Best 13-inch laptop in 2022

The best 13-inch laptops blend portability and productivity in equal measures. Students can effortlessly carry 13-inch laptops around campus and business concern professionals can slip them into briefcases when traveling (or you can hands movement them from your home office to the couch). Even so despite their size, a xiii-inch laptop equipped with an Intel, AMD Ryzen or Apple tree M1 processor can provide plenty performance for most users.

We’ve compiled the all-time 13-inch laptops, but if you lot’re not sold on this screen size, cheque out our all-time laptops page or the best 15-inch laptops if you lot need more screen existent manor. Students should see our best college laptops page, where they’ll find the best notebook for their respective fields of report.

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The HP Envy 13 is the all-time laptop for under $1,000 and ane of the best 13-inch laptops on the market. While information technology still has a plastic touchpad, the Green-eyed 13 is a fantastic value if you want the all-time laptop for less than four figures. What makes this such a great deal is its entirely aluminum design and the excellent 11th Gen Intel Cadre CPUs.

In our testing, we found that an Green-eyed xiii with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 delivers fast operation for about whatsoever task. This specific Green-eyed costs just $900 and can outmuscle laptops that price well over $1,000. Moreover, the Envy 13 has a bright, brilliant 13.3-inch display and a comfy keyboard.

At that place is very fiddling we don’t like nigh the Envy 13. If you can get over the lack of an IR photographic camera (there is a fingerprint sensor), so information technology is the ultimate money-saving laptop.

Come across our

HP Green-eyed 13 (2021) review

What do you get when you put one of Intel’s new Tiger Lake processors into a Dell XPS thirteen? Even more than awesome. The latest Dell XPS xiii keeps all the things we loved nearly this year’due south previous model, such as a smaller frame, four-sided InfinityEdge bezels and a larger keyboard. But this refresh brings Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake processor and a host of promised features, including better CPU and graphics performance and longer battery life. You also get Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6. These are all reasons why information technology’s the all-time 13-inch laptop you can buy if budget isn’t a business.

But does Tiger Lake live up to the hype? Absolutely. With the new Intel Iris Xe GPU, y’all can play certain AAA games on an integrated GPU, admitting on low settings. And in many cases, the overall operation is pinnacle-notch as well. The bombardment life even surpasses Intel’due south new Evo standards past two hours. For those looking for a laptop with equal parts beauty, power and longevity, the Dell XPS 13 is the laptop for yous.

Come across our full

Dell XPS 13 (Belatedly 2020) review
.

And here is our review of the

Dell XPS 13 with 4K display

and the

XPS 13 OLED

released in 2021.

If you adopt macOS to Windows x, so go with the Apple MacBook Air. The biggest improvement to this yr’southward model is the new M1 fleck, which delivers outstanding performance and fantabulous battery life, making the new MacBook Air the fastest ultrathin laptop ever.

Best of all, the MacBook Air nonetheless costs only $999, and yet, you can unrivaled functioning along with fourteen hours and 41 minutes of battery life. This is a combination you lot’ll simply find from the very best Windows 10 laptops, and even they tin can’t compete in head-to-caput performance.

So why buy the MacBook Air instead of the Pro? While the Pro has better sustained performance, the MacBook Air is cheaper and is pivot-drop silent because information technology doesn’t have a fan. And, of form, Apple’s least expensive xiii.iii-inch model is the near portable, coming in at only 0.6 inches thick and 2.8 pounds.

Merely at present the MacBook Air is slower to parity with the MacBook Pro than e’er before. It has similar speed and battery life, the same 720p webcam, a comfortable Magic keyboard and two USB-C ports. Also, the 13.3-inch, 2560 x 1600-pixel Retina display on the M1 model was improved with P3 colour coverage, making it more than vibrant than the previous console.

See our full

Apple tree MacBook Air (M1, 2020) review

This is the huge jump forward we were waiting on. It is all thanks to the M1 bit, Apple tree’south first-ever custom SoC for laptops. With the best power-per-watt performance of any processor, the M1 brings the MacBook Pro’southward performance and battery life to the next level.

More specifically, the MacBook Pro is more than powerful than nearly every PC on the marketplace, including some workstations. And despite cramming and so much power into such a slim and sleek chassis, the Pro lasted for an outstanding sixteen hours and 32 minutes on our battery test, which simulates real-world testing.

With an image processing unit, the webcam (sadly, still 720p) is better than earlier and since information technology runs on Apple’s ARM-based architecture, iPad and iPhone apps are at present available on Mac. Yep, yous tin can run all your favorite iOS games and apps on your laptop now.

Rounding out the numerous enhancements establish in the latest MacBook Pro is Big Sur, the latest version of macOS. The largest update since OS X launched a decade agone, Large Sur is a beautiful redesign of the desktop Os.  With the do good of sustained functioning, the MacBook Pro is a more capable  thirteen-inch laptop than the MacBook Air just not as adept of a value.

See our

MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) review

Yous are probably familiar with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon at this point. Information technology has been our favorite concern laptop for ages due to its lightweight design, fantabulous performance and user-friendly features. The X1 Nano uses the Carbon equally a platform but packs everything into an even smaller chassis with a thirteen-inch, 2K brandish.

That console is an excellent one, flaunting a sharp film and gorgeous colors. Despite the loftier-res console, the X1 Nano lasted for 12 hours on a accuse, making it swell for frequent travelers. The performance is good, not great, but you yet become a fast machine that weighs but 2 pounds.

It isn’t a perfect laptop — we still favor the X1 Carbon — but for those who need the absolute most portable solution, the X1 Nano is the way to go.

See our full

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano review
.

The Pixelbook Go is easily i of the all-time Chromebooks you can buy. Google’s laptop is super slim and light at merely 2 pounds, and it sports an like shooting fish in a barrel-to-grip pattern. The extreme portability extends to this Chromebook’southward battery life, as it lasted a very impressive eleven hours and 29 minutes on our web-surfing battery test.

Other highlights include a vibrant 13.iii-inch display and solid performance course its Core m3 processor (Core i5 is available). The speakers aren’t stellar and Chrome Os still has its limitations, simply overall the Pixelbook Get is a great option.

Read our full

Pixelbook Go review
.

If I had to choose between the Spectre x360 14 and Spectre x360 13, I’d buy the 14-inch model. Only when yous factor in the extra cost (most $400 at the time of writing) of the larger version, I start leaning toward the Spectre x360 13. Similar the Spectre 14, this 13-inch version has a bright display, a comfortable keyboard, epic battery life, and one of the most striking designs we’ve ever seen on a laptop.

It brings with it 11th Gen Intel CPUs for speedy performance and the included IR camera and fingerprint sensor mean you never take to use a password over again. And while it may not include a stylus, the Spectre x360 xiii is reasonably priced for a premium convertible laptop that tin transform into a tablet.

If you want a larger screen, we strongly recommend the Spectre x360 14.

See our
HP Spectre x360 13 review
.

Dell’s new XPS 13 2-in-1 takes everything we love about the clamshell XPS 13 — fast performance (thank you to 11th Gen CPUs), a sleek, lightweight design and very long battery life — and put it in a flexible convertible chassis. You likewise get a unique xiii.4-inch, 1920 ten 1200-resolution display.

No, that’south no typo; The XPS 13 2-in-1’south bear upon screen has a xvi:10 aspect ratio, making information technology taller than almost every other thirteen-inch brandish. Better nonetheless, that panel is both bright and vivid. While the shallow keyboard won’t be for everyone, the XPS 13 2-in-1 makes up for it with long battery life and excellent build quality.

See our full

Dell XPS 13 2-in-i review
.

Lenovo’due south ThinkPad X13 with AMD CPUs is the best business organisation laptop for students considering it has tons of features at a low toll. Starting at well under $1,000, the ThinkPad X13 gets you all the best ThinkPad features, including a world-course keyboard, a webcam embrace, a safety pointing stick and a magnesium chassis rated to military-grade immovability.

On summit of those security and durability features, the ThinkPad X13 delivers outstanding operation thanks to its AMD Ryzen CPUs, which blow away their Intel counterparts. While the ThinkPad X13’south battery life is a bummer, the price-to-performance ratio makes up for it. Oh, and you tin tons of ports and then at that place is no demand to buy a dongle.

Encounter our full

ThinkPad X13 (AMD) review
.

The ZenBook xiii may not have been able to surpass the beastly Acer Swift 5 on our benchmarks, but it crushed the Dell XPS 13 and the HP Spectre x360 13 on the graphics and file-transfer tests. It also blew all of its rivals out of the water with its extremely colorful OLED display. The clicky keyboard is impressive, too — peculiarly for such a compact, portable laptop. Laptops with thirteen-inch displays typically feel cramped, but I felt comfortable typing on the ZenBook 13.

The Numberpad two.0 is some other stellar feature. Asus also deserves a pat on the back for the MyAsus software, an all-in-ane app that facilitates all your needs, including quick, wireless file transfers, screen mirroring, configuring fan controls, initiating updates, running a organization diagnostics, and coolest of all, using your phone as a webcam. Plus, the ZenBook 13 lasts more than 13 hours on a accuse.

Encounter our full

Asus Zenbook 13 (UX325) OLED review
.

Windows xi users envious of the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air should turn their direction to the Surface Laptop iv. With a start-rate build quality and a slim, elegant aluminum chassis, the Surface Laptop 4 is arguably more bonny than Apple’s honey notebooks. It also has a similarly fantastic thirteen.v-inch display (with a 3:2 aspect ratio) that is more vivid than the ane on the newest MacBook Pro.

Other things we like about the Surface Laptop 4 are its fast functioning more than ten:45 hours of bombardment life. The keyboard is also fantastic, and even more comfortable to type on than the new Magic Keyboard on the MacBook. So although there are no Thunderbolt iii ports and the bezels remain a bit chunky, the Surface Laptop 4 is a wonderful laptop for people who want a stylish ultraportable machine with outstanding build quality.

Encounter our full

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review
.

Asus has done it again. They’ve inverse the definition of what the best gaming laptop is. By itself, the Asus ROG Period X13 is a compelling laptop. It’southward very rare to see a thirteen-inch gaming laptop and even rarer for information technology to be a 2-in-1. But Asus didn’t stop there, they threw a loftier-powered AMD Ryzen 9 processor into the mix and even outfitted the notebook with its own discrete Nvidia GPU.

It’s when the XG Mobile comes into play where things go interesting. For the life of me, I’m baffled about how they fit an RTX 3080 into such a small enclosure. Even though I wish Asus could have found a more elegant solution than that huge proprietary plug, I can’t fence with the results. The XG Mobile is the proverbial trap card, transforming it into the dark wizard of gaming laptops. It doesn’t have any right to be as powerful equally it is, but here we are, over again impressed by Asus’ ingenuity. 6

See our full

Asus ROG Flow X13 review
.

If the ROG Flow sounds intriguing but a detachable form factor is more your speed, the new

Asus ROG Flow Z13

could be the reply.

How to cull the all-time 13-inch laptop

There’s a lot to consider beyond screen size when choosing the best 13-inch laptop.

The first is portability. 13-inch laptops are popular, especially among college students, considering they offer a skillful balance betwixt screen real manor and portability. The Dell XPS 13 is a great case. It weighs around 2 pounds and is simply 0.5 inches thick all the same you lot get a 13.iii-inch edge-to-border display.

Battery life is some other central component because portable machines should deliver long runtimes.  Consider a laptop that gets at least nine hours of battery life, which should be plenty to get yous through a full twenty-four hours of work or a long international flight.

When it comes to specs, nosotros recommend ownership a laptop with at least 8GB of RAM (16GB is great) and a minimum of 256GB of storage. While Intel had things on lock for years, whatsoever of the latest chips from Intel, AMD or Apple should be sufficient for well-nigh users.

Other things to consider include a comfy keyboard and a sensitive touchpad. And when it’south time to watch Netflix or YouTube, be sure to become a laptop with a bright and bright brandish (like whatever of those listed here).

How we test laptops

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both constructed and real-earth — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and estrus management.

In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop’due south display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench v.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.

To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to indistinguishable a 25GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics examination is the Dirt 5 criterion with medium settings at 1080p resolution.

We besides run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in dissimilar areas of the laptop. Concluding only not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of effulgence. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a expert result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop’southward materials to the feel of its touchpad.