The Best Laptop Buyer’s Guide – Fall 2025
Choosing the Right Laptop, Made Easy!
Need a new laptop but haven’t quite kept up with all the latest product releases? Well, we’ve got you covered – this guide profiles the 10 best laptops on the market today, in a variety of categories, from home office to work on-the-go to enthusiast-level gaming.
The Best Laptops, Right Now!
For Fall 2025, Intel and AMD are vying for dominance in the laptop processor market like never before. Translation: consumers win with every new CPU released! And that’s why you need this guide… so you don’t get stuck with last year’s also-ran, which many vendors will be more than happy to sell you! Now here’s the truth: the biggest changes to CPUs over the past few years has been to efficiency. They aren’t significantly faster than two years ago, but they use far less power, which means laptops can run longer, be made thinner, and are easier to take with you, despite tremendous performance.
And while there’s truly a great laptop for everyone on this list, not everyone needs the same thing. That’s why we have several budget picks for families and students, a few options for serious users on the go, and a powerful content creation machine. And of course, then we get to gaming laptops. We list five in all, equipped with each of the top five Nvidia RTX 5000-class GPUs. Anything less would be a mistake!
Parting Thoughts
We update this guide several times a year, as new laptops are constantly hitting the market, and Intel and AMD update their CPU offerings at least once a year. To help support continued development of this guide, please use the Amazon links we provide. They will auto-convert for readers in Canada, the UK, and parts of the EU, with automatic substitutions made where necessary based on regional variations.
Home/Small Office
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The Home Office Laptop –HP 14 7520U
$420The Guru’s TipIf you want the perfect work-from-home laptop at a great price, go with this HP! It offers a 14″ 1366×768 touchscreen, a quad-core AMD Ryzen 5 7520U CPU, AMD Graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB solid-state drive, WiFi 5 and Windows 11 Home. Plus, with a weight of 3.09lb, it’s plenty portable.As a more powerful alternative to a Chromebook for young users, this is a great pick. In particular, its touchscreen will be much more intuitive for anyone more familiar with tablets.
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The Work/School Laptop –Acer Aspire Go 15 5825U
$550The Guru’s TipIf you want the most versatile laptop on a budget, go straight for the Aspire Aspire Go. This model packs in a powerful AMD Ryzen 7 5825U 8-core, 16-thread CPU, plus AMD Radeon graphics. The 15.6″, 1920×1080 screen is the perfect size and resolution for getting work done. With 16GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe-based solid-state drive, the Aspire Go will feel fast today and long into the future.For serious multitasking, this system is about twice as fast as the one above, making it well worth the investment for power users.
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The High-End Laptop –ASUS Vivobook 16 AI 7 350
$800The Guru’s TipIf you want the most versatile laptop on a budget, go straight for the Asus Vivobook. This model packs in a powerful AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU, which features 8 cores and 16 threads, plus AMD Radeon graphics. The 16″, 1920×1200 screen is the perfect size and resolution for getting work done. With 16GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe-based solid-state drive, the Vivobook will feel fast today and long into the future. It weights 4.14lb.It's hard to compare Intel and AMD processors directly based on CPU core counts alone, but trust us when we say that the CPU in this laptop absolutely rips!
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The Ultimate Business Laptop –MSI Prestige 13 258V
$1404The Guru’s TipThe Prestige line from MSI has defined elegance for years, setting the standards by which all others are judged. And the latest Prestige is no different – it’s the ultimate laptop for the professional on the go. Coming in at an ultra-portable 2.2lb, it still manages to come fully-loaded. It offers Intel’s Core 7 258V 8-core CPU. Also on board are a gorgeous 13.3-inch 2880×1800 OLED screen with a 16:10 ratio, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB solid-state drive, and Windows 11 Home.To be clear, the CPU in this laptop isn't any faster than the AMD CPU in the laptop above, but it's much more efficient. And that allows the Prestige to be impossibly light, about half the weight of the system above, making it an amazing laptop for business people on the go.
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The Ultimate Content Creation Laptop –Gigabyte Aero AI 9 HX 370/5070
$1580The Guru’s TipWelcome to the ultimate productivity laptop! This model is bursting with power, despite a weight of just 4.2 pounds! It all starts with the shockingly-fast AMD AI 9 HX 370 12-core, 24-thread processor, which will rip through anything you can throw at it. Backing this CPU up is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 8GB GPU, perfect for accelerating any content creation app. The laptop has 32GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD. The icing on top is the gorgeous display: a 16” 2560 x 1600 screen with an enhanced 16:10 aspect ratio.While many high-end laptops are created specifically for gaming, this was was created for creators! Its AMD processor is particularly good at highly-threaded operation while sipping power.
Gaming
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The Midrange Gaming Laptop –Gigabyte A16 260/RTX 5060
$1100 The Guru’s TipThe 5060 is a potent gaming GPU - we recommend gamers avoid anything lower, as you lose a lot of power for a small savings in price.
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The High-End Gaming Laptop –Acer Nitro 270H/RTX 5070
$1500 The Guru’s TipThe fact that you can get an RTX 5070-equipped laptop at this pricepoint is simply mind-blowing. It really is the sweetspot right now for performance per dollar.
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The Premium Gaming Laptop –Asus ROG Strix G16 9955HX/RTX 5070 Ti
$2000 The Guru’s TipThe CPU in this laptop is halfway in between the Intel CPUs in the laptops above and below. AMD has been working wonders with its CPUs lately!
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The Extreme Gaming Laptop –MSI Vector 275HX/RTX 5080
$2700 The Guru’s TipThe 275HX is an "Ultra"-class processor, and has 10 more cores than the similarly-named 270H.
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The Ultimate Gaming Laptop –
ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 275HX/RTX 5090
$4150 The Guru’s TipThe RTX 5090 in this laptop isn't quite the same as the 600W monster that's used in desktops, but it's impressive nonetheless - clearly being the fastest mobile GPU ever released, and the first with 24GB of VRAM!
Home/Small Office
Gaming
- The Midrange Gaming Laptop – Gigabyte A16 260/RTX 5060 ($1100)
- The High-End Gaming Laptop – Acer Nitro 270H/RTX 5070 ($1500)
- The Premium Gaming Laptop – Asus ROG Strix G16 9955HX/RTX 5070 Ti ($2000)
- The Extreme Gaming Laptop – MSI Vector 275HX/RTX 5080 ($2700)
- The Ultimate Gaming Laptop – ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 275HX/RTX 5090 ($4150)
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The Best Desktop PC Buyer's Guide
If you decide you need a desktop instead of a laptop, we have you covered there too - just check out our guide!
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The Monitor Buyer's Guide
As nice as built-in laptop screens are these days, when you have serious work (or play) to do, a big screen makes all the difference!
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The Networking Buyer's Guide
Upgrading your PC? Don't forget to upgrade your router to get the most out of it!
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The Keyboard & Mouse Buyer's Guide
Expand your laptops capabilities with a great set of desktop-class peripherals!