In brief: In your opinion, what's the best laptop brand? Maybe you love Razer and its stylish Blade series of notebooks. Perhaps you're an Apple fan that still believes you can't better a MacBook Pro when it comes to productivity. According to Laptop Mag's annual list, the number one maker is Asus---the first time it's been awarded the accolade.
Laptop Mag writes that Asus took top honors thanks to the company's systems that were a combination of powerful, beautiful, and innovative. Its extensive range of laptop types, from Chromebooks to gaming machines, also helped it top the list. The publication writes that Asus' only weak spot was in the area of tech support.
The brands are judged based on five criteria: Reviews, Design, Tech Support and Warranty, Innovation, and Value & Selection. Asus scored a total of 88 points out of a possible 100, edging out second-place Dell (85) and third-place HP (82).
One of the products that helped Asus take this year's crown was the ROG Zephyrus G14. Rather than using a CPU from Intel's stable, it's one of the first notebooks to feature a Zen 2 processor. The G14 is a stunning machine that can be specced up to an RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU, offering the perfect mix of weight (3.5 pounds), performance, price, display, footprint, and battery life. We awarded it a score of 90 in our review, helping it appear in our Best Laptops of 2020 feature.
Asus has expanded its dual-screen laptop offerings, too. Building on its ZenBook Pro 14 and the upgraded ZenBook Pro Duo, it launched the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 earlier this year. The machine offers both a 15-inch main screen and 14.1-inch secondary touchscreen, but the price ($2,999) and weight mean reviews haven't been spectacular.
At the very bottom of the list sits Microsoft with 70 points, just under Apple's 73. That might seem controversial to some people, but these rankings are subjective.