You can't judge a laptop by its appearance or advertised specs alone. As such, Mashable utilizes a thorough hands-on testing process to review and recommend the best laptops to our readers.
The bulk of this laptop testing happens as part of an everyday workflow wherein reviewers treat their testing units as daily drivers. We believe it's important to see exactly how a laptop functions in a real-world setting, not in a lab, to accurately capture the user experience.
We supplement these trial runs with industry-standard performance benchmarks. These are easily repeatable tests that produce scores we can use to quantify and compare different laptops' processing power. We also put every laptop through a battery life test, which varies depending on the type of laptop. For gaming laptops, we tack on two additional benchmarks that measure machines' graphical capabilities.
We record the findings of our testing in a rubric, and each laptop gets scored on a five-point scale on the basis of performance, design/build quality, battery life, and value. This rubric standardizes scoring across our laptop reviews and allows us to draw granular comparisons between models. A 0/5 is a flop that should be avoided at all costs, while a 5/5 is a laptop we can't live without. Any laptop that scores a 4.5/5 or higher receives a Mashable Choice Award.
The highest-scoring laptops are featured in our roundups of the best laptops, the best cheap laptops, the best Windows laptops, the best MacBooks, and the best gaming laptops.
Real-world usage
Laptops we receive for testing get put to work as our primary computers — ideally for up to a week, but at least for a full afternoon. Review periods can vary in length depending on factors like embargo times and usage restrictions. (Company security protocol prevents Mashable staffers from accessing our content management system on loaner laptops, for example.) However, we always make sure we're spending enough time with a laptop to get comfortable with its interface and to get a good sense of its real-world functionality. At a bare minimum, we use our loaners to work on different kinds of documents, check emails and social media, watch videos via YouTube, take selfies, participate in video calls, shop online, and listen to music via Spotify.
We also verify whether any of the laptops' available software features or unique use cases work as intended. If we're reviewing a gaming laptop, for example, we play games on it. (More on this later in the "Performance benchmarks" section.) If we're testing a Copilot+ PC, we try Windows Studio Effects and Cocreator in the Microsoft Paint app.
As we're using a laptop, we zero in on certain components to evaluate its build quality:
Overall design
The vast majority of laptops fall into one of two categories: traditional clamshell laptops with screens that fold down onto their keyboards, or 2-in-1 laptops with screens that rotate around their hinges or detach, giving them tablet functionality. (These are also called hybrid or convertible laptops.) Rare exceptions include the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2, which has a unique pull-forward design, and funky dual-screeners like the Asus Zenbook Duo and the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i.
When we first get a laptop in hand, we note its type and what material(s) it's made from: plastic and/or metal. (The former are generally lighter and cheaper, while the latter are more durable and premium-feeling.) We lightly press our fingertips around the laptop's chassis, feeling for any give, and move its display into different positions to see if it wobbles or creaks.
We'll pick the laptop up and hold it in our hands to get a feel for its heft (or lack thereof), gauging its portability based on its size, thickness, and weight. We look for lingering fingerprints as we handle the machine.
We also assess the aesthetics of the laptop — whether it's a flashy machine with metallic and chromatic accents, more minimalist and office-appropriate, or somewhere in between. We make sure to describe a laptop's appearance in detail and include supplementary photos.
Display
This is the part of the laptop you look at the most. Not everyone needs a luscious OLED display, but it needs to be reasonably nice.
When we're eyeballing a laptop's screen, we consider the vibrancy of its colors, the intensity of its contrast, and the crispness of its picture. (The higher the resolution, the more detailed it should look.) When we watch videos or play games on the laptop, we check for any lagging or stuttering; the higher the refresh rate, the smoother its visuals should be. We use the laptop in different environments to determine if its display is bright enough for use in both low light and direct sunlight, and we see whether it's ever distractingly reflective. We also note the thickness of the bezels surrounding the laptop's screen — thinner equals sleeker.
A touchscreen is a given on a 2-in-1, but some clamshell laptops have them, too. If a review unit features a touchscreen, we tap, pinch, and scroll on it with our fingers (or a stylus, if one's included) to see how responsive it is.
Keyboard
This is the part of the laptop you touch the most. Most users will need a small adjustment period to get used to typing on a new laptop, but long-term comfort is a must. A keyboard wins us over if it's satisfyingly snappy and clicky — not sticky, stiff, or overly crowded. We make note of any extra fixings, like backlighting (plain or RGB), a number pad, a fingerprint sensor, or hotkeys.
The laptop's touchpad should be reasonably spacious and equally comfortable to use: smooth, responsive, accurate, and easy to press.
Webcam
When we're taking selfies and participating in video calls on a laptop, we gauge whether the camera is clear or fuzzy, crispy or grainy, vivid or muddy, and capable of decent shots in low light. We see if its privacy shutter works, if it has one. And if the webcam supports features like background blur or live captioning, we give those a try.
This is one instance where hands-on testing is especially valuable because the webcam resolution listed on a laptop's spec sheet (usually 1080p, 5MP, or 9MP nowadays) is a bad indicator of its actual picture quality. We rarely encounter a truly excellent webcam.
Audio
We consider the laptop's audio quality as we listen to songs, watch videos, and sit in video calls. We give the highest marks to laptops with speakers that are reasonably loud, well-balanced, and rich-sounding, as opposed to tinny and quiet or muffled.
It's worth mentioning that bad speakers aren't total dealbreakers, since you can get around them by wearing headphones — but if you're spending a lot on a laptop, it should sound good on its own.
Ports
Ports are sockets and slots in the laptop's base where the user can plug in cables and external devices. We give preference to laptops that have a good mix of modern ports (like USB-C and HDMI) and legacy ports (like USB-A and Lightning). We flag whether they're located on both sides of the laptop, just on one side, and/or on the back side of it.
Performance benchmarks
We keep multiple apps and tabs open on the laptop during each testing session, paying close attention to its fan noise and surface temperature as we use it. We observe how long it takes for the laptop to bop between different tasks and what slows it down, if anything. We bolster these observations with benchmarks (or standardized, repeatable stress tests) that make it easy for us to compare different models across brands and generations.
We evaluate a laptop's overall performance by running the appropriate version of Primate Labs' Geekbench 6. (That would be macOS for MacBooks; Windows for Windows laptops, including gaming laptops; and Android for Chromebooks.) This test measures CPU performance in a handful of common tasks, and we record the resulting multi-core score. The higher the score, the better.
To get a sense of gaming laptops' graphical prowess, we also play Cyberpunk 2077 on them. We picked this game because it's a graphically intense Triple-A title that pushes many systems to their performance limits. If the laptop has a discrete/dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card, as opposed to an integrated GPU that's built into the CPU, we run Cyberpunk once with DLSS off and again with DLSS on using the High preset, each time at 1080p resolution without ray tracing. (DLSS, which stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling, is Nvidia's AI-based image upscaling technology.) This tests the machine's raw GPU power and its upscaled performance, respectively. We measure our frame rate in both situations using Windows' Game Bar feature and record it.
We follow this up with 3DMark's Time Spy benchmark for gaming PCs and record their scores. Again, higher is better.
Battery life benchmarks
A laptop's battery life depends on myriad factors, including processing power, display brightness, and the machine's primary usage. (Gaming sucks up a ton of juice, for instance.) With our simplified benchmark, we aim to give readers a general idea of how much battery life they can expect from a machine.
To assess a laptop's stamina, we conduct a battery rundown test that involves playing a looped 1080p version of Tears of Steel, a short open-source Blender movie, at 50 percent brightness and 50 percent volume. As soon as we start this loop, we begin recording a track on the audio app Audacity via a secondary device. We determine our final battery life estimate based on the minute when the Audacity track detects zero volume (i.e., when the laptop dies).
Ideally, we hope to get around 16.5 hours of battery life from the MacBooks we test, nine hours from Windows laptops, one hour from gaming laptops, and nine hours from Chromebooks. We've set these standards based on the median battery lives of the laptops in our testing database as of January 2025.
It comes down to value
After evaluating a laptop's everyday performance and benchmark testing results, we make our final recommendations based on whether we think it offers a good overall value for the money. We do so by comparing the quality of its components and its benchmark results to other laptops with similar pricing, release dates, and use cases. We take into account any accessories it comes with — a stylus for taking notes on its touchscreen, for example. We also put the laptop up against any predecessors it may have, factoring in upgrades that could justify a price bump. Finally, we consider the machine's potential longevity at the time of our review. A laptop with a newer CPU/GPU, plenty of RAM, a good amount of storage, the latest WiFi and Bluetooth technologies, and (best of all) upgradable components is a wise long-term investment.
A too-expensive laptop will sometimes get a pass if we think it's so well made, powerful, and future-proofed that it's worth the trouble of finding it on sale, but that's a rarity.
Why you should trust us
Mashable has been testing and reviewing laptops for over a decade. This guide is based on methodology designed by Senior Shopping Reporter Haley Henschel and former Tech Editor Kimberly Gedeon. Henschel has worked at Mashable since 2019 and covered laptops since 2023. In designing our methodology, she spoke with experts at our sister site PCMag who have decades of combined experience reviewing laptops. (Henschel also created our laptop testing rubric.) Gedeon was with Mashable from 2023 to 2024; at the time of her departure, she'd reviewed over 60 laptops throughout her career.
In the interest of transparency, we receive review units for testing directly from PC manufacturers or their marketing agencies, and we send the laptops back once we've finished trying them. This has zero impact on our ultimate recommendations or scores. We also include affiliate links in our laptop reviews and "best of" roundups, and may earn commission from these links to support our journalism. Reporters don't cover products or services based on whether they earn commission, nor do they receive any commission from their work. Reporters also don't write sponsored stories, which are handled by a separate team and clearly identified as such.
Final thoughts
We may try laptops that aren't market-ready at preview events and showcases, and write stories about them based on our first impressions. However, we only fully review models that are available for consumers to purchase directly through PC vendors and/or major retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. These are also the only contenders for our "best of" roundups. If you can't buy them, we don't recommend them.
Some of Mashable's older laptop reviews and "best of" roundups may not be based upon this methodology. Refer to the "How we tested" section at the bottom of each story to find out how we tested a particular laptop. We're a small team, but we do our best to make sure all of our most popular stories are updated at least every few months.
Lastly, we strive to have the most accurate and fair laptop reviews, so we're always looking out for better ways to test them. As such, we consider this to be a living document. If you have ideas on how we can improve our VPN testing process, or if you'd like us to test a new laptop, reach out to the Mashable Shopping Team at [email protected].
This guide was written by Senior Shopping Reporter Haley Henschel. It was edited by Global Shopping Editor Joe Green, Deputy Shopping Editor Miller Kern, former Shopping Editor Jae Thomas, and former Tech Editor Kimberly Gedeon. It was last updated in April 2025.