The Best Laptop Buyer’s Guide – Fall 2024

By Ari Altman | Published September 22, 2024 | Updated September 22, 2024

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 2024, you can get more performance per dollar than ever before, thanks to intense competition between Intel and AMD, each 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!!!

And while there’s truly a great laptop for everyone on this list, not everyone needs the same thing. That’s why we have budget choices for families and students, ultra-light choices for serious travelers, content creation machines, and of course, gaming laptops, all of which are equipped with Nvidia’s RTX 4000-series GPUs. Anything less would be a mistake!

Key Things to Look For

As noted, Intel and AMD are now competing hard for the attention of laptop buyers, and we’ve incorporated the best from both companies in our selections. Notably, both Intel and AMD have been bifurcating their product lines, focusing on rolling out ultra-efficient new CPUs with AI-processing capabilities, which are certainly cutting-edge. But for typical tasks, some of their older high-core, high-clockspeed designs still reign supreme.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there’s been a lot of innovation with regard to laptop screens as well lately, and many high-end models offer features such as OLED panels for intense colors and ultra-deep blacks, high-refresh rates starting at 144Hz, extreme resolutions, or work-friendly 16:10 aspect ratios. We’ve made sure to call these out in our recommendations so you know all the great tech you can get!

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 –
Acer Aspire 5 Core i5-1335U
$429

If you want the perfect work-from-home laptop at a great price, go with the Acer Aspire 5! It offers a 14″ 1920×1200 IPS screen, a potent Intel Core i5-1335U ten-core CPU, Intel XE Graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB solid-state drive, WiFi 6E and Windows 11 Home. Plus, with a weight of 3.75lb, it’s plenty portable.

The Guru’s Tip
This laptop uses an older high-end Intel processor, which would be a problem if the price were high, but here it's been lowered to make it an exceptional deal, and a perfect use of an older but still impressive CPU.
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The Work/School Laptop –
Acer Swift Go 1355U
$600

If you want the most versatile laptop on a budget, go straight for the Aspire Swift Go. This model packs in a powerful Intel Core i7-1355U packing in 2 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, plus Intel XE graphics. The 14″, 1920×1200 screen is the perfect size and resolution for getting work done, and offers touch functionality as a bonus. With 16GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe-based solid-state drive, the Swift Go will feel fast today and long into the future. And the best part: it’s just 2.76lb, making it ultra-portable!

The Guru’s Tip
This model has a similar CPU to the laptop above, but boosts performance and functionality in a number of ways, while being about a pound lighter! If you can afford it, it's a great upgrade!
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The High-End Laptop –
Acer Swift Go 8845HS
$900

Acer’s Swift series has been around a long time, and has plenty of levels, but this model really packs in the power. It features the awesomely-capable AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS 8-core, 16-thread processor, along with 16GB of RAM (a necessity for serious multi-tasking), a big 1TB solid-state drive, and a 14″ 1920×1200 touchscreen.

The Guru’s Tip
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 –
ASUS Zenbook S 13 155U
$1164

The Zenbook line from Asus has defined elegance for years, setting the standards by which all others are judged. In fact, we haven’t published a laptop guide without a Zenbook since they hit the market in 2013! And the latest Zenbook S 13 is no different – it’s the ultimate laptop for the professional on the go. Coming in at an ultra-portable 2.2lb and 0.46″ thick, it still manages to come fully-loaded. It offers Intel’s Core 7 155U 12-core CPU (with 2 performance cores and 10 efficiency cores). Also on board are a gorgeous 13.3-inch 2880×1800 OLED screen with a 16:10 ratio, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB solid-state drive, and Windows 11 Home.

The Guru’s Tip
To be clear, this isn't as fast as the cheaper model above (it's more in line with our second pick), but what it lacks in brute strength it makes up for in form factor - this is simply impossibly thin and light, and it has plenty of power to serve as a potent business laptop without weighing you down.
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The Ultimate Content Creation Laptop –
MSI Creator M16 HX 14900HX/4070
$2000

Welcome to the ultimate productivity laptop! This model is bursting with power, despite a weight of just 5.2 pounds! It all starts with the shockingly-fast Intel Core i9-14900HX 24-core, 32-thread processor, the most powerful mobile CPU on the market, which will rip through anything you can throw at it. Backing this CPU up is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 8GB GPU, perfect for accelerating any content creation app along with 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe SSD. The icing on top is the gorgeous display: a 16” 2560 x 1600 screen with an enhanced 16:10 aspect ratio.

The Guru’s Tip
While many high-end laptops are created specifically for gaming, this was was created for creators! And while the CPU may not be from Intel's latest series of CPUs, it still offers far better performance, because the focus of new releases has been on efficiency, not power.

Gaming

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The Midrange Gaming Laptop –
Acer Nitro 16 7840HS/RTX 4060
$957

Gaming laptops have come a long way in a short time, and this is a perfect example of how much you can now get in the mainstream market. Powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-core, 16-thread CPU, this system gives up little to the giants. It also packs in a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. The screen is also impressive, measuring 16″, with a 1920 x 1200 resolution and an incredible 165Hz refresh rate, which will provide great smoothness in gaming!

The Guru’s Tip
With the price of this RTX 4060-equipped gaming laptop now so low, we no longer recommend gamers go for barely-cheaper laptops with the anemic RTX 4050 GPU.
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The High-End Gaming Laptop –
MSI Katana 15 13620H/RTX 4070
$1291

This gaming laptop from MSI is truly packed with power. It all starts with the Raptor Lake-based Intel Core i7-13620H 14-core, 20-thread CPU, which can boost up to 4.9GHz. To get to its impressive core count, it uses six multi-threaded performance cores and eight single-threaded efficiency cores. It’s backing up Nvidia’s potent GeForce RTX 4070 8GB GPU, which in turn is driving an amazing 15.6″ 2560×1440 IPS screen with a 165Hz refresh rate. Also onboard is 16GB RAM and a 1TB PCIe solid-state drive.

The Guru’s Tip
The fact that you can get an RTX 4070-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 –
Lenovo Legion Pro 7 7945HX/RTX 4080
$2333

This system offers up shocking specs for the price, with an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX 8-core, 16-thread CPU, along with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4080 12GB video card. Also on board is 32GB of RAM and a 1GB solid-state drive. The 16″ 2560 x 1600 screen will provide smooth frames thanks to the 240Hz refresh rate.

The Guru’s Tip
This system strikes a great balance, as the AMD processor is nearly as fast as Intel's top-end 14900HX, but you save a significant amount of cash, and the truth is that in nearly every game, the GPU is going to be the limiting factor.
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The Extreme Gaming Laptop –
Asus Strix Scar 18 14900HX/RTX 4080
$2781

Asus packs an incredible amount of power into the Strix Scar 18. This model features Intel’s shockingly-powerful Core i9-14900HX 24-core, 32-thread CPU with boost up to 5.8GHz. Also on board is the mighty Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 12GB GPU. It’s put to good use in this system, driving an 18″ 2560 x 1600 Mini-LED screen with an impressive 240Hz refresh rate. Also on board is a 1TB PCIe Gen 4-based SSD and 32GB of DDR5 RAM.

The Guru’s Tip
Go big or go home!
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The Ultimate Gaming Laptop –
MSI Raider GE78HX 14900HX/RTX 4090
$3500

If you’re ready to take everything to the max, the Raider GE78 is the laptop for you! Featuring Intel’s range-topping Core i9-14900HX, it offers a shocking 24 cores, 32 threads, and a boost speed of 5.8GHz! It’s backing up the fastest mobile GPU on the market, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 16GB, which is driving an impressive 17.3″ screen with an ultra-smooth 240Hz refresh rate. Also on board is 64GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 solid-state drive, along with HDMI 2.1, Thunderbolt 4, and WiFi 7.

The Guru’s Tip
The RTX 4090 used in laptops is based off the RTX 4080 used in desktops. Some people may wonder why, and the answer is that the desktop 4090 is a 450W GPU... that's never going to work in a laptop!