I've used the best 13-inch laptops for the better part of 15 years now — starting with that white plastic MacBook back in the day. And in 2024, out of the 50+ laptops we review every year, five ultraportable machines give you that perfect blend of big performance, strong battery life and value for money.
Right now, my go to recommendation is Apple's MacBook Air M3 — the best 13-inch laptop for most folks because it's light and easy to carry, yet packs great speed and remarkable battery life thanks to Apple's M3 chip. If you prefer Windows, the Dell XPS 13 is a great choice. While I'm not a huge fan of the laptop's design, I can't dispute its performance and remarkable MacBook-beating battery life.
What I am a huge fan of is an owner's right to repair or tinker with their PC, which is why I recommend DIY types check out the Framework Laptop 13: it's a workhorse 13-inch laptop designed so the average owner can easily swap out ports, components, and even the screen, keyboard and webcam.
Read on for a detailed breakdown of why we recommend these and more as the best 13-inch laptops you can get right now.
The quick list
In a hurry? Here's a brief overview of the laptops on this list, along with quick links that let you jump down the page directly to a review of whichever laptop catches your eye.
The MacBook Air M3 is the best 13-inch laptop for the money. The M3 chip delivers speedy performance, the Air's display is brighter than ever, and battery life exceeds 15 hours.
Dell's XPS 13 (2024) is an elegant ultraportable with a great screen, speedy performance and MacBook-beating battery life. The capacitive touch row can be a stumbling block and the fact that it's an Arm laptop limits what software runs well, yet this remains the best 13-inch Windows laptop for most.
The Asus ProArt PX13 is a mini creativity powerhouse of a 2-in-1 — packing one of the best OLED displays we've ever seen on a super-versatile shell. On top of this, the top-of-the-line AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX and RTX 40-series combo makes it a monster for performance too
The 13-inch Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is a premium Chromebook that will get you through a day of work or school for not much money. The 2021 model is our favorite, and despite its aging internals the bright QLED touchscreen still makes it feel premium. It looks even nicer if you can find one in the fetching Fiesta Red color scheme.
The Framework Laptop is a truly unique ultraportable that's remarkably repairable and upgradeable. It's basically the anti-MacBook, designed to be easy to upgrade and repair while delivering style and performance without compromise. Plus, the unique Expansion Card system is a must-see.
Jason brings a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza (if he isn't already).
The best 13-inch laptops you can buy today
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The best 13-inch laptop overall
Who is this for?
The M3 MacBook Air is an ideal laptop for most people — packing enough power in its chipset to get most work done with impressive power efficiency for all-day battery life, while being backed into a sleek, slim shell.
Why is it the best overall 13-inch laptop?
Put simply, this is the best overall pick because of what exactly this impossibly thin and light 13-inch laptop can actually do. The M3 chip was a true breakthrough for performance and power efficiency, as you can easily get over 15 hours on one charge. Pack all of that into a gorgeous shell with great ergonomics and a top-tier display and you're onto a winner.
What do we like?
👍 Impressive M3 performance: Apple's laptop excelled in all of our benchmarks — scoring over 12,000 in Geekbench 6's multi-core score, and being even better now with the base model configuration now getting 16GB of RAM over 8GB.
👍 Strong battery life: Make no mistake about it. This is one of the stamina champs of this list — lasting just over 15 hours on one charge in our own testing.
👍 Premium, alluring design: This aluminum unibody just exudes a luxury vibe from every angle, and it feels confidently durable because of it too.
What don’t we like?
👎 Improvements over M2 are marginal: The difficulty with Apple Silicon is when you get into the nitty gritty of comparing the last chip to the new one, the improvements are iterative. That was especially so between M2 and M3 MacBook Air.
Bottom line
The M3 MacBook Air is an easy winner as the best 13-inch laptop — giving you everything you want and need in one stellar shell that is sure to last you a good long while.
Read our full MacBook Air 13-inch M3 review.
The best 13-inch Windows laptop
Who is this for?
The Dell XPS 13 is also great for most folks if Windows is more your vibe. The excellent build quality, Snapdragon performance and battery life make this another fantastic option.
Why is it the best 13-inch Windows laptop?
There's one reason why the Dell XPS 13 is the best 13-inch laptop sporting Windows: Snapdragon X Elite. Yes, you can get one with Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 chip inside — but for the best combination of raw horsepower and longevity on one charge, Snapdragon X Elite is the way to go.
What do we like?
👍 Shocking Snapdragon performance: That Snapdragon X Elite chipset packs enough power to make even Apple blush — with Geekbench 6 multi-core scores soaring over 14,500.
👍 Long battery life: You thought the MacBook Air's battery life was good? Try 19 hours and 41 minutes on one charge! Yep, this Windows laptop can hang.
👍 Gorgeous display: Yes, you can get an OLED display on the XPS 13, but the LCD InfinityEdge panel is no slouch. It's both bright and vivid, while helping aid that battery life.
What don’t we like?
👎 The lack of physical function keys and a visible touchpad area is...a choice: There's a lot to like about the sleek aesthetic the Dell XPS 13 gives off here, but the lack of function keys is disappointing. And on top of that, there's no border around the touchpad, which you can feel a little lost trying to find at times.
Bottom line
If you can workaround Dell's odd user design choices here, this is the best XPS 13 that the company has ever released. That Snapdragon X Elite chip is a mini wonder that makes this a great small Windows laptop.
Read our full Dell XPS 13 review.
The best 13-inch 2-in-1 laptop
Who is this for?
The Asus ProArt PX13 (as the name suggests) is for the pro artists. The OLED display, beasty AMD Ryzen AI 9 chipset and RTX 4070 graphics make the case for this being the small MacBook Pro 2-in-1 that I always wanted.
Why is it the best 13-inch 2-in-1?
Asus' mini beast does three things exceedingly well — that 3K OLED panel is a amongst one of the best I've ever seen on a 13-inch laptop, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a seriously monstrous performer alongside the RTX 4070 GPU, and all of this is crammed into a portable design with a lovely-feeling keyboard.
What do we like?
👍 A super-powered beast: AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and RTX 4070 pairing in here makes this not just a power-packed machine for all prosumer tasks, but it can handle games capably too.
👍 Beautiful OLED screen: Yes, brightness may not be at the top of the charts at 350 nits in our testing, but that color-calibrated OLED brings a crispy 3K resolution and immersive contrast.
👍 Thoughtful design: 2-in-1 laptops can be a design challenge that makes for sacrifices in the ergonomics in favor of rigidity. The Asus ProArt PX13 gives you the best of both worlds — a seriously premium aesthetic and durable hinge, with a fantastically tactile keyboard and touchpad.
What don’t we like?
👎 Only 60Hz on the display: I get this is not for the gamers, so a faster refresh rate isn't exactly necessary. But come on, Asus! There are OLED laptops far cheaper than this $1,699 machine that have 120Hz.
Bottom line
With nearly 10 hours of battery life, an immersive display and impressive power, the Asus ProArt PX13 came from outta nowhere to become our best 2-in-1 laptop — provided you can afford its steep price tag.
Read our full Asus ProArt PX13 review.
The best 13-inch Chromebook
Who is this for?
If your workload doesn't need the vast swathes of software that Windows 11 and macOS sport (working in Google Docs over Office for example), the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is the 13-inch choice for you.
Why is it the best 13-inch Chromebook?
Samsung's Galaxy Chromebook 2 gives you the best ChromeOS experience in a premium aluminum construction. The QLED touchscreen panel is a joy to use for work and movie-watching, and the ever-increasing list of OS features (thanks to all the new Gemini opportunities) make this a great laptop.
What do we like?
👍 Gorgeous design and display: That machined aluminum construction looks great to the eye and feels great in the hand. But what looks even better to the eye is that mesmerizing 1080p QLED display. It is vivid and bright, with some nice crispy texture.
👍 Long battery life: With nearly 8 hours of battery in our test, you can have confidence in this lasting a whole day of work. This is thanks to Samsung shifting away from the 4K AMOLED you found in the original Galaxy Chromebook, which also cuts the price pretty dramatically too.
👍 Solid performance: You've seen Snapdragon and Apple silicon grace this list, so seeing this has an Intel Core i3 may be a little jarring. But given the far reduced demands of ChromeOS, this feels zippy to use.
What don’t we like?
👎 Inputs are inconsistent: The touchscreen is good most of the time, but some touches do go ignored first time around. On top of that, the keyboard does feel a little shallow underneath your fingers.
Bottom line
All-in-all, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 is a great 13-inch Chromebook for you to daily-drive. There are some drawbacks in terms of that keyboard and the fact it is ChromeOS. But if you are invested in Google's laptop OS, this is one of the best ways to experience it with that QLED panel in an aluminum construction.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 review.
The best 13-inch laptop for DIYers
Who is this for?
The Framework Laptop is the option for those with a DIY frame of mind — the modular construction may be a little pricey, but it's totally worth it for being able to upgrade this frame with new stuff as it's released.
Why is it the best 13-inch laptop for DIYers?
In many ways, the Framework Laptop is the anti-MacBook — a modular 13-inch laptop that gives you the chance to repair, customize and upgrade at your own leisure. No longer are you confined to what it comes with. Now, you have a screwdriver and you can get to work.
What do we like?
👍 Unparalleled upgradeability: The DIY-friendly design may be a little thicker and heavier than other laptops on this list. But those enlarged dimensions give you an innovative Expansion Card system to add what you want. Whatever you want, be it an Ethernet port or microSD card reader, just add them in here. Or take it apart with the included screwdriver to add more to the mainboard.
👍 Great keyboard: One thing I'm really happy to see come to this 13-incher is a fantastic keyboard — packing even backlighting and 1.5mm of key travel for a tactile feel to each press.
👍 Decent performance: The model we tested with the Intel core i7-1370P CPU and 32GB of RAM gave us some strong performance across the board, including over 11,000 in our Geekbench multi-core tests. It's worth noting that Framework now offers this system with either Intel Core Ultra or 7th Gen AMD, which are going to be even faster!
What don’t we like?
👎 Loud fans under load: The modularity is great, but heat dissipation seems to be affected, as the fans kick into overdrive to keep this thing cool under heavier loads.
Bottom line
In many ways, the Framework Laptop 13 is a breakthrough in laptop design — a fully modular system that gives you endless levels of customization beyond anything you see from the competition. I wouldn't judge you if you'd rather just have a fully built laptop to last you a good long while, but if you're a tinkerer, the choice is obvious.
Read our full Framework Laptop 13 review.
Battery benchmarks: comparison
Battery life is one of the key things you should look at when deciding which laptop to buy, which is why we run every laptop we review through a series of battery tests to see how long it lasts on a full charge.
These tests do not reflect real-world use patterns since we have to set every laptop to the same settings in order to do fair comparisons. Thus, while the times listed here are accurate and useful as a comparison point, your own experience with a laptop's battery life will likely vary.
This is because when we run our battery test we set the laptop's display to 150 nits of brightness and have it endlessly browse the web via Wi-Fi until it dies. However, when you use your laptop you're likely adjusting brightness on the fly, doing all sorts of different tasks while perhaps listening to music or watching a video at the same time, and generally putting the machine through more of a workout than it gets in our test.
So while I stand by our testing and the battery life results we compare in the chart below, I want to be clear that your own experience will vary!
| Laptop | Battery life (tested) |
| Dell XPS 13 (2024) | 19:41 |
| MacBook Air M3 | 15:13 |
| Framework Laptop | 10:17 |
| Asus ProArt PX13 | 09:28 |
| Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 | 07:31 |
How to choose the best 13-inch laptop for you
What kind of power do you need? If you only need something basic for surfing the web, consider a Chromebook like the Galaxy Chromebook 2 or a cheap Windows laptop If you want something that feels speedy and can handle more than basic browsing and typing, consider starting specs such as a Core i5 CPU, 8 to 16GB of RAM and a 256GB to 512GB SSD. Most of the laptops on this list are at least this powerful, since they're the best 13-inch laptops we've yet reviewed.
What kind of games do you want to play? Most mainstream laptops feature integrated graphics, which may be able to run simple, well-optimized games like Minecraft and Fortnite but can't handle graphically-demanding games or heavy visual work. For that, you'll want a laptop with a discrete graphics card, and we don't currently have one on this list.
Do you want Chrome, macOS, or Windows? Windows is the most common operating system, while macOS is more ideal for folks already tied into Apple's ecosystem. Chrome OS is a lightweight operating system built to allow for cheap, fast systems, though it has gotten a bit more robust over the years with support for full Android apps.
Whichever system you decide on, you may also want to consider investing in the best mouse and best keyboard for your needs so you can have some more ergonomic options for getting work done on your new laptop.
I also recommend getting yourself an affordable laptop stand, as a $45 stand revolutionized the way I work on the go.
How we test the best 13-inch laptops
Our path to finding the best 13-inch laptops for you is littered with test results. To help us better compare and recommend the best machines for you, we run every laptop we review through a rigorous suite of benchmarks and real-world tests to gauge how it will perform during everyday use.
We measure the average brightness and color quality of each laptop's display using our in-house light meter and colorimeter. For general performance, we run our machines through tests that include Geekbench 6 (CPU performance), as well as various 3DMark tests to measure graphics capabilities. We also run a file transfer test to measure how fast a machine's hard drive is, plus a video editing test to see how good it is at crunching video and a custom battery test that has the machine browse the internet over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice.
We know many people also love to play games on their laptops, so we test the gaming horsepower of every laptop we review by putting it through the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm graphical benchmark. This is an ideal test for us to use on 13-inch laptops because almost none of them have discrete graphics cards, which means they have a hard time running more modern or graphically-demanding games. Civilization VI is also one of the few relatively modern games with a graphical benchmark that runs on both Windows and MacOS, meaning we can easily compare the performance of MacBooks against that of Windows machines.
