When it comes to laptop screen sizes, I really like 15 inches because it offers a nice midpoint between portability and big-screen luxury. And the best 15-inch laptops straddle that line perfectly, delivering plenty of power in an easy-to-carry chassis with a big, bright screen.
I know because my team and I review dozens of laptops from the top manufacturers every year, so I've had a front-row seat to the rise and fall in 15-inch laptops' popularity. When people ask which we like best I typically recommend the 15-inch MacBook Air M3 because it offers killer speed, a comfy keyboard and 15 hours of tested battery life, as well as a great webcam.
But if you're on a tight budget, you'll be just fine with the Acer Aspire Go 15. It's not a premium device but it has a nice keyboard, good battery life, and you can't beat its $299 price tag. Sure, the webcam is terrible, but this 15-inch laptop is a great value that's more than good enough for writing emails or browsing the web.
Read on for more recommendations, more detailed explanations and links to our full reviews and detailed testing, so you can find the best 15-inch laptop for your needs.
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 15-inch laptop for the money. The M3 chip is a seriously strong performer, the display is bigger and brighter than ever, and battery life exceeds 15 hours.
The Acer Aspire Go 15 is a great 15-inch laptop laptop for those on a tight budget since it delivers a solid 1080p display, a comfy keyboard and good battery life for $300. It's not fast or powerful, but it's fine for writing emails or surfing the web.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a better 15-inch gaming laptop for the price than this cyberpunk-inspired gaming machine, which comes with a capable Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU, a fast Intel CPU and a speedy 144Hz display that can keep up with even the most frenetic gaming action.
Alex Wawro is a lifelong journalist who's spent over a decade covering tech, games and entertainment. He oversees the computing department at Tom's Guide, which includes managing laptop coverage and reviewing many himself every year.
The best 15-inch laptops you can buy today
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The best overall
The MacBook Air 15-inch M3 might be a bigger version of the 13-inch MacBook Air M3 but it’s arguably the best 15-inch laptop for the money.
That's purely because the 15-inch MacBook Air, like its smaller sibling, packs the powerful Apple M3 chip, a gorgeous Liquid Retina display and the sleek design introduced with the MacBook Pro line in 2021. This 15-inch beast can't play every game well, but it still runs many well enough that you'll be able to have plenty of fun after hours.
Plus, even though it's one of the larger laptops on this list, it's still easily one of the thinnest and lightest laptops out there — combined with jaw-droppingly great battery life.
Read our full MacBook Air 15-inch M3 review.
The best value
The Acer Aspire Go 15 isn't a particularly great 15-inch laptop, but it doesn't have to be when the asking price is $300. At that price, you can make peace with the fact that the Go 15's low-powered CPU and paltry complement of 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage aren't good for much else besides browsing the web, writing and editing, and maybe some very light gaming.
But that's fine for folks who just need a cheap laptop to browse the web or write emails. What the Acer Aspire Go 15 lacks in features or charm it more than makes up for in utility, as it offers 10 hours of (tested) battery life and a keyboard that's surprisingly comfy to type on. And while its 15.6-inch 1080p screen looks a bit washed-out and won't make colors pop, it's more than good enough for web surfing or working with documents.
The Acer Aspire Go 15 doesn't look, feel or sound as fancy as the other laptops on this list, but it's a serviceable workhorse with a $299 price tag, making it the best 15-inch laptop for those on a budget and looking for great value.
Read our full Acer Aspire Go 15 review.
The best budget 15-inch gaming laptop
The MSI Cyborg 15 ($999) is a 15-inch cyberpunk-inspired gaming laptop that won’t destroy your wallet.The Intel Core CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU aren't the best you can get, yet this laptop delivers solid gaming performance for $1,000 or less, if you can find it on sale.
Factor in the 144Hz refresh rate on the 15.6-inch display and you start to see why I think this is a machine that’s a great entry into the world of PC gaming. The 15-inch size is just at the high end of portability, yet it offers you lots of screen real estate to enjoy your favorite games.
Sure, the display could be brighter and a bit more colorful, but the fast refresh rate is welcome. And while its battery life while gaming isn’t great, the Cyborg 15 lasts significantly longer when you're just writing emails or browsing the web. Just make sure to plug in when you're ready to game.
Read our full MSI Cyborg 15 review.
Also tested
We test and review dozens of laptops every year, and just because they don't all make this list doesn't mean they aren't good machines.
No, there are loads of great laptops that don't quite achieve the level of excellence needed to be the best 15-inch laptops you can buy. Below we've gathered all the good laptops we've tested which don't quite make this list, but are still great alternatives well worth considering if they meet your unique needs, or if you can't find your first choice on sale.
The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 ($999 to start) is the first Surface Laptop to ship with a Qualcomm CPU inside, and the extra power and battery life it affords make this 15-inch laptop a great workhorse that lasts as long as the 15-inch MacBook Air.
While there's not a lot of flash to this machine, those in need of a straightforward no-frills Windows 11 laptop will be well-served by the Surface Laptop 7. Available with your choice of a 13-inch or 15-inch 120 Hz touchscreen, these laptops offer good performance and a comfy typing experience for not too much money.
Admittedly, the port array is sparse at best (all you get is USB-C) and you won't be doing much hardcore gaming on this portable PC. And while its Snapdragon X chipset qualify this as one of Microsoft's first Copilot+ PCs, the AI features on offer feel frivolous and fun to have at best.
But that may change down the line, and even if you don't care a bit about AI this remains a great ultraportable for Windows fans.
Read our full Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 review.
How to choose the best 15-inch laptop for you
Performance: If you only need something to get work done and watch videos on, don't bother shelling out for one of the laptops on this list with a discrete graphics card. The Acer Aspire Go 15 is plenty good enough, and if you want something nicer you can do everything you need to on the MacBook Air.
Graphics and gaming: Most mainstream 15-inch laptops feature integrated graphics, which can handle lightweight titles such as Minecraft and Overwatch but aren't ideal for graphically-intensive games or heavy visual work. For that, you'll want a laptop with a discrete graphics card, such as the Nvidia card you get with the MSI Cyborg 15.
Screen quality: More and more 15-inch laptops are shipping with high refresh rate screens or OLED display options, though you may need to pay extra to get one. If you plan to play a lot of games on your laptop, it's a good idea to get one with a high-refresh screen, like the MSI Cyborg 15.
But if you want something that's crisp and easy to see, the MacBook Air M3 actually offers a brighter screen than anything else on this list. And if screen quality doesn't matter so much to you, the Acer Aspire Go 15 will suit you just fine.
Whichever system you decide on, you may also want to pick up the best mouse for your particular work situation.
Battery benchmarks: comparison
To better help you pick the best 15-inch laptop for your needs 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 and doing all kinds of stuff I can't account for.
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) |
| Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 | 15:44 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 15:03 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) | 15:13 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M2) | 14:48 |
| Acer Aspire Go 15 | 10:15 |
| MSI Cyborg 15 | 05:05 |
How we test the best 15-inch laptops
To find the best 15-inch laptop, we run every machine 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 5 (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, and a custom battery test that has the machine browse the internet over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice.
When testing dedicated gaming laptops, we run benchmarks for popular games such as Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman and Red Dead Redemption 2.
For more information on our testing process, check out our guide to how we test products at Tom's Guide.
