Best business laptops January 2024: Top picks for office or remote work

Looking for the best business laptop to help hit your goals in 2024? There are great deals available right now on last year’s models, and if you are willing to wait, the laptops we saw at CES 2024 will start shipping over the next few months. Whatever your situation, consider us your outsourced team of dedicated laptop experts who review dozens of laptops annually to help you find the very best business laptops.

The best business laptops from every major manufacturer are put through our rigorous lab and real-world testing so we can judge their blend of portability, performance, battery life, and more. When it comes to business laptops you can’t shortchange security and durability — the best business laptops typically come with fingerprint sensors, IR cameras, security chips, and many have military-grade durability. These are key components that differentiate business laptops from typical consumer laptops.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Z16 is our current pick for the best business laptop, ticking all of the boxes above and offering a gorgeous display, solid performance, and 15 hours of battery life! However, if you prefer Acer, Apple, Dell, or HP there are compelling options at varying price points from them all.

Read on for a look at our top picks and we’ll find the perfect fit for you.

The Quick List

Best Business Laptop Overall

Lenovo’s X1 Carbon reclaims its spot atop the best business laptops after a one-year hiatus. The disappointing battery life of 2022 is gone, and it’s back to the top serving up plenty of endurance and power in its lightweight frame. Weighing in at just 2.6 pounds with a thickness of only 0.6 inches, the X1 Carbon isn’t going to overload your laptop bag when commuting or traveling. Plus, it’s MIL-SPEC tested so it’ll hold up to any bumps or drops along the way.

Realizing that security is a top priority for many business users, the X1 Carbon Gen 11 has a fingerprint reader and a TPM 2.0 chip to encrypt sensitive data. The Windows Hello-compatible IR camera isn’t standard, but it’s an affordable upgrade for those that want it. And when it’s time to get to work, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon has plenty of ports so you don’t need a USB-C hub in your bag. Creatives would hope for a more vivid display, but the 14-inch panel is plenty bright, which is a larger concern for business users. The world-renowned keyboard is just as comfortable as we’ve come to expect. However, the touchpad is smaller than we would like, so you may want 

The X1 Carbon lasted a whopping 13 hours and 45 minutes on our battery test and when it came to our benchmarks, it easily topped our premium laptop averages. As a business laptop, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) is an undeniable powerhouse with a few minor cons such as the disappointing webcam and display vibrance, but when it comes to the specs business users care about, it is simply the best. 

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 review.

Best Budget Business Laptop

The ThinkBook 14s Yoga delivers amazing value at under $1,000 for a durable 2-in-1 that includes a built-in Smart Pen, solid performance, and battery life.

The Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga isn’t going to do double duty as your gaming laptop, but it is more than powerful enough to churn through any productivity tasks that you care to throw at it. Coming up just minutes shy of 10 hours of battery life it should be able to get you through a full workday.

The included Smart Pen with its convenient silo in the chassis of the ThinkBook is an awesome inclusion if you ever need to sketch, take handwritten notes, or even just sign the occasional document. Speaking of solid inclusions, the webcam is better than average, so you can probably skip budgeting for an external webcam.

Overall, if you don’t want to spend a penny more than $1,000 — and you want an impressive 14-inch business-oriented convertible with an included Smart Pen — you can’t go wrong with the ThinkBook 14s Yoga.

See our full Lenovo ThinkBook 14S Yoga review 

Best Long-Lasting Business Laptop

The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 is a power-efficient gem with a lightweight, portable form factor, a great webcam, and a battery runtime that climbs above 14 hours!

While the performance won’t have the Dragonfly G3 doubling as your gaming laptop in your downtime, it’s more than enough to handle productivity and web browsing tasks and that efficiency over raw power is a worthwhile tradeoff for business users. 

Factoring in the productivity-enhancing 3:2 aspect ratio, the comfortable clicky keyboard, the spacious touchpad, solid webcam and 2.2-pound weight and you have a fantastic option for business users that travel or are frequently moving around the office or working remotely.

Read our full HP Elite Dragonfly G3 review.

Best 2-in-1 Business Laptop

With a blend of flexibility and battery life, the Dell Latitude 9430 is the best 2-in-1 business laptop. It cruised to 12 hours and 39 minutes in our Laptop Mag Battery test. But that’s hardly the only reason to choose it; the bright InfinityEdge display lets Dell squeeze a 14-inch display into a super slim 0.54-inch chassis.

Performance is more than enough to juggle all the browser tabs you forgot to close during the day along with every productivity app in your arsenal. The sleek, but durable build, and the flexible 2-in-1 convertible form factor make all help to extend its utility.

Add in excellent enterprise-grade security from its vPro processor, secure and convenient login via its FHD IR camera or fingerprint reader and you have a business laptop that justifies its admittedly high price.

See our full Dell Latitude 9430 2-in-1 review.

Best Lightweight Business Laptop

Acer consistently delivers laptops that deliver a great combination of performance and value. Case in point, the Acer Swift 5. It’s easy on the eyes with our reviewer proclaiming the Mist Green aerospace-grade aluminum system as “the most attractive notebook I’ve seen this year.” But the Swift 5 is about more than good looks.

Powered by a 12th Gen Intel Core i7 processor with integrated Intel graphics, the Swift 5 held its own against its competitors during our overall performance and file transfer tests. And it easily sailed past our category average. The Swift 5 had its best showing on the Geekbench 5.4 test where it scored an impressive 9,859. We were also surprised at how well the notebook’s integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics performed, notching 26 frames per second on the Sid Meier’s Civilization VI benchmark. While it didn’t make our longest lasting laptop page, the Swift 5 still offers more than 11 hours of battery life. Other reasons to buy include a healthy smattering of ports and a bright, vivid 14-inch display. 

But it’s not a perfect system, however, as the laptop has an inordinate amount of bloatware. The speakers also could have been better. However, these are minor issues for an otherwise outstanding Windows 11 laptop. 

See our full Acer Swift 5 review.

 

Best Apple Business Laptop

The MacBook Air M2 is a nearly perfect laptop with the same outstanding performance and battery life that we’ve come to expect from Apple Silicon, but it also introduces the new design from the MacBook Pro 14 and 16 along with a gorgeous new 13.6-inch display.

This is a blend of performance and portability that few Windows laptops can challenge, so for those that can live in the macOS ecosystem, this belongs at the top of your list. Our lone complaint with the Air M2 is that the SSD has a slightly slower write speed than its predecessor, but it is still well above average and not something that should sway you against it.

While you have a pair of USB-C ports and the new MagSafe charging port, if you are looking to escape carrying a USB-C hub with you then you will need to look to the recently updated MacBook Pro 14 (M3, 2023), which sports an HDMI port, an SD card slot, MagSafe and a trio of Thunderbolt 4 ports (sadly, still no USB-A). 

See our full Apple MacBook M2 (13-inch) review.

Best Big Screen Apple Business Laptop

The 15-inch MacBook Air is the true meaning of the phrase “bigger is better.” Through and through, this is basically the 13-inch MacBook Air from above, but larger, and with that extra size comes some impressive upgrades to the end user experience.

It maintains the incredibly lightweight construction, which will definitely come in handy when on-the-go. The Liquid Retina display, while not the most colorful on the block, is the most accurate and the brightest. And that extra screen real estate is great when multi-tasking across different windows.

Plus, the entry-level M2 chip can more than handle my daily workload, and the Magic Keyboard makes for a comfortable typing experience hours later. Speaking of which, at just short of 15 hours of battery life, the Air 15 can more than hang during work hours and some off-the-clock activities if so inclined. And the step up to six speakers is a great look for the Air. 

You can get all of this from just $1,699, which puts the MacBook Air 15 in that sweet spot of affordability — a godsend in this economy (even more surprising that it’s coming from Apple and its typically premium pricing).

See our full Apple MacBook M2 (15-inch) review.

Best Workstation Business Laptop

With 5 out of 5 stars, how is the Dell Precision 5470 not higher on this list? It’s simple, not everyone needs this much power in a business laptop. This is a workstation laptop with the Nvidia RTX A1000 GPU and Intel Core i9-12900H CPU to prove it. It can’t go toe-to-toe with the best gaming laptops, but it will run circles around any typical business laptop.

If your productivity work ever dips into the realm of content creation, if you are like me and you just overload your laptop with a million seemingly small tasks, or you are frequently transferring large data files, the blazing performance of the 5470 will be worth its 3.3-pound weight in gold.

Lastly, I’ll touch on the display, which is a gorgeous 14-inch anti-glare InfintyEdge touchscreen with a 2560 x 1600-pixel resolution and the ability to overpower any brightly lit environment with its 499 nit max brightness.

See our full Dell Precision 5470 review.

Best Luxury Business Laptop

While HP’s Elite Dragonfly G3 may grab the battery life crown, the Dragonfly Folio G3 deserves its moment in the sun too. HP’s incredibly luxurious 2-in-1 serves up a legitimately useful convertible design that also just oozes class and sophistication with its soft faux leather lid.

The included stylus lets you take notes or sketch up quick diagrams in any of the myriad positions that the Folio G3 can contort into. That flexibility also comes in handy when finding the right angle for a video meeting and the 8MP webcam is vastly superior to the typical built-in 720p or 1080p cams.

The Folio G3 isn’t a workstation by any means, but it offers better-than-average performance that will easily keep up with typical productivity work and it keeps its cool while doing it in our heat testing.

With a starting price of around $2,100, the HP Dragonfly Folio G3 isn’t cheap, but it at least does you the courtesy of looking every bit as 

See our full HP Dragonfly Folio G3 review. 

Best ChromeOS Business Laptop

Chromebooks…for business users? Yes, we mean it. The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook Enterprise is the best option available today. Boasting Intel vPro security, a Titan C chip, and a fingerprint sensor the Dragonfly far surpasses the security of your average Chromebook. A free year of Parallels for Chromebooks gives you full access to any Windows apps you might still need.

The security and ease of management offered by the HP Elite Dragfonfly Chromebook are two strong selling points, but the rest of the hardware doesn’t let down from there. The 13.5K 2K display with up to 400 nits of brightness looks outstanding. The 2-in-1 form factor, light 2.8-pound chassis, and optional 5G support make it a dream for frequent travelers. 

At just over 9 hours in our Laptop Mag battery test the battery life could be better and the price makes it a tough sell if work isn’t paying for it, but for businesses that will save considerable money on support, it is worth the investment.

See our full HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook review.

How To Choose a Business Laptop

Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the right model of business laptop for you or your company.

• Do you need Intel vPro or AMD Pro? Many business laptops are available with CPUs that have Intel vPro technology, which lets a support person log in remotely, even if the computer can’t boot. However, unless you have a large IT department and a huge fleet of laptops that you need the ability to service remotely, you probably won’t use this feature.
• How fast do you need it to be? Most business users will be happy with a laptop that has a quad-core, Core i5 CPU like the Core i5-1135G7 or Core i5-1145G7 (vPro) and the CPU’s integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. However, if you require a high-end performance for 3D Modeling, professional video editing, or creating predictive models, then get a mobile workstation with Core i7 or Core i9 H-Series CPU (model numbers end in HQ) and Nvidia Quadro graphics.
• Long battery life: Nobody wants to run out of juice in the middle of a long workday or a cross-country flight. Unless you’re getting a giant workstation, look for a laptop that gets more than 9 hours on a charge. Some business systems come with a choice of regular or extended batteries; always get the high-capacity unit.
• SSDs for responsiveness: If you want a truly fast computer, get a solid state drive rather than a mechanical hard drive. SSDs boot up, open programs and multitask at least three times faster than old-fashioned hard drives.
• The right ports: Nobody likes to carry a bag full of dongles. Consider which kinds of connections you or your employees will need the most. If you connect to a wired network a lot, make sure the laptop has an Ethernet port. If photography is a key part of the job, choose a laptop with a memory card reader. No matter what your needs, a Thunderbolt 4 port is a huge plus, because it will allow you to connect to a new generation of high-speed peripherals, universal chargers and powerful docks.
• A great keyboard: It almost goes without saying that every laptop should have a good keyboard. But with business systems, a comfortable typing experience is even more important. Look for snappy feedback, deep travel and absolutely no flex.

How We Test Business Laptops

How we test business laptops

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — 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 heat management.

In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop’s display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including GeekBench 5 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. 

To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 25GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test includes the Assasin’s Creed Valhalla benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution. 

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good 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’s materials to the feel of its touchpad. 

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over a hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We’re not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming. 

We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on. 

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it. 

Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world’s largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we’re the group’s specialist for all things mobile tech.