivers enough performance for most modern games at 1080p with ray tracing enabled. You'll still need DLSS or lower settings to take full advantage of the laptop’s native 2880×1800 resolution.

The closest laptop to the HyperX Omen 15 is the Galaxy Book 6 Ultra, which has the same display resolution, RTX 5070, and 32GB of RAM. That means this system won’t seem as powerful as some other 16-inch gaming laptops we’re comparing it to — like a higher-end Alienware 16 Area-51. While the numbers trail RTX 5080-powered competitors, real-world gaming will be a great experience once you dial back a few settings.

Our lab maxes out game settings, including ray tracing, when benchmarking, and I found games like Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Assassin's Creed Shadows were playable, hovering just over 30 fps at 1080p. At this laptop’s full resolution, games hovered near 20 fps and were slightly laggy, but still playable. Again, if you lower your graphics settings to medium or rely on upscaling, you should not have issues enjoying gaming on the HyperX Omen 15.

Of note. The laptop has an Omen AI feature in HP’s Omen Gaming Hub. This can provide frame optimization with a one-click solution for each game. It’s a nifty feature if you’re not super technical like me. It can adjust operating system settings, hardware settings, and game settings on the fly.

When you’re not gaming, the HyperX Omen 15 is a solid productivity or video-editing laptop. Its Geekbench scores are strong, placing it third in our lab’s tests against competitors. For video editing and encoding, HandBrake encoding time lags a bit, but in this test, anything within the 3-minute range is pretty good for its class.

I put the HyperX Omen 15 through the paces of my workflow, and it handled a mix of 20+ Chrome tabs with ease, alongside Slack and YouTube music videos in Microsoft Edge running in the background.

Solid design

The HyperX Omen 15 is made of plastic, but it is done in a way that makes it appealing. The shadow black plastic finish is reminiscent of the color you see on Lenovo’s ThinkPads, making it blend right in with my office space. The laptop’s display also sits a few centimeters forward from the rear, making it seem like it is coming off a solid slab of plastic. Many of Lenovo’s gaming laptops have had this look recently, and it is a good one.

Ports and connectivity are great, too. There are two USB-A ports — one on each side, along with a USB-C port and an HDMI port on the rear. Other ports include an Ethernet jack and a headphone jack.

The laptop uses a 200W proprietary barrelled USB-C charger, but, interestingly enough, I found that a 65W USB-C charger can juice up the laptop just fine for basic productivity needs. I appreciated that when I didn’t want to take the heavy charger to work with me.

Two other great elements of the design are the RGB lighting effects and the keyboard. HP didn’t go over the top with the RGB. The laptop has a 4-Zone RGB keyboard, and you can customize each zone with its own lighting effect. Light Studio through Omen Gaming Hub makes this possible, but I found the default rainbow effect just fine.

The keyboard is a pleasure to use. While it does not use Cherry switches like Alienware’s flagship laptops do, the square keycaps still have a satisfying click into the chassis when typing. As a lab tester, I also appreciate the number pad on the side, as some gaming laptops ditch this for a centered keyboard.

HyperX Omen 15 review: The downs

No laptop is perfect, and the HyperX Omen 15 underperforms in several ways. Some of these might be deal-breakers if you’re hoping to buy this laptop.

Loud fans

One of the biggest issues I had with the HyperX Omen 15 is how loud it can get. During standard use, it is whisper-silent, but as soon as I start gaming, it sounds like a mini vacuum cleaner. I understand that gaming laptops need to pump up the fans to stay cool, but this HyperX Omen 15 is especially loud.

In fact, it got so loud that I preferred to wear headphones while gaming. I used a decibel meter to measure fan noise, and it hit as high as 74 decibels mid-race in Forza Horizon 6. For reference, that is as loud as a running vacuum cleaner or a noisy restaurant. My measurements came from the laptop being in the default “Performance” mode in the Omen gaming app and with my meter at the rear of the laptop.

Switching to “Balanced” in the app slightly reduced the fan noise to as low as 65 decibels, which is more equivalent to a normal office environment. This will come at a performance cost, though, as it impacts the Windows Power mode.

Part of my experience comes down to how HP is optimizing for gaming performance. This laptop features Omen Tempest Cooling. That means it has dual side fans with fewer rear ports, enlarged vents, and additional bottom vents to maximize airflow and heat dissipation. It works, too. Our lab measured a temperature of 89 degrees at the laptop’s hottest point. 15-inch gaming laptops might typically hit closer to 100 degrees in our Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition heat test, where we loop the benchmark 6 times and measure temperatures at 4 different points on the laptop.

Poor battery life

Gaming laptops aren’t known for their amazing battery life, and the HyperX Omen 15 is no different. In our Tom’s Guide laptop battery test, it lasted 8 hours and 30 minutes for web browsing and a short 1 hour and 13 minutes for gaming.

While both of our lab’s results are considered bad for the HyperX, it does tug ahead of the more powerful Alienware laptop in our comparisons. We've also seen other gaming laptops, like the Zephyrus G16, and a productivity laptop with an RTX 5070, like the Galaxy Book 6, go well beyond the numbers the HyperX put up in our battery test.

In my time with the laptop for work, it only lasted from 9 AM to 3:30 before Windows gave the low battery warnings at 10% with the screen around 32% brightness. For gaming, the laptop died after 45 minutes. OLED screens are power-hungry, and the 120Hz refresh rate with the beastly Nvidia GPU only makes things worse. It’s a trade-off you will have to live with if you choose an OLED gaming laptop like this one.

Too much bloat

This laptop, as we reviewed it, can cost well over $2,000, so it is very upsetting to see all the pre-installed bloatware on it. Right out of the box, the Start Menu was littered with pre-pinned shortcuts to various services like HP TV+, Booking.com, and a Dropbox Promotion. HP also throws in McAfee antivirus software with the laptop, which our lab always removes for our battery test.

That is in addition to seven HP apps: HP, HP Documentation, HP PC Diagnostics, HP Privacy Settings, HP Smart, Support Assist, Event Utility, and TV+. Otter.ai also makes it to the list. All of this can be easily uninstalled, but that takes extra work, and nobody should have to deal with this.

HyperX Omen 15 review: Verdict

The HyperX Omen 15 wins for its OLED display and RTX 5070 performance that handles most modern games well at 1080p. Its low-key design and comfortable keyboard also make it feel less like a gaming rig and more like an everyday laptop you'd be happy to take out in public and carry anywhere.

The trade-offs are a little painful, though: loud fans during gaming, weak battery life, and a Start Menu full of bloatware. But if a gorgeous OLED screen is high on your list and you're buying your first gaming laptop or upgrading an old one, the HyperX Omen 15 is worth the investment.

When HP offered me the chance to check out the HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition gaming laptop I leapt at the opportunity. Despite a reputation as a game for degenerates, Valorant is one of my favorite multiplayer shooters right now. I’m not good at the game — silver for life! — but I enjoy it all the same.

This machine is more or less an HP Omen Max with a Valorant skin, which is fun, and offers the same slick features you’ll find in the best gaming laptops. The Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU and 32GB of RAM in the laptop can run most graphically demanding games at a decent frame rate. And games look great too, thanks to the 16-inch 240Hz LCD display.

I’m focused on gaming here but if you need something a bit beefier for work, the Omen 16 won’t let you down. Despite a tight keyboard it has plenty of ports for connecting necessary peripherals like the best gaming keyboards and best gaming mice to bolster your productivity.

My HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition review will help you decide if this Valorant-themed gaming laptop will give you a tactical advantage on the digital battlefield.

HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition is a high-end gaming laptop featuring Valorant designs and decent performance.
• Who is it for? It’s for those with deep pockets and a specific love of Valorant who want a 16-inch gaming laptop powerful enough to play the game.
• What does it cost? The HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition costs $3,049, which is expensive but comparable to similar offerings from competitors.
• What do we like? The sleek design, smooth gaming performance and Valorant easter eggs make for a fun laptop
• What don’t we like? This is a hefty, costly and surprisingly loud laptop.

HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition: Specs

HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition: The ups

The HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition is a fun celebration of Riot Games’ first-person tactical hero shooter. It comes with a slick design, decent gaming performance and a bright 16-inch LCD display.

Valorant easter eggs abound

The best way to think about this laptop is that it’s an expensive skin you can buy. Nicely, there are a lot of little details on the surface celebrating the game. It makes for a fun-looking gaming laptop with a little flavor compared to the usual black and gray monsters you see in the wild.

That said, if you've ever seen the HP Omen Max 16, the essential design is basically the same. This HyperX Valorant version is less heavy at 5.5 pounds, but measures about the same overall. Otherwise, it has an aluminum lid and bottom that help make it feel sturdy while opening smoothly.

The touchpad is pretty large and fairly responsive for when you’re not using a mouse. Likewise, the keyboard is fun with the highlighted WASD keys, but I’ll dig into that more below.

Like the Omen Max 16, this thing is a smudge machine that will soak up your body oils. So if you want a pristine device, you’ll want to have a cleaning cloth nearby.

Run and gun performance

Valorant doesn’t take much to run well; I’ve run Riot’s game on low-end laptops, the PS5 and high-end laptops like the Razer Blade 14. But you can feel the difference when you have a decent setup like the Omen 16’s RTX 5070 GPU, AMD Ryzen 9 CPU and 32GB of RAM.

I spent most of my time with the Valorant Edition playing Valorant and had a blast even when I bumped the settings as high as they could go.

To compare to other laptops, in our lab tests we use Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. At the highest settings, you may not walk away impressed, especially those who insist on 60+ FPS without frame generation.

I often commit the PC gamer sin of not really caring if the FPS is over 60 or at 60 or if my graphics are in 4K or even 2K. But in comparison to laptops running higher-tier RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs, I think the RTX 5070 holds its own in the HyperX model.

If you’re willing to lower the settings to medium, you can hit up 78 FPS on Black Myth and 62 in Assassin’s Creed.

The included HP Omen Gaming Hub will let you optimize the laptop’s performance, customize the RGB lighting and organize your gaming library. Doing so will let you squeeze some more performance out of this machine if you’re a tinkerer.

Lovely 16-inch display

Once you go OLED, it’s hard to go back, but I’ve never made that leap. The 16-inch LCD display features a 240Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time and over 500 nits of brightness, which is higher than the OLED-paneled HP Omen Max 16.

The panel gets decently bright, and I found that colors popped off the screen without being uncomfortable over a long gaming session. It’s not beating laptops like the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed; I wasn’t.

To my eyes, games ran smoothly, and I never noticed any hitching or lag with the 240Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. It’s especially helpful with an FPS like Valorant where you want smoothness and no input lag.

HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition: The downs

I’ve had a lot of fun with the HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition, but there are some downsides that could make or break it for you. I won’t get into the heft at 5.5 pounds, because it’s a gaming laptop and I almost expect that kind of weight at this point.

Instead, the tight keyboard, short battery life and loud fan can be annoying. I’ll also note that at $3,049 this is not a cheap laptop. And it only comes in one configuration. However, that is comparable to similar configurations like the Razer Blade 16.

Tight keyboard

My colleague Tony Polanco praised the keyboard on the HP Omen Max 16 laptop describing it as roomy with thick keys. I don’t have that laptop on hand to compare, but with this HyperX version, I found the keys way too close together, which made typing annoying even with the included number pad, something I’d usually praise.

To compare I do have a Lenovo ThinkPad 14s as my work laptop. I measured the distance between the W, A, S and D keys on both machines.

On the Valorant laptop I got about 3mm, while my Lenovo measured around 4mm. The Lenovo also has slightly curved corners on the bottom of the keys which adds a bit more space.

That extra millimeter, give or take, really makes a difference when you’re trying to type. I wouldn’t describe my fingers as particularly sausage-esque but it’s not a comfortable fit.

However, when I was playing Valorant I didn’t have any noticeable slips. So for gaming it might not be a problem. For everything else, it’s not great.

Short and hot battery

In 2026, there are laptops with more than 20 hours of battery life. The MacBook Pro 16-inch, one of the best laptops for battery life, tested at over 21 hours. Unfortunately, gaming laptops have yet to get the memo.

In our lab tests, we got exactly 90 minutes in our PCMark 10 Gaming test, but that figure did manage to bump up to 2 hours and 42 minutes in our web surfing test.

As you can see, the Valorant laptop is comparable to other laptops if you’re gaming, but much weaker for more general use. However, I expect to plug in gaming laptops so the flaw for me is the 280W power brick. I don’t have a thermometer gun but after some sessions the brick was so hot that I legitimately didn’t want to touch it. It’s also hefty, meaning I can’t really hang it up without some structure.

Playing games like Monster Train that don’t require much of the laptop didn’t pull on the power as much, but even Valorant was pushing it.

Loud fan depending on the game

Again, I mostly played Valorant to stick with the theme of the laptop. The laptop as a whole proved pretty cool over long sessions (power brick aside). For laptops we generally say that anything over 96 degrees is uncomfortably hot. The underside of the Valorant edition peaked at 87.5 degrees during a lab test running Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition.

However, I found the fans to be quite loud. The machine actually warns you that depending on what performance setting you utilize the fans will run loudly. During some of my tweaking, I noticed that I could get the noise down a bit by focusing on balance or eco modes. Anything higher brings the noise.

Maybe it won’t bother you, but it’s something to be aware of.

HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition: Verdict

While the HP HyperX Omen 16 Valorant Edition has some flaws, most of them from the price to the low battery life are things I consider par for the course when it comes to higher-end gaming laptops. The keyboard may be an annoyance, but it could be mitigated with a good peripheral. Past that, I think it’s a fine gaming laptop that I enjoyed my time with especially if you enjoy Valorant.

The Omen 16 Valorant Edition delivers a great gaming experience thanks to the RTX 5070 GPU and bright LCD display. Sometimes you want some flair that isn’t just RGB lighting, and I think the little easter eggs here are a delight.

Nvidia's ARM-based gaming laptops powered by the RTX Spark is around the corner and appear to be ready to launch thanks to new Geekbench listings.

The new ARM-based CPUs were first revealed at Computex in May by CEO Jensen Huang. "Our focus is to reinvent the PC. Windows is of course improving, but the basic architecture of a PC has largely been the same now for about 40 years, and we want to reinvent it," Huang told Tom's Guide.

How that looks is starting with an Arm-based design over the conventional x86 architecture, but Nvidia does have experience in that realm. The company already makes Arm gaming chips that power the Nintendo Switch 2.

The RTX Spark platform is starting out on a range of Windows gaming laptops and mini PCs with a focus on gaming and agentic AIs. It should have fairly low power consumption.

Geekbench scores revealed

Two different Geekbench listings reveal results for the RTX Spark N1X processor in 20-core and 18-core configurations.

If we focus on the 20-core configuration, it returned surprising scores with a single-core of 2,593 and a multi-core score of 23,424. The multicore is fairly impressive, comparing favorably with Intel's i9-14900KS, which managed a score of 23,785 in the same test.

View the full results here, though I will note that the final production scores might differ.

If you're unfamiliar, Geekbench measures how well the processor handles everyday tasks by running a bunch of simulated workloads from processing numbers to crunching numbers.

Single-core is all about how fast the CPU handles one task at a time, like editing a photo. Multi-core kicks in for multitasking like running several apps or rendering by using all the chip's "cores."

Here's how those numbers compare to Apple's M5, the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon X2, and Intel's Panther Lake chips.

Surprisingly, the RTX Spark performs well against the M5 and Intel X9 in multicore. Moving up to the M5 Pro and Max gets you higher scores. The same goes for the higher-end Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Extreme, which has recorded over 25,000.

Still, the RTX seems like it will compare favorably with most every chip on the market.

Where it seems to fail is in the single-core, where scores are significantly lower. It seems it might feel sluggish in those single tasks, but running multiple apps is where the RTX Spark might shine.

This is a pretty good indication of how the RTX Spark platform will handle CPU-heavy tasks. It doesn't tell us the whole picture, especially when it comes to gaming, but we do know the GPU will support DLSS 4.5.

RTX Spark laptops are supposed to arrive later this fall with Windows 11 out of the box. It should be compatible with most Windows games, and Nvidia is reportedly ensuring the chip will work with common anti-cheat and DRM software.

Nvidia has already confirmed that it will launch with laptops from Asus, MSI, Microsoft and more.

More from Tom's Guide

• Nvidia RTX Spark is here, and it's going to 'reinvent the PC' — here's everything you need to know about this all-new laptop chip
• Intel Arc G3 is here to shake up handheld gaming, and AMD should be terrified — Acer Predator Atlas 8, a new MSI Claw and more launching soon
• I tested the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 5 250K Plus against AMD’s best gaming CPUs — this should be a mismatch, but the results shocked me

In the past few years, OLED displays have become one of the easiest laptop upgrades to get excited about.

The reasons are obvious: Deep blacks and superb contrast can make everything from Netflix to games look better, and many of the best laptops offer OLED for good reason.

But I wouldn’t automatically tick the OLED box when configuring a new laptop.

For those of us who spend our days in Chrome, or in documents, spreadsheets, emails, and Zoom calls, a good IPS screen can already look excellent while costing less and using less power.

In fact, saving on that pricey OLED upgrade can actually leave more of your budget for memory, storage, or other upgrades you’ll feel every day.

OLED is still worth paying for — if you’ll actually benefit from it

None of this is to say OLED isn’t worth having. If your primary laptop use is gaming, watching movies, or editing photos and video, the improvement in contrast and black levels can be immediately obvious. After all, there’s a reason OLED machines such as the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 feature so prominently in our best gaming laptops guide.

For the power users among us, paying a little extra makes sense, and the same goes for anyone who ranks display quality high on their personal list of priorities.

But if your laptop is going to spend most of its life displaying browser tabs and documents, OLED’s biggest strengths are far less important, and this is where the trade-offs start to look more interesting.

Battery life matters far more than perfect blacks

Away from the power socket, OLED's downsides can become a little clearer: higher-res panels demand more power than their cheaper LCD counterparts, and the difference between laptop configurations can be substantial.

Take the Dell XPS 14, a fantastic laptop by all accounts. In our testing, the OLED model lasted 12 hours and 23 minutes in a web-browsing battery test, while the lower-res LED version managed a frankly ridiculous 20 hours and 41 minutes.

It's worth saying that those weren’t otherwise identical laptops. The OLED configuration also used a more powerful processor, so the screen alone can’t take credit for the entire gap.

For buyers, though, that distinction only matters up to a point.

You’re choosing between complete laptop configurations, and if the cheaper display option gives you several more hours away from the charger, that can be far more useful than deeper blacks.

A good IPS screen is already good enough for most people

There's a misconception that plumping for IPS in 2026 means getting a dull, low-resolution display.

In reality, plenty of modern LCD panels offer high resolutions, 120Hz refresh rates, strong brightness, and good color reproduction – more than enough for everyday work and entertainment.

The Dell XPS 13 is a fantastic example: Its non-OLED display still impressed in our testing, reaching 394 nits of brightness and covering 112.6% of the sRGB color gamut.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i goes a step further with a 120Hz IPS touchscreen, showing how features once associated with more expensive laptops are filtering down the range.

There is an important caveat, though: IPS alone isn’t a guarantee of quality. Cheap panels can still be dim and washed out, or even unpleasantly reflective.

It's always worth looking beyond the display tech itself and checking brightness, resolution, refresh rate, and color performance when choosing your next workhorse.

In 2026, I’d spend the OLED money on RAM or storage instead

With higher memory and storage prices pushing up the cost of better-specced laptops, many laptop buyers need to make some careful calculations.

If skipping OLED lets you move from 16GB to 32GB of RAM, or from a 512GB SSD to 1TB, I’d almost always take the extra capacity instead.

That’s especially true for memory. RAM is soldered on many modern laptops, so choosing too little at checkout can leave you stuck with it for the life of the machine. You are also very likely to feel a lack of RAM in everyday usage.

Storage is easier to work around with cloud services and external drives, but extra memory can make a real difference to multitasking and how well a laptop holds up over several years.

Unless you work in a field that needs an OLED display, I’d usually prioritize enough RAM and enough storage, alongside strong battery life, before paying extra for OLED.

Buy a better laptop, not a better screen

OLED has become a useful shorthand for a premium laptop, which can make the cheaper display option feel like the one you’re supposed to upgrade away from. I think that’s the wrong way to approach it.

A laptop configuration should reflect what you’ll actually notice over several years of use. If a brighter, richer screen genuinely improves that experience, then OLED is an easy choice.

If your priorities are getting the strongest overall specification for your budget, choosing IPS can be the more considered upgrade path, even if it looks less impressive on the product page.

More from Tom's Guide

• The Asus ROG Swift OLED is a powerful gaming monitor for hardcore gamers
• I spent a week with the Razer Seiren V3 Pro — here’s how it stacks up to my Elgato Wave 3
• I’m a PC hardware reviewer — here are the 3 best ways to get into PC gaming in 2026 without spending a fortune

The Dell 14S is a welcome addition to Dell’s 2026 lineup, slotting in below the Dell XPS 14 (2026), which, as I write this review, is our best Windows laptop. It’s the direct replacement for the short-lived Dell 14 Plus, but aims to deliver a closer experience to the XPS lineup while retaining a more affordable price. That sounds like a recipe for success, but did Dell pull it off?

The answer is a qualified yes, but the devil is in the details. The Dell 14S looks and feels far more like the XPS 14 than its predecessor, which featured more than a dash of plastic compared to the new three-piece aluminum chassis. It can go toe-to-toe with its pricier sibling’s outstanding battery life and delivers solid performance even in its lower configurations.

However, RAMageddon pricing is muddying the waters as per usual. Starting at $1,269, the 14S is a modest increase on paper from the listed $1,099 that the Dell 14 Plus commanded last year. But the reality is that Dell offered the 14 Plus starting at $699 almost immediately, while the lowest discounted configuration on the 14S is $999. That’s roughly a 43% price increase and changes the value proposition.

Let’s dig in a little deeper and put the Dell 14S on the adjusted value scales for 2026 to see if the upgrades outweigh the price increase and earn it a spot among the best student laptops that you can buy right now.

We lab tested both the Dell 14S and Dell 16S, and while I used both laptops, the majority of my time was spent on the 14S, and that will be the primary focus of this review. The look and feel of the laptops are nearly identical outside of the 14-inch versus 16-inch display size. The 16S adds a numberpad to the keyboard, and the option to upgrade to a QHD+ display resolution, while the 14S maxes out at FHD+. The majority of what I have to say about the 14S will apply to the 16S as well, but I will also include the test results for both laptops in each chart.

Dell 14S: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The Dell 14S is a Dell XPS-Lite that delivers numerous premium features at a mid-range price.
• Who is it for? It’s a dream laptop for students or anyone who needs a long-lasting laptop with solid performance.
• What does it cost? The Dell 14S starts at $1,269 on Dell's website and maxes out at $2,169.
• What do we like? The otherworldly battery life, strong performance, bountiful ports, and premium build quality.
• What don’t we like? The dim display, relatively thick bezels, and the price increase.

Dell 14S: Specs

Dell 14S: The ups

The Dell 14S impresses thanks to its stellar performance, great design, and epic battery life.

Battery life is beyond belief

Intel’s Panther Lake processors have been a revelation for Windows laptop battery life this year, and Dell appears to have taken it to its pinnacle. In our testing, which involved continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi on the laptop with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, the Dell 14S lasted 20 hours and 41 minutes!

That obliterates the MacBook Air 13-inch M5, which called it quits more than 5 hours earlier in the same test. Among the current laptops with the best battery life, only the MacBook Pro 16-inch M5 Pro narrowly outlasts the Dell 14S with 21 hours and 10 minutes. The Dell 16S didn’t come close to its little sibling in this regard, with 11 hours and 59 minutes, but keep in mind our 16S review unit featured a QHD+ display compared to FHD+ on the 14S.

The lone Windows laptop that can keep up is perhaps unsurprisingly the Dell XPS 14, which matched the Dell 14S result exactly. However, it is worth noting that it was the non-OLED XPS 14, whereas the OLED version lasted only 12 hours and 23 minutes.

The Dell 14S achieving this record-setting battery life with an OLED is frankly astounding.

Ports a plenty

In last year’s review of the Dell 14 Plus, Jason England called it “the beige cardigan of laptops — not stylish, not exciting, but somehow always reliable.” Much of this energy carries over to the Dell 14S, but I think Dell made just enough positive changes to the design while also delivering the expected durability that this now falls in the plus column. They put a nice pattern on the beige cardigan if we’re keeping with the analogy.

Everything just has a more premium feel than the 14 Plus offered. The new hinge gives it a cleaner look inside and out, while the three-piece aluminum chassis eliminates any flex in the laptop. The keyboard and trackpad also have an upgraded look and feel from last year, which is typically a dead giveaway for a budget laptop.

The Dell 14S design may be generic, but it blends in with more premium laptops, rather than budget offerings.

Solid performance for the price

My review unit of the Dell 14S came with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355, and while it’s not a powerhouse, it will crush most people's typical workloads. I live most of my computing life drowning in Chrome tabs, which was not a problem for the 14S, even when I l ran a 4K YouTube video in the background. Jumping in and doing some light photo edits in Photoshop and Lightroom was a similarly smooth experience.

If you have more demanding needs, such as consistent work in any of the Adobe Suite or other creative tools, particularly video editing, I would recommend a higher configuration. As you can see in our testing below, the Dell 14S didn’t fare well in our video-editing Handbrake test, but upgrading to the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H configuration, which includes Intel Arc Graphics and 32GB of RAM, would significantly improve those results.

Comfortable keyboard and trackpad

The Dell 14S keyboard is a joy to type on; across multiple tests I was in my typical range of 92 words per minute at about 98% accuracy. It does feature fairly shallow key travel at around 0.8mm, but the keys are bouncy and responsive, so I didn’t come away feeling fatigued after lengthy typing sessions.

The trackpad is far better than I had hoped for a more budget-focused laptop. Dell says it is glass-like, and I’ll grant them that it comes pretty close to that smooth glass trackpad experience. It’s also nice and clicky, avoiding the mushy feel that some cheaper trackpads suffer from, so you can leave your mouse at home.

Dell 14S: The downs

The Dell 14S is great but it has some drawbacks that could make you reconsider, especially given its price.

Dim display is a downer

The OLED panel on the Dell 14S has some ups and some downs, but ultimately it tipped into the disappointing category to me due to the brightness. This is also notably where the Dell 16S outperformed its smaller sibling and even bests the XPS 14 in brightness. If you are using the laptop indoors, this won’t present an issue for you, but if you are trying to work outside or near a large window, the sunlight will overpower this display.

Brightness aside, it is an otherwise solid OLED display that produces a colorful and sharp image. I watched the Dune: Part Three trailer, and the fight between Paul and Hayt looked outstanding with the flecks of color in the halo effect around the two fighters. While the display may not be able to get too bright, the scene with Chani walking across the dunes certainly delivers a suitable feeling of the eye-searing brightness of Arrakis.

I blame the Dell XPS 14 for my feeling that the bezels are slightly large on the Dell 14S, in truth they are at least in line with other laptops in this price range, but the InfinityEdge on the XPS 14 spoiled me.

Pricing problems

I want to be clear on this point: the pricing on the lower configurations of the Dell 14S represents a solid value in today’s admittedly elevated laptop pricing. If you are spending less than around $1,500 on either the Dell 14S or 16S, you are likely landing in this range. You just need to keep a careful eye on your customizations, as you can quickly move into territory where you should just move to the Dell XPS 14 or 16.

Dell has done an admirable job of capturing some of the premium look and feel of the XPS line in the 14S and 16S, but there is no denying that the XPS 14 and XPS 16 represent a higher quality product. This isn’t a unique problem for Dell, but it’s one to be wary of when you are customizing what is meant to be a mid-tier option in any lineup.

Dell 14S: Verdict

The Dell 14S does a solid impression of the XPS 14 at a more affordable price, and that’s no simple feat. Dell made the necessary upgrades to justify its price increase over last year’s 14 Plus, particularly given the general inflation in tech pricing this year.

Largely matching the look and feel of the XPS, while still delivering solid performance and otherworldly battery life at this price point, is what makes this such a compelling laptop for students. The one backslide is the display brightness, which was already a weakness last year, so it’s one that we’ll certainly look for Dell to correct in the next model.

If the display brightness is a dealbreaker for you, the most obvious answer is to consider the Dell 16S. Otherwise, sticking within a similar price range, you could jump to a MacBook Air M5 or spend up a bit and go for the Dell XPS 14.

With that said, this is a laptop that I would have been thrilled to use as a student. Just make sure you look for Dell’s typical deals; you should be able to find a solid configuration of the Dell 14S for around $999-$1,200. If not, then wait for the deals to return.

For anyone running a business, the ideal laptop has to do two things at once: adapt to whatever the day throws at it, and never let you down. HP's EliteBook X G2i is a premium laptop designed for demanding work wherever the day leads.

It’s easy to take to meetings in conference rooms and coffee shops, while offering forward-thinking options like 5G connectivity, a touch screen, and a very capable neural processing unit and processor combo.

Here’s why it’s a Copilot+ PC designed for modern enterprise work.

The HP EliteBook X G2i at a glance:

• Intel Core Ultra 7 processor
• 14-inch display with touch capabilities
• Configurable with up to 64GB of RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage
• Lightweight and ultra-portable

Serious performance

We truly are in the AI age, and HP EliteBook X G2i is proof of its benefits. Its slick Intel Core Ultra processor options dovetail with an Intel AI Boost NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI-centric tasks.

That NPU can run up to 50 trillion operations per second (50 TOPs), which means the HP EliteBook X G2i lineup earns the Copilot+ badge for running AI features in Windows 11.

That means you can use the on-device power to supercharge your day in genuinely useful ways, like asking for additional insights on a document, rewording an email, or generating graphs for an important presentation in seconds, helping to streamline supported productivity and AI tasks.

HP has its own AI-based noise reduction technology and voice levelling—alongside a Studio Mode—to help you sound your best on calls, which works perfectly with Copilot+’s ability to softly blur your webcam’s background and apply portrait lighting to ensure you look great, too.

The HP EliteBook X G2i can be configured with up to 64GB of RAM for even smoother multitasking and to face more daunting workloads, like editing big design files or even video projects. Of course, it’s just as useful for diving in and out of Microsoft Office, emails, and the dozens of browser tabs you’ll invariably open each day.

Seriously portable

All of this is packed into a compact footprint that still manages to incorporate a comfortable keyboard, trackpad, and that 14-inch display.

While the power in the HP EliteBook X G2i would once have required a desktop PC to keep you productive, that’s simply not the case in today’s world of hybrid working and businesses being constantly on the move.

In fact, the combination of a remarkably efficient processor with close ties to the NPU, and an optional 5G connection means you can work wherever you want, and for a whole working day without needing to hunt for a power outlet.

For you, that means replying to emails without relying on unreliable public Wi-Fi, and for you, that means your employees are able to get what they need done without needing to be at the office or at their desk at home.

HP has also built in additional features that keep your business secure, even while you’re working out and about. The privacy-focused Sure View screen means only the user can see what’s on screen, while HP Wolf Security provides firmware safeguards against the quantum computing threats of the future.

Whether you're buried in a complex workbook, pulling together a last-minute presentation miles from the nearest Wi-Fi, or simply clearing your inbox at the end of a long day, the HP EliteBook X G2i is built to keep pace with the way you work.

If you're searching for a new laptop to buy for school or college and are on a tight budget to help you save throughout the school year ahead, I'm here to help.

Laptops have become incredibly expensive purchases, with the RAM crisis marking up the cost of the latest devices on the market that would otherwise be perfect for students. That doesn't mean you should settle for a cheap laptop that will barely let you write an essay while you do research online, though. You need a value-worthy machine that will get you through the academic year, and then some.

In every laptop my computing team and I have tested, we've made value the priority — now more than ever. The good news? We've found just the laptops that deliver reliable performance for working on multiple school projects (and watching shows on the side) at once, long battery life that will survive a full day of classes, and thin, lightweight designs that are easy to slip into your backpack.

So, I've put together a list of the best student laptops that won't cost you more than $700/£700. Whether you're a fan of Windows or want to get started in macOS, let's dive into the laptops for students I'd buy right now.

The quick list

Apple MacBook Neo

The MacBook Neo continues to be an absolute bargain for students, bringing many of the best parts of a MacBook and making it affordable for most. That's especially true for students, as you can buy this for $599/£599 and save yourself a huge chunk of money with Apple's Education Savings Pricing program.

The sleek, premium-built 13-inch laptop delivers a sturdy aluminum design at just 2.7 pounds, plus a tested 13 hours and 28 minutes of battery life. On the inside, you get Apple's A18 Pro chip, which kept things pleasantly responsive in our daily multitasking tests. We had no trouble hopping between multiple browser tabs and open apps, and the 13-inch 2408 x 1506 Liquid Retina display looked sharp for both research and video streaming during our hands-on time with it.

But how does it stack up to other student laptops? The Neo definitely feels more premium in hand than the budget-focused Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x, though you do give up a few hours of battery life (the Lenovo pushes past 16 hours, while the Neo lands at over 13 hours).

Against the much pricier MacBook Air M5, the Neo can't quite match the performance or stamina, but you're saving several hundred dollars for a machine that's still more than capable for schoolwork and downtime.

Downsides? You won't get features like a backlit keyboard or Thunderbolt support. Still, if you want a reliable, good-looking MacBook for everyday college life, and don't mind trading a little speed and battery for a friendlier price, the Neo is the best overall pick for most students.

Dell XPS 13 (2026)

For students who want a premium Windows experience in a compact, affordable package, the Dell XPS 13 (2026) is the one to beat. Even at this price (down to $599 for students), it feels anything but budget, thanks to its sturdy aluminum chassis and razor-sharp 2.5K touchscreen that rivals more expensive models.

Performance is rock solid for everyday student life. With its Intel Core 5 320 Wildcat Lake chip and 8GB of RAM as tested, the XPS 13 easily kept pace with our typical workflow — think 15 Chrome tabs open, YouTube playing in the background, and class apps running without a hiccup. Plus, Windows compatibility for classes is a non-issue, so you can run the software your campus demands with no workarounds or headaches.

What really sets it apart for campus life is stamina and practicality. In our testing, the XPS 13 lasted an impressive 14 hours and 26 minutes. That’s real all-day battery, meaning you can leave the charger at home without worry. The touchscreen isn’t just for show, either. We found the 13.4-inch 2.5K (2560 x 1600) touchscreen just as responsive as the touchpad, making tap-and-swipe navigation useful for quick notes or media.

While the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x edges ahead on battery (16+ hours), the XPS 13 offers a more premium chassis and sharper display. If you’re eyeing the Dell XPS 14 (2026) for creative work, know that the XPS 13 can’t match its performance for video editing or heavy multitasking. It's also not designed for gaming, unlike the MacBook Neo, which can actually hold its own for PC games at the right settings.

But if you want an ultra-portable, premium-feeling Windows laptop that nails the balance of portability, battery and screen quality for real student workloads, it's hard to go wrong here.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x

If you're looking to keep value as your highest priority, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x delivers exactly what you need. The headline feature is battery life, at a crazy-long 16 hours and 29 minutes in our battery test. That's one of the best laptops for battery life, and means you can leave your charger behind for a full day. Add in a responsive keyboard with a full number pad, and you’ve got a solid setup for note-taking and late-night essays.

Performance is quietly impressive for the price. The Arm-based Snapdragon X CPU keeps things moving along for research, video calls and the usual multitasking. In practice, we had a good experience using it for writing, streaming Netflix and juggling emails. The keyboard, in particular, stands out for this price, as it's snappy and comfortable to type on for hours on end.

When it comes to value, the IdeaPad Slim 3x outlasts pricier competition. It beats the MacBook Neo on battery life (16:29 vs 13:28), though the Neo’s A18 Pro chip is stronger for heavier multitasking and casual gaming. The Dell XPS 13 (2026) steps up with a sharper display and more premium build, but it can’t keep up with the IdeaPad’s stamina or price. Even the MacBook Air M5, for all its performance and vivid display, can’t match the all-day runtime here.

That said, don’t expect perfection. The display can look dim in dark scenes, and we noticed the speakers aren't as loud as they should be. Of course, it’s also not built for gaming or demanding creative work, but if you want a budget-friendly Windows laptop that’ll last through marathon days and handle your coursework without stalling, the IdeaPad Slim 3x is easily one of the best values around.

More from Tom's Guide

• I tested the new Dell XPS 13 for two weeks — here's 3 things I love (and 1 I hate)
• Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Which $699 laptop is right for you?
• I’m a PC hardware reviewer — here are the 3 best ways to get into PC gaming in 2026 without spending a fortune

I’ve been a tech journalist for nearly a decade, reviewing Windows 11 when it launched, testing countless Windows Insider builds, and giving my thoughts to readers on the best laptops for multiple publications.

But two and a half years ago, I became dissatisfied with Windows. It felt stagnant; updates were all about AI, search was annoying, the Start Menu felt incomplete, and there seemed to be little change on the horizon.

Craving a bigger change and ready to replace my aging Surface Laptop Studio, I traded my Surface in for a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Max chip—completely flipping the script and turning me into an Apple fan.

But in all the time I’ve been gone, Windows has matured, and my own priorities changed too. Last week, when I started using the Dell XPS 13 (2026), I was drawn right back by the hardware.

As a former Windows superuser and Microsoft fan, I have to admit that even with 8GB of RAM, the XPS 13 is one of the best Windows laptops for productivity needs. It won me back to the PC side, and it could keep you there, too.

The XPS 13 is beautiful hardware

My daily laptop is a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Max chip. As powerful as it is, it sometimes feels like overkill. After switching to macOS, I appreciated the long-lasting battery life, the power of Apple’s M-series chip, and iMovie’s video-editing capabilities. However, my life has evolved a bit, and the XPS 13 fits what I need from a computer right now.

While test-driving the XPS 13 at work, I noticed that a 16-inch laptop was cumbersome to work with. While a big screen is nice, the compact XPS 13 was better suited for bringing to and from work. Unlike my 4.8-pound MacBook, this 2.2-pound, 0.5-inch-thin laptop fit perfectly in my over-the-shoulder leather bag. I barely noticed it, and I didn't feel it.

Even at home, when putting together a custom Lego set, the XPS 13 slotted perfectly on my table, and the touchscreen made swiping through directions easier. And, outside of that, the touchscreen made playing games on Xbox Game Pass fun!

At one point, I borrowed a 13-inch MacBook Air from our labs to see if it was better than the XPS, but it still wasn’t as portable. The MacBook Air changed what many expected from a thin-and-light laptop, but the XPS is still better.

It has a sleeker profile and a lighter build, a soft and comfortable keyboard, and a touchscreen. It even has Windows Hello, which makes logins easy and much more convenient than touching the power button on my Mac for Touch ID at every login.

Why I didn’t miss 36GB of RAM

Now, let’s talk about performance. My MacBook Pro has 36GB of RAM. At one point, it was a killer machine for editing video podcasts and vacation videos in iMovie. But now, as a lab tester at Future (Tom’s Guide’s parent company), much of my work is online and web-based on Google Cloud. Modern browsers have also become dramatically better at memory management.

As long as you’re using a modern web browser and don’t plan to do video editing, a laptop like the XPS 13 with 8GB of RAM will get the job done. For the way I actually work now with Chrome, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, Google Docs, and some light photo editing, I rarely felt limited by 8GB. I could barely tell the difference from when I was working on my Mac.

Here’s the secret. Both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge — the two browsers I use most — have memory-saving features that automatically put tabs to sleep when not in use. This significantly improves performance and reduces strain on the laptop’s RAM.

And for all the multitasking I do, the battery life is better than I expected. After taking the XPS 13 through a full workday with the screen at a comfortable 32% brightness, I had about 44% battery left when I got home. I finished the day watching YouTube, shopping on Amazon for Lego sets, and more, all on a single charge. It still is not close to my MacBook with the beefier battery, which I charge only twice a week, but it is good enough for a full workday.

Windows has changed since I quit

After using the XPS 13 for a week, I realized that Windows isn’t the same operating system I left behind.

Microsoft has made many changes to better optimize its flagship operating system, shifting the focus from adding AI features to addressing the complaints users like me have had. None of these changes would have convinced me to switch back on their own. But used together on the XPS 13, they make Windows feel noticeably more polished than the version I left behind.

For example, the Start Menu is now much more customizable. I can now see a full list of apps on my PC, sorted by list or category, making it much easier to find the app I want without relying on Search. And, much like I am used to with the iOS and iPhone integration in macOS, the Start Menu now has a nifty Phone Link area for keeping tabs on text messages and other things from my iPhone. Before, it was just a dedicated app, and now it feels a little less buried for an iPhone user like me.

Though it’s currently in beta, Microsoft also made it possible to move the Taskbar location, something I am familiar with from Windows 7. They also added options to remove the unnecessary MSN integrations with widgets, for a cleaner experience for checking the weather and sports scores.

A clean Windows is exactly what I always wanted, and beyond those big changes, there are plenty of smaller things I have noticed every day. File Explorer is much faster, Windows Updates are smaller and install more quickly, and searches are much more natural and accurate.

The XPS reminded me why I liked Windows in the first place. Once the hardware got out of the way, I started noticing how much Microsoft had quietly fixed over the past two years.

Windows has called me back

Had I tried Windows 11 again on another laptop, I might not have noticed these changes so quickly. The XPS 13's portability, performance, and refined design made me want to reach for it every day. That’s how Windows won me back.

So, if you’re like me and have felt frustrated with Windows, or have quit the platform and want to return, the Dell XPS 13 could be the laptop to help you do that. It proves that, with the right hardware, the platform is finally worth returning to.

More from Tom's Guide

• I tested the new Dell XPS 13 for two weeks — here's what I love (and hate)
• Here's how the Razer Seiren V3 Pro stacks up to my Elgato Wave 3
• This is how I get better performance without plugging them in

Shopping for a new laptop can be expensive. Although the $699 MacBook Neo and XPS 13 try to make a premium-feeling laptop more accessible, Lenovo’s IdeaPad lineup does the same. It bridges the gap between the best budget laptops and those that aren't — especially if you’re looking for a no-frills computer for school or office work.

The new entry in the family, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026), continues that tradition. It is a great laptop with a spacious 15-inch touchscreen, solid everyday productivity performance from Intel’s new “Wildcat Lake” processor, and decent battery life to get you through the day.

I loved this IdeaPad, as it comes at a tough time, when laptop prices are always on the rise. At the sale price of $799, that makes it even more of a great laptop. But at the full price of $1,299, it isn’t a chart-topper among similar competitors when it comes to the design and its keyboard. It will, however, help you get your job or assignments done if you need a new dependable laptop.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026): Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026) is a laptop for everyday productivity.
• Who is it for? Students or office workers.
• What does it cost? Lenovo lists this configuration for $1,299 at Best Buy, but it is regularly discounted to around $799 during back-to-school sales and to $999 on Lenovo’s own website. At the time of writing, it’s on sale for $799 at Best Buy.
• What do we like? The IdeaPad Slim 3i has a bright and big screen, as well as solid performance and decent battery life.
• What don’t we like? While it is lightweight, portable, and durable, the plastic chassis doesn't make this laptop feel great, and the included barrel charger is an inconvenience.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026): Specs

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026): The ups

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026) has a lot going for it, including a vivid 15-inch display, excellent performance, and long battery life.

A big and bright 15-inch touchscreen

The top reason I love the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026) is its large 15-inch 1920x1200 display. As a lab tester, I am constantly digging through spreadsheets, so this laptop really made my job easier. I can stack multiple windows side by side, including Slack and my Google Chrome browser. I didn’t have to connect to the portable monitor on my desk in our test lab, as I usually do. This helped free up my desk space for the multiple devices I tend to test on a day-to-day basis.

Switching through all of my work was smooth, thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate and the ability to touch and scroll the screen with just a few clicks. This 120hz touchscreen is something the MacBook Neo doesn’t have.

While the MacBook Neo and the XPS 13 might be cheaper than the IdeaPad Slim 3i, they also have smaller screens. On those systems, you’ll likely need to adjust scaling in Windows 11 or macOS to get a good view. That makes everything look smaller, so it is nice not to have to deal with that on this big-screen IdeaPad.

The screen gets pretty bright, too, reaching 408 nits in our lab testing. It also covers 116% of the sRGB color gamut and 82.2% of the DCI-P3 volume. That puts it 50 nits below the MacBook Neo, ahead of the XPS 13, but behind the MacBook Air in terms of brightness.

As someone who has used and personally tested all those laptops, it’s not something you’ll likely notice in everyday use. The screen still shines bright. When I watched a replay of one of my favorite cartoons, Disney’s Hailey's on It!, the brown in her face looked really rich, and the colors in this animated universe really popped and came to life. It might not be OLED, but this display is still a real treat.

Productivity performance from Intel Wildcat Lake

Intel's new Wildcat Lake processor delivers exactly the level of performance most students and office workers need. You can already find it in the cheaper XPS 13, but the IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 is one of the first 15-inch laptops we’ve tested with the higher-end Core 7 version of this chip. For productivity, the Intel Core 7 350 delivers with a 2,669 single-core score and a 7,827 multi-core score in Geekbench 6.

Even though our lab’s benchmarks might show this IdeaPad trailing just slightly behind the Windows-powered competitors, it is still good enough for $799, since most people who don’t want a laptop for raw performance at this price. The IdeaPad had no issue juggling media-rich tabs like Reddit, YouTube, and the Tom’s Guide and Tom’s Hardware homepages. Even with around 20 browser tabs spread across Edge and Chrome, the system remained responsive.

I even enjoyed playing some Microsoft Store games like Solitaire in the background during my lunch break. I also played Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, with a few settings tuned down. This game is pretty old, but it is known to stress the CPU — so it’s surprising to see this kind of performance from a laptop that isn’t meant for gaming.

You’ll still have to keep expectations in check, though, as this is not a laptop for video editing and gaming, as the 9:22-minute result our lab got when encoding a video in Handbrake shows. For that, the MacBook Air 15-inch, which is priced the same as this laptop when not on sale, might be a better buy if you can switch to MacOS. For something cheaper, you also might want to consider Lenovo’s own IdeaPad Slim 5x, which has higher multi-core performance for more demanding tasks beyond everyday productivity.

Strong battery life

Having used the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 for work, I found the battery life good enough for my needs. Thanks to the power-efficient Wildcat Lake chip inside this laptop, I was able to get through my full workday on a single charge with the screen at a comfortable 44% brightness. I even had about 40% of battery life left when I came home to finish off the day streaming YouTube videos and browsing through my social media apps.

With a result of 10 hours and 33 minutes on our lab’s web-browsing battery test, this laptop falls behind its competitors and comes nowhere near the 15 and a half hours achieved by the MacBook Air. It also isn’t quite up to the Arm-powered IdeaPad Slim 5x sibling. However, 10 hours and 33 minutes is still a decent result, considering the large 15-inch screen and the 120Hz refresh rate, which consumes extra power.

Our lab's synthetic battery test is also fairly demanding on the laptop, since the screen is set to 150 nits and the laptop auto-browses through websites, streams video, and runs OpenGL tests until the battery is exhausted. In the real world, you shouldn’t have a problem living away from your charger.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026): The downs

While there's a lot to like about the IdeaPad Slim 3i, it's not perfect

Plastic chassis

For $799, this laptop will have some compromises that many budget Windows laptops in this range that predate the aluminum XPS 13 and MacBook Neo frequently carry. One of those is the plastic chassis.

There’s a good reason this laptop has a plastic frame: it helps make it lightweight and durable. Lenovo also has this IdeaPad with a MIL-STD-810H certification. That is a huge plus, and it means it can withstand lots of drops and survive the beating a notebook for school or work might take.

Plastic also means the laptop is pretty lightweight for its class. Coming in at 3.51 pounds, it’s heavier than the 2.5-pound MacBook Air, but lighter than my 4.7-pound 16-inch MacBook Pro, which I frequently bring to work.

Lenovo says that the IdeaPad Slim 3i offers plenty of customization options in case material and color. There are five color options, as well as a polycarbonate or aluminum chassis. I would suggest the aluminum option if you can find it.

Outdated barreled charger

The port selection on this laptop is great, with three USB-A ports, a full-size SD card reader, USB-C, and a headphone jack. Unfortunately, to charge it when this laptop runs out of juice, you’ll likely need to use a barrel charger.

A USB-C port onboard the laptop allows for USB-C charging, but doing that means you lose access to the port. USB-C became standard for a reason: to avoid carrying around extra chargers. Nothing annoys me more than proprietary chargers like this one.

No back-lit keyboard

I often look back at my work late into the evening, and while typing part of this review in bed with the lights off, I found myself relying on the display's backlight to find the right keys. It wasn't impossible to type, but a backlit keyboard would have made the experience far more comfortable.

To Lenovo's credit, the keyboard itself is pleasant to use. The keycaps have a lighter gray finish than the rest of the chassis and a slightly textured coating that makes them easy to distinguish by both sight and touch. That contrast helped me orient my hands in dim lighting, but it still isn't a substitute for proper keyboard backlighting on a laptop at this price.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026): Verdict

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 (2026) isn’t a bad laptop. It’s a dependable machine for $799. It checks three big boxes for what I look for: a bright screen, solid performance for productivity, and battery life to get me through a day’s work. For the students and office workers this laptop is designed for, there won’t be much to complain about.

The main issue is a few small compromises, such as the lack of a backlit keyboard and an outdated barrel charger. It isn’t Lenovo’s fault, though, as the ongoing RAM crisis likely led to cutting corners to keep the price down, which is why this laptop would normally be $1,299.

The MacBook Neo and XPS 13 are easily worth your money at around the same price. But if you ever see the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 15 for sale between $850 and $999, rather than at its full price of $1,300, it might be worth considering for its bigger screen.

Framework’s new Laptop 13 Pro is a “complete ground-up redesign” of the company’s original Framework Laptop 13 that debuted back in 2021. Originally, when I saw the laptop this past spring, it was pitched for power users and developers, especially with the ability to install Ubuntu Linux out of the box. I was ready to crown it one of the best laptops then and there.

At the time, CEO Nirav Patel was promising not to gouge customers over RAM pricing and making apocalyptic predictions on the future of personal computing. Unfortunately, while my Laptop 13 Pro review unit was still in the mail, Framework announced increased RAM pricing that basically doubled the price for certain tiers.

The laptop features a sturdier design with a new matte black color scheme (though certain parts can be swapped out to a more N64-esque transparent plastic). The aluminum chassis feels stronger than the one in the older Framework Laptop 13 too and operates smoothly.

The new 13.5-inch touchscreen display is brighter with a decent 30 - 120Hz refresh rate. Plus, it comes with a larger 74 WHr battery that promises 20 hours of use.

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro might be the best version of the company’s system to date, but pricing and availability make it hard to recommend right now. Find out why this is a tough decision in my full review!

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Framework Laptop 13 Pro is a modular, repairable laptop with an aluminum chassis, bright touchscreen display, and lots of customization options on both the hardware and software sides.
• Who is it for? Power users, developers, and those who want to upgrade or repair their laptop easily.
• What does it cost? The Framework Laptop 13 Pro starts at $1,199 for the DIY edition (before you pick parts) and $1,599 for the pre-built version.
• What do we like? The premium build, modular design, bright display, and excellent battery life.
• What don’t we like? The price is high, and it's not exactly available. Plus, the webcam isn’t great.

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Specs

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: The ups

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro impresses with its sturdy design, modular system, and excellent battery life.

Sturdy, premium-feeling design

On the surface, the Laptop 13 Pro will look familiar to fans of the Laptop 13 as it shares a similar size and overall design. However, the new matte black finish feels more premium than the older silver hue. Likewise, the hinge on its aluminum chassis feels smoother than the older one.

It’s the parts where you can feel the difference, including the “purpose-built” 13.5-inch display that comes with a 700-nit screen and 2880x1920 resolution. Yes, the plastic bezel, which comes in a variety of colors, feels flimsy and attaches with magnets, but I found it a fun bit of flair, especially with the transparent orange version I tested.

The keyboard deck feels solid too, and Framework put some thought into replacing it (more on that below). I found the keys large and spaced well for typing.

Measuring 11.67 x 9 x 0.62 inches and weighing just over 3 lbs, it’s not as light as the budget-friendly Dell XPS 13, but it will fit comfortably in your backpack for travel.

The modular choice is yours

Framework promises you can upgrade older laptops with new parts and promises easy repairability. That continues with the Framework Laptop 13 Pro. In fact, if you have a Laptop 13, you could buy the necessary parts to turn it into a 13 Pro (though some components like the bottom panel would need to be swapped to accommodate the new, larger battery).

I reviewed the DIY edition of the Laptop 13 Pro, which meant installing the Framework-supplied SSD, RAM, and display bezel. The only tool you need is the Torx T5 screwdriver, which comes with the laptop. Everything was easy to slot in, and Framework provides guides so you don’t break anything or need a little help along the way.

One of my favorite small additions in the 13 Pro is a new little pop-up nodule under the keyboard deck. It makes separating the laptop for repairs easier once you’ve unscrewed the bottom panel screws. The older 13 doesn’t have this nodule, which means you have to do a little more prying to get into the laptop.

Outside of that, you can replace everything else on the laptop, and Framework sells parts from new displays and batteries to bezels and expansion cards that let you swap out a USB-C port for an Ethernet jack or an HDMI port. My configuration came with 2 USB-C expansion cards and 2 USB-A ones.

MacBook levels of battery life

These days, the best laptops for battery life promise well north of 14 hours of use. Framework claims the 13 Pro can last up to 20 hours, which would put it in line with the MacBook Pro M5 Pro and its 21 hours of use.

In our lab tests, we achieved nearly 17 hours of screen on time, averaging 16 hours and 48 minutes of battery life. Even running Windows 11, this new battery is no joke. Our battery test browses websites, streams videos, and runs light OpenGL tests, meaning this beats even most other Windows-based laptops.

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: The downs

Overall, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is a pretty good laptop. However, as of this writing, the biggest flaw has nothing to do with the technology itself but rather the exploding price. This also means that the adequate performance isn’t quite enough for the money you’re going to pay.

Additionally, availability is a concern, as most new parts and the laptop itself aren’t available for at least another six months.

From hobbyist to premium

There are other flaws, but the price and availability of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro are the biggest drawbacks. As of this writing, every iteration of the 13 Pro is up for pre-order and won’t ship until November. Additionally, if you have the Laptop 13 and want to upgrade, the necessary parts are listed as “Registered Interest” or “Coming Soon” in Framework’s shop.

As for price, when I put in our preferences for the version we wanted to test, it still had a high but reasonable price for the laptop. Since receiving the laptop, the prices have nearly doubled thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis. Prices for individual LPCAMM2 modules now reach $800 and $1,600 for the 32GB and 64GB, respectively.

Currently, on the Framework website, the configuration I tested is $2,915. The prebuilt version of the laptop we tested now goes for $2,899, up from $2,099 at launch. That said, the 16GB version only saw a $100 increase to $1,599, so if you’re not hogging too much RAM, that might work for you.

Look, everything is more expensive. The Dell XPS 14, our current pick for the best Windows laptop, in a similar configuration as what I tested, will set you back $2,579. The question is whether upgradeability is worth an extra $400 to you.

Performance is okay for the price

I specifically tested the mid-level Framework Laptop 13 Pro because, at the time, it had a friendlier price point and improved performance over the entry model. I also tested the laptop with Windows 11 for an easier comparison to other laptops we’ve tested.

On Geekbench 6.7, the Laptop 13 Pro managed a single-core score of 2836 and a multicore score of 14,715. I’ll note that the Intel CPU is only cooled by one fan, and while I didn’t notice any heating issues during my testing, this isn’t a laptop you’re going to want to redline.

The Dell XPS 14 is much higher, but again I wonder if cooling could improve the performance. The Framework does have comparable single-core performance.

I’ve put this in the downs section, but honestly it’s mostly because of the price. For what you’re paying, I believe you’d want a little more oomph. At its previous cost, I could recommend the 13 Pro and say that it’ll get the job done and you’d have enough juice for some light gaming as long as you turn the settings down and don’t mind playing at 1080p. But at the current price, I’m not sure it’s enough.

Finally, this is a bit of a nitpick, but if your job requires you to be on a lot of Zoom calls, the webcam turns on. I found it a bit grainy no matter the quality of my internet speed or lighting. Plus, for those who use it, the laptop doesn’t have an infrared camera for Windows Hello.

Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Verdict

I really want to recommend the Framework Laptop 13 Pro. I believe in what they’re doing wholeheartedly, and I’ve been quite impressed with the upgradeable and repairable system the company has developed. It’s fun to put together, easy to use, and there are a ton of configuration options to choose from. Plus, Framework has leaned into letting you put whatever OS you want on this laptop, from Windows to Linux and everything in between.

And it's not their fault by any means, but RAM prices have truly made what is already a niche product in the PC world a harder sell. If the prices were still around what they were when it was first unveiled, I’d easily recommend giving the 13 Pro a shot. It’s a great little laptop you’ll be able to use, repair, and even upgrade for years to come. But at nearly $3K, I’m just not sure. Especially with limited availability and a shipping timetable that won’t get you a computer until November?

If you can support an interesting company doing interesting things, then go for it, but if you actually need a laptop right now, this might not be the one for you.

When I look at a premium consumer laptop with branding like “Pro” or “Ultra,” I expect a bit more than the average laptop experience. I don’t just want decent performance, a usable display, and at least 8-hours of battery life.

I expect a sleek aluminum chassis packed with high-performance components, more than all-day battery life, a powerful audio system, vivid OLED display panel, a keyboard that feels good to use, and enough ports to handle a variety of accessories.

I also expect to see a high price tag attached, because you don’t get an Ultra laptop for bargain prices. But once a laptop hits the $2,000 mark, it becomes hard to justify a device that's using only an integrated GPU.

But do the OmniBook Ultra’s cons outweigh its strengths enough to keep it off our best laptops list?

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Cheat sheet

• What is it?: The HP OmniBook Ultra 14 is a premium consumer laptop designed for users who want powerful performance, great battery life, and a slim, portable device.
• Who is it for?: The OmniBook Ultra is designed for power users and working professionals who demand a combination of extreme performance, fantastic power efficiency, and the ultimate in portability.
• What does it cost?: The starting price of the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 Snapdragon X2 edition is $1,899 while our top-of-the-line review model costs a cool $3,599.
• What do we like?: The new HP OmniBook Ultra chassis has a sleek modern design with chrome detailing, stellar performance, and a bright, vivid display.
• What don’t we like?: The OmniBook Ultra does leave a lot to be desired in terms of connection ports, and while its performance and power efficiency are fantastic, those come at a steep price.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Specs

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: The ups

HP’s revamped Omnibook Ultra does quite a lot right. It looks and feels like a premium laptop with a sleek chassis, chrome detailing, a crisp keyboard, powerful speaker system, OLED display, combined with impressive performance and an all-day battery life.

Sleek modern design

The OmniBook Ultra has a new look this year with extra chrome detailing along the sides and back of the chassis along with a debossed brushed chrome logo on the top cover panel.

While this isn’t a huge break from the previous OmniBook Ultra design, it does feel just a bit more polished than previous generations.

This notebook also comes in two different colorways, a cool Stone Blue or dark Eclipse Gray for the aluminum body. Both colorways come with the same chrome detailing, so it pops a bit more on the darker Eclipse Gray but adds a great, subtle premium touch to either color.

HP kept portability in mind while crafting the 14-inch Ultra chassis, with a Z-height of just 0.42 inches and a total weight of just 2.83 pounds.

It’s not the lightest laptop on the market, but it is incredibly lightweight and thin, which makes it easy to carry to the office, the coffee shop, or on a plane. And you won’t even have to worry about back strain or whether the 14-inch ultrabook can fit in your bag.

Stellar general performance

Qualcomm has made a lot of performance claims about the X2 Elite CPU, and we’ve verified quite a few. Though that can change between laptop to laptop based on how the OEM configures the chipset for their thermal design.

So some variation will always be seen depending on the specific laptop in question. That said, I was still pretty impressed with the overall performance of the Snapdragon X2 Elite on the OmniBook, which put up quite a lot of multicore performance despite its ultra-slim design.

Whether it was photo editing, video calls, or just doing some light word processing, I ran into no slowdowns with the OmniBook, even when running 15+ Chrome tabs at a time with a few other programs like Spotify running in the background. And that’s backed up by our lab test results as well.

In terms of general CPU performance, the OmniBook Ultra 14 had more Geekbench 6 multicore horsepower than many of its competitors, including the Apple MacBook Air M5, Dell XPS 14 with Intel’s Panther Lake X7 CPU, and even the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x with the previous Snapdragon X Elite chipset.

The OmniBook Ultra even outpaced the Apple MacBook Pro M5 in both the Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark and Handbrake video encoding test, though the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air both outperformed the OmniBook on single-core performance. Though the Snapdragon X2 Elite CPU has closed that singlecore performance gap to just a few hundred points.

On the BlackMagic Disk Speed test, the OmniBook clocked 6922 write and 5607 read speed. That’s pretty similar performance to both Apple M5 laptops in terms of write speed, though it is a bit behind on reading speed. It also leaves the Dell XPS 14 in the dust.

While I wouldn’t use the OmniBook Ultra as a daily gaming laptop, it can handle some basic gaming on Medium graphics settings at 1080p.

And that’s a significant upgrade over the previous generation Snapdragon laptops which failed to even scrape past 20 fps on most games. I personally booted up Baldur’s Gate III and Final Fantasy XIV as both are well-optimized games that should play nicely on integrated graphics cards compared to some more GPU-heavy games like Black Myth: Wukong or Monster Hunter Wilds.

Baldur’s Gate III performed well on Medium to High settings at 1080p or 1200p settings, though the game really struggled with the graphics and computational load when run at the OmniBook’s native 1800p resolution.

Final Fantasy XIV was a bit more of a struggle on Laptop (High) and 1080p settings with frequent frame drops from 70fps to 50fps. Even when dropped down to Laptop (Standard) graphics settings, the OmniBook struggled with occasional frame drops, though they were less frequent.

It wasn’t enough to make the game unplayable but it was certainly frequent enough to be annoying. And FFXIV boots with AMD FSR on by default so serious frame drops shouldn’t be too common. Unfortunately, I can only assume this is due to the game putting a heavy load on Microsoft’s Prism emulation layer since FFXIV does not currently have a native client for Windows on Arm.

However, even with the frame drops on Final Fantasy XIV, the fact the Snapdragon X2 Elite could run both games at over 60fps for even some of the time is a massive improvement over the previous generation. And that’s more than playable enough for some casual gaming while on a business trip or vacation.

Bright, vivid HDR display

The viewing experience of the OmniBook Ultra is pretty top-notch, with a powerful quad-speaker array featuring HP’s PolyStudio tuning and a bright, HDR-capable OLED display.

In terms of raw numbers, the OmniBook Ultra’s OLED panel covers 87% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average max brightness of 414 nits with an HDR peak brightness of 847 nits.

This makes it both bright and vivid enough to be a great option for your next streaming binge. Combined with the powerful quad-speaker system that can easily fill a room, and the OmniBook is a proper entertainment machine.

That vivid OLED display and powerful audio also make it a great option for any photo or video editing you may need to do. Whether that’s adjusting images and video for work or tweaking your vacation photos to look their best on Instagram, the OmniBook has the audio-visual fidelity to tackle some serious editing.

Long-lasting battery life

Snapdragon laptops tend to have some impressive battery life, and the OmniBook Ultra isn’t much of an exception. However, it does trend to the lower-end as far as Snapdragon power efficiency goes. In our lab, the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 lasted a respectable 13 hours and 27 minutes on our web-surfing battery test.

While that isn’t the longest record we’ve ever seen, it is more than enough to last for even a demanding work day.However, the OmniBook Ultra’s competition really does blow it away on this one.

The Apple MacBook Air M5 lasted 15 hours and 37 minutes on the same battery test, while the MacBook Pro 14 M5 lasted 18 hours on the same test. Even the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x with the previous generation Snapdragon X Elite chipset lasted longer, with a battery life of 14 hours and 14 minutes.

Only the Intel-powered Dell XPS 14 under-performed compared to the OmniBook Ultra with a battery life of 12 hours and 23 minutes. Though, both the XPS and OmniBook have upgraded integrated GPUs which can help account for some of the increased power consumption on both laptops.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: The downs

While the OmniBook Ultra deserves its name due to its usability and battery life, all those premium components come at a high price. Add on a sub-par port selection and some Microsoft Prism Emulation pitfalls, and the OmniBook’s faults start to weigh a bit heavy.

Port selection leaves a lot to be desired

While the OmniBook Ultra 14’s sleek design gives it a proper premium air with chrome detailing and a carry weight that’s beyond easy to carry, some sacrifices were made in the design phase. The biggest sacrifice made for the OmniBook Ultra’s sleek new chassis is its port array.

There are just three USB-C ports and one headphone jack on the 2026 OmniBook Ultra. That’s less than what you get on an Apple MacBook Pro, though it is one extra USB-C port compared to the MacBook Air.

However, with the price of the OmniBook Ultra, I’d expect it to compete more with a higher-end Mac chassis in terms of features. And while the OmniBook Ultra does win on the OLED front, the port selection is just a little too short.

Sure, you can fix the port array by getting a dock or using Bluetooth accessories. But on a high-powered premium laptop, I’d at least like to get an SD or MicroSD card reader to truly take advantage of the X2 Elite’s powerful CPU and GPU combo to do some light photo or video editing without needing to use a clunky dongle that’ll slow down large file transfer speeds to a crawl. But ultimately, this isn’t even the worst of the OmniBook’s problems.

Microsoft Prism emulation doesn’t solve everything

My biggest issue with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon laptops has always been the app support issue. And Qualcomm has essentially tried to pretend there isn’t an app support issue while relying on Microsoft’s Prism emulator to close most of the app support gaps between Windows on ARM and Windows on X86 computers.

To Qualcomm and Microsoft’s credit, most of the common applications are native on ARM now, and most others can be run through Prism’s emulation layer.

The problem is all the niche cases. While your average laptop user will have no major problems with Windows on ARM, there are still sizeable software gaps becomes a problem when it's time to outfit an entire business or school with laptops.

That's because some highly-specific software suites like much of the AutoDesk suite, either cannot run on ARM-based systems at all. Or require heavy use of Prism, which causes a severe slowdown due to the computational load of such intensive programs.

While you might expect most AutoDesk users to utilize dedicated workstations, the workstation and premium PC market now have some serious overlap.

Intel and AMD have been closing the gap between entry-level discrete graphics and their integrated GPU solutions to the point that some lightweight workstations eschew discrete GPUs entirely.

So while your average OmniBook Ultra customer won’t have much issue with Prism emulation vs Arm-native applications, anyone with any kind of fringe application in their daily rotation should take a hard look at the list of Arm-native applications before deciding on a Snapdragon PC.

All that performance comes at a high price

Any piece of tech that requires DDR5 RAM is currently significantly more expensive than it would have been a year ago, and the OmniBook Ultra is no exception. However, the OmniBook Ultra 14 (2026) has a starting price of $1,899 while our review unit costs $3,599.

While the starting $1,899 price tag is a bit high compared to last year’s OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 ($1,499) is a bit high, it falls in line with the standard RAM shortage price hike and is somewhat forgivable in that light.

The upgrade cost for our review unit is prohibitive. Even with the sale HP has going on the OmniBook Ultra right now, the price only comes down to $2,959 which is still egregious for a 14-inch ultrabook.

For $3,599, I could get a Razer Blade 16 (2026) model with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070Ti with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and an OLED display and still have $100 left over.

Or I could save even more and get an M5 Pro Apple MacBook Pro 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU with 24GB RAM, and 1TB of storage for about $2,699. Both options would have better raw performance, more graphics horsepower, and more ports for less than the cost of the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 with the Snapdragon X2 Elite CPU.

Verdict

As far as premium laptops go, the OmniBook Ultra 14 does most things right. It’s got a sleek new chassis in a crisp Stone Blue or sleek Eclipse Gray colorway with premium chrome detailing on the edges and debossed modern HP logo.

It’s got more than enough horsepower to crunch through demanding workloads, though the app support gap can still be a bit of an issue for certain users, and it’s got enough battery life to make it through a full work day without needing a charge.

But the OmniBook Ultra isn’t a perfect laptop. Even for those with the budget to afford either the pricey base model or the exorbitant amount for our over-specced review unit, there are a couple of major downsides.

While over 13-hours of battery life is great for an average laptop, it’s a bit below the average for a Snapdragon laptop and there are plenty of laptops on the market with significantly better battery life. Including laptops by Qualcomm’s main competitors: Intel and AMD.

However, the real detriment is the port selection. A premium portable laptop that needs a dock to be fully functional is never going to be as Ultra as the name suggests. If you never need to move the OmniBook Ultra, that’s fine.

But if you want it to be your portable work and play powerhouse, having just a handful of USB-C ports and an audio jack isn’t sufficient. Having at least an onboard SD or microSD card reader would at least put it in MacBook Pro competitor territory.

Students have long been forced to pick between expensive machines and budget laptops, when really they fall into the ‘prosumer’ user group and need power, portability, and battery life to get work done day in, day out.

Thankfully, the HP Omnibook 3 offers all of that and then some, bringing AI-powered productivity, responsive performance, and multi-day battery life to students with busy schedules.

The HP Omnibook 3 keeps pace with student life

While the idea of an “AI laptop” feels like a nebulous term, the technology contained within includes huge benefits for users, particularly students.

The HP OmniBook 3, powered by the Snapdragon^® X processor, and paired with a Qualcomm^® Hexagon^™ Neural Processing Unit (NPU), is capable of up to 45 TOPS (Trillions of Operations per Second). That means many tasks in varying complexity can be handed off to the Snapdragon X processor, including a dedicated AI NPU (Neural Processing Unit) capable of up to 45 TOPS. This specialized AI hardware helps accelerate AI-powered experiences while keeping everyday productivity, creativity, and multitasking running smoothly.

Not only does that make the Omnibook 3 more responsive, whether you’re opening a dozen browser tabs or juggling multiple other apps, but it also means battery life is drastically improved over prior generations of laptops. That means you get peace of mind that you can work through the day, then keep going after hours on your way back to your dorm. And, with no performance dip when moving to battery power, you won’t have to worry about saving your most demanding work for when there’s a power outlet nearby. Plus, there’s up to 41 hours of battery life from a single charge.

The NPU also means that the Omnibook 3 meets the threshold for earning the Copilot+ PC branding. While AI can often feel like a buzzword, here its implementation is genuinely useful.

Features like Live Captions in Windows 11 leverage the NPU to put together your lecture notes with ease, while advanced machine learning techniques cancel exterior noise and blur your background on calls so you sound clear and look great.

That’s on top of Click to Do, a feature that turns what’s on your screen into instant to-do list items, so you never forget to reply to an email again.

Speaking of the display, the OmniBook 3 is available with a vibrant 14-inch 2K OLED display and up to 32GB of RAM, giving students plenty of room to multitask across research, coursework, collaboration tools, and creative projects without sacrificing portability.

Need more power for creative projects?

Looking for even more power at your fingertips? The HP OmniBook Ultra, powered by Snapdragon X2 Elite processor, builds on the foundations of the OmniBook 3 but takes things to the next level for creative students who need more power without sacrificing portability.

To that end, the OmniBook remains slim and light, while offering an OLED display model for excellent contrast and stunning colors, as well as the Snapdragon X2 Elite processor for even more power under the hood and an NPU capable of 85 TOPs.

All of this power used to require a chunky laptop, or even a desktop, but the HP Omnibook Ultra remains under 2.86lbs and just 10.7mm thin.

Whether you're balancing classes and study sessions or tackling more demanding creative projects, the HP OmniBook lineup offers AI-powered productivity, reliable performance, and the flexibility to work wherever inspiration strikes.

Learn more about the HP OmniBook 3 and HP OmniBook Ultra to find the configuration that best fits your workflow.

Snapdragon and Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

The $699 Dell XPS 13 (2026) is the best budget Windows laptop ever and a serious rival to the similarly priced MacBook Neo. Dell’s machine packs in many premium features and proves that the best budget laptops don’t have to feel cheap or have poor performance and battery life.

I’ve tested the entry-level model featuring an Intel Core 5 “Wildcat Lake” CPU, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. Like other configurations of this laptop, my test unit has a sturdy aluminum chassis and a vivid 2.5K display. It’s also the lightest XPS laptop ever, even lighter than the MacBook Air M5! As I said in my Dell XPS 13 (2026) review, it proves you don’t have to sacrifice quality for an affordable notebook.

Now that I’ve spent two weeks with the Dell XPS 13, I wanted to dig deeper into what I like (and what I don’t) about Dell’s affordable laptop. Here's what I think!

Dell XPS 13 (2026): What I like

Ultraportable design

I travel a lot for work, so I prefer having the lightest laptop possible when I'm out and about. The 13-inch MacBook Air has long been my go-to when attending events like CES since it’s so thin and light. Now, after taking the Dell XPS 13 back and forth between my apartment and the office, I’ve found another ultraportable laptop that I barely feel in my backpack.

The MacBook Neo proved that a budget laptop can still look and feel premium, and the XPS 13 is following suit. The CNC aluminum chassis is a feature that can’t be overstated, as similarly priced laptops usually have cheap plastic builds that are offensive to the eyes and hands. The XPS 13 feels as sturdy and looks as good as a MacBook Air, which is definitely a huge compliment.

I also like that this lower-end XPS has design features that more expensive Dell XPS 14 and Dell XPS 16 lack. The first is that there’s a lip on the laptop lid. That might not sound like a big deal, but if you’ve ever struggled to open an XPS laptop, you’re going to sing with joy. Secondly, the keyboard deck has a traditional design, with evenly spaced keys rather than the cramped, lattice-less layout of the aforementioned XPS models. These touches make an already great laptop design even better.

While there is one design aspect I’m not enamored with (more on that soon), the XPS 13 is overall a lovely-looking laptop that’s tailor-made for travel.

Lovely display

You don’t often get quality displays on budget laptops, but Dell bucks that trend with the bright, colorful panel on the XPS 13. And for good measure, it has touchscreen support, which is something the MacBook Neo lacks entirely. Though I’ve seen better laptop screens, this is one of the best notebook panels in this price range.

Naturally, you’ll get a better image from an OLED panel, but the XPS 13’s display still delivers lifelike colors and solid HDR brightness. I watched a lot of YouTube videos on this laptop, and I was never disappointed by how anything looked. The 2560 x 1600 resolution on the 13.4-inch panel ensures everything appears sharp and clear. Websites are also very readable thanks to the resolution.

Now, to touch on the touch panel (no pun intended, I swear!), this is something I appreciate even if it’s not a feature I normally use. Don’t get me wrong, having a touchscreen laptop can make you more productive because you’re not limited to just the keyboard and touchpad. However, since I’m so used to non-touchscreen laptops, I often forget whether that feature is available. Still, it’s a nice bonus, especially for this price.

Strong performance and battery life

To be clear, the XPS 13 is a productivity laptop and isn’t designed for heavy workloads. If you want to edit 4K videos or play graphically demanding games, this isn't the laptop for you. However, if you just want an ultraportable machine for surfing the web, watching videos, and simple word processing, you won’t be disappointed.

As I mentioned in my review, the XPS 13 handled my typical workload, which usually includes 10-15 open Chrome tabs and the occasional YouTube video, without an issue. Pages started loading slower when I had 20-25 Chrome tabs, but that is admittedly more than usual even for me. Still, this is impressive performance given the XPS 13’s 8GB of RAM and Wildcat Lake chip.

Then there’s battery life, which averaged 14 hours and 26 minutes in our battery test. During my time with the laptop, it always lasted a full 8-hour workday and still had some juice left (around 30-35% battery life) for me to wind down with some YouTube videos. Your mileage will vary depending on your workload, but it’s safe to say you’ll get more than all-day battery life here.

Dell XPS 13 (2026): What I don't like

In my review, I noted that the XPS 13’s webcam was my least favorite thing about the laptop. While I’m still not a fan of it, the webcam does a decent enough job for web calls, so long as you don’t expect to look your best.

After spending more time with the XPS 13, another thing that I only briefly touched on has become a larger, though not game-breaking, issue—the lack of a headphone jack.

I didn’t realize how much I needed a 3.5mm headphone jack until I was forced to go without one. At home, this isn’t a problem since I live by myself, but in the office, I don’t want to disrupt my colleagues if I have to watch a video or engage in a call. I’ve gotten used to using one of the best wireless headsets when using the XPS 13, but I do miss that 3.5mm headphone jack.

Dell XPS 13 (2026): Two weeks later

I’m not being hyperbolic when I say the Dell XPS 13 (2026) is the best budget Windows laptop right now. Along with the MacBook Neo, I’ve already begun recommending it to folks looking for a lightweight and durable everyday work laptop that delivers excellent performance and battery life. The fact that it starts at $699 just makes that recommendation easier.

Dell delivered a true winner with the new XPS 13. Unless you’re married to the Apple ecosystem and would prefer a MacBook Neo, Dell’s laptop is seriously worth considering and comes with my highest recommendation.

More from Tom's Guide

• I test gaming laptops and this is how I get better performance without plugging them in
• I’m a PC hardware reviewer — here are the 3 best ways to get into PC gaming in 2026 without spending a fortune
• Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Which $699 laptop is right for you?

Apple held its third-quarter earnings call today, where the tech giant reported "record" $109 billion earnings, largely driven by a 22% increase in iPhone sales. Despite that, Apple's stock fell 8% based on missed revenue estimates in China and the company's services arm.

Outgoing CEO Tim Cook, in his swan song earnings call, was also questioned by investors about the impact of the ongoing memory crisis on Apple supply and future forecasts.

"We reluctantly raised prices," Cook said, referring to last month's price increases that affected every Apple device except the iPhone.

"We did it because we’re in what I’d categorize as a 100-year flood on memory pricing," Cook continued, repeating an analogy he made a month ago.

What Apple is saying about the memory crunch

During the call, Cook admitted that Apple is facing supply constrains that are affecting iPhone, Macs and iPads, primarily on Macs. Cook asserted several times that this issue was largely driven by surprising amounts of demand.

Both Cook and Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh noted that the supply chain has become less "flexible" which was blamed on nodes for advanced SoCs and that they expected continued high levels of demand.

"We expect the impact from supply chain constraints to increase significantly [in September]," Cook said. In response to an investor Cook said that Apple expects to pay even more for memory through the next quarter.

Investors were only allowed two questions but nearly everyone who spoke used at least one to ask about memory and pricing. Cook repeatedly claimed that the cause of Apple supply constraints is "not a regular supply issue" and instead said it was a demand forecast issue where iPhones and Macs performed "remarkably better than we thought they would."

However, "we’ve got a quarter that we’re going to be scrambling on supply side," Cook told one investor.

The upcoming fourth quarter will tell us a lot about how Apple is dealing with the memory crisis. Price increases might defray rising component costs, and the new Apple Upgrade Program could help the company keep a more constant source of revenue.

Apple still has the iPhone 18 series, new Macs and iPads to release and potentially more. But we're already bracing for a potential $200 price increase for the iPhone 18 Pro models. And a possible $2,500 iPhone Ultra.

More from Tom's Guide

• Is the Apple Upgrade program a good deal or a rip-off? I asked ChatGPT to crunch the numbers and here's the verdict
• New iPhone 20 video reveals the 8 biggest upgrades to expect from the 20th anniversary iPhone
• I knew better than to carry around a naked phone — then my iPhone 17 Pro Max met the asphalt

A core reason you’d want one of the best gaming laptops is to play your favorite PC games on the go. However, your experience with AAA games won’t be great on battery power. Not only will you generally get less than two hours of gameplay, but you'll suffer severe drops in frames per second (FPS). This is why most users keep their gaming laptops plugged in during use.

But what if you’re itching to play a game and there’s no wall outlet in sight? Are you stuck playing for just a couple of hours at 30 frames per second or lower? Not necessarily, so long as you make various adjustments to the laptop and game. Though the results won't always match what you'd get when plugged in, you’ll have a smoother gaming experience.

If you want to squeeze as much performance as possible from a gaming laptop running on battery, I’ll show you how!

On battery vs plugged in

Generally, a battery provides around 40 to 90 watts of power, whereas a wall charger can provide 100 to 200+ watts. That extra power allows laptop components like the GPU and CPU to run more efficiently, delivering smoother gaming performance. However, on battery power, operating systems automatically switch to low-power or balanced profiles, which lowers frame rates and screen refresh rates.

There are also safety reasons. Drawing too much power too quickly from a battery can generate excessive heat and damage the cells. Laptops also slow the CPU and GPU on battery power to prevent overheating. When you connect a laptop to a wall outlet, your computer knows it has an endless energy supply and removes all the speed caps.

I ran Cyberpunk 2077 on the Alienware 16 (2026) on both battery power and while plugged in to show you the difference. At default graphical settings and native 2560x1600 resolution, the game ran at around 110-120 fps while I was on foot and around 90-100 fps when I drove through the city center. Unplugged, Cyberpunk 2077’s frame rate dropped to the 70s on foot and to around 55 on the highway.

To be clear, the Alienware 16 is an extremely powerful gaming laptop, which accounts for its high fps even when unplugged. Still, a 30 frames-per-second drop isn’t small and illustrates the difference between playing plugged in and unplugged.

How to get better performance on battery

I’ll now detail how to get battery gaming laptop performance while on battery. Keep in mind that the battery can’t output enough wattage for full gaming speeds, so performance will always be limited compared to when you’re plugged in. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

On your laptop, click the battery icon on the taskbar and set the power mode to Best Performance. If your laptop has an Nvidia RTX GPU, you can disable BatteryBoost or raise the frame rate cap in the GeForce Experience app (or the Nvidia app).

Similarly, open your laptop manufacturer’s custom app (such as Asus Armoury Crate, Razer Synapse, or Lenovo Vantage) and switch the operating mode from Eco/Silent to a manual or performance profile. You can also set a custom frame limiter in the Nvidia Control Panel to limit CPU and GPU usage as needed.

To improve battery life, you can lower the refresh rate from a high rate like 144Hz to 60Hz. You can also reduce the display’s brightness to around 50% or lower and turn off RGB lighting if your laptop uses it. Unplugging unnecessary peripherals also helps improve battery life. And of course, shut down any apps you’re not currently using.

On the game side, you can do things like lower the game’s resolution, shadow quality, and graphical settings to reduce the workload on your laptop. Similarly, you can cap your maximum FPS in the game settings to keep stable performance.

Bottom line

I will always advise folks to keep their gaming laptops plugged in while playing for the best possible performance. However, if there’s nowhere to connect, the tips above should help you get better performance on battery life. It’s not as optimal as when you’re plugged in, but you’ll have a smoother overall experience.

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Today Apple announced its new leasing program, Apple Upgrade which is undergirded by Klarna for iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac and iPad.

The program lets customers sign up for a plan, similar to how you would lease a car, for fixed 12-, 24- and 36-month terms depending on the device. There are options to upgrade to a new device early or return it at the end of the lease.

Apple called the new plan a "more flexible way to pay for products."

It's possible this does offer some flexibility from paying an upfront lump sum or tying yourself to an onerous contract via a network carrier like Verizon or T-Mobile.

However, experts I spoke with think the Upgrade plan is meant to cover rising component costs.

"By shifting the focus to lower monthly payments, it helps mask the effect of rising hardware costs and makes premium devices feel more affordable and attainable for a broader range of consumers," Jitesh Ubrani, a director at IDC, said.

They added that it could entice people who don't want to pay the higher upfront costs, as even Apple has hiked prices recently. It also gives Apple a "steady stream of trade-ins" that the company can resell to expand its customer base.

"Many people are effectively leasing their phones already through carrier plans; leasing a watch or a Mac -- when you know that these are also devices that have upgrade cycles -- can make sense," Techsponential's Avi Greengart told Tom's Guide. "it's still a lease, so you won't be able to use it until it dies unless you buy out the lease, and it may not be the absolute most economical approach."

Beyond upfront prices, is Apple Upgrade better for you? Let's take a look at how the program works.

How Apple Upgrade works

Apple Upgrade offers 12- or 24-month lease terms for eligible iPhones and Apple Watches. For those seeking a Mac or iPad, there are 24- or 36-month options.

Prices start as low as $11.99 per month for the Apple Watch and iPad, depending on size and storage capacity. iPhones start at $17.99, while Macs can be leased starting at $24.99 a month.

You can sign up online or at an Apple Store, where you will be approved by Klarna, which does require a soft credit check that should not impact your credit score.

At the end of the lease term, you can return the device or upgrade to a newer generation or purchase it with a one-time payment.

Compared to the outgoing iPhone Upgrade program, the Apple Upgrade Program does not include AppleCare, which is a separate subscription price and varies in price depending on your device.

Per MacRumors, if you miss a payment, it will be rolled into the next month's payment with no late fees. However, if you miss three consecutive payments, the lease will end, and you will have to pay the full outstanding balance, minus the value of the device when returned. If Klarna can't collect, a debt collection agency will be sent your information.

Apple Upgrade prices

Apple is offering the entire iPhone 17 lineup, plus the iPhone Air, both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 and three iPad options, including the iPad Air, iPad Pro and iPad mini.

For Macs, you can lease the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Studio.

Apple defaults to the 24-month leasing option, so we'll share that. The other options can lower or raise your price. Additionally, higher storage capacity or chip versions will also increase the monthly price.

Finally, the price does not include taxes and fees.

Here's how much the base model of each device will cost you.

We've separated the iPads and Macs out because these devices can have the longer 36-month term. Again, the prices below are for the base model of each device and the 24-month term.

No leasing entry-level devices

You may have noticed several Apple devices aren't eligible for the upgrade program. It includes the vanilla iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, as well as the entry-level models of almost every device category.

Here's the full list of Apple products you can't lease:

• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• Apple Watch SE
• MacBook Neo
• Mac mini
• iPad (A16)
• Studio Display

Availability

Apple Upgrade is available now for all of the listed devices. Apple says that a security deposit is not required and that a trade-in device could reduce monthly payments.

I will note that if you end a lease early, you could see termination fees. Also, if you don't do anything at the end of the lease, you'll be charged the purchase fee.

Lastly, hidden in the fine print, upgrading a device could increase your monthly payments, which is true for both higher-capacity versions of devices and more expensive models when new generations launch in the coming years.

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Which $699 laptop should you buy: the new Dell XPS 13 (2026) or the MacBook Neo? That’s the big question right now, as Dell’s affordable XPS is a true rival to Apple’s popular laptop. This might have been an easier choice before Apple’s price hikes pushed the Neo’s price up by $100, but now you really have to weigh your options more carefully.

These notebooks are designed for budget-conscious folks who need a reliable machine for everyday work. Their ultraportable designs are also ideal for anyone who works on the go. Additionally, they have better displays and sturdier builds than most laptops in this price range.

While you won’t go wrong with either the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Neo, one could be better for you than the other. Below, I’ll detail everything you need to know about these laptops to help you decide which is worth your money.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Specs

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Design

One of the standout features of these laptops is their respective designs. Instead of being bulky and plasticky like typical budget laptops, the XPS 13 and MacBook Neo are thin and light machines with sturdy aluminum casings. They might be affordable, but they definitely look as elegant as their more premium counterparts.

The XPS 13 is the lighter of the two, weighing 2.2 pounds compared to the MacBook Neo’s 2.7 pounds. Neither laptop will be a burden to travel with, but the XPS 13 is easier to take on the road or around your home. Both are also easy to open with one hand, thanks to the lips on their respective lids.

One design area where the Neo wins is with its wider choice of colors. While the XPS 13 comes in Sky and Storm colors, the Neo comes in more vibrant hues: Silver, Indigo, Blush, and Citrus. Dell’s notebook is all business, while Apple’s Neo knows how to have some fun.

Both laptops have sturdy and roomy keyboard decks, with satisfying spacing between the keys for a comfortable typing experience. The MacBook Neo has slightly larger and thicker keycaps than the XPS 13, and they’re color-coded to the laptop. Their respective touchpads are roughly the same size, and each is very smooth and responsive. The main difference here is that the XPS 13 has a backlit keyboard, whereas the Neo doesn’t.

The laptops each have a pair of USB-C ports, but while both of the XPS 13’s ports are USB 3.2 Gen 2, the Neo has only one such port — with the other being a slower USB 2 port. So when it comes to faster charging and data speeds, the XPS 13 has the edge. But unlike Dell’s notebook, the Neo has a 3.5mm jack.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Display

The XPS 13 and MacBook Neo each have excellent displays for this price point, since budget laptops usually have dim, dull panels. You won’t have a bad viewing experience with either, but each has its strengths and weaknesses.

For starters, the MacBook Neo has a 13-inch 2408 x 1506 Liquid Retina display, while the XPS 13 has a 13.4-inch 2560 x 1600 InfinityEdge touch screen. The panel on Dell’s laptop is larger, with a higher resolution and touch screen support. The XPS 13 has some strengths here, but as we’ll see next, the Neo has its own advantages.

As you can see from our lab tests, the XPS 13 has good color representation (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). The MacBook Neo delivers slightly oversaturated hues compared to the XPS 13, and its display can get much brighter with both SDR and HDR content.

Overall, the MacBook Neo delivers a more vibrant image compared to the XPS 13, despite the latter having a larger display and higher resolution. Unless you’re a fan of touchscreens, the MacBook Neo’s display takes the lead here, though the XPS 13 isn’t far behind.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Performance

Given their $699 asking price, neither the XPS 13 nor MacBook Neo is designed to be a powerful workstation. Instead, they’re built for everyday work, web browsing, and video streaming. That said, one offers stronger overall performance than the other.

On the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark, the MacBook Neo scored higher in both the single- and multi-core testing. This is impressive considering how the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro processor was originally an iPhone chip, whereas the Intel Wildcat Lake processor is made for laptops, albeit budget machines.

Moving over to the Handbrake test, which involves transcoding a 4K video to 1080p, the XPS 13 took ten minutes and 38 seconds to complete the task, which is 40 seconds slower than the MacBook Neo. However, on the Blackmagic SSD test, the XPS completely outperformed the Neo with faster write/read speeds.

In the 3DMark Wildlife test, which measures a machine’s graphical performance, the XPS 13 scored 2455 and averaged 14 frames per second. The MacBook Neo did better, with a 3661 score and 21 fps.

Using its built-in benchmark tool, Borderlands 3 ran at an unplayable 8.7 fps at 1080p, just one frame lower than the MacBook Neo’s 9.6 fps. In short, neither is suited for high-end gaming.

The XPS 13 handles the basics without a problem, but if you need more performance, the MacBook Neo is the clear winner.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Battery life

The XPS 13 and MacBook Neo both have stellar, more-than-all-day battery life. While you won’t have to worry too much about either dying on you at an inopportune time, one will last longer than the other.

In our battery life test, which involves continuous Wi-Fi web surfing with the display set to 150 nits, the Dell XPS 13 lasted 14 hours and 26 minutes.

Conversely, the MacBook Neo lasted for 13 hours and 26 minutes on the same test. That’s still great, but the XPS 13 can last for an hour longer.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Webcam

Lastly, let’s discuss the webcam quality of these laptops. Here, we’re comparing the MacBook Neo’s 1080p FaceTime HD camera to the Dell XPS 13’s 1080p webcam.

The photo above is from the XPS 13’s camera. Although my background and I are clearly visible, the image is somewhat blurry despite the relatively good lighting.

This next photo is from the MacBook Neo. Here, the image has a more natural color tone and is decidedly sharper.

Though you won’t look horrible in video calls with either webcam, the MacBook Neo does a better job of capturing images.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Bottom line

If you’re already married to macOS or Windows 11, then choose the laptop for that ecosystem. However, if you’re platform-agnostic, one laptop might be better for you than the other.

The Dell XPS 13 is perfect for anyone who wants an extremely lightweight laptop with touchscreen support and faster USB-C ports. It also has stellar battery life. Conversely, the MacBook Neo has more fun color options, stronger performance, a more vivid display, and a sharper webcam.

Personal preferences aside, the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Neo are easily the best $699 laptops you can buy right now, so don’t hesitate to buy either, as it will be money well spent if you’re on a budget and in need of an upgrade.

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The new Dell XPS 13 ($699) is the best budget Windows laptop right now and a true competitor to the equally priced MacBook Neo. Unlike other laptops in this price range, Dell’s laptop doesn’t skimp on features you’d only see on higher-end machines—proving you don’t have to sacrifice quality for an affordable notebook.

Instead of cheap plastic, the XPS 13 has a sturdy CNC aluminum chassis that both looks and feels high-grade. It’s also the thinnest XPS laptop ever, and even slimmer and lighter than the MacBook Neo and MacBook Air M5. This is one of the best laptops for people who are always on the go, as you’ll barely feel it in your backpack.

The 13.4-inch display is also extremely impressive for a $699 laptop, thanks to its sharp 2.5K resolution and vivid image quality. This is certainly a departure from the dull, dim panels found on most budget laptops. The fact that it’s also a touchscreen adds even more value and functionality.

Inside, the XPS 13 features the new Intel “Wildcat Lake” CPU. Though a lower-end chip compared with other Intel Core Series 3 chips, it has more than enough power to handle everyday workloads. You also get exceptional battery life, lasting 14 and a half hours in our testing.

Though its webcam isn’t the best, there’s not much to dislike about the new Dell XPS 13. If I were looking to buy a new productivity laptop, I’d certainly consider buying it. Find out why the XPS 13 is one of the best Windows laptops in my full review!

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Dell XPS 13 (2026) is a budget laptop packing premium-grade features like an aluminum chassis, bright touchscreen display, and an ultraportable design.
• Who is it for? For budget-conscious folks who still want a quality laptop for everyday work.
• What does it cost? The new Dell XPS 13 starts at $699 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, though that will raise the price. You can buy it now from Dell.
• What do we like? We like the premium, thin and light design, vivid display, fast performance, and long battery life.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like the poor webcam quality.

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: Specs

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: The ups

The new Dell XPS 13 impresses thanks to its elegant build, fast performance, vivid touchscreen display, and epic battery life.

Thin and light design

Dell didn’t skimp on the XPS 13’s design. Yes, it’s a budget laptop, but it doesn’t look or feel like one, thanks to its CNC aluminum chassis and sleek overall design. Though it's the company’s thinnest XPS laptop and lighter and slimmer than the MacBook Neo and MacBook Air, its sturdy frame doesn’t flex easily.

Measuring 11.69 x 7.90 x 0.50 inches and weighing just 2.2 pounds, it’s the perfect travel laptop. If you’re carrying many things in your backpack, the XPS 13 won’t add much burden. Taking it around your office or home is also easy.

Speaking of size, the keyboard deck gives you just enough space to type comfortably. One interesting thing is that, unlike the current XPS laptops, this 13-inch model swaps the lattice-less keyboard for a more traditional keyboard deck. I don’t mind typing on the Dell XPS 14 and Dell XPS 16’s keyboards, but I must admit that the XPS 13’s key spacing and key caps feel more natural to type on.

Opening the laptop is seamless thanks to the handy lip on the lid. I've often complained about the lack of this design element in other XPS laptops, so it's great to see a lip on the budget model. Thank you, Dell!

Connectivity-wise, the XPS 13 has only two USB-C ports. While that’s a bummer, they’re both USB 3.2 Gen 2 compared to the Neo’s single USB 3.2 Gen 2 and older USB 2.0. There isn’t a 3.5mm headphone jack either, which is disappointing.

Regarding audio, the quad-speaker audio setup with 8W total peak output is generally good, especially for podcast-type content. However, the middling bass isn’t ideal for music. Still, for a laptop at this price, you get surprisingly decent sound.

Vivid display

On its own, the XPS 13’s display is fairly standard. However, compared to similarly priced budget laptops, the panel here is very impressive.

Static images, videos, text, and everything else look sharp on the 13.4-inch screen thanks to the 2.5K resolution. Both SDR and HDR content appear bright and colorful, as I experienced firsthand while watching a video featuring colorful animals and scenery. And thanks to the 30-120Hz variable refresh rate, everything moves smoothly.

Our lab tests align with my experience. The XPS 13 delivers good color representation (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). The MacBook Neo delivers slightly oversaturated hues compared to the XPS 13, and its display can get much brighter with both SDR and HDR content.

Again, I want to stress how impressive it is to see these values on budget machines, as you’d usually get duller displays at this price point.

Lastly, there’s the XPS 13’s touchscreen. Touch support on laptops is a feature I don’t often use but always appreciate if it’s there. This is also a big feature that the MacBook Neo lacks. I find touch controls as responsive as the touchpad’s, with the screen never failing to register my gestures. If you’d prefer using touch controls with certain apps, you have that option here.

Strong performance

All configurations of the XPS 13 include the new Intel Core 5 320 “Wildcat Lake” CPU, which is the company’s lower-end processor for budget laptops. You can configure the XPS 13 with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. We reviewed the $699 entry-level model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

The XPS 13 handled my average workflow without issue, which usually includes up to 15 open Chrome tabs and the occasional YouTube video running in the background. It also didn’t get too hot under that workload. While tasks like video editing or gaming are too demanding for this laptop, it’s more than capable for everyday work and video streaming.

Dell’s laptop performed well in our lab tests. On Geekbench 6, which measures overall CPU performance, the XPS 13 scored 2684 in single-core and 7952 in multi-core. Those aren’t mind-blowing numbers, but given this laptop’s specs and price, they’re solid. However, the MacBook Neo has better overall CPU performance.

On the Handbrake test, the XPS 13 took 10 minutes and 38 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. It performed this task about 40 seconds slower than the MacBook Neo. On the Blackmagic SSD test, Dell's laptop completely outperformed the Neo.

The Dell XPS 13 isn’t designed for high-end gaming. In the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme test, which measures a machine’s graphical performance, the XPS 13 scored 2455, averaging 14 frames per second. The MacBook Neo did better, with a 3661 score and 21 fps. Using its built-in benchmark tool, Borderlands 3 ran at an unplayable 8.7 fps at 1080p, just one frame lower than the MacBook Neo’s 9.6 frames per second.

Long-lasting battery life

In our battery life test, which involves continuous Wi-Fi web surfing with the display set to 150 nits, the Dell XPS 13 lasted an impressive 14 hours and 26 minutes. While that’s short of the advertised 17 hours, 14 and a half hours of endurance from a Windows laptop is still no joke.

In comparison, the MacBook Neo lasted for 13 hours and 26 minutes on the same test. That’s also impressive, but it’s still an hour shorter. Thanks to its endurance, you won’t have to worry if you accidentally leave the XPS 13’s 65W charger at home.

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: The downs

While the XPS 13 has a lot going for it, it falls short in one main area.

So-so webcam

The good news is that the XPS 13 doesn’t have a cheap 720p webcam that budget laptops have been known for. However, while its 1080p webcam isn’t the worst, don’t expect it to make you look your best during video calls.

As you can see above, the image quality is generally blurry and a little washed out. I'm pale, but I have some color on my skin! You can always connect one of the best webcams for better results, but out of the box, you’ll get so-so quality at best.

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: Verdict

If I haven't already made it clear, I'll say it again: The Dell XPS 13 (2026) is the best budget Windows laptop right now. I know someone will eventually come to challenge the MacBook Neo, but I didn't expect it to happen this fast or this well.

By bringing the finest aspects of the XPS laptop line to an affordable laptop, Dell has delivered a winner. For $699, this is a laptop that's hard to deny.

The new Asus Zenbook Duo has a lot going for it. The Duo sports a dramatic redesign that can enclose the keyboard inside the two displays for extra portability, a strong sturdy hinge to support the dual OLED panels, the powerful Intel X9 chipset with best-in-class Arc B390 integrated graphics, and fantastic ergonomics.

But it is pricey. While anyone can pick up the Zenbook Duo, the laptop is intended for creators and editors who need the extra screen-space of a dual-panel setup. Which begs the question: are two panels really better than one?

To see if a dual screen laptop is really that much better than a standard clamshell laptop, I replaced my Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro for a week with the Zenbook Duo (2026).

The OLED difference

While my MacBook Pro was cutting edge when I bought it, the M1 Pro is now five years old, compared to the Zenbook Duo’s brand new Intel processor.

However, I don’t often need to edit enough video to really stress out the M1 Pro even after five years of daily usage. So while the Zenbook Duo is perhaps a bit faster than my MacBook, it’s a pretty close comparison in terms of general multitasking performance.

Instead, the Zenbook’s major upgrade over my Mac is its dual OLED touch displays. For all of Apple’s claims, the Liquid Retina display on my MacBook Pro just doesn’t have the same vibrancy and near-infinite contrast as an OLED display.

Both laptops have displays that look fantastic for streaming purposes, complete with HDR capabilities. So you can finally figure out what happened during the Battle of Winterfell in Game of Thrones’ final season a decade later.

But the real difference between the OLED and Liquid Retina displays is most essential when doing photo and video color grading. The color accuracy and high contrast of the Zenbook Duo’s OLED panels makes it a better choice for subtle color tweaks compared to my aging MacBook Pro.

Dual panel editing is unbeatable

For years I’ve used a split-screen setup on my desktop’s 27-inch monitor, or rocked a dual monitor/dual device setup for work purposes. Because having extra screen space is never a bad thing.

But that always leaves me with the struggle of frantically switching tabs or relying on tiny multi-window setups on my laptops when travelling or commuting. It’s workable but it’s not ideal.

Enter the Zenbook Duo. While setting up with my two screens, detached keyboard, and stylus at the local coffee shop is a little aggressive for a quick cafe work session, the Duo’s redesign really makes it much easier to take a dual-screen laptop on the go and get all the functionality you need.

And having the second display makes writing, editing, email and calendar management a treat. But the real benefit is when I broke out some video editing I’d been putting off doing on my MacBook.

Not only did the Zenbook Duo have no issue splicing together two massive files in CapCut, running some color correction, adding some on-screen text, being able to reference my script notes while doing the edit pass provided an almost desktop-like experience. Despite being on a laptop in a cafe.

It was exactly the kind of experience upgrade that makes doing highly complicated tasks on a laptop feel so much easier. Add in the touchscreen controls for extra-fine tuning in photo and video editing, and the Zenbook Duo is a nearly unmatched creator laptop.

Traditional single screen laptops just can’t compare

For most users, a dual screen laptop is just bragging rights. It's cool to have but not the most essential item. So paying $2,099 (or $2,299 for our review spec), is a bit of a hard sell when a single-screen clamshell laptop is more than sufficient for their day to day uses.

But for content creators in need of a new laptop, the Zenbook Duo is almost essential. It’s easily portable, has two beautiful OLED displays, and despite lacking a discrete GPU, the Zenbook Duo is a graphics powerhouse on gaming, photo, and video editing tasks.

The only downfall of the Zenbook Duo is its high price-tag, but considering all the utility and performance you get with the Duo, the price isn’t as bad as it could be.

And for creators looking at high-end Macs or windows laptops with discrete GPUs, $2,299 isn’t out of the question. While a MacBook Pro M5 Max or content creator laptop with an Nvidia GPU may have a bit more raw horsepower to work with, the Zenbook Duo isn’t far behind in performance.

Of course, if you’re in need of some extra graphics power, the ROG Zephyrus Duo may be the better option. But unless you’re doing a lot of 3D design, the Zenbook Duo is powerful enough, and far more affordable. But any single-screen laptop just can’t compare when it comes to ease of editing on a dual-screen device like the Duo.

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