10 Best Small Laptops

The ASUS Zenbook S 13 is a premium, lightweight laptop, making it highly portable and suitable for on-the-go use, especially with its long battery life. With a midrange price, you're getting solid build quality, a vivid OLED touchscreen, and excellent heat management. It has an Intel i7-1355U processor paired with 32GB RAM, which will handle general use very efficiently. Its Intel Iris Xe graphics are fine for casual gaming and moderate creative tasks, but might fall short for intensive 3D rendering or engineering software. The laptop offers a good selection of ports, including Thunderbolt 4, and a comfortable backlit keyboard, although it lacks an Ethernet port and an option for hardware upgrades due to having no available RAM or storage slots.

The Apple MacBook Air (2022) is an excellent selection for general use with its silent operation, high-quality keyboard, and robust build. It is highly portable due to its lightweight design and has a long battery life. The display produces sharp and accurate colors but lacks touchscreen capabilities. This machine is equipped with an M2 chip and is superb for daily tasks, though it won't be ideal for intensive gaming or the most demanding engineering applications. It doesn't come cheap, but it offers a premium experience suitable for professionals seeking a balance between performance and mobility.

The Acer Swift 14 is a mid-range laptop with good performance for everyday tasks and some more demanding applications, thanks to its Intel i7 processor and 16 GB of RAM. It has a high-resolution display, making it suitable for those who appreciate sharp visuals. The laptop is reasonably light and thin, enhancing portability, but this can mean shorter battery life compared to others, which might be a concern if you need to work for long periods away from a power source. It doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, so while okay for casual gaming, it's not ideal for high-end gaming or intensive 3D work. The Acer Swift 14 runs on Windows 11 Home, offering the latest features and security updates.

The Apple MacBook Pro 13 (2022) sits at an upper midrange price point and is equipped with a 24GB RAM and 1TB storage space. It features the Apple M2 processor with a dedicated GPU from the same series, ensuring high-quality performance, particularly for general usage. The laptop boasts a 13.3-inch IPS display with a 2560 x 1600 resolution, which does not support touchscreen functionality. It has a 60Hz refresh rate, fine pixel density, and bright display with extensive color coverage, making it suitable for color-critical tasks. However, it's not optimized for high-refresh scenarios like competitive gaming. Its thin and light design, with a weight of 3 pounds and a thickness of just 0.61 inches, enhances its portability, yet it still provides a robust battery life of about 20 hours for typical use. The MacBook Pro includes two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports for versatile connectivity, though lacks Ethernet, HDMI, and expandable RAM or storage slots. The keyboard is backlit without a number pad but incorporates a fingerprint reader for added security. Its high ratings in various quality aspects such as keyboard, build, and heat management reflect an overall premium design, although its performance for 3D rendering, machine learning, and engineering tasks is considered good but not top-tier compared to specialized workstations. This makes it more suited for professionals and creatives who prioritize design, battery life, and general performance over gaming or highly intensive computational tasks.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (Late 2023) is an upper midrange laptop offering a high-resolution Mini LED screen, a powerful Apple M3 processor with integrated GPU, and a long 17-hour battery life. It excels in general use and has a high-quality build, keyboard, webcam, and speakers. While it can handle 3D and engineering tasks, its performance there is adequate rather than exceptional. Its 8 GB of RAM and 1024 GB of storage are suitable for many users, though not for the most intensive tasks. It's relatively lightweight and portable, but this also means it might not have the expansive connectivity options of larger laptops.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2023) is considered an upper midrange-priced laptop, well-regarded for its build quality, keyboard, webcam, and speaker performance. It boasts 512GB storage, 16GB RAM, and Apple's M2 Pro chip with a 10-core CPU and a 16-core GPU, making it powerful for general use and engineering tasks but fair for 3D and machine learning applications. With a Mini LED display, a high resolution, and 120 Hz refresh rate it offers a premium viewing experience, though it is not a touchscreen. This model has a solid battery life, offering 13.5 hours of typical usage and is moderately portable at 3.5 pounds. It includes features such as a backlit keyboard, a fingerprint reader, and USB-C charging, yet lacks an ethernet port and the performance for intensive gaming. Suitable for professionals and creatives needing high performance and excellent screen quality, this MacBook might not be the first choice for gamers or those requiring machine learning capabilities.