Hiring the right employee is a formidable decision for any business. So is choosing the best laptop for work: You need something that's durable, secure, powerful, light, and capable of lasting through a long workday—and you have countless options. We've scanned our recent reviews and winnowed down our favorite notebooks for getting work done, but as we'll explain in detail after the following picks, selecting from even this subset requires care. Not every laptop matches how you or your employees work, or what you do.
Take a look at some of the best options available, and then read on to learn the fine points of everything from IT management and deployment to secure logins and durable chassis and keyboards. Business laptops work harder than civilian consumer models (and usually cost more), but your business deserves nothing less.
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon has racked up rave reviews and PCMag Editors' Choice awards since its debut; we've officially ranked it alongside its ultraportable archrival, the Dell XPS 13, as one of the two best laptops you can buy in any category. With more enterprise features and more business cred than the elite-consumer XPS 13, this 14-inch classic stands as what our latest review called "the most desirable executive notebook on Earth." Whether you're looking for outstanding battery life, one of the finest keyboards around, or convenient HDMI and USB Type-A ports as well as the USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports found on the Dell, the 2.5-pound Carbon delivers. Our only quibbles with the Gen 9 model were its premium price and lack of an OLED screen option (both of which the Gen 10 edition offers).
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the archetype, the ne plus ultra, of a lightweight business traveler. It's not a very good gaming rig or your best bet for CPU-intensive architectural or engineering work, but there's no better productivity laptop on the planet.
Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Pro looks pretty much like the same aluminum slab introduced in 2016—its 2,560-by-1,600-pixel Retina display can't match the resolution of many newer models' screens, and it's odd to see the mostly maligned Touch Bar still hanging around above the keyboard after its quiet removal from other MacBooks. But under the hood, the new M2 processor gives this three-pounder performance that tops the older Apple M1 and most Intel CPUs, and the Pro's battery life is amazing—nearly 22 hours in our tests, with few Windows laptops even in the same ballpark.
Graphic designers and content creation professionals will lean toward the larger 16-inch MacBook Pro (available with the M1 Max processor, which is more than a match for the first M2), but businesspeople who want macOS in a trim, tidy package will be happy with the 13.
The ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 isn't Lenovo's flagship mobile workstation—it's not quite as powerful and expandable as the ThinkPad P15. It's no weakling, however, with plenty of CPU and GPU power including a choice of Intel's Core i7, Core i9, and Xeon processors and both Nvidia's GeForce and professional RTX A-series graphics options. Its 16-inch IPS screen is exceptionally bright and colorful, with razor-sharp 3,840-by-2,400 resolution available. And as a ThinkPad, it packs everything from MIL-STD 810G sturdy construction to the famous TrackPoint pointer (an alternative to its responsive touchpad). All this in a chassis that's thinner and easier to carry (at 4 versus 6.3 pounds) than the P15 makes it a winner.
Its seven-hour battery life isn't fabulous, but the ThinkPad P1 is a first-rate mix of portability and power for design, 3D rendering, engineering, or scientific apps. Unless you crave ultimate muscle (in which case you might as well get a bulky, heavy 17.3-inch workstation), the P1 is an A-1 pick.
Does your company buy laptops by the hundred or thousand instead of a few at a time? Well, your next enterprise deployment won't be any smoother than the Dell Latitude 7420, a 14-inch corporate champion available in both standard clamshell laptop and 2-in-1 convertible form. It's a better buy than the company's flagship Latitude 9000 series, combining excellent performance, long battery life, and near-endless configurability with options ranging from Intel vPro processors to LTE mobile broadband for keeping in touch when away from Wi-Fi hotspots.
Even if you opt for the carbon fiber rather than aluminum version, the Latitude 7420 is slightly heavier than Lenovo's legendary ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but it's a fleet (in both senses of the word) notebook with more "have it your way" choices than Burger King. Corporate IT managers will be delighted.
Like Panasonic's Toughbooks, Dell's Latitude Rugged laptops are available in both fully rugged and semi-rugged flavors—able to survive drops of six versus three feet, among other differences. The Latitude 5430 is a semi-rugged model, so it's probably more suited for field workers and first responders than actual combat troops, but it's still plenty tough. This 14-inch workhorse is much lighter and easier to carry than many rugged notebooks (4.35 pounds), but its MIL-STD 810H and IP53 credentials reassure you that it won't break down when subjected to outdoor or factory-floor abuse.
The Latitude 5430's touch-screen display, connectivity and I/O ports, and customization and security options are all above average. It's not actually bulletproof and won't work underwater, but it's more than able to keep you productive and in touch when things get rough.
Officially, the economy model for engineering students and other budget-conscious customers of HP's mobile workstation family is the ZBook Power, but the ZBook Firefly 15 G8's light weight (3.74 pounds), impressive battery life, spiffy 4K screen, and 5G broadband connectivity make it our top pick. As you'd expect, its processor and graphics options stop short of the heavyweight ZBook Fury's—its top CPU has only four instead of six or eight cores—but it can tackle all kinds of jobs, with all the independent software vendor (ISV) certifications for specialized apps of its bigger brothers.
We admit the ZBook Firefly isn't the lowest-priced mobile workstation available, but it strikes a swell balance of affordability, portability, and power for 2D and mild 3D design and other professional and creative needs.
Is it a mobile workstation? Is it a digital content creator's laptop? Is it a gaming machine? Yes! The ZBook Studio G8 is the chameleon in HP's workstation lineup, available with your choice of an Nvidia professional GPU (one of the RTX A-series formerly known as Quadro) or Nvidia GeForce gaming graphics. (If you're wondering which side of the fence it tilts toward, it has an RGB-rainbow-backlit keyboard like deluxe gaming rigs.) At 3.96 pounds, the Studio is barely heavier than the ZBook Firefly but offers more powerful configurations, including a spectacular 4K OLED touch screen and the arguably even more spectacular 4K DreamColor non-touch panel we loved on the flagship ZBook Fury 15.
Its maximum 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage, though plenty for most professionals, are a little light by serious workstation standards, but the ZBook Studio G8 is a sensational pick as a creative desktop replacement for graphic design and photo and video editing and streaming. And if you want to play the latest games after 5 p.m., we won't stop you.
Lenovo's ThinkBook laptops don't get the fame and acclaim of its corporate ThinkPads, but they do an amazing job of pleasing the small- and midsize-office professionals they're created for. The ThinkBook 14s Yoga is a 2-in-1 convertible whose keyboard flips and folds under its 14-inch display to switch from laptop to tablet mode (or pauses in between for presentation easel or kiosk modes). Considering that it starts under $1,000, the ThinkBook 14s Yoga has no reason whatever to feel inferior to the fancier ThinkPad X1 Yoga—it's a good-looking, well-built hybrid with great performance and battery life and a handy stylus pen for sketching, scribbling, and annotating.
If we're picking nits, the 14s is a little heavy to hold in tablet mode (3.3 pounds), and it could use a few more nits of screen brightness. But otherwise, it's a flat-out bargain and a near-ideal choice for SMB workers seeking a versatile, flexible productivity partner.
Yes, Lenovo's 2.5-pound ThinkPad X1 Carbon is our favorite business laptop and a 14-inch wonder that's won every award there is. But if you don't mind its slightly smaller 13-inch screen—and there's no reason you should mind it; its 2,160-by-1,350-pixel panel is beautifully bright and clear—the ThinkPad X1 Nano is a ridiculously light 1.99 pounds, so easy to carry you'll literally forget it's in your briefcase. It's a brilliant grab-and-go productivity partner.
Like Apple's MacBook Air and Dell's XPS 13, the X1 Nano is short on ports (it has Thunderbolt/USB-C but not HDMI or an SD card slot), so it's a poor choice as a desktop replacement. But frequent fliers seeking the utmost in portability will cheer its fine display and keyboard and 18.5-hour battery life.
Most 2-in-1 laptop/tablet combos are convertibles whose keyboards fold behind their screens. The 13-inch Microsoft Surface Pro 8 is the king of detachables, genuine tablets that jettison their keyboards altogether for handheld convenience (just 1.96 pounds) yet have all the power of full-fledged laptops. Once you get past its glaring flaw—a premium price, made super-premium by Microsoft's charging extra for the keyboard cover and stylus pen—the Surface Pro 8 is a genuine laptop alternative that excels at sketching and annotating, with a handy kickstand, great 1080p webcam, and impressive performance and battery life.
The Pro's Type Cover and kickstand are both as good as detachable accessories get, but the device is still happier on a desk than in your lap in laptop mode. Otherwise, its best-in-class design and build quality make the Surface Pro 8 (and the Surface Pro 8 for Business with LTE mobile broadband support) the definitive Windows tablet.
Every laptop benefits from a speedy CPU, bright screen, comfortable keyboard, and long battery life. But the makers of business models add features to meet specific office needs such as secure logins (via biometric fingerprint readers or facial recognition or SmartCard IDs) and sturdy designs that have passed MIL-STD 810G or the even more severe 810H tests against road hazards like shock and vibration. (First responders and field workers may require even tougher rugged laptops.)
IT departments appreciate fleet deployment and remote manageability functions like those offered by laptops with Intel vPro processors and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) support for secure access. Enterprises also prefer Windows 11 Pro over the consumer-oriented Windows 11 Home (or sometimes a business-focused Linux distribution) and look for laptops with less bloatware or fewer extraneous bundled programs. With so many thin black and silver notebooks on the market, business machines tend to look samey, but the differences that matter most to office users tend to be below the surface, inside the chassis.
The line between tablets and laptops is also blurring in the business-machine world. Once the two were separated by operating systems, but there are now several tablets aimed at businesses that run true versions of Windows. Some of these tablets even have physical, detachable keyboards.
But make no mistake, in the business sphere, conventional clamshell-style laptops still rule, and choosing the right one can determine whether you run a company that's successful or one that suffers from too much downtime. Let's walk through essential business-laptop features, the components you'll need, and—also important—how to distinguish between a business laptop and a consumer one.
Today, processors with four or more cores are widely available to handle both everyday email checking and more strenuous business applications. Many business laptops use Intel's latest 11th Generation "Tiger Lake" processors, and 12th Generation "Alder Lake" processors are just hitting the market, though models with the previous 10th Generation "Ice Lake" and "Comet Lake" chips remain widely available and are plenty capable for mainstream productivity tasks. Truly demanding workflows will need hexa-core units like the latest top-end Core i7 and Core i9 CPUs. You can even find eight-core Core i9 chips, previously limited to desktops, in some larger workstation-grade machines meant for designers, engineers, and serious data crunchers. AMD-based laptops, employing the Ryzen Pro series of CPUs, remain uncommon but have started to infiltrate some classic business-laptop lines, such as Lenovo's ThinkPad.
At the other end of the spectrum are power-saving processors such as Intel's Y-series Core (now phasing out of laptops in the market) and Pentium and Celeron chips in tablets and ultraportable laptops. These ultra-low-wattage processors are often marketed alongside higher-performance chips; look for the "Y" in the chip name (if it's a Core chip) to tell the difference. Really, though, Core Y, Celeron, and Pentium CPUs may prove a bit underpowered for everyday productivity work if you tend to multitask, with lots of programs open at once.
Mainstream business laptops employ Intel's Core i3, i5, and i7 U-Series processors, and these will end in either a "U" or with a "G3," "G4," or "G7," indicating the relative strength of the on-chip graphics. (Intel's naming style of U-series chips has flip-flopped over the last few generations.) Getting into laptop-processor specifics can get you pretty deep in the weeds, but for a good overview that doesn't overwhelm, check out our guide to choosing a laptop CPU that fits what you do.
A few business laptops you'll see will sport Intel Xeon processors, or the option for them. These are mobile workstations, and they're designed to run specialized software in fields such as financial modeling, engineering, and graphic design that require the ultimate in both power and constant-grinding reliability. They're typically more expensive—and have far shorter battery life—than mainstream business laptops powered by Intel's Core CPUs. Only choose one of these if you need to run a specialized app that requires that kind of specific CPU support. Otherwise, an Intel Core i7 or Core i9 will offer similar performance, and typically lower prices and better battery life.
Also, look for absolutely no less than 8GB of RAM if shopping for a PC for a rank-and-file worker, but go for 16GB if at all possible. (Graphic artists and spreadsheet ninjas should aim for 16GB as their absolute minimum.) The right amount of memory allows you to keep more programs, windows, and browser tabs open at once, as well as perform multimedia processes (such as editing photos) faster.
With businesses using video, multimedia PowerPoint slides, and multi-megapixel photos in staff meetings virtual and in-person, opting for a spacious drive is a good idea. If you're going to go with a traditional platter drive, a 1TB hard drive is a good balance between economy and space.
That said, we're huge fans of solid-state boot drives, and almost all business laptops have moved over to them at this point. While pricier and more meager in their storage capacities, solid-state drives (SSDs) don't have any spinning parts and are therefore better suited to take a licking on the road. SSD-equipped systems also boot and launch apps more quickly. If you'll travel or commute much with your laptop and don't need maximal storage capacity, an SSD is the right choice. SSDs tend to be pricier than hard drives, which means that you'll likely be looking at 256GB or 512GB capacities to maximize your budget.
Optical drives have all but disappeared on business laptops. If you need to retrieve older files or records stored on CDs or DVDs, an external drive can help; that's a smarter move than buying a bulky laptop equipped with an optical drive if you know you're not quite done shuffling discs yet.
Most business PCs come with integrated graphics chips, which are a lightweight graphics-acceleration solution that's part of the main CPU. These integrated GPUs are usually fine for business laptops, since you won't be playing 3D games on a computer meant for work. (Right?) Most professionals who require discrete graphics will use them for specialized tasks such as GPU acceleration in Photoshop, high-definition video creation in Adobe Premiere Pro, or 3D graphics visualization in architectural drawings and CAD software. Mobile-workstation-class laptops will usually come with some sort of discrete graphics, either for their 3D capabilities or to drive multiple monitors.
When evaluating graphics solutions, it's easy to tell what tier of business laptop you're looking at. Integrated graphics silicon is usually dubbed "Intel HD Graphics," "Intel UHD Graphics," "Iris Plus," or "Iris Xe" and indicates a mainstream business machine. (Iris Xe indicates the most up-to-date silicon inside; Radeon Graphics is what you get in the rare AMD Ryzen Pro-based business machines.) In contrast to integrated solutions, the most common dedicated graphics chips in laptops, as a whole, are from Nvidia's GeForce line, but they are not usual fare in business machines. GeForce GTX or RTX chips tend to be reserved for higher-end consumer or gaming systems, though some business machines will include one of Nvidia's lesser GeForce MX chips to give graphics a little boost. A higher-end workstation machine will tend to use dedicated graphics chips from Nvidia's RTX A series (formerly known as Quadro) or (rarely) AMD's Radeon Pro line.
As for the display panel, LCD screens with 1,366-by-768-pixel resolution are still available if you're trying to save some money on your laptop, but avoid them. Your eyes will thank you for upgrading to at least a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel display that makes use of in-plane switching (IPS) technology. This combination will ensure that you have plenty of space for displaying many columns of numbers in Excel or arranging many windows on the screen at once, and that your coworkers will be able to see them from any angle while clustering around your desk.
For graphics or scientific work, a 3K or 4K display provides more real estate still, as well as sharper text and more detailed visuals. Though these are still fairly uncommon fixtures on business laptops, they're emerging at least as options in some isolated models, and worth the money if your job will make use of extra pixels. Just know that, all else being equal, a high-resolution screen will drain battery life more rapidly than a lower-res one of the same base technology.
A strong wireless-connectivity loadout is essential in any business machine these days. Offices, airports, and client sites demand wireless connectivity for access to real-time email, messaging clients, and cloud services. Few businesspeople work fully local anymore.
Every laptop these days has some flavor of Wi-Fi built in. It should get you satisfactory throughput, but you have to find a hotspot or an unprotected network to surf the web. Look for dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi for the best flexibility for your IT organization. The most common kind nowadays, 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), runs primarily on 5GHz networks, but it will work with 2.4GHz networks as a fallback. Offices in high-density buildings may wish to use the less-populated 5GHz bands, as the 2.4GHz channels tend to get more crowded. Some budget business laptops still sport older 802.11ac Wi-Fi; these may offer less reliable connections but are still adequate for most small and medium businesses.
Don't discount good old Ethernet entirely: You'll still need it for crowded conferences where the Wi-Fi is saturated. So, if your laptop is too thin to house an Ethernet jack, a USB-to-Ethernet adapter is a worthwhile investment. (One might come in the box.)
These difficulties are, in part, why some business laptops have built-in mobile-broadband wireless modems as options. They work in tandem with available cellular networks to bring broadband speeds to your laptop wherever there's a cellular signal available. You can configure many business laptops with one of these modems integrated for a nominal fee; this option is one of the key distinguishing features of business laptops.
Mobile data plans to use with the laptop, on the other hand, don't come cheap. Depending on whether or not you have an existing plan, rates can run as high as $60 to $80 per month. A 4G LTE or 5G wireless connection will give you transfer speeds rivaling what you get from a Wi-Fi connection, and they're available from the top cellular networks with the most coverage, notably AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Mobile hotspots and smartphone tethering are also available in case you don't want to buy internal modems for all your employees; they're a quick fix if you only need mobile internet part-time.
A big battery can be your best friend on a lengthy flight or a long commute. Business laptops usually come with multiple battery options. Some enterprise-class laptops have two or three different kinds of batteries (four-, six-, and nine-cell options). More cells means longer battery life, all else being equal. The "equal" is the tricky part; this isn't always the case with laptops that use 4K displays or other power-hungry components. A big battery adds some heft, but being able to run it unplugged from dawn 'til dusk is worth the weight gain.
Most ultraportable laptops have non-removable, sealed-in-the-chassis batteries. Laptops with removable batteries do still exist, but they are increasingly uncommon, limited mostly to rugged tablets and laptops designed for extreme conditions.
If you think you'll need more battery life than a single charge can offer, look for an external battery pack rather than limiting yourself to a model with a swappable internal battery. Combined with the internal battery, these external solutions can help deliver battery life in the 19-to-24-hour range. Just be forewarned that these extra-life batteries can weigh down your system by an extra pound or more.
Price and portability are arguably the biggest reasons why a business might consider a Windows-based tablet for work. Some tablets sell for less than $500 and can easily adapt into a corporate environment. While specialized (read: expensive) tablets have been in vertical markets, such as health care, for years, the ubiquity of the Apple iPad means that people are used to carrying a computer that doesn't have a physical keyboard or that uses a detachable, basic one.
Look for a Windows tablet if you need to run in-house or third-party apps that were originally created for PCs. True enterprise-class tablets running Windows are still evolving, but most business users expect their work computers to behave the same as their personal tablets. Apple fans will have to be content with using the iPad or iPad Pro for business, as a tablet-optimized version of macOS doesn't exist.
Most Windows tablets are built to surf the web, run Office apps, and perform other very light computing tasks, but they are also compatible with the gamut of security applications, VPN and email clients, and countless hardware peripherals such as printers, scanners, and network-attached storage (NAS) devices. We wouldn't run an entire business on a tablet, but one can be a nice take-along unit for an offsite meeting or used as a portable alternative to your 6-pound big-screen bruiser of a workstation. Microsoft (the Surface line) and Lenovo are the key players in this market for business Windows tablets.
With the cloud becoming omnipresent in our computing lives at both work and home, Chromebooks are more viable options than ever for laptops devoted to work activity. These laptops are restricted to using Google's Chrome OS, which began as a souped-up version of the popular web browser. Android apps from the Google Play Store (such as the Microsoft Office suite or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) extend Chromebooks' abilities, but they often lack features found on the Windows-based versions of the same programs. Businesses that run their core applications on the Google suite may find Chromebooks useful under certain circumstances, though, as emailing and communications stations.
If web-based collaboration is key to your workflow, a Chromebook could be enough, and because Chromebooks don't need powerful hardware to run most web apps, they generally cost a lot less than other business laptops. Some Chromebooks designed for work do have beefier processors and more memory. Our general takeaway, though, is that under most circumstances, they tend to work better as adjunct than primary machines in most businesses.
Take some time to consider the nature of your particular job. Doing so should point you toward the ideal business laptop. Paying a little extra for more power or capabilities now will save you headaches down the road. The added value of a longer warranty (some business laptops come with three years), specialized tech support, and a more ruggedized frame (fortified by carbon fiber or magnesium alloy) are some of the extra benefits you may get with a business laptop.
If your work is graphics-intensive, you'll want to opt for a laptop with discrete graphics. When choosing a processor, you'll have to find the right balance between power for your applications and energy efficiency, and in selecting a battery, you'll need to choose between its capacity and weight. When you determine the best features for your needs, you can focus on just those laptops that incorporate them. And that's where our deep-dive reviews come in.
Our current favorite business laptops are laid out below. We refresh the list often to include the newest products, and because of the large number of laptops we review every year, not every top-rated product makes the cut. For more, also see our overall top laptop picks, and if money is tight, our roundup of the best budget laptops is worth a read.
If you're looking to fully outfit your work area, also check out our takes on the best business monitors, plus our favorite ergonomic keyboards and printers.
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