Best 14-inch laptops 2024: Small size, big potential (2024)

The best 14-inch laptops are small in size but big in potential. Hitting the sweet spot between a 13-inch laptop's portability and a 15-inch laptop's expanded performance is the 14-inch laptop. Perhaps because of this, it's been taking over as one of the most popular laptop form factors — for good reason.

While a typically slim and minimalist form will see you lose out on some of the larger USB Type-A or Ethernet ports, 14-inch laptops tend to be outfitted with powerful Thunderbolt ports for excellent power delivery and lightning-fast transfer speeds. You're also likely to find dazzling edge-to-edge displays, lighter and sleeker builds, and, more often than not, improved battery life over their 15.6-inch counterparts.

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The best 14-inch laptops in 2024

Best overall

The Apple MacBook Pro M3 sets the standard for other 14-inch laptops. It's the total package and an obvious top pick for anybody looking to pick up a laptop in this category. Beyond the MacBook's iconic style, its M3 chip is a consistent powerhouse for accomplishing computing tasks and a real pioneer in efficiency and battery life.

Beyond the MacBook Pro 14's performance, you'll find Apple's iconic keyboard, plus-sized trackpad, powerful speakers, a fantastic high-resolution webcam, and a stunning 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display.

This MacBook Pro 14 is a multipurpose laptop that can do just about anything, from productivity to creation—and even a little gaming, too. Work or play, the MacBook Pro 14 is a best-in-class option well worth a place on any buyer's prospective shortlist.

On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, the MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 managed a multi-core score of 11,870. This is undoubtedly exceptional, which is no surprise considering the M3's unbelievable processing power. It also took 5 minutes and 38 seconds to transcode a 4K video into 1080p, which blasts past the 7-minute and 51-second category average.

Best of all, the battery life on this thing is unreal. On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits, it lasted 17 hours and 16 minutes before dying. This is phenomenal, making it one of the longest-lasting laptops we've reviewed in years. Look no further if you want a powerhouse that can last more than two full workdays.

If you want OLED, its display will leave much to be desired, but its ability to reproduce 81.3 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut makes it colorful enough for most users. And, of course, Apple never disappoints when it comes to brightness, managing an average of 558 nits. This makes it easy to work on even the brightest days.

See our full M3 MacBook Pro review.

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Best budget

Buying a budget doesn't mean sacrificing a premium aesthetic or solid performance. In fact, for $800, you can snag the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, a stylish laptop with Intel Meteor Lake performance, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage.

Not every laptop has to achieve stratospheric levels of face-melting performance or the type of graphical prowess that could rival the latest game consoles. The Zenbook 14 OLED instead provides a decent platform with which you can handle considerable work.

Its battery life, in particular, is staggering. On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits, it lasted for 15 hours and 52 minutes. We typically recommend productivity laptops last between 9 and 10 hours, and for it to go above and beyond undoubtedly makes it one of the longest-lasting laptops you can buy right now. Even the MacBook Air 13-inch M3, which is more expensive, didn't last quite as long at 15 hours and 13 minutes.

On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, the Zenbook 14 OLED managed a multi-core score of 12,707, which is phenomenal. Again, this is superior to the MacBook Air 13-inch M3's 12,087, which is impressive considering it costs more. And when you consider the laptop's stunning OLED display, you won't believe your eyes. Beyond just the alluring inkiness of deep blacks, you can enjoy 79.8 percent DCI-P3 coverage. It does fine in brightness, but its 339 nits could be better.

See our full Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M).

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Best Ultrabook

There always has to be one machine out there touting the "MacBook killer" moniker, and our current best pick for that title in the 14-inch laptop category is the Acer Swift Go 14. It's packed to the gills with high-performance components and ticks off all Ultrabook requirements. Better still, it's affordable and houses one of the most vivid OLED displays we've encountered.

The Swift Go 14's incredible performance results from a 13th-generation Evo-certified Intel Core i7 processor, Intel Iris Xe graphics, and 16GB of RAM with 512GB of SSD storage to back it up. However, regardless of the top-notch tech housed inside, the Swift Go 14's dazzling 2.8K, 14-inch OLED display will steal the show for many.

Perhaps the only way it fails to fulfill the "MacBook killer" moniker is its underwhelming longevity. MacBooks last 15 to 18 hours on our Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits over Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, the Acer Swift Go 14 only survived 8 hours and 5 minutes. Yikes!

But what stands out as being above and beyond reason is that the Acer Swift Go 14's display has an absurd level of vividity. Its 175.7 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut is practically unreal. Considering the category average is 107.5 percent, it's wild that this laptop rises above and beyond the rest. Its brightness of 395 nits is also pretty solid, and while a MacBook is often superior in this regard, it's still great.

And if you are worried about losing that beautiful MacBook keyboard, this manages to emulate it rather well. It is a 60 percent Wiisland-style keyboard featuring black matte keys with an LED backlight. It felt smooth and tactile, allowing you to write your review effortlessly without being held back by mushy keys.

See our full Acer Swift Go 14 review.

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Best 2-in-1

We fell in love with the Lenovo Yoga 9i's display, which yields a transcendent 142.1 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Its brightness of 353 nits is just fine, making it more than capable of handling well-lit office spaces, but you might have trouble seeing the screen in direct sunlight.

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Best business

Lenovo's legacy of supplying incredible ThinkPads to the business sector is back to its dizzying heights. The X1 Carbon, now in its 11th generation, is a true return to form for the ThinkPad, solving the battery life woes of the previous model and supplying all the power and performance you'd expect to accompany the ThinkPad name.

It topped premium average scores throughout our benchmark trials. That performance comes from a 13th-generation Intel Core i7 processor backed by Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of speedy SSD storage.

On the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 11) managed a multi-core score of 8,628, solid enough to handle a moderate workload but certainly not the best you can find today. At the very least, its SSD speeds are phenomenal, managing to duplicate 25GB of multimedia files in 16 seconds for a rate of 1,704 megabytes per second.

Best of all, you're getting exceptional longevity. On the Laptop Mag battery test, which consists of surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits, it lasted 13 hours and 45 minutes. Considering the average is around 10 hours and 30 minutes, this is pretty exceptional.

Perhaps most impressive is how the X1 Carbon managed to squeeze all of this into a body that weighs just 2.5 pounds without sacrificing anything of its excellent keyboard or bright 14-inch display.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 review.

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Best gaming

Plain and simple, the Razer Blade 14 is the best gaming laptop I've reviewed. There's no beating around the bush in that this isn't a cheap product, coming in at over $2,000, but there's no world in which it could disappoint with its stunning display, long-lasting battery life, and powerful RTX 4070 gaming performance.

The model we reviewed is built with an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. Its 14-inch, 2560 x 1440-pixel display at 240Hz refresh rate is excellent on paper and fantastic in practice. Its 114.3 percent reproduction of the DCI-P3 color gamut is phenomenal, soaring far beyond the premium gaming laptop average of 93 percent.

We recommend anything between 80 and 100 percent, but going over 100 percent is even better. Its brightness is also nothing to scoff at, hitting 465 nits on average. This demolishes the category average of 408 nits, meaning you'll easily carry it outdoors, even in intense sunlight, without worrying about glare.

But its display isn't the only thing that gives it top marks and makes it our best gaming laptop. Its productivity performance is thanks to its AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor. The Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test managed a multi-core score of 11,121. You can expect solid transfer rates alongside its SSD speed of 1,230 megabytes per second.

Best of all, its battery life is seriously staggering for a gaming laptop. We recommend traditional laptops, which last anywhere between 9 and 10 hours, but expectations are far lower when a dedicated graphics card is involved. The Razer Blade 14 lasts 8 hours and 35 minutes, and in a world where many gaming laptops are trapped between 2 and 5 hours of longevity, this is fantastic.

See our full review of theRazer Blade 14

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How to choose the best 14-inch laptop

14-inch laptops can be used for any number of reasons, including gaming, productivity, business, and more. So here's what you should look out for when picking a great laptop.

Budget: What you get for your money

You can find decent laptops forunder $500, but you will spend up to $1,000 or more for most laptops on this list. If you have no issue with that, you can still save some money with the best budget pick, which manages to stay under that. If you'd like to go above and beyond, you can spend $2,000 or more on some of our other picks.

Design: 2-in-1 or Clamshell?

More and more of today's laptops are2-in-1swith screens that either bend back 360 degrees or detach so you can use them as tablets. If you like the idea of using your laptop in slate mode for drawing, media consumption, or just standing up, a2-in-1 could be for you. We even have a foldable laptop on the list for those wanting to get fancy. However, you can often get better features or a lower price with a traditional clamshell-style laptop.

Battery Life: 9+ Hours for Portability

Unless you plan to use your laptop only on your desk, battery life matters. Even within the home or office, having plenty of juice enables you to work on the couch or at the conference table without being chained to the nearest outlet. We recommend getting a laptop that lasted over 9 hours on theLaptop MagBattery Test for the best portability. Thelongest-lasting laptopsendure anywhere between 10 and 15 hours. If you're gaming, you'll be hard-pressed to find anything that lasts this long.

How we test laptops

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing—both synthetic and real-world—before we send it to 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 laptop's display's brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut. For performance testing, we run the computer 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 a4Kvideo to 1080p resolution and duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is Sid Meier's Civilization 6 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 MacBooks and premiumWindows 11laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result, whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

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 onHow We Test Laptopsfor more details on our benchmarking procedures.