Tom's Guide Awards 2022: The top laptops and computers this year

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Tom's Guide Awards 2021: The top laptops and computers this year

(Prototype credit: Tom'south Guide)

While much of the computing world has been impacted past ongoing chip shortages, making some of the well-nigh desirable processors and graphics cards a nightmare to buy, there are however plenty of exciting products on the market that are worth celebrating.

We've not simply seen powerful new next-generation graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia, but likewise the debut of Apple's remarkable M1 chip, which has raised the bar for PC operation and ability efficiency. And we've had no shortage of impressive laptops, with Dell building upon the ever-impressive XPS and Asus flirting with dual-screen machines. So that ways we have plenty to celebrate in the Tom's Guide Awards when it comes to computing.

All-time laptop overall: Dell XPS 13 with OLED

(Paradigm credit: Dell)

The slim, elegant XPS 13 has long been a favorite of ours hither at Tom's Guide, and Dell's conclusion to add together an OLED display option this year makes 1 of the best laptops on the market even better. With great performance, a stylish chassis, and a beautiful iii.5K OLED touchscreen, the Dell XPS thirteen with OLED is the best laptop nosotros've seen this year.

Highly Recommended: Apple MacBook Air with M1
Apple'south thinnest laptop got a big upgrade this year with the addition of Apple silicon, boosting the MacBook Air's performance and bombardment life enough that the MacBook Air with M1 is at present arguably the best MacBook you can purchase.

Highly Recommended: Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360
Samsung fabricated a splash this twelvemonth with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360, a great laptop for creative types thank you to its beautiful AMOLED touchscreen, cracking battery life, and comfy stylus packed in.

Best laptop breakthrough: Apple M1 chip

(Image credit: Apple tree)

The debut of the M1 flake in November of 2020 was the get-go of a sea change for Apple hardware. This is the first System on a Bit Apple'due south always designed for Macs, and then far it's delivered remarkable performance and battery life boosts in every Mac it's been added to. M1-equipped MacBooks are now some of the best laptops y'all can buy, and we can't expect to see which Apple tree product volition be upgraded with Apple silicon next, making this easily the most heady laptop quantum of the year.

Highly Recommended: Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen'due south second screen
The Asus ZenBook Duo 14 is a decent laptop that sacrifices ergonomics for a big 2d touchscreen embedded above the keyboard, a risky design move that pays off if y'all value the idea of having a born second screen you tin utilise to control apps and system widgets, monitor social media, and more.

Best laptop design: HP Spectre x360 14

(Epitome credit: HP)

Amongst all the laptops we looked at this twelvemonth, the HP Spectre x360 14 is the one that looks best on a desk-bound. This solid 2-in-1 comes with a imitation blackness leather sleeve, a fashionable MPP2.0 Tilt Pen stylus, and a slim, elegant chassis that manages to fit a 14-inch brandish into a roughly xi-inch frame. Factor in the fact that you lot have the option of making that display a 3K OLED touchscreen, and the Spectre x360 14 is our pick for the best laptop design.

Highly Recommended: Acer ConceptD vii Ezel
The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel is a powerful convertible laptop with a built-in Wacom pen and a dazzling 4K display you can use in v different modes, making it an impressive mobile workstation with one of the coolest hinges we've always seen on a laptop.

Highly Recommended: Razer Blade 14
The Razer Bract 14 packs a lot of power into a remarkably well-designed sparse and light laptop, delivering the power of up to a Ryzen nine 5900HX CPU and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU in a slim, compact package.

Best budget laptop: Lenovo Chromebook Duet

(Image credit: Tom'due south Guide)

Sure, the Lenovo Chromebook Duet is technically a $249 Chrome tablet, only since it comes with a detachable keyboard packed in it's also arguably the best laptop you can purchase if you're on a upkeep. Typing on the keyboard tin experience a fiddling cramped, but at this price you lot'll take to make some sacrifices, and in return you get a durable ii-in-1 laptop with a decent screen that can stand up upward to the demands of daily use past kids and adults alike.

Highly Recommended: Acer Chromebook Spin 311
The Acer Chromebook Spin 311 may expect similar merely another sub-$300 silverish Chromebook in a market inundation with them, just it has a dandy keyboard and solid battery life, making information technology a bang-up selection if y'all need a skillful laptop for not a lot of money.

Best Chromebook: Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

Eliminating the original Milky way Chromebook's 4K display was probably the best thing Samsung could have done to make the Samsung Milky way Chromebook two a hit. Now the company'southward flagship Chromebook is manner more affordable and has a reasonable 8-60 minutes battery life, but still sports a beautiful 2K display. It also sounds keen, and if you're willing to pay a trivial extra for the Core i3 configuration you have more enough power to use Chrome OS to the fullest.

Highly Recommended: Acer Chromebook Spin 713
The Acer Chromebook Spin 713 features amazing bombardment life, bang-up performance and a bright, colorful brandish for a pretty affordable price.

Highly Recommended: Lenovo Chromebook Duet
The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a long lasting Chrome tablet with a nice screen and a decent keyboard packed in, making it a surprisingly useful (and, at a starting price of $249, surprisingly affordable) 2-in-1 Chromebook.

All-time laptop display: Dell XPS 13 with OLED

(Prototype credit: Futurity)

Certain, the 3.5K OLED screen option Dell added to its laurels-winning XPS 13 this year can't quite do native 4K, just when you meet it in person you'd be hard-pressed to notice. What you will notice is that it'southward gorgeous, delivering vibrant colors with hitting contrast that helps fifty-fifty minor details stand out against deep, absorbing blacks. It's the all-time display we've seen on a laptop this yr, one that's particularly immersive thanks to the ultra-slim bezels of the Dell XPS 13.

Highly Recommended: Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360
The 1920 ten 1080 AMOLED screen on Samsung'southward Milky way Book Pro 360 can't display as many pixels as the Dell XPS thirteen'southward OLED, simply in person it looks just as good, with middle-catching colors and cute contrasts betwixt light and dark that make watching your favorite TV and films a joy.

Best sounding laptop: 16-inch MacBook Pro

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The 6-speaker sound arrangement built into Apple's sixteen-inch MacBook Pro is the best nosotros've heard in a laptop, delivering kickin' bass and a nice broad sound field that makes everything from smooth jazz to movie trailers sound great. We're still eagerly awaiting a redesign that incorporates Apple silicon, simply if you want a laptop that sounds amazing we still think the 16-inch MacBook Pro is your best option.

Highly Recommended: Microsoft Surface Laptop iv
Music and movies sound peachy coming out of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4, which may have something to do with how the laptop is designed to project sound out from speakers beneath the keyboard (rather than on either side of it) and bounce it off the screen at you.

Highly Recommended: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
With a pair of 2.five-watt speakers and some other pair of 0.vii-watt tweeters, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 offers upwards robust audio and great volume for a 14-inch gaming laptop.

Longest lasting laptop: MacBook Pro with M1

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

The improver of Apple's custom M1 chip transformed the 13-inch MacBook Pro, turning it into a long-lasting powerhouse overnight. In our Tom's Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of screen brightness, the MacBook Pro with M1 lasted an incredible 16 hours and 25 minutes, making information technology the ideal laptop for those who hate worrying near carrying a charger or finding an open outlet.

Highly Recommended: Samsung Galaxy Volume Flex
The Samsung Galaxy Book Flex packs decent performance and a dainty screen into a fashionable chassis, only the real flex is its battery life: in our battery testing it lasted xv hours and 44 minutes, beating the pants off every other Windows laptop nosotros tested this year.

Highly Recommended: MacBook Air with M1
While it can't quite match the staying power of the M1-equipped MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air with M1 lasted fourteen hours and 41 minutes in our battery test, making information technology one of the longest-lasting laptops yous can buy.

Best mini PC: Apple Mac mini with M1

(Paradigm credit: Tom'due south Guide)

The Apple Mac mini was the outset Apple desktop to get an M1 chip, and the results are impressive: information technology'due south cheaper and faster than its predecessor, while maintaining the same sleek unibody blueprint that makes it look great on your desk-bound. It's not a perfect mini PC — nosotros're not happy virtually the smaller port selection and support for only two displays — but the overall value y'all arrive the new Apple Mac mini with M1 makes it the best mini PC you can purchase.

Highly Recommended: Azulle Access3
If you need your mini PC to be so mini it fits in your pocket, the Azulle Access3 is a bang-up choice: this stick PC plugs directly into the HDMI port of your brandish and sports a fashionable, fanless design, with a speedy processor and good port pick, making information technology one of the all-time mini PCs yous tin buy. In the time since we reviewed the Access3 Azulle has released an improved model, the Azulle Access4, which gains a USB-C port, improved performance, and a sleeker await.

Best all-in-one PC: 24-inch Apple iMac 2021

(Prototype credit: Future)

The 24-inch, M1-equipped iMac Apple tree unveiled this twelvemonth feels like a breath of fresh air for the crumbling iMac line, arriving with a cute 4.5K display, a slim new design, and an array of bright new paint jobs. If you're in the marketplace for an all-in-i PC the whole family tin enjoy, this is a dandy choice: the vibrant display makes movies and games await fantastic, the 6 speakers built into the bottom lip of the brandish help everything sound excellent, and the 1080p webcam delivers cute image quality during video calls with friends and family. Gene in the fact that the M1 scrap gives this PC plenty horsepower for most daily tasks and the pick to natively run iOS apps, and the 24-inch Apple tree iMac 2021 is hands the best all-in-one PC nosotros've seen all year.

Highly Recommended: Apple iMac 27-inch (2020)
The older Apple tree iMac 27-inch (2020) doesn't have the benefits of the M1 flake, but it's still a fantastic all-in-one PC with a gorgeous 5K screen, bully speakers, and an fantabulous 1080p webcam. Its 10th Gen Intel CPU and discrete Radeon graphics menu also requite it enough horsepower to handle almost anything you lot throw at it, including video editing and graphically-intensive games.

Best tablet: 12.9-inch iPad Pro with M1

(Prototype credit: Tom's Guide/Henry T. Casey)

Both the eleven-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models got an M1 injection this year that supercharges their functioning, but the 12.9-inch Pro also got a beautiful (and vivid) new mini-LED brandish that makes watching HDR content a real delight. It might be a fleck of overkill if you don't take bang-up eyes or need to be editing and evaluating video on your tablet, but it'southward easily the best tablet we've seen all year, peculiarly when you cistron in the fact that it now has Thunderbolt 3/USB iv support and offers 5G connectivity.

Highly Recommended: Apple iPad Air (2020)
Nosotros're still waiting on a new iPad Air sporting Apple silicon, merely even without the power of M1 the Apple tree iPad Air (2020) sports an excellent screen and keen performance, making it 1 of the best iPads you can buy.

Highly Recommended: ReMarkable two
If you don't mind a monochrome display, the ReMarkable ii is a beautiful, slim, and light tablet with a unique digital newspaper screen that feels wonderful to read and write on.

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