If the business you work for issues you a laptop, you don't get a lot of choice. But when you're shopping for your own machine, the best business laptops can make you feel like you're having fun even when you're working.
I know because my team and I review dozens of laptops from the top manufacturers every year, so we see the difference between the business and consumer-grade laptops from the likes of Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo and more.
That's why I generally recommend the Lenovo Slim 7 to most folks who ask me for my best business laptop recommendation: Lenovo's 14-incher gives you a comfy keyboard, a lovely OLED touchscreen and 10+ hours of tested battery life for $1,000 or less.
But if you're on a tight budget and need something a lot less expensive, I recommend the Acer Aspire Go 15 because its a barebones workhorse that's more than good enough for writing emails and slinging spreadsheets. The 720p webcam won't make you look great on conference calls, but you can't beat the $299 price.
If you prefer macOS, stick with the latest MacBook Air M3 in the size you like. These ultra-thin ultraportables from Apple deliver some of the best speed and battery life you can get in a laptop, and they're more than capable of tackling your office workday.
For more recommendations, fuller recommendations and links to full reviews with test results, check out this regularly-updated list of the best business laptops we've reviewed!
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 Lenovo Slim 7 is my most recommended business laptop because it gives you a lovely 14-inch OLED touchscreen, 10+ hours of tested battery life and a laptop that's comfy to type on for $1,000 (or less on sale).
We recommend the Acer Aspire Go 15 as a solid Windows 11 laptop that can be yours for under $500. Sure, the webcam sucks and the speakers aren't great, but you'll get decent performance in productivity apps, a comfy keyboard and 10+ hours of tested battery life.
The MacBook Air M3 is the best MacBook for business because it delivers top-notch performance, over 14 hours of battery life and a bright and colorful display all in a delightfully portable design.
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.
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The best business laptop overall
I really like the Lenovo Slim 7 and often recommend it as the best business laptop I've used because its easy to carry, comfy to type on and offers good performance and battery life (10+ hours tested).
But what I really love is the 14-inch OLED touchscreen, which makes everything you do on the device look lovely and gives you the option of taking your hands off the keyboard and trackpad to tap and swipe when you feel like it.
The model we reviewed is actually sold at Costco so it's a great deal, but if you can't find it at Costco or don't have a membership Lenovo sells very similar models at Amazon and Best Buy.
Read our full Lenovo Slim 7 review.
The best budget business laptop
The Acer Aspire Go 15 is what we typically recommend to folks looking for a decent business laptop for not a lot of money because it delivers great value, offering a comfy keyboard, plenty of ports and good battery life for an incredibly low MSRP of $299.
Sure, it's not much to look at and it can't run any but the simplest of games, but it's more than good enough for browsing the web, writing emails or editing documents and spreadsheets. And while the 720p webcam is pretty disappointing, you can always invest in a standalone webcam down the road if you decide you can't stand how it makes you look during conference calls. For the bootstrapper on a budget, this is the minimum viable laptop.
Read our full Acer Aspire Go 15 review.
The best MacBook for business
If you prefer macOS over Windows, I recommend the 13-inch MacBook Air M3 as the best MacBook for business use because its more powerful than ever, while being smaller and lighter than almost every other laptop on the market.
Apple's MacBook Air M3 laptops are lightweight powerhouses that often outperform more expensive Windows laptops, and while they aren't as well-equipped to play the latest PC games that's hardly an issue for most business users — though you can still have loads of fun between meetings with the games that do run on Apple's newest, slimmest laptops.
We also really love the bright displays on both sizes of MacBook Air, as well as the expanded port array increased support for more external monitors on the 15-inch model. Both lasted over 15 hours in our battery rundown test, easily beating most competitors, though the 13-inch M3 Air did last 10 minutes longer than its 15-inch sibling.
Read our full Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M3 review and our Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M3 review for all the details!
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 for business use.
No, there are loads of great laptops that don't quite achieve the level of excellence needed to lead our list of the best laptops for business. Below we've gathered all the good laptops we've tested which don't quite hang in the top spots of this list, but are still great business laptops worth considering if our top picks don't meet your needs or aren't available.
If you think you’ll reliably use the tablet mode and packed-in stylus, then the HP Spectre x360 is a sharp 2-in-1 option for those with a premium budget.
It looks elegant on a conference table, and while older models may feel a bit sluggish they should still be plenty speedy enough for emails and spreadsheets. And this attractive device is easy to convert into tablet mode, so you can kick back and stream your favorite shows during long business trips.
All that said, you’re clearly paying HP a premium for the convertible form factor here—so if that’s negligible to your needs, you can find more power and longer battery life at a lower price, particularly with the excellent Acer Swift 5. Even so, if you need a business notebook that flips, HP’s option is plenty enticing.
Read our full HP Spectre x360 review.
The Acer Swift 5 packs a lavish new design with golden trim plus a speedy Intel Core i7 chip, a gorgeous 14-inch display, and a startlingly swift 1TB SSD onboard. It’s also cheaper than rivals like the Dell XPS 13 when comparably equipped. There are a couple of caveats to consider, but the latest Acer Swift 5 remains a very strong laptop for business use.
It's a great Windows laptop that offers plenty of power for everything save serious gaming. And while the speakers and pre-installed bloatware leave room for improvement, the striking 16:10 1600p display and the power of Intel's Core i7 chip make this a great (and great-looking) Windows laptop for getting things done on the go.
Read our full Acer Swift 5 (2022) review.
Battery life test results compared
Battery life is a key factor when picking the best business laptop for your needs, 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) |
| Acer Aspire Go 15 | 10:11 |
| Lenovo Slim 7 | 10:05 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 15:03 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) | 15:13 |
| MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max) | 17:11 |
| Acer Swift 5 | 11:25 |
| HP Spectre x360 | 10:03 |
How to choose the best laptop for you
Performance: If you only need something basic for tackling emails and surfing the web, you'll be fine with a mid-range CPU and 4-8 GB of RAM. However, if you want something that can tackle anything you throw at it (short of heavy-duty gaming and video editing) splurge for a Core i7 and 16 GB of RAM.
Graphics and gaming: Business laptops are rarely built to do much serious gaming, but if you just want to unwind with older or undemanding games like Civilization, you should be fine as long as you have at least a Core i5 CPU and 8 GB of RAM. For more demanding games, look into one of the best gaming laptops instead — a few have designs subtle enough to not look out of place in a boardroom.
Size: Consider how mobile you want your business laptop to be. Premium laptops such as the MacBook Air are slim and feather-light, whereas cheaper machines (like the Acer Aspire Go 15) are thicker and bulkier, which could be a pain when trying to cram them in a briefcase or carry-on.
Whichever system you decide on, you may also want to pick up the best mouse and best keyboard for your particular work situation since spending long hours working hunched over a laptop can be murder on your hands, wrists and back. Trust me, I do it for a living.
How we tested these laptops
How we test the best business laptops
To find the best laptop for business, we run every portable PC we review through a rigorous series of real-world and synthetic tests to measure how well 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 (to benchmark CPU performance in both single-core and multi-core workloads), as well as a battery of graphics tests using software like 3DMark and modern PC games. 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.
