PerfectRec’s General Use Score takes into account the many different features of the laptop that make it more or less suitable for general productivity, web browsing, streaming, video calls, and running a wide variety of apps and programs. The most important factors in this score include CPU performance, amount of RAM, screen quality, storage, and battery life. Keyboard quality, speaker quality, low fan noise, heat management, and to a lesser extent webcam quality are all moderately important factors for this score.

PerfectRec’s Software Development Score takes into account the many different features of the laptop that make it more or less suitable for software development. In addition to a strong emphasis on overall performance, this score also places very high importance on screen quality. Heat management, storage, keyboard and speaker quality are also incorporated, with fan noise rounding out this score.

PerfectRec’s Content Creation Score takes into account the many different features of the laptop that make it more or less suitable for photo editing, and video editing work. In addition to a strong emphasis on overall performance, this score also places very high importance on screen quality. Heat management, storage, keyboard and speaker quality are also incorporated, with fan noise rounding out this score.

PerfectRec’s Engineering and Design Score takes into account the many different features of the laptop that make it more or less suitable for graphic design, CAD and 3D work. In addition to a strong emphasis on overall performance, this score also places very high importance on screen quality. Heat management, storage, keyboard and speaker quality are also incorporated, with fan noise rounding out this score.

PerfectRec’s Battery Life rating is based on hours of battery life in typical usage scenarios.

PerfectRec’s portability rating takes into account the volume and thickness of the laptop as well as its weight.

PerfectRec’s Operating Noise Score is based on fan noise measurements. Laptops with a fanless design, such as Macbooks, receive the maximum score.

PerfectRec’s Build Quality Score incorporates case materials, display and keyboard flex, hinge quality, chassis rigidity, and overall reliability. Our assessment of build quality includes many details that are difficult to quantify. Our laptop experts use their best judgment to produce the final score.

The Keyboard Quality score is based on the PerfectRec experts’ assessment of tactile feedback, typing comfort, keyboard reliability and typing noise.

PerfectRec’s Gaming and AI Score strongly emphasizes graphics processing capability as well as AI performance, while also taking into account other factors that impact suitability for gaming and AI work. While performance (especially graphics performance) is the most important factor determining this score, we also give modest weight to screen quality, heat management, keyboard quality, and storage.

The general use screen score is based on the screen technology, contrast ratio, resolution, brightness, color gamut and color accuracy. This score does not take into account specialized display features for specific use cases, such as high refresh rate for gaming.