Best Laptops of 2026 So Far!
Q1 2026 has been one of the quietest laptop quarters in a while — no gaming machines, slim pickings overall. But the laptops that did land are genuinely impressive. One forced the entire PC industry to panic. Another is running Cyberpunk at 60 frames with no dedicated GPU. Here are the five best laptops I've tested so far in 2026.
1. MacBook Neo — The $599 Laptop That Shocked the Industry
The MacBook Neo is a $599 laptop from Apple. Let that sink in. The Asus CFO literally called it a shock to the entire market — and he's right. Full aluminum body, solid hinge, no lid flex. You pick it up and it feels like a MacBook because it is one.
The A18 Pro chip inside shares the exact same Everest performance core architecture as the M4. If Apple had called it the M4 Lite, nobody would have blinked. In single-core performance — the metric that determines how fast your laptop feels day-to-day — it's faster than the M1. With the education discount at $499, you're getting browser performance matching a $1,500 MacBook Air.
The ceiling: 8GB of RAM, no exceptions — it's physically stacked on the die. No keyboard backlighting. No Thunderbolt. This isn't a video editing machine or a 3D workstation. But for everyday tasks, buying your first Mac, handing one to a family member, or heading into a classroom, nothing competes at this price.
2. Lenovo Yoga 7a 2-in-1 — Best 2-in-1 for the Money
Starting around $1,200, the Yoga 7a comes with something most competitors charge extra for: a Wacom-powered pen in the box, ready to go. The display is the real star — 2.8K AMOLED OLED, 120Hz, 100% DCI-P3, Delta E under 1. That means your eyes literally cannot perceive color inaccuracy. That's a spec you see on panels that cost significantly more.
Fresco, watercolor, and oil brushes react to pressure in real time, and on this OLED it looks phenomenal. The canvas mode props the display at a drawing angle that actually makes a difference when sketching.
The honest truth about the CPU: The Ryzen AI 7445 is actually a step down from last year's chip — 8 cores down to 6. The marketing name sounds like an upgrade, but this is a different tier focused on efficiency over raw power. Multi-core is noticeably behind, and Firefox compile took 64 minutes. The flip side: all-day battery life and fans that never get too loud under full load.
For students, creatives, and anyone who wants a gorgeous display and a capable pen in a 2-in-1 package, this is the one to look at.
3. Acer Swift Edge 16 AI — Most Competitive Panther Lake Value
The Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Ultra with this same chip costs $2,400. The XPS 16 is over $2,000. This one costs $1,800 — or $1,549 if you go for 16GB of RAM. Acer made cuts to get here, but they made the right ones.
The Core Ultra X735H pairs with Intel's Arc B390 integrated GPU. In Time Spy it scored 7,050 — remarkable for an integrated GPU. Intel claims the B390 performs like an RTX 4050, and the results back that up. Overwatch on high needs no frame gen. Marvel Rivals handles it. Cyberpunk is playable at just under 60fps on medium. In a 3.4 lb laptop with a 16-inch OLED.
The display is 2880×1800, 120Hz, touch-enabled with a great color gamut — though it's not tandem OLED and doesn't hit the peak brightness of some competitors. That's one of the cuts. The other is the speakers — two bottom-firing, and they're bad. But 15 hours of battery life, a haptic touchpad that doubles as a drawing surface, and the most competitive price on a Panther Lake X7 laptop you can actually buy makes this a genuinely great deal.
4. Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Ultra — Top Contender for Laptop of 2026
This laptop weighs 2.15 lbs. That's the lightest 14-inch Yoga Lenovo has ever made — lighter than the ZenBook A14 that everyone freaked out about last year. And somehow they fit a 75Wh battery inside. Most ultralight laptops have 50Wh batteries. The Dell XPS 13 has 51Wh and weighs more.
The trick is the haptic force pad — it takes up far less space than a mechanical trackpad, freeing room for a bigger battery. Clever engineering. Add a P-OLED display at over 1,000 nits peak brightness, 120Hz with VRR, Delta E under 1, and you have a display you can absolutely trust for creative work.
Then there's the GPU. Same Arc B390 as the Acer — gaming-class integrated graphics in a barely-over-two-pound laptop. Overwatch runs at 60–100 FPS. Battlefield Red Sector hits 100 FPS in a 100-player match. The keyboard is excellent: 1.5mm travel, concave keys, clicky feel. Triple-coated magnesium chassis that barely picks up fingerprints. All-day battery. Incredible display.
The complaints: No headphone jack. No USB-A. Three Thunderbolt 4 ports is great, but at this thinness you're living the dongle life for headphones. And good luck buying one right now — supply constraints have made the Panther Lake X-series configurations very hard to find. The X355 variant is available but it's not the same chip. If you want the X7, be patient and keep checking.
5. ASUS Zenbook A14 — One to Watch
The ZenBook A14 runs Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon X2 Elite at a similar price to the MacBook Air 13 — but you're getting more for your money. The chassis is lighter than the Air. You get USB4, full-size HDMI, a headphone jack, and the SSD is user-upgradeable. The display is OLED (60Hz). Better port selection overall.
The ARM compatibility story on Windows has genuinely changed in 2026. Chrome, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and VS Code all run natively. AVX2 emulation is live. This isn't the ARM situation from two years ago.
Full performance numbers are coming very soon in a dedicated review — but based on everything seen so far, this is one of the most exciting laptops of 2026.
Honorable Mentions
MacBook Air 13 & 15 — Still great laptops. If you want to stay in macOS, buy one and you'll be happy. The only reason the ZenBook A14 took the spot is that you get slightly more for your money on the Windows side right now.
ASUS ExpertBook Ultra — A fantastic machine: 10-mil display, matte nano-coating similar to Apple's, light, great speakers, strong port selection. The problems: hard to find, and the price is too high when the Lenovo Slim 7i Ultra and Dell XPS offer similar value for less.
Buy the MacBook Air 13 · Buy the MacBook Air 15
Last Updated: April 2026
