The Best Laptops 2019: Our Buying Recommendations

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I have 3 Dell XPS15 laptops, One is the 9550 (My Mrs uses that one) the others are 9560, two are 1080 one is 4k (That's my work one) , They have all been great (The docking station is another story however). The battery life is brilliant. They run a bit hot when pushed hard but that is to be expected.

Since the advancement of hardware seems slow right now I expect them to last a 4 years or more, It looks like it might be a while before anything worth upgrading to is out anyways.
 
The Dell XPS 13 is the way to go.

MS Surface Book SSD in not replaceable. Unit is glued shut.
 
Personally, I regard the laptop as an adjunct device. I use my desktop day to day and recharge and use laptop every week or two (or three). Key values are in price, portability, durability and battery life - a 13" 720p display and a dual core at >2.4Ghz is sufficient.
This is not a wizard's machine. It is an appliance which could be replaced by a smartphone except the screen would be too small, and there would be no keyboard or no mouse (which I happily add to the pack).
 
Because everything has to be slim & thin, they've kind of gotten away from including the 10 keypad on laptops. Yeah, I could get a usb 10 key pad, but, prefer to have the keypad ON the computer.
My Dell (about 4 years old) still has one, but it's getting harder to find a good 15" with a keyboard/10 keypad.
 
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meric said:
Why is there not many recommendations for sub $1000 price range? Are there no decent ones at those prices? Some Ryzen systems maybe?
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I noticed that as well. Ryzen systems are few and far between currently, might change when the next round of APUs are released, but for now there are a few out there if you look hard enough.

I actually just bought a new laptop for some basic productivity and light CAD work, and I'm very happy with it so far. It is a HP Envy x360 with the Ryzen 2500U, 256Gb NvME drive, 8 Gb RAM, 15.6" Full HD touchscreen. It's a 2-in-1, and the deal I got came with the HP pen stylus, got the whole thing on sale for $600 (usually runs about $800 I think). One of the reasons I chose it was that it had some upgrade options - first thing I did when I received it was pop that bad boy open and throw a 2.5" 512 Gb SSD in the open drive bay to work as my data drive, and replaced the 8Gb of RAM with 16 Gb.

It's a zippy little rig so far, runs Autodesk Inventor well, and even handles some light gaming decently - this Ryzen APU runs circles around the i5 2-in-1 laptop I had previously (which I gifted to my wife). Hopefully it'll stay zippy - time will tell.
 
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Vrmithrax said:
I noticed that as well. Ryzen systems are few and far between currently, might change when the next round of APUs are released, but for now there are a few out there if you look hard enough.

I actually just bought a new laptop for some basic productivity and light CAD work, and I'm very happy with it so far. It is a HP Envy x360 with the Ryzen 2500U, 256Gb NvME drive, 8 Gb RAM, 15.6" Full HD touchscreen. It's a 2-in-1, and the deal I got came with the HP pen stylus, got the whole thing on sale for $600 (usually runs about $800 I think). One of the reasons I chose it was that it had some upgrade options - first thing I did when I received it was pop that bad boy open and throw a 2.5" 512 Gb SSD in the open drive bay to work as my data drive, and replaced the 8Gb of RAM with 16 Gb.

It's a zippy little rig so far, runs Autodesk Inventor well, and even handles some light gaming decently - this Ryzen APU runs circles around the i5 2-in-1 laptop I had previously (which I gifted to my wife). Hopefully it'll stay zippy - time will tell.
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Wow you had a very nice deal there. Smart buy for sure. I have a question. I hear rumors about poor battery life on Ryzen laptops. Is this true?
 
So far I'm getting a little less than my old i5, but that was to be expected - I'm usually working the APU fairly hard with CAD or games. I have a friend who bought a similar laptop with i5 and MX130, which runs a bit slower than mine (quite a bit slower in games), and the battery life between my rig and his seem to be very close. I have yet to just do a casual battery test to know how it stands up to idle or light use (my old i5 2-in-1 had some terrific battery life in that regard).
 
Right sidebob said:
I know laptops are expensive but geez not everything has to be high end.
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fktech said:
The Dell XPS 13 is the way to go.
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meric said:
Why is there not many recommendations for sub $1000 price range? Are there no decent ones at those prices? Some Ryzen systems maybe?
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Nobina said:
When MacBooks are less expensive than most of these laptops on the list...
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We appreciate your feedback as usual. This is a list of the best laptops, and we've chosen to use categories based on form factor/use instead of budget, so many are premium choices. With that said, here are a few of the updates we added today after publication:

* Best ultraportables: added links and clarification that the XPS 13 starts at $1050 for a good configuration we can recommend (there is a cheaper one with 4GB RAM, ugh :poop:)

* Added cheaper convertible mention

* Budget category: Added HP Ryzen model that we reviewed a liked a lot as an alternative to the VivoBook S. So you have two very solid choices for less than $700. Also added the Acer competition that sells closer to $600, and we found the same machine selling for $495 if you go certified refurb (same specs).

Also added better context to the "more savings" commentary, on why we don't go easily for the sub $500 models that either have HDDs or really bad panels. Spending $100 extra for the VivoBook or Envy x360 that get you a solid package is the way to go.
 
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Right side bob said:
I know laptops are expensive but geez not everything has to be high end.
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You will get more lasting use and pleasure out of a high-end laptop and most of them can be got with deals at a fairly good discount every now and then especially the Dell's (but not Apple they never do deals)
 
Nobina said:
When MacBooks are less expensive than most of these laptops on the list...
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The macbook listed has a minimal 128GB storage and as they don't discount the other listed laptops at times become cheaper. Both the comparable none dedicated graphics laptops have more solid construction, better keyboards, replaceable storage and in the case of the Dell XPS 13 1970 can be had at frequent discounts to the mac.
 
My last laptop was a cheapo Asus at $450, and I've been using it for over 3 years without issues. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done. It doesn't have the best screen nor the best battery life, but it works. Most people can do fine with a cheap laptop, and only need something high end if they're doing video editing, gaming etc on it while they need to travel regularly. Otherwise it's wasted money.
 
During Black Friday, I took my friend to buy a last-generation Mac Book Pro with Touchbar and 512GB SSD. She spent close to $1900 when you add in the dongles and accessories and tax.

MAC has the ultraportable market Locked down.

Fortunately the Surface computers are catching up, but they really need to offer 1080 GPU/ i7 CPU power under $2000.
 
I am very happy with my Lenovo Yoga 710-14IKB.

Its not too big nor too small.
Its a convertible 2 in 1.
Its got a touchscreen.
Has plenty of power also thanks to the Nvidia 940MX.
Costs about 1000$ or less.

An external disc drive costs around 50$ if you ever need one, I count not having a disc drive as a good thing.

Only things I miss are the red dot on the keyboard for mouse control and actual buttons for mouse clicks. Both are present on Thinkpads.
 
Being under $2000 must have been a criteria.

If I had to buy a laptop right now I'd be buying the Alienware RTX M15.
 
I'd really like to see a mobile workstation category in these lists. Some of us are power laptop users where gaming is a secondary consideration, if at all. For instance, I've got to source a new workstation laptop for SolidWorks soon to replace my aging Dell Precision system, and it's always good to see what suggestions and alternatives are out there for researching the best fit for our company.
 
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