What is the best laptop for 2026?
My answer ultimately boils down to your operating system preference: Windows or macOS?
As of January 2026, I think the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air (M4) is the best MacBook for most people. It’s a sleek-as-ever notebook featuring impressive performance, open-lid support for two external displays, a great 12MP Center Stage camera, and an extremely reasonable starting price of $1,199 (making it $100 cheaper than its M3 predecessor).
The best Windows laptop for most people is the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, a sophisticated and snappy Copilot+ PC boasting a stellar battery life of nearly 23 hours. Note that Microsoft makes an Intel version that may appeal to users wary of Windows on ARM for app compatibility reasons, but it’s a business-oriented model with a significant markup.
Need something different? I’ve selected ten other options that are ideal for strict budgets, ultra-basic workloads, frequent travelers, content creation, PC gaming, and beyond.
A quick note before we get into the full list: A third of my picks received next-gen updates at CES 2026, and while most of their successors don’t have official release dates or prices yet, the ongoing memory shortage is expected to make most new laptops more expensive later this year. Because of this, I’d strongly consider buying a last-gen model and springing for a RAM or SSD upgrade if possible. (More on this below.)
If you’d rather roll the dice and see how the latest laptops fare in testing, stay tuned. We’ll be putting them through our extensive review process as soon as they start trickling out.
A note about laptop prices
Over the past 12 months, laptop prices have remained largely reasonable and stable despite a tumultuous economic climate. Last spring’s tariff-related price increases wound up being minimal, and we saw affected models go on sale frequently throughout the year. In one impressive anomaly, Apple managed to release faster-than-ever MacBook Airs that were $100 cheaper than their 2024 predecessors, and ever since they turned five months old, they’ve enjoyed regular $200 discounts at major retailers.
Unfortunately, 2026 is probably going to look a lot different. As Mashable’s Alex Perry reported, the global surge of AI data centers has created huge demand for DDR5 RAM and SSDs. Laptop manufacturers who put those same components in their PCs are now facing a shortage, and experts say this could lead to significant laptop price hikes or more limited configuration options. (Read: We might be going back to the days of 8GB RAM in mid-range laptops. It’s so over.)
Since most manufacturers have yet to confirm price and availability details for the 2026 models they unveiled at CES, we have yet to see exactly how this RAM famine shakes out in reality. For their part, Windows laptops might be fine in the short term. Intel told Tom’s Guide that PC makers have “about nine to 12 months of inventory” in stock as a buffer from the shortage. But what happens if it lasts beyond a year, as one Micron exec predicts?
This is all to say that if you’re currently in the market for a new laptop, I’d buy one soon and equip it with as much storage and memory as you can afford. For what it’s worth, the last-gen models I currently recommend won’t feel outdated for years, and they’ve all held steady at their current prices so far.
