Best laptop 2019: the best laptops available today

When it comes to picking the very best laptops of 2019, this is the only guide you need: the constantly updated, expertly curated, definitive T3 list of the best laptops for working, gaming, designing, studying or anything else.

We've acknowledged that the best laptop might be different for everyone, so we've tried to cover as a wide a selection of system types, prices and designs as possible – no matter what your needs, you should find something that fits here.

Laptop discounts for 2019 continue to pop up at leading retailers like Amazon and Walmart, so if you do your research you may not have to spend as much money as you thought... and finding your way to this list is a very god start.

No matter if you're looking for a flexible 2-in-1 hybrid, or a high-performance gaming laptop, or a bargain system at the budget end, a great business laptop or the best sub-£1,000 laptop, we hereby present the best laptops on the market today.

• Best lightweight laptops
• Best student laptops
• Best gaming laptops
• Best 2-in-1 laptops

With so many laptop makers producing so many quality computers at the moment, picking a machine that's right for you – and at a good price point – can be quite a challenge, though. Long lists of tech spec jargon and indecipherable numbering systems don't help much either.

That's where we come in: our picks of the very best laptops on the market in 2019 means you don't have to do any of the legwork. Whether you're tempted by the new Dell XPS 13, or more taken with the hyper-luxe Microsoft Surface Book 2, or simply after the best-value laptop bargain possible, we're very confident you'll find something to suit in this list.

How to choose the best laptop for you

In the dim and distant past you could probably get a laptop for a minimum of £500 and spend up to £2,000 or even more on a top-end one. Some can certainly come in on the high end of that range, even now.

But we've recently seen Chromebooks appear, offering dirt-cheap portable computing with features that are enough for a lot of users – like students and people who just need to type while out and about. And, not only that, but what you can do with a £500 laptop has now changed drastically.

The appearance of £200 – and sometimes lower – Chromebooks has forced other laptops down in price too. So now you can get laptops for some absurd prices, especially if you pick up a sale bargain. The best laptops list is constantly shifting, which is why we update this page regularly.

At the other end of the scale are new thin and light laptops that aren't so interested in offering value. But they often sport all-metal construction, wafer-thin designs and internal guts that can chew through demanding tasks. So what's best?

You need to weigh up both what you're going to use it for – so how powerful it needs to be – and how much weight you're prepared to carry around with you, which will determine screen size.

With a little preparation and forethought done in advance, you're ready to check out our list of the best laptops on the market.

• Best ultraportable laptops
• Best laptops under £500
• Best graphics cards

The best laptops you can buy today

The mighty Dell XPS 13 is a frequent member of our best laptop buying guides and here, in 2019, it's business as usual. The most recent model moves the webcam back to a more sensible spot above the screen.

The machine is thinner and more powerful than ever before, and – screen aficionados rejoice – comes rocking a luxe 4K screen too. The almost bezel-less new design is also absolutely lovely, which squeezes a 13.3-inch screen into an 11-inch frame, and the wide selection of ports is right on the money too.

It's expensive, and the stunning Alpine White model is even more so, but it is simply one of the best laptops in the world and an easy recommend for the vast majority of users.

Microsoft's Surface Book 2 is a 2-in-1 laptop, with a screen that can be detached and used as a tablet, but don't let that fool you – this is a beast of a laptop full stop and a worthy top entry in our best laptop buying guide.

Not only is its power unmatched in the 2-in-1 sector, but with a powerful Intel Core i7-8650U processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, and stunning 15-inch 3,240 x 2,160 pixel display, it is more than a match for any laptop in this buying guide. 

It's expensive though – very expensive – and you can get a similar spec for less elsewhere if you sacrifice the ability to detach the screen. However, if you have the budget then this laptop delivers a fantastically powerful and versatile computing experience.

The 2019 Huawei MateBook X Pro marries form and function with effortless style, delivering an incredibly capable internal hardware suite in a form factor that also matches Apple's MacBook range in terms of dynamite looks and feel.

Its sleek design houses a 13.9-inch 3K display, 8th-generation Intel Core CPU, and Nvidia GeForce MX250 2GB GDDR5 GPU, as well as delivering rock solid battery life, too.

Build quality is also top draw and the system retains the luxe quality that helped its predecessor take the ultraportable laptop market by storm, while the new addition of Huawei Share OneHop makes transferring files between the system and a compatible Huawei phone a breeze.

It's expensive, sure, and many users may prefer the lower price of last year's model, however if you want a better than Apple MacBook experience but with some modest gaming chops and the Windows 10 OS then this is one of the best laptops on the market.

There's so much to like about the latest Alienware Area-51m: this is a gaming laptop that's absolutely packed with power, from the 9th-generation Intel Core i7 processors, to the newest Nvidia laptop GPUs. It's fair to say you're going to have to stump up a substantial amount of cash for this laptop, but the performance you get back is worth it.

What also makes this one of the best gaming laptops of 2019 is the design. The laptop is sleek and understated, but still comes with some really nice touches of style, including discreet colour accents and the slim bezels around the display, which is more than 17 inches in size.

The HP Envy 13 contains the same 8th-gen Intel Core i7 processor seen in many other systems in this guide, but doubles down with 16GB of RAM and graphics handled by the Nvidia GeForce MX250, utilising an extra 2GB of dedicated video memory. It doesn’t lose out in the pricing stakes, either, costing only a little over a thousand pounds for excellent performance.

With some decent security features such as a fingerprint scanner and a physical webcam kill switch on the side of the machine, it’s a great laptop for general work, whether that’s spreadsheets or image manipulation. It’s also equipped with audio tech from Bang and Olufsen, along with HP’s own Audio Boost technology, meaning that the sound is as clear as a bell.

The trackpad feels a little flimsy but the backlit keyboard is solid and feels nice to use. The integrated USB Type-A ports are a bit tricky to use due to their snap-open design, but it’s a welcome sight to see regular USB compatibility on an ultralight laptop. The 1080p screen is clear and high-quality, with a little ridge at the base that pushes the lower half of the laptop up at a slight angle when opened on a flat surface, to make typing that little bit easier.

As we note in our official Asus ZenBook Pro 14 review, this "is a laptop that scores highly in a lot of departments. It looks really nice, it has plenty of power under the hood, and the price you're going to pay represents decent value for what you get in return."

And, really, that sums it up. Well, that is apart from this system's unique feature - it's ScreenPad. The SceenPad is a large touchpad that can also operate as a second screen, with Windows extendable and certain apps like Microsoft Office and Spotify granting you extra information or controls. It feels indebted to Apple's TouchBar.

Specs-wise the Pro 14 really is a rock-solid all-rounder, coming with an 8th-gen quad-core Intel Core i7-8565U processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage, as well as an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q chipset with 2GB of video RAM. In short, it is a powerful machine that will handle most computing tasks with ease.

Simpy put, if you're looking for the best laptop experience from Apple in 2019, then you just found it.

The Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar packs in some excellent internals, with an Intel Core i5 CPU partnered with 8GB of 2,133MHz RAM, a Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 GPU, and a 256GB SSD. You can add to that the 13.3-inch 2,560 x 1,600 resolution Retina LED IPS display, which is gorgeous as well.

The headline feature though, and one that helps this laptop stand out, is the OLED Touch Bar, which replaces the function keys on previous models to great affect.

Simply put, if you like MacBooks and aren't constrained by budget, then this is the best laptop for you.

As we note in our full Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 review, "the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 is one of the most complete hybrids ever made, scoring big across the board and leaving no obvious weak point for rivals - and critics - to launch a major counter attack. A premium all-rounder 2-in-1 that should appeal to creative tech enthusiasts looking to both work and play hard."

A shoo-in on our best laptops 2019 list if ever we saw one, then, and a machine that should be at least considered by anyone who is looking for premium upgrade right now. Yes, the Surface Book 2 does have a little bit more power-wise, and obviously has the ability to eject its screen, too, but the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 is almost half the price.

As we noted in our Asus ROG Zephyrus S GX701 review, and then restated in our guide to the best gaming laptops on the market today, this gaming laptop is the absolute best laptop for playing games on the market today in 2019.

Building on last year's competition slaying GX501, the new Zephrus ensures it stays on the gaming laptop throne by dialling things up to 11. That means that the system comes rocking an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card (Ray Tracing bliss!), a juiced up Intel Core i7-8750H CPU capable of running up to 4.1GHz and a 24GB stack of DDR4 RAM.

The result of all this top-end gaming hardware is, for a portable machine, ludicrous levels of AAA gaming performance. Metro Exodus, with all graphics settings turned up to maximum, and with the gorgeous Ray Tracing lighting tech enabled, looked absolutely stunning and ran like a dream. Equally, the GX701 crushed our 3DMark benchmark tests, too.

A gorgeous and thin magnesium chassis, fantastically engineered vent cooling system, and a 17.3-inch, Full HD (1,920x1,080) IPS, Pantone Validated, 144Hz refresh rate with Nvidia G-Sync panel complete the package.

The last few years have seen some of the components that would normally be locked to the very top echelon of laptops slowly trickle down into models that don’t have bank balance-destroying price tags.

The Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming from Dell is one such model, managing to pack in a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU in a machine that'll cost you less than £1,000. 

It's backed up by a robust, quad-core Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor and 256GB SSD of memory, too. Combined together, you're getting a laptop that can run even the most demanding of games on high settings, and still have processing grunt to spare.

We've already mentioned one excellent Huawei computer in this best laptops of 2019 guide, and here's another: the Huawei MateBook 13 isn't quite as premium as the MateBook X Pro in most areas, but it offers some excellent value for money, and has performance to spare as well.

The option to add more RAM would be nice, and there's no Thunderbolt support here, but the Huawei MateBook 13 ticks just about every other box on the list – the screen is fantastic, performance is impressive, and battery life should last you a day on the go as well.

The Google Pixelbook is quite a strange beast, combining stylish looks and decent specs with a Chrome OS platform that doesn't really need them. It's also a little older than the other laptops here – if you do consider purchasing this, bear in mind that a replacement might not be far away.

If you can afford it, this is the slickest, smoothest, best-looking Chromebook on the market right now. If you do all your computing on the web, it's the best laptop around in 2019 (though perhaps not the best value).

Add in support for Android apps, and the Pixelbook Pen, and a dedicated Google Assistant button, and it really is an attractive package. Chrome OS being what it is, you don't need to worry about security software or system slowdowns, and everything is constantly backed up to the cloud.

Finding the middle ground between affordability and knockout performance is perhaps the biggest challenge facing a new laptop buyer. It's a sweetspot most manufacturers miss, but with the Predator Helios 300, Acer has certainly found it with a Intel Core i7-8750H CPU and a meaty Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU pairing.

This powerful laptop sports a Full HD 17.6-inch display (perfect for giving your favourite Steam games a good showing when on the move) complete with a 144Hz refresh rate and 16GB of in-built RAM to keep you fully stocked with content. As a sub-£1,000 machine, it's got some serious chops.

Laptops are usually labelled as gaming laptops when they come packed with high-end components and some nice visual flair – but of course you don't have to be a gamer to appreciate those attributes in a laptop. The Razer Blade 15 Advanced is a case in point, and shows Razer is getting better and better at building laptops.

The chassis holding the 15.6-inch display is beautifully put together, the internal components are top notch, and the lighting system around the keys is really well done too. Whether you're gaming or working on some spreadsheets, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced really impresses.

While it has become the norm that companies issue employees with laptops, there are some cases where this isn't true and Lenovo, having adopted the iconic ThinkPad brand, is here for those exact customers. The design is nothing too fancy, but don't let that fool you: beneath the surface is a capable laptop at an excellent price point. 

The base model, which retails for around £1,069, comes stocked with an Intel i5 CPU at 1.60GHz and beyond, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, double what many manufacturers offer as standard. For those willing to splash out, Lenovo offers an i7 alongside double the RAM and storage for as little as £1,429.99.

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