A lot of what makes the best laptops for Adobe Photoshop also makes the best laptops for video editing: a well-balanced combination of performance, battery life, and a bright and vivid display. Whether you're just learning the ins and outs of editing photos or can wield the lasso tool like a scalpel in the hand of a surgeon, there's no shortage of great options, whatever your skill level.

Laptops with Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs are now available for creators with demanding Photoshop needs, as well as all Intel's Core Ultra 200-series and AMD's Max Pro series of processors. Professional editors can benefit from the added performance of a discrete graphics card by enabling Photoshop's hardware acceleration features, which helps power through demanding tasks faster.

A high-resolution OLED display is also something to consider. You'll not only get to enjoy the rich hues and deep contrasts OLEDs are famous for, but some of them also have wide color gamut coverage — wide enough to find colors in between colors.

For beginners or anyone looking to save money, any laptop with last-gen hardware will still provide more than performance to move Photoshop edits along quickly. Even ones without a discrete graphics card. Check out our best laptop deals for the best discounts at various price points.

This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.

Update Log

6/6/25: Updated intro, benchmark comparisons, recently reviewed, and FAQs; added the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a as the best workstation and the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition as the best 2-in-1.

The Quick List

Best Overall

There's little not to love about the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9. It features a gorgeous display, powerful processor, solid discrete graphics, and enough memory and storage for creators of all skill levels. It even comes with decent battery life and a comfortable, bouncy keyboard.

Rami Tabari said in our review, "I love a display with a little kick. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i’s 16-inch, 3200 x 2000, 165Hz panel is gorgeous. It’s reasonably bright and offers a vivid wave of color."

The Yoga Pro 9i covers 105.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is well above the premium laptop average (91.2%). Its display is far better than similar laptops like the HP Spectre x360 16 (87.1%), Dell XPS 14 OLED (79.9%), and Apple MacBook Air (77.8%).

The Yoga Pro's powerful combination of an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card provide enough power for even the most demanding projects. The Yoga Pro 9i also lasted a respectable 9 hours and 51 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which is far more than many similarly packaged laptops.

The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 base model costs just $1,482 for an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The fully specced $2,043 version provides an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor with an RTX 4060 GPU and a 16-inch, 3.2K, Mini-LED display. Our preferred middle-of-the-road spec costs just $1,784.

See our full Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 review.

Best under $1,000

The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425) is a laptop that can do just about anything. It continuously amazes us how budget-friendly this absolute powerhouse is. With its power performance, solid graphics, and almost 16 hours of battery life, we have good reason to love the Zenbook 14 OLED as much as we do.

In my review, I note that "the display panel on the Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) looks incredible. The new trailer for Chris Pine's The Poolman showed crisp, vibrant colors, particularly in the scenes shot outdoors in LA during what appears to be a Lunar New Year celebration."

Starting at just $799, this laptop has a powerful Intel Core Ultra 5 135H processor with 8GB of DDR5 memory, 512GB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch FHD OLED panel. But if you can flex your budget just a bit more to the higher-end spec, at just $1,049, you get an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with 16GB of DDR5 memory and 1TB of SSD storage.

The Zenbook 14 OLED's display could be brighter and more vibrant, but with a DCI-P3 rating of 79.8%, it is comparable to most other laptops in its category, such as the Apple MacBook Air 13 M3 (77.8%) and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED UX3405M (81.7%).

But the Zenbook 14 OLED is more than its display panel. Surviving a shocking 15 hours and 52 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, it is one of the longest-lasting Intel laptops we've seen this year. Considering how budget-friendly this laptop is and how well it handles Photoshop, you can't go wrong with it.

See our full Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) review.

Best under $1,500

The Acer Swift X 14 is a powerful, budget-friendly option for Photoshop users who need more 3D rendering capacity. The base model starts at just $1,099. The mid-range model combines a powerful Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with a workhorse Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU, plus 16 GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. It retails for just $1,299. This mid-range model offers similar performance at a lower cost without sacrificing the display.

In my review, I observe that "the glossy CineCrystal OLED display on the Acer Swift X 14 looks fantastic to the human eye. The colors are bright and vivid, though the display panel does suffer from glare, especially with overhead office lighting."

However, if you'd like more memory, storage, and a more powerful GPU, our preferred Swift X 14 configuration is available for just $1,699. It includes an Nvidia RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage.

Acer rates the CineCrystal display on the Swift X 14 to 100% coverage on the DCI-P3 format. Our lab display test measures OLED panels a bit differently, so our testing indicated that the Swift X 14 covered 79.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro (81.4%) and HP Spectre x360 14 (85.8%) outperformed the Swift X 14 in our lab testing, but the Swift X 14's display looked incredible to the eye. In addition, the Swift X 14 offers a powerful Nvidia RTX 4050 to 4070 GPU, making it a better fit for more in-depth Photoshop work.

Based on the Laptop Mag battery test, the Swift X 14 with an RTX 4070 GPU can last for 7 hours and 33 minutes while surfing the web at 150 nits of brightness. While that isn't the best battery life for a laptop on this list, it's not bad for a laptop packing a discrete GPU and OLED display panel.

See our full Acer Swift X 14 review.

Best 2-in-1

Like some of the other Laptop Mag writers, I'm picky when it comes to convertible laptops — so it's a great day when a highly-rated review of one comes across my desk, and I get to give it a buying guide superlative. The Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition is without a doubt a laptop that deserves to be on this list.

This laptop's headlining feature is the display, a 14-inch OLED that's "far superior and even more colorful than most premium laptops overall," as Laptop Mag reviews editor Rami Tabari notes in his review. Covering 149.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, it produces vivid and richly saturated, drool-worthy colors. The display averages a maximum of 421 nits of brightness, higher than you'd see on many competing OLED laptops —all major reasons why this Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is also our current pick for the best touchscreen laptop with an OLED display.

When it comes to performance, this laptop takes a leisurely approach to finishing demanding tasks. Compared to the other laptops on this list, it was the slowest to convert a 4K video file to 1080p. Photoshop users may experience some lag when batch-processing dozens of images with numerous layers or working with filters and brush tools.

But if you're not a graphic designer or photographer who uses a lot of advanced features in Photoshop, the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 has a lot of other things going for it: a stellar and responsive keyboard; speakers that can actually handle a baseline; nearly 13 hours of battery life; and it weighs just under 3 pounds. (Other 2-in-1s are much more brick-like.) Also, I would feel comfortable putting it on my bare lap. At its hottest point, this laptop didn't reach 88.3 degrees, well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.

See our full Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition review.

Best MacBook

For Apple users and design enthusiasts, the 2024 MacBook Pro 16-inch with M4 Pro CPU reigns supreme for photo editing. While pricey (starting at $2,499), it offers powerful performance and a seamless experience within the Apple ecosystem. Opting for a 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM configuration delivers ample storage and smooth Photoshop performance, making it a compelling choice for creative professionals though upgrading the memory and storage capacity can get pricey.

Reviewer Sean Riley observes, "The 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Pro is more laptop than most people need, but that likely won't stop you from wanting one, and after a week with it, I can't blame you."

With any configuration of the M4 chip, you’ll get a brilliant 14-core Apple M4 Pro CPU, a 20-core Apple GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine, and a gorgeous 16.2-inch 3456 x 2234 Liquid Retina XDR display. Our lab benchmarking rated the 16-inch Liquid Retina panel as covering 81.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is high for laptops on this list. The MacBook Pro also scored well on the brightness test, with an average of 565 nits, much brighter than the category average of 391.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro (2024) is a smart choice for Photoshop because of its beautiful, bright display and powerfully smooth internal specs. However, there’s another crucial spec to consider: battery life. MacBooks are known for having excellent battery life, which is a fantastic feature for those wanting to use Photoshop on the go. The 16-inch MacBook Pro lasted an amazing 20 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, significantly longer than its workstation laptop competitors.

See our full Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro review.

Best Workstation

At CES 2025, we were so blown away by the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a that we gave it our best laptop award — and after reviewing it, we're still blown away by it. At 0.71-inches thick and weighing 3.4 pounds, it could easily be mistaken for a productivity laptop. However, with the driving force of an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 chip, it's anything but.

The great news for Windows users is that it comes "very close to eclipsing the MacBook Pro" in terms of portability and raw CPU power, as Laptop Mag staff writer Madeline Ricchiuto candidly mentions in her review. In some of our real-world testing, it's evenly matched; the ZBook converted a 4K video to 1080p 4 seconds faster than the MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro in our Handbrake transcoding test.

It's OLED display comes in an extremely close second to the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition, covering 139% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. (Many OLED laptop displays don't break 100%!) Its max brightness in on par with other competitors, maxing out at an average 368 nits — but if you're searching for the perfect shade of Pantone-like purple, this could be the workstation you've been looking for.

Being as powerful as they are, Windows workstations usually come with a battery life caveat, and with a run time of 6 hours and 46 minutes, this ZBook is no exception. To be fair, that's typical for a workstation, but it's a key area where this laptop doesn't eclipse the MacBook Pro, as well as other creator-focused laptops like the Asus ProArt PX13.

Ultimately, the ZBook's price tag is where most potential buyers could draw the line. The model we reviewed costs an enormous $4,049, but the base configuration starts at a substantial $2,599. If you're not loyal to a specific operating system, that amount of money can get you a MacBook Pro M4 Pro with better battery life — but it's hard to ignore that the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a is a marvelous laptop for any creative work.

See our full HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a review.

Benchmark Comparisons

Recent reviews

We review more than 100 laptops annually, and while some simply don't have what it takes to make our buying guides, others are still strong options that came up short for one reason or another. Here are some of our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make the cut for "Best laptops for Photoshop" but could still be solid machines for your photo editing needs.

How to choose a laptop for Photoshop

CPU: You want a high-performance processor like an Intel Core Ultra 7 or 9, an AMD Ryzen 7 or 9, or an Apple M4 chipset to handle complex filters, large photo files, and multiple project layers.

GPU: For heavy-duty tasks like intricate filters, 3D effects, or AI generation, you may want to consider a laptop with a discrete graphics card like an Nvidia RTX or AMD Radeon RX card.

RAM: You need at least 16GB of memory, but depending on your budget, Photoshop users will certainly benefit from 32 or 64GB of RAM. I'd stress the latter in particular isn't something you need to consider unless money is no object or you are doing this professionally and every second counts.

Storage: 512 GB is the minimum I'd consider if I'm doing a lot of photo work, though splurging for 1TB or more is a good idea. Unlike the CPU, GPU, and RAM, you can always turn to external storage, so if your budget requires you to save somewhere, this is the place to do it. However, I'd still stress that you want 512GB at a minimum to handle at least one project at a time without turning to an external drive.

Display: You want to be picky about the display since photo editing is a visual medium. You'll want a crisp, high-resolution panel in the QHD to 4K range with accurate color reproduction. For the best combination of brightness and vibrancy, we recommend opting for an IPS, OLED, or Apple Liquid Retina XDR display to ensure a high level of color fidelity.

If you're looking to set up a full photo studio workstation and didn't select a laptop with the best display, you could also upgrade with one of our picks for the best monitors or best portable monitors for on-the-go editing.

FAQs

Q: What minimum specs do I need for Photoshop?

A: Lower than you might think! As of October 2024, the minimum system requirements for Adobe Photoshop running on Windows 11 are: an Intel or AMD processor with AVX2 and SSE 4.2 or higher support, or a WinARM processor; 8GB of RAM; 256GB total SSD storage space; and a graphics card that's newer than 7 years with at least 1.5GB of video RAM, and supports DirectX 12; and a 1080p monitor.

All that applies if you have a Mac, except the graphics card, but you'll want to make sure you have macOS v12 or higher.

If you a faster laptop to run Photoshop, we recommend at least: an Intel 13th-gen Core i7 processor or newer, an AMD Ryzen 7 7000 series or newer, or Apple Silicon M2 or newer; at least 16GB of RAM; 512GB or more of total SSD storage space (PCIe Gen 4 or newer); an Nvidia RTX 2050 or newer graphics card with at least 4GB of VRAM; and a 1080p display or higher.

Mac users should be running macOS Sonoma or newer.

Q: Is a laptop that's good for Photoshop also good for video editing?

A: Most laptops that are good for Photoshop will also work for video editing, but you'll also want to be aware of the audio quality of a laptop when choosing a video editing machine. So not all the laptops on this list will be ideal for editing video or audio files.

Video editing can often demand more RAM and GPU resources than photo editing, so you may want to opt for a laptop with a discrete GPU if video editing is going to be a large part of your workflow.

Q: Why don't we recommend a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop for Photoshop?

A: On the hardware-side, a Snapdragon X Elite laptop is an excellent machine for running editing programs like Photoshop — but few native Windows on Arm versions of Adobe programs exist overall.

Currently, only Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can run natively on Snapdragon X Elite laptops. This might not be an issue if you only use Photoshop, but if you also use Adobe Premiere Pro, InDesign, or Illustrator, those can only run via emulation.

It's a similar concept to running a virtual version of Windows 95 on a Windows 11 PC, but the computer will use more resources running both the emulator and program at the same time, which could slow down various editing tasks. If you don't have enough available RAM or video RAM, the entire program could crash.

How We Test Laptops for Photoshop

Every laptop we test undergoes countless lab tests before a review goes live. We look at how a laptop performs in terms of CPU and GPU-intensive tasks, battery life, speakers, heat management, and display. While each laptop on this list has gone through every test we could run on it; there are a few specific test results we paid close attention to when choosing the best laptops for Photoshop.

When you work with Photoshop, it’s important that the colors you’re working with will translate to other screens when your file is shared. To detect a laptop’s display brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut, we use a Klein K-10A colorimeter, Klein ChromaSurf, and DisplayCal to calculate a laptop's average brightness and color gamut volume. We also pay attention to each laptop’s Delta-E score, showing how accurate a display’s colors are.

Additionally, performance is important in a laptop running Adobe Photoshop. The Geekbench CPU benchmark tests a laptop’s overall performance. To test a laptop’s GPU, the 3DMark benchmarks determine how well a laptop can run graphic-intensive applications. Discrete graphics are ideal when selecting a laptop for Photoshop, but not essential, so you might forgo a discrete GPU for a more budget-friendly laptop.

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.

If your workflow requires you to edit 4K videos, run complex simulations, or render 3D graphics, you'll need one of the best workstation laptops. These machines are built to handle almost anything you can throw at them while maintaining a laptop form factor.

While some creatives can get away with using one of the best gaming laptops instead, most creative professionals accept no substitutions. The laptops on this list feature workstation-optimized Nvidia RTX A-series or Ada Generation GPUs and powerful CPUs like the Intel Core Ultra 9, AMD Ryzen 9, or Apple M series processors for demanding creative applications like Adobe Premiere Pro, Blender, or DaVinci Resolve.

Most professionals who need workstations require quality visuals, so these laptops also feature stunning, highly color-accurate displays. But be prepared to pay extra for all that power and color fidelity. While we have a few budget-friendly choices on this list, the more powerful professional-grade workstations don't come cheap.

My current top pick is the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7, which offers robust performance, a long-lasting battery, and a relatively affordable price. Depending on your budget, macOS fans may consider the 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Pro or MacBook Air M4. You'll also find these among our best laptops overall and if you're looking to save some money, we're always tracking the best laptop deals for you.

At Laptop Mag, we review over a hundred laptops yearly, rigorously testing processing power, graphics, and display quality. The workstations on this list combine top-tier displays with powerful CPU and GPU combos for the most demanding users.

The quick list

Best overall

The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 may not have the most powerful CPU on this list, but its Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and Nvidia RTX 1000 Ada Generation GPU offer incredible workstation performance regardless. The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 offers impressive performance without being prohibitively expensive, which makes it an easy choice for our top pick for most users.

Madeline Ricchiuto writes in our review, "While it may not be the most powerful workstation we’ve ever seen here at Laptop Mag, the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has enough power and performance to handle photo and video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy data analysis you’d want out of a workstation machine."

As far as performance, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 12,974, a file transfer rate of 2,071 MBps, and can compress a 4K video to a 1080p 30fps format in just 4 minutes and 22 seconds. While its performance isn't quite up to par with workstation powerhouses like the HP ZBook Studio 16 G10 or Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024), it is far more capable with high-performance tasks compared to more budget-friendly options like the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024) or Asus ProArt PX13.

The ThinkPad's weakest point is its display, which covered a respectable 78.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average brightness of 386 nits. Neither score is bad, but they could always be better.

Additionally, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 lasted 17 hours and 23 minutes on the Laptop Mag web surfing battery test, which is far better than most workstations.

This workstation is a little pricey as the starting configuration is priced at $3,369, but it is often available at a discount, giving you an even better value for the money. This is the workstation we would recommend for most users, as it has the performance, display quality, and battery life to withstand most high-intensity tasks.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 review.

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Best workstation laptop under $1000

The Apple MacBook Air 13 (M4, 2025) is a pint-sized powerhouse that can keep up with hard-hitting creative applications like Adobe Premiere Pro and Blender. The M4 model of the MacBook Air is cheaper than its M3 predecessor, with pricing starting at $999, with Education pricing and sales dropping it even further below the $1,000 mark.

Sean Riley writes in our review, "The MacBook Air 13-inch M4 feels like the return of the original M1 Air. It's an undeniable value that will give you years of excellent performance, even if you pick up the base model."

In terms of performance, the MacBook Air 13 M4 competes against more powerful workstations like the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 or Asus ProArt PX13. On the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark, the MacBook Air 13 M4 averaged a multicore score of 14,849. On our video encoding test, the MacBook Air converted a 4K video to a 1080p 30fps format in 5 minutes and 57 seconds.

The MacBook Air houses a 13-inch Liquid Retina display panel, which covers 79.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an impressive average brightness of 463 nits.

Additionally, the MacBook Air 13 (M3) lasted 15 hours and 24 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which is more than enough to get you through the day on a single charge.

The only things holding this laptop back from perfection are a lack of ports and expensive upgrades.

See our full Apple MacBook Air 13 (M4, 2025) review.

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Best workstation laptop under $2000

The Asus ProArt PX13 is a stylish 2-in-1 creator laptop with impressive performance courtesy of its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU and Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU. With a starting price of $1,699, this AI PC workstation offers an incredible bargain of performance and price, all without giving up a Windows operating system.

Stevie Bonifield writes in our review, "The Asus ProArt PX13 is a top choice for creators looking for a compact laptop that can easily get the most out of demanding apps like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro."

The Asus ProArt PX13 actually outperformed the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 and Apple MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024) in pure CPU performance, with a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 15,203. It also sped through our 4K video encoding task, completing the 1080p 30fps format compression in just 3 minutes and 36 seconds.

The ProArt PX13 has a vivid and bright display, covering 80% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average brightness of 350 nits.

As far as battery life is concerned, the ProArt PX13 is on the lower end, surviving 9 hours and 49 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. This is actually pretty good for a workstation laptop with a discrete GPU, but not enough to close the gap with the ThinkPad for the title of best overall. However, it is a fantastic little workstation at a very affordable price.

See our full Asus ProArt PX13 review.

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Best battery life in a workstation laptop

The MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024) is one of the most powerful workstation laptops we've ever tested at Laptop Mag, with unmatched performance, an astoundingly bright display, and almost 21 hours of battery life. With an M4 Pro 14-core CPU and M4 Pro 20-core GPU, we couldn't find a task this MacBook couldn't handle.

Sean Riley writes in our review, "It's almost simultaneously the most powerful premium laptop we've reviewed while also offering the second-longest battery of any laptop we've tested."

The M4 Pro chip outperformed even the M3 Max chip from last year's MacBook Pro 16, with a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 22,822. It absolutely crushed our Handbrake video encoding test, compressing a 4K video to 1080p 30fps format in just 2 minutes and 38 seconds.

The MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024) has a 16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, which covers a solid 81.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and hits an average peak brightness of 565 nits.

Lastly, the MacBook Pro 16 lasted 20 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag web surfing battery test, the second longest we've seen yet.

If you need a MacBook that can do anything, the MacBook Pro 16 is the way to go. It has a high starting price, but if you've got the money to drop at least $2,499 on a laptop, it's absolutely worth it.

See our full Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024) review.

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Best performance workstation laptop

The HP ZBook Studio 16 G11 packages an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H vPro processor, Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada Generation GPU, 64GB of memory, and 1TB of SSD storage into a workstation that knows few limits. Its sticker price is similarly sky-high, with its starting configuration costing $3,559. Our fully-stocked review unit costs an astronomical $7,283 at full price.

Madeline Ricchiuto writes in our review, "There was practically nothing I could throw at the Studio that it couldn’t handle, between editing my latest travel photos and blazing through video editing. There wasn’t a number of Chrome tabs or Photoshop tasks that would cause the ZBook to falter."

The ZBook's performance is top-of-the-line for an Intel Core Ultra processor, with a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 13,754 and a Handbrake video encode time of just 3 minutes and 50 seconds for a 4K video compression. It also boasts a transfer rate of 1,401 MBps.

The real star of the ZBook Studio is its gorgeous DreamColor display, which covers 113.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average peak brightness of 398 nits that will cut through even the worst office glare.

Of course, all of that power comes at a price, so the ZBook Studio lasted just 4 hours and 43 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. Considering the specs, this isn't bad battery life for such a powerful and thin workstation.

But if you need something with all-day battery life, the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024) or Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 are the way to go.

See our full HP ZBook Studio 16 G11 review.

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Benchmark comparisons

Recent reviews

We review dozens of laptops annually, and while some simply don't have what it takes to make our buying guides, they are still strong options that came up short for one reason or another. Here are some of our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make the cut for "Best workstation laptops", but could still be solid machines for your creative workflow.

How to choose the best workstation laptop

There are different budget classes for workstations, and our recommendations above try to reflect that, but there's no question that this is one category where the assumption is that you almost need the best of the best across the board. Here's a look at the hardware specs we recommend for the best workstation laptops in 2025.

CPU: Top of the line is the order of the day when it comes to selecting a CPU for your mobile workstation. In 2025, that will be an Intel Core Ultra 9, Intel Xeon, AMD Ryzen AI 9 300 series, or, if you go the MacBook route, an Apple M4 Max.

GPU: True workstations in 2025 will usually feature an Nvidia RTX 4000 or 5000 Ada Laptop GPU. These GPUs are specifically designed to handle sustained intensive tasks that are expected in a workstation.

RAM: 32GB is the bare minimum any workstation laptop buyer should consider, and most will benefit from at least 64GB for the kind of heavy tasks expected. This isn't the place to save money; you'll create a bottleneck for the rest of the performance in your laptop if you don't have enough RAM. If you can afford it and the laptop offers it, go higher, particularly if the laptop uses soldered RAM that cannot be upgraded later.

Storage: The size of your storage needs will vary depending on precisely what task you are undertaking, 512GB is probably the minimum anyone with workstation-class needs should consider, but the real key is speed. You'll want an NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD as opposed to SATA for the fastest speeds. Not all NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs are created equal, though; check our reviews and buying guides for the SSD speeds in our testing through our SSD transfer speed test or the BlackMagic Write and Read benchmarks.

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FAQs

Can I use a gaming laptop instead of a workstation?

If you need to do light photo and video editing, a powerful CPU with an integrated GPU can handle most programs. If you need to get into more in-depth AI-generated editing or data computations then you'll want a discrete GPU. Gaming class graphics cards can handle most of these tasks pretty well, allowing you to use a gaming laptop as a workstation.

This can help you save some money, as workstation laptops, however, there are cases where you won't be able to use a gaming laptop, like editing 4-8K video, intensive 3D rendering, or complex data computations. Of course, you don't want to use a creator laptop for intense gaming either. Workstation GPUs and gaming GPUs may pack a lot of power, but the optimization differences between the two GPU classes mean that any intensive workstation tasks won't run well on a gaming machine and vice versa.

Why are workstation laptops so expensive?

Workstation laptops are expensive because they pack some of the most powerful processors, like the Intel Core Ultra 9, Intel Xeon, AMD Ryzen 9, or Apple M series chipsets which come at a high cost. Workstations also come with powerful workstation GPUs which don't retail cheaply either.

Workstations also often come with enterprise business pricing, so they're often sold for less than their "list" price when design firms purchase them in bulk as part of an IT fleet. Workstations can also see hefty discounts throughout the year as components age and new laptops are announced.

Why don't we recommend a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop as a workstation?

While Qualcomm has been moving more and more of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite to work natively with Windows on Arm, and Qualcomm has ported a number of music creation apps to Arm, the app support for Snapdragon-powered laptops is more limited than its Intel, AMD, or Apple competitors.

While BlackMagic's DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom run natively on Qualcomm processors, other applications like Adobe Premire Pro and Illustrator will only run through emulation. That can be a lot slower than the native versions of the application and other software is incompatible with Windows on Arm, which can cause issues with team collaboration for designers and scientists.

There are also plenty of STEM and design applications that just don't run on Snapdragon laptops at all, even through emulation.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X platform also lacks support for discrete GPUs and the integrated Adreno graphics tile just can't compete with the recent iGPU advances by Apple, AMD, and Intel.

This could change as the Snapdragon platform enters its second generation and onward, but for now, the lack of native application support and lack of discrete GPU options keep the Snapdragon X series from making it in the "Workstation" class.

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How we test the best workstation 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-A 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 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. With workstation laptops, we also run the machines through several SpecWorkstation and PugetBench Adobe 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 is Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm 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 premium MacBooks and Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 10 hours is considered a good result, whereas dedicated workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

To truly understand a laptop, we combine technical tests with extensive user experience assessments. Following lab evaluations, our expert reviewers live with the laptop, integrating it into their daily workflows. This allows them to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of both the hardware capabilities and the overall software experience, giving you the full picture.

^Back to the top

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.

^Back to the top

The best video editing laptops have at least two of the three must-have features: performance, battery life, and a bright and vivid display. These are important for any of the best laptops, but even more so for visual creatives. These are also often some of the best laptops for college, especially for majors working in media.

The better your laptop's performance, the less time you'll have to wait for it to finish transcoding a video file or render a 3D animation. Video editing laptops without discrete graphics cards are usually cheaper than those with them, which means they rely on their processor to do all those things.

Having enough RAM is especially important in this case. 16GB sounds like it could be enough until you try pre-rendering footage in the background while you're editing and cause the whole program to freeze. (I learned this the hard way.)

Display color and accuracy are also important for video editing. This is why Laptop Mag measures the DCI-P3 gamut coverage of every laptop we test. DCI-P3 is the color space used in professional digital cinema, capturing about 25% more color variations than the standard SRGB. As a general guideline, the best laptops for video editing should cover at least 85% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.

Update log

Quick Menu

Best overall

If you're a professional video editor in need of a new laptop that can breeze through heavy video and 3D rendering workloads, we recommend the newest 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro processor.

Laptop Mag's managing editor, Sean Riley, describes it best in his review: "It's almost simultaneously the most powerful premium laptop we've reviewed while also offering the second-longest battery of any laptop we've tested." Our benchmark numbers mostly speak for themselves.

With 20 hours and 46 minutes of battery life, it lasts 7 hours longer than the average premium laptop and its main competitors, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 and Asus ProArt PX16 (2024), between 10 and 11 hours, respectively. It also outlasts the MacBook Pro M3 Max by nearly 3 hours.

It outshines them all in the Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark, scoring 22,822. That's 47% faster than the Yoga Pro (12,141), 32% faster than the ProArt PX16 (15,286), and over 100% more than the average premium laptop (10,492). Compared to the M3 Max (21,182), that's an 8% speed increase; remember that the 16-inch Max configurations start at $3,499.

If you happen to be upgrading from an M2 Max, you might need help picking your jaw up off the floor: the M4 Pro was 45% faster in Laptop Mag's tests by comparison. My fiancé recently traded in his M2 Max for an M4 Pro, and while he didn't convey his excitement in words he did make happy grunting noises.

Everything else about this MacBook Pro is just as good or better than previous generations. It's still expensive, but it's our best overall pick for a reason.

See our full Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro review.

Best budget

15-inch laptops are increasingly rare these days, but as Laptop Mag managing editor Sean Riley writes in his review, the new Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 "deserves to be in the conversation." He gave it 4.5 stars for a good reason! It offers many of the same benefits for video editors as the pricier Pro M4, and its performance and battery life are still unparalleled compared to many of its budget competitors.

Its CPU multicore performance is nearly 38% faster than the 15-inch Air M3, according to our testing. In our real-world video transcoding test, the Air M4 converted a 4K video to 1080p in just under 5 minutes — 2 minutes faster than the Air M3.

The Air M4's display isn't the most vibrant or color-accurate screen you can get, but it covers a larger portion of the DCI-P3 color gamut compared to last year's Air M3 (83.5% versus 77.8%). For video editors on a budget who want the largest laptop display possible, that's less of a compromise between the Air M4 and 14-inch M4 Pro — and you still get Apple's True Tone technology, which adjusts how colors are displayed depending on the lighting.

It's max brightness is 476 nits, just like last year's model, and it's battery still lasts 15 hours, too. The Air M4's other features have mostly stayed the same or improved, which is especially great considering Apple dropped the 15-inch Air M4's starting price by $100.

If you currently have an Air M2, you're in the best position to get the most out of your money by upgrading.

See our full Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 review.

Best touchscreen

For a touchscreen laptop, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x has all the makings of a great video editing machine. Laptop Mag's reviewer, Stevie Bonifield, writes that it "balances price and performance with a stylish design and strong battery life," on top of a sharp OLED display that produces vivid colors and inky blacks.

This laptop's DCI-P3 color gamut coverage is one of the widest Laptop Mag has seen in the last year: 155%. The display also gets bright, hitting a max of 464 nits in SDR and 785 nits in HDR. 431 nits is also the average SDR brightness for a premium laptop, so the Yoga Slim 7x is right on the money here.

It's essential for any creativity laptop to have fast multicore performance, as many creativity programs make full use of all the CPU's cores simultaneously. The Yoga Slim 7x has speed in spades. With a Snapdragon X Elite processor, it cranked out a benchmark score of 13,750 in Geekbench 6, making it faster than many similar-priced laptops.

That doesn't directly translate to some real-world video workloads, however, the Yoga Slim 7x was still able to transcode a 4K video to 1080p in just over 5 minutes. That's still faster than what Laptop Mag has seen from some competing laptops with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H.

The Yoga Slim 7x has two potential downsides as a video editing laptop: app compatibility and its reflective OLED display. You might need to max out the display brightness to get rid of any lighting glare (which, of course, will shorten the battery life; the brighter the display, the more power it needs).

Also, make sure your favorite editing app has a native ARM64 version since this laptop runs Windows on ARM. For most people, this shouldn't be an issue as popular programs like Premiere Pro, After Effects, Blender, and DaVinci Resolve are compatible. But it's always good to double-check!

See our full Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x review.

Best gaming

Strong all-round performance, a splashy OLED display, and keys that are responsive and satisfying to press can make most gaming laptops enticing options for video editors. The HP Omen Max 16 has a tantalizing combination of all three, and it handles heat way better than many of the best gaming laptops.

Most gaming laptops crank up the frame rates at the expense of pushing surface temps past our 95-degree comfort threshold, but the Omen Max 16 stays 10-20 degrees cooler by comparison whether its being used for gaming or streaming videos.

It's not the fastest gaming laptop by frame rates alone, but it generated almost or just as many frames as its competitors. As our tests showed, the Omen Max 16 handles games like Far Cry 6 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider better than some rival gaming laptops, but performed worse with games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong.

That give-and-take performance showed up in our Handbrake test, too. This laptop took 2 minutes and 54 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, which is fast compared to a lot of other gaming laptops we've tested — but still about 20-35 seconds slower than its fiercest rivals.

But when it comes to many video editors' need for color, contrast, and clarity, we have yet to test another gaming laptop that can hold a diode to the Omen's OLED display.

Laptop Mag editor, Rami Tabari, said he couldn't remember the last time he's seen a display this "drop-dead gorgeous" after reviewing the Omen Max 16. It's a "fever dream of colors and infinite contrast," decimating its competition with a DCI-P3 color gamut coverage of 141.4%. Compared to the other laptops on this list, it only falls behind the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x — and that's not even a gaming laptop! Though with a max brightness of 363 nits, dimly lit scenes can be easily washed out by strong ambient lighting (a common issue for OLED displays).

See our full HP Omen Max 16 review.

Best Windows laptop

For the video editor loyal to Windows, "The Asus ProArt P16 is a stellar example of what a creator laptop should be: powerful, reliable, and stylish," as our reviewer Stevie Bonifield writes. You don't have to pay MacBook Pro prices to get superb performance in a thin and light chassis with a beautiful design that's just as easy on your eyes as it is on your wallet.

While I'd normally recommend a laptop with a wider color gamut for video editors, the ProArt P16 covers a high enough percentage of the DCI-P3 (85.5%). But if you're looking at this laptop for graphic design, that should be less of a concern since you're likely working with the AdobeRGB or sRGB color gamut.

Just as important as color accuracy is performance; this laptop's AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, 32GB of RAM, and Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics card powers it to a Geekbench 6 multicore score of 15,286, way beyond the average premium laptop. Commonly used graphic design programs like Adobe Illustrator load in a snap, and the ProArt P16 has the right amount of RAM and CPU cores to prevent the system from getting too bogged down with all the processes Photoshop runs in the background.

That stellar performance played out in Laptop Mag's Handbrake benchmark, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 3 minutes and 15 seconds, much faster than the average premium laptop (7:58).

Its battery life is a letdown, though. Expect up to 9 hours and 32 minutes if you use this laptop for web browsing, with the display brightness set to 150 nits. If you're manipulating images with dozens of vector masks at full brightness (356 nits), the battery will drain much faster. Just something to be mindful of if your workspace doesn't have a nearby outlet.

See our full Asus ProArt P16 review.

Best workstation

For the video editor who is extra cautious about maintaining the integrity of their files' data, the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is aimed directly at that kind of professional use. "While it may not be the most powerful workstation we’ve ever seen here at Laptop Mag," our staff writer Madeline Ricchiuto writes, it has enough "performance to handle photo and video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy data analysis you’d want out of a workstation machine." It isn't impractically expensive, either (at least when it's on sale).

With a Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark average of 12,974, it's outpaced by the Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro — and even some less expensive competitors like the Asus ProArt P16 (15,286, or 16%).

However, it did transcode a 4K video 1080p in a swift 4 minutes and 21 seconds in our Handbrake benchmark test, faster than some of its competitors. Keep in mind this laptop is designed for stable and reliable workloads — slower performance is the norm when you compare this kind of workstation to any laptop with a discrete gaming graphics card, like the ProArt P16.

I don't know about you, but I'd be willing to sacrifice a little performance for this ThinkPad's battery life: an outstanding 17 hours and 23 minutes. That's as long or longer than some productivity laptops and definitely much longer than the average workstation's 5 or 6 hours!

We do wish this laptop had a better display for its price. The $4,584 configuration we reviewed is outfitted with only a 1920 X 1200 IPS panel, covering just 78.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Its max brightness is 386 nits — bright enough for an IPS display to ward off glare, though not the brightest out of all the laptops on this list.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 review.

Benchmark comparisons

Recently reviewed

Not every laptop can make the best video editing laptops page. (We wouldn't be doing you that much good if that were the case!) We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly, so here's a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make this page either due to a fault, battery life, performance, or something else.

How to choose the best video editing laptop

The best video editing laptop for one person probably won't be the same as the next. Everyone has different budgets and different projects; editing short, ASMR videos in 1080p isn't the same as editing a full-length feature film in 4K. If you know what you want to do with a video editing laptop, that will help narrow down your choices.

Price

If you're a hobbyist, you can most likely get away with any laptop released in the last year or two for under $1,500. If you're a professional editor who needs a top-of-the-line laptop, it's even more important to have a budget in mind as these laptops can easily exceed $3,000. (We've seen them go as high as $8,000!)

Performance

In general, video editing leans heavily on the processor, so look for something with an Apple M3 Max or M4 (Pro or Max), AMD Ryzen AI 9, Intel Core Ultra, or Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip. If you need to step back a generation for the sake of affordability, that's fine too, though it may increase how long it takes to render or transcode your videos.

Graphics

If you need speed, look for a video editing laptop with a discrete graphics card (usually an Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series, RTX A-series, or RTX Ada Generation). A lot of intensive video-editing tasks can be processed by the GPU instead of the CPU, which can save you a lot of time.

RAM and Storage

But whether a hobbyist or professional, do not skimp on RAM! 16GB is the absolute floor for hobbyists and 24GB for professionals, though we recommend at least 32GB for the latter.

You'll also want enough storage space for all your videos and editing programs, at least 1TB to 2TB. Not all of the best video editing laptops are configurable with more than 2TB of storage space, though, and if they are their price usually goes up drastically; an external SSD is a great, cost-saving option to get around that. (Or if you're feeling spicy, build your own cloud storage.)

FAQs

Q: Are gaming laptops good for video editing?

A: Yes! Any laptop with a discrete graphics card lets you take advantage of Hardware Acceleration, a common feature in popular image and video editing programs. Instead of relying on the CPU and RAM to do all the work, Hardware Acceleration uses the GPU to perform the same tasks much faster.

Gaming laptops' GPUs also work with Nvidia Studio Drivers, which provide more stability and reliability for content creation. Workstations usually come with Nvidia's RTX A-series or Ada Generation graphics cards, which are designed specfically for professional workstations and have better data integrity and stability. (They're more expensive, too!)

Q: Do I need a GPU for video editing?

A: Not necessarily! You can do encoding, transcoding, and other common video editing tasks with just the processor and its integrated graphics. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips are particularly great at this; they're built on ARM architecture, like Apple's M-series, which generally process tasks more efficiently.

Most of today's integrated graphics (Intel Arc, AMD Radeon, and Apple's M-series) are powerful enough to cut down on the time it takes to run all sorts of video editing-related tasks — not as much as a discrete GPU, but usually a couple of minutes. MacBooks' integrated graphics are especially great for video editing, which is a big part of why there are two of 'em on our list.

Q: What GPU should I get?

A: It depends! If you want high frame rates and stunning graphics, then an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 are your best bet. Those graphics cards make the most out of high refresh rates and OLED displays. If you are willing to compromise on one or the other, look for gaming laptops with an RTX 5070, or RTX 4090 or lower.

Nvidia's DLSS Multi Frame Generation is only supported on 50-series cards, but all other DLSS technologies are accessible on both the RTX 50-and 40-series.

Q: How much RAM do I need for video editing?

A: It depends! With a discrete GPU (which has its own on-board video RAM) and Hardware Acceleration, you can get away with at least 16GB if you're not working on anything resource-intensive. But if you edit videos for a living, we recommend a minimum of 24GB — though if you have the budget for 32GB or more, that would be ideal.

If the video editing laptop you have your eye on has unified memory (RAM that is built into the CPU itself), you probably want to configure it with at least 32GB of RAM. The RAM in these laptops is shared between the CPU and integrated graphics; if you don't have enough total RAM, then the integrated graphics might not have enough resources to render large video or 3D files.

Q: Does Windows have video editing software?

A: You can download Clipchamp from the Microsoft store for free. It's designed for basic video editing, so it lacks many features of 3rd-party, professional software like Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve.

Access to Clipchamp's more "advanced" features, like 4K resolution video exports and content backup costs $11.99 per month.

How we test video editing laptops

The best laptops for video editing are the ultimate high-performance laptops. We put each one 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 6, PugetBench for Adobe applications, and 3DMark professional graphics tests.

To determine real-world performance, we convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and duplicate a 25GB file. Our real-world graphics test is Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gathering Storm benchmark at 1080p resolution and Medium graphics. We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop.

For our battery test, we continuously web surfing over WiFi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, anything over 10 hours is a good result, whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

Beyond the lab, our expert reviewers put laptops through their paces in real-world scenarios. By using the devices for their daily work, they gain a deep understanding of their performance and usability. This practical, hands-on approach, combined with lab testing, is how Laptop Mag delivers thorough and insightful reviews.

See this page on How We Test Laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

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.

A lot of what makes the best laptops for graphic design is similar to the best laptops for Photoshop, but the two most important are blazing performance and and a display that can produce a seemingly endless expanse of colors. These features are crucial when you are, say, designing marketing materials for Academy Award-nominated films like my fiancé used to do — sometimes as the awards aired on live TV.

If one of them won, he'd have to open the correct Photoshop file, edit and arrange the text, convert the file, and send it to the marketing firm so they could post it to social media before the award winner finished their 45-second speech. A slow processor would have been disastrous to that entire process.

But so would have a dull, lifeless display. The colors of those marketing materials often matched the overall color pallet used in the films themselves, so his job also relied on having a display with great color coverage and overall brightness.

Depending on where you spend the most time designing, a laptop with a shorter than average battery life might not be a dealbreaker; some of the best workstations and the best laptops for video editing also make fabulous graphic design machines. But unless you're desk-bound, ideally look for something that lasts at least 11 hours.

This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.

Update Log

6/10/25: Added Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 as best budget option, Asus ProArt PX13 as best 2-in-1; updated the following sections: recently reviewed, FAQs, intro, and how to choose a graphic design laptop.

The Quick List

Best overall

If you're a professional graphic designer who needs a new laptop that won't bottleneck the second you add one too many layers to your latest Photoshop project, we recommend the newest 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro processor.

Laptop Mag's managing editor, Sean Riley, describes it best in his review: "It's almost simultaneously the most powerful premium laptop we've reviewed while also offering the second-longest battery of any laptop we've tested." Our benchmark numbers mostly speak for themselves.

With 20 hours and 46 minutes of battery life, it lasts 7 hours longer than the average premium laptop. It also outshines them all in the Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark with a score of 22,822 — over a 100% speed increase compared to the average premium laptop (10,492).

I realize numbers alone might not be convincing enough, so I asked a professional graphic designer (my fiancé) with over a decade of experience creating company logos, website wireframes, and user interfaces for video games how he felt about his new MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro. He didn't convey his excitement in words at first. He made happy grunting noises and told me it's the best laptop he's owned during his career. (If you are also upgrading from an M2 Max, you might need help picking your jaw up off the floor like he did.)

Everything else about this MacBook Pro is just as good or better than previous generations. It's still expensive, but it's our best overall pick for a reason.

See our full Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro review.

Best budget

15-inch laptops are increasingly rare these days, but as Laptop Mag managing editor Sean Riley writes in his review, the new Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 "deserves to be in the conversation." He gave it 4.5 stars for a good reason! It offers many of the same benefits for graphic designers as the pricier Pro M4, and its performance and battery life remain unparalleled among many of its budget competitors.

Its CPU multicore performance is nearly 38% faster than the 15-inch Air M3, according to our testing. In our real-world video transcoding test, the Air M4 converted a 4K video to 1080p in just under 5 minutes — 2 minutes faster than the Air M3.

The Air M4's display isn't the most vibrant or color-accurate screen you can get, but it covers a larger portion of the DCI-P3 color gamut compared to last year's Air M3 (83.5% versus 77.8%). For graphic designers on a budget who want the largest laptop display possible, that's less of a compromise between the Air M4 and 14-inch M4 Pro — and you still get Apple's True Tone technology, which adjusts how colors are displayed depending on the lighting.

Its max brightness is 476 nits, just like last year's model, and its battery still lasts 15 hours, too. The Air M4's other features have remained mostly the same or improved, which is especially notable considering Apple dropped the 15-inch Air M4's starting price by $100.

If you currently have an Air M2 or earlier, you're in the best position to get the most out of your money by upgrading.

See our full Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 review.

Best Windows

If you're more comfortable using Windows, the Asus ProArt P16 is a "stellar example of what a creator laptop should be: powerful, reliable, and stylish," as our reviewer, Stevie Bonifield, said. You don't have to pay MacBook Pro prices to get suburb performance in a thin and light chassis with a beautiful design that's just as easy on your eyes as it is on your wallet.

While I'd normally recommend a laptop with a wider color gamut for graphic designers, the ProArt P16 covers a high enough percentage of the DCI-P3 (85.5%). If you want this laptop for professional video editing that could be more of a concern, where the AdobeRGB color gamut is more useful for graphic designers.

Just as important as color accuracy is performance; this laptop's AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, 32GB of RAM, and Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics card powers it to a Geekbench 6 multicore score of 15,286, way beyond the average premium laptop. Commonly used graphic design programs like Adobe Illustrator load in a snap, and the ProArt P16 has the right amount of RAM and CPU cores to prevent the system from getting too bogged down with all the processes Photoshop runs in the background.

That stellar performance played out in Laptop Mag's Handbrake benchmark, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 3 minutes and 15 seconds, much faster than the average premium laptop (7:58). (Yes, the ProArt P16 also makes a fantastic video editing laptop.)

Its battery life is a letdown, though. Expect up to 9 hours and 32 minutes if you use this laptop for web browsing, with the display brightness set to 150 nits. If you're manipulating images with dozens of vector masks at full brightness (356 nits), the battery will drain much faster. Just something to be mindful of if your workspace doesn't have a nearby outlet.

See our full Asus ProArt P16 review.

Best 2-in-1

If you start your design process with hand-drawn sketches on a tablet but are tired of importing them to a separate device, the Asus ProArt PX13 is "a top choice for creators looking for a compact laptop," as Laptop Mag contributing writer Stevie Bonifield, sums up nicely.

This laptop's 13.3-inch display offers almost the same amount of space as a standard-sized piece of paper, so it keeps a good balance between portability and having enough room to draw. It weighs 3 pounds, which is heavier than the average 100-page sketchbook, of course, but that's incredibly lightweight for a laptop — especially a 2-in-1.

If you draw directly inside a graphic design program, you won't have to worry about your lines lagging behind your stylus. The ProArt Px13 performed exceptionally well in our PugetBench Photoshop and HandBreak video transcoding tests, meeting or exceeding what its competitors are capable of achieving. Coupled with a discrete RTX 4050 graphics card and 32GB of RAM, you likely won't have to manually adjust the memory allocation to your graphic design program.

Graphic designers who work with the DCI-P3 color gamut might find the display's coverage on the low side with 80% of that color space in our testing. While this is below the recommended 85% minimum, it's important to note that OLED displays typically underperform on this test, so the true number is almost certainly above 85%.

What might be a concern for anyone considering this laptop is its battery life: 9 hours and 49 minutes. That's not terrible for a creator laptop, but it's less than the 11-hour minimum we recommend.

See our full Asus ProArt PX13 review.

Best gaming

If your graphic design work takes you into the realm of video game UI (like my fiancé's did for a period of time), you most likely will need a gaming laptop — one with "powerful performance, smooth graphics," and a "stunning display," as our staff writer, Madeline Ricchiuto said in her review of the Legion Pro 7i Gen 9.

Those are its stand-out features, especially at a price compared to some competing gaming laptops that are less powerful. For under $2,500 (on sale), you get an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 GPU with 12GB of VRAM. Combined with 32GB of system memory, this laptop spiked into the high-90s and low-100s in our gaming benchmarks.

Its display is also suitable for UI design work, averaging 108.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut — way beyond what most graphic designers probably would need. It also gets super bright, averaging 456 max nits in Laptop Mag's testing. It does only have a 1600p native resolution, but that may or may not be a deal breaker based on the kind of work you primarily do on your laptop.

Just keep in mind that if you go with this laptop, it's chunky, 1.01 inches thick, and weighs 5.7 pounds — definitely a desktop replacement. You can technically carry it around if you want to, but after a week (at most) of doing that, I can imagine the process becoming a hassle.

See our full Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 review.

Benchmark comparisons

Recently reviewed

Not every laptop can make our best laptops for graphic design page. (We wouldn't be doing you that much good if that were the case!) We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly, so here's a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make this page either due to a fault, battery life, performance, or something else.

How to choose a laptop for graphic design

CPU: The faster your processor, the faster certain features will work in programs like Illustrator and Photoshop. (Not to mention opening the program itself!) Look for a laptop with either an Intel Core Ultra 200 series, AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, or Apple M4 CPU if you want your workflow to move as efficiently as possible.

GPU: If you work primarily work with static graphics, you might be able to do your work just fine on a laptop with integrated graphics. But if you work with motion graphics or UI, you might use a lot of intricate filters, 3D effects, generative AI, or similar resource-heavy tools.

For those of you in the latter camp, we recommend a laptop with either an RTX 40- or 50-series discrete graphics card — especially if you want to take advantage of any hardware acceleration features that your graphic design program offers.

RAM: If you're looking at a laptop with a discrete GPU, it should also have a bare minimum of 16GB. Though in our experience, 32GB (or more) is the ideal for professionals. It ensures the program won't lag if certain features like drawing and editing in real-time or animated zoom are active.

Storage: Our recommended minimum is 512GB, though if you regularly work with massive vector or other types of files, definitely go for at least 1TB.

Display: Most laptops span 95% or higher of the sRGB or AdobeRGB color gamut, but if DCI-P3 is more important to you, look for a display with at least 85% coverage. Color accuracy is also important; a laptop with a display Delta E (dE) level of 2 or less produces the most true-to-life colors.

Portability: Not all great graphic design laptops are thin and light. If you're constantly working between your home, the office, planes, or trains, look for a laptop that weighs 3 pounds or less and is around half an inch in height. Those will be less of a hassle to put in and remove from your bag several times a day.

FAQs

Q: Are gaming laptops good for graphic design?

A: Yes! Any laptop with a discrete graphics card lets you take advantage of Hardware Acceleration, a common feature in popular image and video editing programs. Instead of relying on the CPU and RAM to do all the work, Hardware Acceleration uses the GPU to perform the same tasks much faster.

Gaming laptops' GPUs also work with Nvidia Studio Drivers, which provide more stability and reliability for content creation. Workstations usually come with Nvidia's RTX A-series or Ada Generation graphics cards, which are designed specfically for professional workstations and have better data integrity and stability. (They're more expensive, too!)

Q: What GPU should I get for graphic design?

A: It depends! If you want high frame rates and stunning graphics, then an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 are your best bet. Those graphics cards make the most out of high refresh rates and OLED displays. If you are willing to compromise on one or the other, look for gaming laptops with an RTX 5070, or RTX 4090 or lower.

Nvidia's DLSS Multi Frame Generation is only supported on 50-series cards, but all other DLSS technologies are accessible on both the RTX 50-and 40-series.

Q: Do I need a discrete GPU for graphic design?

A. Not necessarily! In general, graphic design leans heavily on the processor, so regardless if you get a MacBook, Windows, or Windows on ARM laptop, you'll be in fine shape.

MacBooks have been the de-facto graphic design machine for a long time. (My fiancé, who is a professional graphic designer, won't use any thing else.) But Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips can process the same, common design tasks just as efficiently.

Q: How much RAM do I need for graphic design?

A: It depends! With a discrete GPU (which has its own on-board video RAM) and Hardware Acceleration, you can get away with at least 16GB if you're not working on anything resource-intensive. But if you're a professional graphic designer, we recommend a minimum of 24GB — though if you have the budget for 32GB or more, that would be ideal.

If the graphic design laptop you have your eye on has unified memory (RAM that is built into the CPU itself), you probably want to configure it with at least 32GB of RAM. The RAM in these laptops is shared between the CPU and integrated graphics; if you don't have enough total RAM, then the integrated graphics might not have enough resources to load or convert large design files.

Q: Is a laptop that's good for graphic design also good for video editing?

A: Most laptops that are good for graphic design will also work for video editing, but you'll also want to be aware of the audio quality of a laptop when choosing a video editing machine. So not all the laptops on this list will be ideal for editing video or audio files.

Video editing can often demand more RAM and GPU resources than photo editing, so you may want to opt for a laptop with a discrete GPU if video editing is going to be a large part of your workflow.

Q: Why don't we recommend a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop for graphic design?

A: On the hardware-side, a Snapdragon X Elite laptop is an excellent machine for running editing programs like Photoshop — but few native Windows on Arm versions of Adobe programs exist overall.

Currently, only Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can run natively on Snapdragon X Elite laptops. This might not be an issue if you only use Photoshop, but if you also use Adobe InDesign or Illustrator, those can only run via emulation.

It's a similar concept to running a virtual version of Windows 95 on a Windows 11 PC, but the computer will use more resources running both the emulator and program at the same time, which could slow down various editing tasks. If you don't have enough available RAM or video RAM, the entire program could crash.

How we test graphic design 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 every aspect of the laptop, but to find the best laptops for graphic design, we pay extra close attention to performance, graphics, and the display.

Performance testing includes Geekbench 6, which evaluates the laptop’s ability to handle a variety of different tasks and continue running smoothly. For laptops with discrete graphics cards, we use the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, and for integrated graphics we use 3DMark Night Raid.

To determine real-world performance, we convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and duplicate a 25GB file. For gaming performance on integrated graphics, we use Cid Meier's Civilization V: Gathering Storm benchmark at 1080p resolution and Medium graphics.

For discrete graphics, we run benchmarks in Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Borderlands 3, Far Cry 6 (and more) in full-screen mode with vertical sync disabled at 1080p and the laptop's native resolution.

We use a Klein K10 colorimeter in our display testing to measure overall brightness, as determine the DCI-P3 and AdobeRGB color gamut color accuracy.

For our battery test, we continuously web surfing over WiFi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 10 hours is considered a good result, whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video (or playing a video game) and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop.

We complement these tests with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers, who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.

See this page on How We Test Laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

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.

If you want a great business laptop, the best ThinkPads should be at the top of your list.

These aren't just some of the best business laptops; they're some of the best laptops, period. While the designs aren't always the most flashy or exciting, you can get some incredible performance out of these durable workhorse laptops.

Business-forward performance and long-lasting battery life are generally the biggest selling points of ThinkPads, but the ThinkPads we selected for this list are also built for a life lived beyond the cubicle walls. When the clock strikes five, you can take in your favorite TV show on a gorgeous display or even relax with a game, depending on which ThinkPad configuration you go with.

There are dozens of ThinkPads you can choose from, but you don't want to waste your money on a subpar model when there are a few shining stars well worth considering. And if these ThinkPads are out of your budget, check out our best laptop deals for discounts on ThinkPads and dozens of other laptops.

After hundreds of hours of testing, these are our top picks for the best ThinkPads of 2025.

Update log

6/6/2025: Moved the Lenovo ThinkPad T14S Gen 6 to a new 'Best Battery Life' category; added Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15 Aura Edition as the new 'Best Overall' pick; updated benchmark comparisons accordingly

The Quick List

The best Lenovo ThinkPad in 2025

Best overall ThinkPad

The Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15 Aura Edition stands out as the best ThinkPad for most people, with a battery that won’t quit, a sleek aluminum chassis and lightweight design, and Aura Edition features that come in handy for those using their laptop for business.

In our battery life test, this ThinkPad survived for 16 hours and 24 minutes, meaning you might not have to worry about charging for two full workdays. Pair that impressive battery life with the X9-15’s three-pound weight and relatively small form factor, and you’ve got an ideal travel-friendly companion.

The ThinkPad X9-15 also promises fantastic built-in features that we typically don’t see in business laptops. Laptop Mag’s Rami Tabari adored this laptop’s rich, colorful OLED touchscreen display, sang praises for its “bangin’ audio” from bottom-firing speakers, and had fun playing around with the haptic touchpad. The only feature that’s slightly lacking is the keyboard, which also lacks the classic TrackPoint dot in the center.

While we wished this laptop offered better performance for its price, the X9-15 Aura Edition certainly doesn’t deliver bad performance results in any way. It earned a Geekbench 6 score of 11,156, didn’t falter one bit during real-world browsing and multitasking stress tests, and managed to stay fairly cool, with its hottest point at only 92.9 degrees Fahrenheit (our comfort threshold is 95 degrees).

This Aura Edition laptop allows you to utilize Smart Modes, like Attention Mode to minimize distractions while working and Collaboration Mode to instantly get your laptop ready for video calls. Then, Smart Share makes it easy to share photos between your phone and your laptop. With these features and all the other things that make the ThinkPad X9-15 great, this is the ThinkPad we’d recommend to most people.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15 Aura Edition review.

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Best workstation ThinkPad

The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is a powerhouse business laptop that seriously delivers on pro-level performance. It has the specs and performance needed for resource-intensive tasks in fields like 3D design, video editing, and data analysis. While it doesn't come cheap, it's tough to beat if you're looking for the most powerful ThinkPad.

The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 kept up well in our benchmark tests with an especially high SSD transfer speed, impressive graphics performance, and a fantastic battery life of 17 hours and 23 minutes.

That's especially noteworthy considering workstation laptops tend to struggle with battery life, often lasting less than 8 hours per charge. So, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is an especially good fit for power users who commute or travel often and rely on strong battery life. The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is also more portable than many other workstations. It weights just 4.3 pounds, while many similar laptops weigh over 5 pounds.

The only area where the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 really lags is display quality. The display is perfectly fine for everyday work tasks, but is noticeably less vibrant and color-accurate than most other workstations.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 review.

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Best foldable ThinkPad

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold is a rarity among laptops, and while its unique foldable design might become commonplace with time, it's unlikely you'll find a better one on the market right now. "What is a foldable laptop," you ask? It acts as a standard laptop in its base mode, but you can detach the magnetic keyboard, unfold the display, and pop out the stand to create an easy-to-use, on-the-go desktop (or a massive tablet)

If you're thinking, "I don't need that," then a different ThinkPad on this list will be better suited for your tastes. If the idea of a foldable laptop excites you, we highly recommend considering the X1 Fold. The model we reviewed comes built with an Intel Core i7-1260U, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 16.3-inch OLED display at 2560 x 2024-pixel resolution. It's shockingly thin and light, coming in at just 2.9 pounds in tablet mode and 4.3 pounds with the keyboard and stand attached.

However, while we love its all-in-one use case, it's important to remember that Lenovo made a few sacrifices in its design, likely to accommodate the novelty of a foldable foundation. Its Intel Core i7-1260U processor is a couple of generations old now, and we wouldn't recommend it over other products on any other laptop.

But it still performed decently on the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, with its multi-core score of 7,953 offering enough juice to perform moderate workloads. If you view this as more of a tablet that can double as a laptop, that's outstanding performance. It's still worth remembering that other laptops are faster, though.

Its battery life is less than we'd like, coming in at 8 hours and 44 minutes in laptop mode and 7 hours and 22 minutes in tablet mode. If you can look past these flaws, it's an excellent foldable laptop and perhaps the best today.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 Gen 1 review.

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ThinkPad with the best battery life

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is an all-star business laptop that goes above and beyond in the ways that matter most: battery life and portability.

This lightweight ThinkPad lasted a record-breaking 21 hours and 3 minutes in our battery life test, longer than any other laptop Laptop Mag has tested (at the time of writing). That's more than enough to get you through two full workdays. If you travel often, you won't have to worry about the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 dying on you.

The ThinkPad's lightweight also makes it fantastic for traveling and commuting. It's 14-inch display means it's compact enough to easily fit in almost any laptop bag and it weighs just 2.72 pounds so you'll barely notice it's there.

While the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 falls short on graphics and gaming performance, it showed strong overall performance in our benchmark tests. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 processor kept up well across the board. It's worth noting, though, that since Snapdragon-powered laptops are still relatively new, there may be some apps that aren't natively supported on them yet. So, it's a good idea to double-check that all of your must-have apps are compatible before buying.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 review.

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Benchmark comparisons

Recently reviewed

Not every laptop can make the best Lenovo ThinkPads page; we wouldn't be doing you that much good if that were the case. We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly. Here's a look at the other ThinkPads we've recently reviewed that didn't quite make the cut.

How to choose the best ThinkPad laptop

All of the ThinkPads on this list are great laptops, but if you're still trying to narrow down your search, there are few factors to consider to help pinpoint the best business laptop for you.

Budget: What you get for your money

Since ThinkPads are business laptops, pricing for them can be a bit higher than usual since they're intended for bulk enterprise purchases. You can buy individual laptops, too, of course, but expect to pay a bit more than usual. Top-tier business laptops, ThinkPads included, can easily cost over $2,000. You can keep an eye on our best laptop deals to look for discounts and save some money.

Design: 2-in-1 or Clamshell?

Most ThinkPad laptops feature a traditional clamshell design, meaning the display doesn't flip around or fold to go into tablet mode. If that's a must-have feature for you, the ThinkPad X1 Fold is likely the best choice from our top picks since it has the most versatile, flexible hybrid design. You can also visit our guide to the best 2-in-1 laptops for more alternatives.

Battery Life: 12+ Hours for portability

Battery life is one of the most important traits for any great business laptop. You don't want to be worried about your laptop dying while you're commuting or traveling. Luckily, ThinkPads can seriously deliver in this department. At minimum, look for at least 12 hours of battery life. If it's a top priority for you, go with the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, which lasted a whopping 21 hours in our battery life benchmark test.

CPU/GPU: Business-forward performance

Generally, most ThinkPads will come with integrated graphics, so don't expect to play any AAA games natively or tackle intensive video-editing tasks on your ThinkPad.

The more important performance-related spec to pay attention to is the CPU. Most ThinkPads are powered by Intel processors, though you can find modern options with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor as well. For solid performance, make sure the ThinkPad you're looking to buy typically has a Geekbench 6 score of at least 10,000. The higher, the better.

RAM and Storage: More is more

For many people, 16GB of RAM is plenty for a business laptop, even if you're the type to open up countless tabs and forget about them. However, if you want to future-proof your laptop or want extra assurance that you won't experience lag while multitasking, opt for 32GB of RAM.

The same goes for storage. With so many documents stored in a cloud solution, the base 512GB of storage that comes with most ThinkPads is likely enough for most people. If you want to stretch that further, go with 1TB of SSD storage instead.

Display: Sharp enough to get by

As business laptops, ThinkPads aren't necessarily known for having the sharpest, most colorful displays. That said, modern ThinkPads are starting to feature OLED displays that are significantly richer and more vibrant than their IPS predecessors.

If you plan to stream content, play games, or work with color-specific tasks, it's worth springing for a higher-res OLED display. For everyone else, I'd recommend not settling for anything less than 1080p resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate.

ThinkPad FAQs

Q: Why should you buy a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop?
A: Lenovo laptops are consistently among our best laptops rankings due to their strong performance, good battery life, and overall quality. ThinkPads, in particular, shine among our best business laptops due to their enhanced durability and security standards. They can make good laptops for almost anyone, but they're often the cream of the crop for business users, especially if portability and battery life are top priorities.

Q: Lenovo ThinkPad vs ThinkBook: What's the difference?
A: Lenovo's ThinkPad and ThinkBook laptops sound alike, so they're easily confused. They're similar, but ThinkPads are generally more powerful and premium, while ThinkBooks are more affordable. Both can make good business laptops, but if you want the best performance possible, you would probably be better off with one of the best ThinkPads rather than a ThinkBook.

Q: How long do Lenovo ThinkPad laptops last?
A: How long a Lenovo ThinkPad lasts depends on various factors, such as daily usage intensity, durability, and an individual user's needs. In general, it's a good idea to replace your laptop every 5 years or so. A good laptop can last 7 years or more, but if you are a power user, you may need to replace your ThinkPad more often to ensure you have the latest hardware for running resource-intensive apps, in addition to battery life dropping over the life of any lithium-ion powered device.

Q: Can a Lenovo ThinkPad run games?
A: ThinkPads can typically run casual and lightweight games, but they're not gaming laptops. Most rely on integrated graphics, so they can't deliver the gaming performance you'd get from a laptop specifically designed for gaming. Some more high-end ThinkPads include dedicated GPUs, which offer better gaming performance, but if gaming is your top priority, you would be better served with one of the best gaming laptops.

Q: Who makes ThinkPads?
A: Lenovo. The iconic ThinkPad brand started in 1992 under IBM, but the company's entire PC division was purchased by Lenovo in 2005, and 20 years later, it remains one of the most recognizable and consistently excellent laptop brands under Lenovo's stewardship.

How we test the best ThinkPads

In order to make our best ThinkPads list, each laptop needs to score at least 4 out of 5 stars on our reviews and deliver on the factors consumers care about most. When it comes to ThinkPads, business users' needs are a top consideration.

On top of our thorough lab testing, our expert reviewers also test each product to see how it looks, feels, and performs in everyday situations. Because we see so many different notebooks, we can compare each to its direct competitors and give you an idea of what to expect and which models deliver the best value and experience for your money.

When we bring a laptop into our lab, our goal is to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use a number of industry-standard benchmarks, such as Geekbench and 3DMark, we focus heavily on real-world tests that we have developed in-house.

To test endurance, the Laptop Mag battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the system runs out of juice. To judge pure processing power, we use a giant spreadsheet macro that matches 65,000 names with their addresses, a video transcoder that converts a 4K video to 1080p, and the Geekbench 5 synthetic test. We measure graphics prowess with both 3DMark Ice Storm / Fire Strike and a series of games, like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Metro: Exodus, Grand Theft Auto V, and Red Dead Redemption, just to name a few.

We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut, while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. See this page on how we test laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

Following these tests, the laptop is given to our expert reviewers for extensive hands-on testing. Our reviewers will spend days using the laptop as part of their typical workflow to get a sense of the real-world performance and live with the laptop to come away with a thorough understanding of the hardware and software experience. This blended lab testing and hands-on approach allows us to offer you a clear and comprehensive view of every laptop that comes through Laptop Mag.

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one 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 continues 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.

One of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing, enforces our editorial trustworthiness. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

The best business laptops in 2025 will help you get more done faster, whether you work from home, an office, or are often on the road. Modern business laptops can deliver powerfully productive performance in thin-and-light chassis.

I've reviewed laptops for over seven years now, so consider me and the rest of the Laptop Mag staff your outsourced team of dedicated laptop experts. We review and test over 100 laptops annually to help you find the best laptops in a wide variety of categories.

What's different about finding the best business laptops? You can't shortchange security and durability: The best business laptops typically come with fingerprint sensors, IR cameras, and security chips, and many have military-grade durability.

These are key components that differentiate business laptops from typical consumer laptops. We rigorously test the best business laptops from every major manufacturer to judge their blend of portability, performance, battery life, and more.

The Asus ExpertBook P5 (P5405) is our current pick for the best business laptop. It ticks all of the boxes above and offers a bright 144Hz display, solid performance, over 14 hours of battery life, and an excellent 3-year warranty. If you need maximum battery life, the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is the answer, lasting over 21 hours in our testing. If your work supports macOS, the 13-inch MacBook Air M4 is an intriguing option with solid performance and over 15 hours of battery life in a durable build.

That's just a small sampling, here are my 6 top picks for the best business laptops in 2025.

The Quick List

The best business laptops in 2025

Best Business Laptop Overall

The Asus ExpertBook P5 (P5405) is the best business laptop we've reviewed in 2024, thanks to its unique 144Hz display, long-lasting battery life, included 3-year warranty, and affordable price. It edged just beyond 14 hours in our Laptop Mag Battery test, which should cover even your busiest day at work. This impressive resume earned its placement at the top of the business laptop charts.

Sean Riley reviewed this laptop for us, and he said, "Overall, the ExpertBook P5 is one of the most compelling thin-and-light business laptops that I've reviewed..." After writing and editing hundreds of reviews on Laptop Mag over the last 5 years, some great business laptops have crossed his desk, so that's not to be taken lightly.

With 32GB of RAM and the Intel Core Ultra 258V chipset, performance is good enough for motivated multitaskers. It scored 11,259 on the Geekbench 6 test, which comes in just behind some of its competitors, the HP EliteBook Ultra (Snapdragon X-Elite, 12,717), MacBook Air 13 M3 (Apple M3, 12,087), and HP Elite x360 1040 G11 (Intel Core Ultra 7 165H, 12,857). However, the 32GB of RAM and the outstanding SSD speed of the ExpertBook help to make up the minimal performance gap.

If you run your own business or are in a small business, you'll particularly appreciate the outstanding 3-year warranty and 1-year Accidental Damage Protection plan that comes standard with the ExpertBook P5. It's not that these options aren't available for other laptops, but they are typically upgrades from a 1-year warranty, which is all the more astounding at the sub-$1,300 price point for the ExpertBook. The combination of features and warranty could easily land you above $2,000, which is why our reviewer said, "The pricing on the ExpertBook P5 almost feels like a tax loophole..."

Lest you think Asus skimped to hit this price point, it still features enterprise-grade security from its discrete Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and secure login via its IR camera or fingerprint reader.

A business laptop that is feature-rich and affordable is a rarity, and that's why it earns my pick as the best business laptop in 2025.

See our full Asus ExpertBook P5 (P5405) review.

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Best Budget Business Laptop

The Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 delivers fantastic value for a budget-conscious business. I'll get the caveat out of the way right at the top, the battery life is its weakness at 7 hours and 48 minutes in our testing. So regular travelers will need to look elsewhere, but if you are at a desk or typically have access to an outlet this is a worthwhile tradeoff for the rest of what you get.

Our reviewer was particularly impressed by this laptop's laundry list of security features: "the ThinkPad E14 comes with features like a discrete trusted platform module (TPM) 2.0, an optional FHD hybrid IR camera required for Windows Hello, and Smart Power On." In many industries, this level of security is a must, so it's great to see it on a budget business laptop.

The ThinkPad E14 beat out the mainstream laptop average in both our Geekbench 6 testing (8,000 vs. 7,812) and our SSD transfer test (1,257MBps vs. 924.18MBps), a notable feat for a business laptop typically found for around $750. It nearly matched our previous overall pick, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11's Geekbench score, while outscoring the vastly more expensive HP Dragonfly Pro on the SSD transfer test.

As you would expect from Lenovo, the keyboard is a super responsive chiclet style that should allow you to type quickly and comfortably all day. Lenovo also boasts MIL-STD 810H certification on this affordable laptop, so don't worry that you're getting a cheap build due to the low cost.

While you can find a laptop for under $500, most business users will be better served by stretching that budget to reach the ThinkPad E14 Gen 5.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 review.

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Best Long-Lasting Business Laptop

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is part of a second wave of Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops this year, and they continue to amaze. This laptop delivers the same incredible performance we saw in the first round of these new ARM-based Windows laptops this summer, but it sets a new high mark for battery life at 21 hours and 3 minutes in our testing.

Microsoft's Copilot+ PC messaging dominated some conversations around the Snapdragon X Elite's initial launch earlier this year, but the combination of performance and battery life remains astounding.

If you are unconvinced by AI right now, that's fine; the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is a fantastic business laptop, even if you never use a single AI feature. At the start of this year, a business laptop with 12 hours of battery life was doing quite well; now, we're regularly seeing results in the 14-18-hour range. But as our reviewer, Stevie Bonifield, said of its over 21 hours, "The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 has enough battery life to easily get you through a full day of work, maybe even two."

What's more, it doesn't cost you anything in terms of performance, with the T14s scoring 14,486 in the Geekbench 6 overall performance test. That's almost 4,000 higher than the category average of 10,785. That's enough to outpace a high-performance laptop like Apple's MacBook Pro 14 M3 (11,968). It even did a solid job in the HandBrake video conversion test at 5 minutes and 34 seconds, beating the category average by 40 seconds if you need to do occasional video work.

The ThinkPad T14s display is a slightly mixed bag. Its stellar brightness of 451.8 nits is enough to remain usable in anything but direct sunlight, while its DCI-P3 color gamut of 70.7% is a bit disappointing. If you are doing creative work, that is a dealbreaker, but for typical productivity work, it won't matter.

Lenovo's ThinkShield and hardware security, like the fingerprint reader and IR camera for facial recognition sign-on, all add to the package for the ThinkPad T14s. You also have MIL-STD-810H durability certification to give you and your company peace of mind that the laptop will hold up to commuting, traveling, or just being hauled around your home or office.

As long as you aren't using proprietary software that may not support the ARM-based Qualcomm chip inside the ThinkPad T14s and you aren't reliant on a vivid display, the ThinkPad T14s belongs on the shortlist for your next business laptop. If those are applicable to you, consider something like the HP Spectre x360 14 instead, which is a bit more expensive, but offers a more standard Intel processor and a more creator-focused feature set.

Read our full Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 review.

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Best Work-from-home Laptop

The MacBook Air M4 is a rare 5-star laptop; it's our current choice for the best laptop overall. However, when considering it for work, it takes a backseat to some of the more purpose-built business laptops. That's why it makes an excellent choice for a work-from-home laptop; as long as your business supports macOS, it's the ideal laptop for business and personal use.

In my review, I wrote, "It's an undeniable value that will give you years of excellent performance, even if you pick up the base model." I stand by that statement months later. We've seen strong competition over the last year, but the Air remains tough to beat for overall productivity performance.

The MacBook Air 13 M4 is more than a match for the latest Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors, with only the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips outperforming it in some tasks. While Qualcomm and Intel are finally putting up a fight in the battery life department, the Air M4 delivers almost 16 hours in our testing, so it's not something that you'll have to worry about.

Taking a closer look at performance, the Air 13 M4 easily outpaced strong competitors like the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x on Geekbench 6 (14,849 vs. 13,750) for multi-core performance while simultaneously offering over 4 hours of additional battery life. If you want more battery life than the Air M4, you'll need to look at the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, which delivered over 21 hours in our testing.

One of the only knocks against the MacBook Air is that it only offers a pair of Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports along with the MagSafe charging port. If an HDMI or USB Type-A port is critical to your setup, you will need to pick up a USB-C hub or a docking station. If it's just the HMDI port or an SD card slot, you could also opt for the MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024), which adds both, along with a third Thunderbolt 4 port (sadly, still no USB-A).

See our full Apple MacBook 13-inch M4 review.

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Best for Travel

The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo 2-in-1 is a small and stylish laptop, perfect if you are a frequent business traveler or have a long commute with your laptop daily; its 2.9-pound weight and almost 17-hour battery life may make it sparkle like a diamond in your eyes.

Our reviewer, Madeline Ricchiuto, says, "There are plenty of reasons to recommend the Summit 13 AI+ Evo. It offers almost 17-hours of battery life, dependable performance, a bright display, a satisfying keyboard, sturdy hinges, and it comes with 2TB of storage space and a stylus for just $1,599." That's high praise for a thin-and-light business laptop. Thankfully, it also boasts MIL-STD 810H certification for durability, meaning that if it encounters bumps, drops, cold, heat, and dust as it travels with you, it will continue to power up every time you need it.

The 13.3-inch display has a 16:10 aspect ratio, giving you 120 extra vertical pixels to work with compared to a typical 16:9 display, so you'll get a few extra rows of that spreadsheet or another paragraph of that report you're working on. The display is reasonably bright at 366 nits, which should be enough for most lighting conditions.

It won't replace your gaming laptop or video editing laptop, but performance is sufficient for productivity apps, web browsing, and most typical business applications with a score of 10,895 on the Geekbench 6 overall performance test. That only beats our budget pick, the Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (8,000), but isn't far behind our top choice or the M3 MacBook Air. There's a performance trade-off for portability and battery life, but it's not a massive sacrifice.

Travelers will appreciate the port offerings on the Summit 13 AI+ Evo as a thin-and-light laptop often means scant connectivity options. The TravelMate gives you a full HDMI port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB Type-A port, and a 3.5mm headphone/mic jack.

Finally, the Summit 13 features a bouncy and responsive Chiclet-style keyboard and a 4.7 x 2.3-inch trackpad. Again, this is a smaller laptop, so if you have large hands, it may feel cramped. You may at least want to consider picking up the best wireless mouse to free up a little space on the deck.

It won't be the perfect match for everyone, but if you are looking for the best business laptop for travel, the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo 2-in-1 is the right choice in 2025.

See our full MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo A2VM review.

Best for graphic design

The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 isn't the most powerful workstation in the world, but that's part of what makes it the best workstation for business users. Its Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and Nvidia RTX 1000 Ada Generation GPU offer solid workstation performance while retaining a reasonably portable form factor and excellent battery life.

Madeline Ricchiuto writes in our review, "While it may not be the most powerful workstation we’ve ever seen here at Laptop Mag, the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has enough power and performance to handle photo and video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy data analysis you’d want out of a workstation machine."

It's a workstation, so performance can't be ignored. In our lab tests, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 12,974, a file transfer rate of 2,071 MBps, and it compressed a 4K video to a 1080p 30fps format in just 4 minutes and 22 seconds. Those metrics won't beat workstation powerhouses like the HP ZBook Studio 16 G10 or Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024), but it is well beyond the performance of the typical business laptop.

The ThinkPad's display reproduces 78.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with a Delta-E color accuracy of 0.29. It would be great to see the DCI-P3 somewhat higher, but the color accuracy is excellent and the more crucial metric for design work. The average brightness of 386 nits is enough to perform well in most lighting conditions.

I mentioned the excellent battery life, but to put a number to it, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 lasted 17 hours and 23 minutes on the Laptop Mag web surfing battery test. That's in the conversation with the laptops with the best battery life overall, let alone a workstation.

Now, if you see the retail price of $3,369, you may get scared off, but don't worry, it's virtually always heavily discounted to below $2,000. If you are a business user with high-performance needs, this is the workstation to buy.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 review.

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Benchmark comparisons

Recently Reviewed Laptops

Not every laptop can make the best business laptop page, we wouldn't be doing you that much good if that were the case. We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly, so here's a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make this page either due to a fault or simply because it isn't a business laptop.

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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? While the kind of blistering performance you need in a gaming laptop isn't necessary, business users don't want to be bogged down while multitasking. RAM is one concern here, opting for at least 16GB and 32GB isn't ridiculous if you are a power user who likes to keep numerous apps and browser tabs open. For your CPU, most will be fine with an Intel Core Ultra 5 or AMD Ryzen or higher. On the MacBook side, stick to the M3 or higher in 2025.
• 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 or a budget laptop, look for a laptop that gets at least 11 hours on a charge.
• 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 are, a Thunderbolt 4 port is a huge advantage because it will allow you to connect to high-speed peripherals, universal chargers, and powerful laptop docking stations.
• A great keyboard: It almost goes without saying that every laptop should have a good keyboard. However, with business systems, a comfortable typing experience is even more important. Look for snappy feedback, deep travel and absolutely no flex.

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FAQs

• Q: What makes a good business laptop vs. a home laptop?
  A: While there is substantial overlap in the qualities that we look for in the best business laptops as opposed to simply the best laptops, security is one of the biggest features that separates them. We want a fast, reliable, and secure login method, whether it's a fingerprint reader or an IR camera, for Windows Hello support.
  
  Durability is another critical feature for a business laptop; your job may depend on your ability to bring this laptop everywhere with you, and not having it break down at an inopportune moment is mission-critical.
  
• Q: Why are business laptops so expensive?
  A: Some of this comes down to the two features referenced in the answer right above this one: security and durability. Business laptops often feature additional security features at a chip level that aren't included in consumer laptops, which drives up the costs and, in turn, the price. A more durable laptop means more robust components, and the added cost of those pricier parts is passed on to the business laptop buyer.
  
  Another factor to keep in mind is that while retail price listings for business laptops can often sound outlandish, this isn't typically the price you should expect to pay for them. Whether a business gets a discount for purchasing these laptops in bulk or you just have to wait for a discount, you should almost never be paying the original stated MSRP for a business laptop.

How We Test Business Laptops

Every business laptop that comes into our labs is put through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they are handed off to our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers, and heat management.

Those first two garner particularly high scrutiny for business laptops. Depending on your work, you may need a more vibrant or bright display, but everyone needs solid performance from their laptop to perform at their peak for work. Battery life isn't crucial to every worker, but it's vital for frequent travelers or if you have a long commute and depend on getting work done while making your way to and from the office.

For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including GeekBench 5 and 6 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 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 10 hours is considered a good result, but the latest generation of chips is driving that up, with the longest-lasting laptops now pushing to 16 hours and beyond.

For our display testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop's display. Unless you work with graphic design, photos, or video or just use your work laptop to watch content in your downtime, the color gamut likely isn't a big concern for you. Brightness, however, can be crucial if you work in less-than-optimal lighting conditions to ensure you can see your screen.

If you are a regular commuter or traveler, you should also pay careful attention to our heat tests. We play a 15-minute full-screen video and measure temperatures in different areas of the laptop. If you ever truly use your laptop in your lap, you don't want to see it get above our 95-degree comfort threshold in this test.

Following these tests, the laptop is given to our expert reviewers for extensive hands-on testing. Our reviewers will spend days using the laptop as part of their typical workflow to get a sense of the real-world performance and live with the laptop to come away with a thorough understanding of the hardware and software experience. This blended lab testing and hands-on approach allows us to offer you a clear and comprehensive view of every laptop that comes through Laptop Mag.

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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.

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