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Buying a new laptop is becoming more expensive, with prices up and expected to keep rising. That's thanks to a number of factors beyond buyers' control, including tariffs and now RAMaggedon, which has memory prices spiraling as AI computing and data centers hungrily snap up as much as 70% of the RAM produced globally. If you're in the market for a laptop, it's wise to buy sooner rather than later and select a model that will last a long time.
Most people are leaning that way. A new TechPulse survey of 3,715 US adults, conducted by our parent company, Ziff Davis, specifically asked about PC purchase planning. Of the 17% who were in the market for a laptop in the next six months at the time of polling in November 2025, a full 42% said they plan to buy within the next four months (from now). Of those intending a purchase, 44% expect to pay between $1,000 and $1,999, while 12% expect to spend $2,000 or more.
Regardless of cost, consumers tend to prefer laptops over desktops, according to Statista. Smaller, portable computers have outsold their desk-bound brethren for 20 years; in fact, they outsell desktops and tablets combined. PCMag readers certainly buy more of them; in our latest Readers’ Choice survey on home PCs, 82.4% of our more than 2,000 respondents shared opinions on laptops, compared with 65.8% who rated desktops. (Many of our tech-savvy readers actually have both.)
Choosing the right brand of computer is more important than it’s ever been, both for your wallet and your peace of mind. You need a laptop that ticks all the right boxes, whether you intend to use it for basic tasks, working, gaming, or something else. To help you make the right buying decision, we asked PCMag readers about the companies that make the laptops they use every day. Read on to see what they think.
Picking a new PC, but not looking for a laptop? Check out the top Readers’ Choice 2026 picks for desktops.
The Top Laptop Brands for 2026
After a few years dominated by Apple or MSI, LG was the top overall laptop brand in our reader survey in 2025. This time around, a new name joins the fray, one that didn’t even make the final list last year: Alienware easily nabs the Readers’ Choice award for 2026. The Dell-owned gaming brand also lands first place in our desktop survey this year.
(Note: Click the arrows in our interactive charts to view various elements of our survey results.)
Alienware's scores, it should be noted, aren’t the highest across the board. When it comes to cost, it is well behind MSI and Samsung, which tie for first. Alienware also lags behind Apple, a stalwart in terms of reliability. Meanwhile, LG leads in battery life, size, weight, and display quality. Nevertheless, where it matters most, no brand can match Alienware’s overall satisfaction score, our primary factor in picking a winner.
"While I wouldn't recommend an Alienware laptop to the average, casual user, the brand is clearly resonating with power users and gamers," says PCMag’s lead laptop reviewer, Matthew Buzzi. "Most of its laptops are overkill for browsing the web and simple office tasks, but we see consistently top-notch performance for games and demanding workloads. And shoppers seem to agree that the excellent build quality and performance are worth the premium price."
For our lab-tested leaders, check out the current list of The Best Laptops We've Tested.
Gaming Laptops
As you can see in the above chart, overall, Alienware shares the top score for ease of use with MSI and also manages the top gaming score. When we narrow our focus to just gaming laptops, Alienware again takes the top spot.
The numbers above are very similar to the overall results, as readers describe the majority of Alienware laptops in our survey as gaming devices (85%). Such systems tend to be large and expensive, which explains Alienware’s lower scores for cost, as well as size and weight.
Still, the brand makes up for these shortcomings with its high satisfaction rating. “My Alienware x16 R1 has been consistently reliable, problem-free, and an excellent gaming machine,” says one of our readers.
“We frequently see Alienware among the best performers in their class in our testing, so I’m not surprised at these results,” Buzzi says. “They’re usually a little costly, but few brands do fast, well-built premium gaming laptops as well as Alienware.”
The Best Gaming Laptops outlines our team's current top portable gaming PC picks.
Workstation Laptops
Apple's MacBook line does quite well in two specific areas of our survey. The first is workstation laptops, which we define as devices with enhanced processing and graphics for professional applications, even if they're not only used for work. Apple bests the big three manufacturers of work laptops (Dell, HP, and Lenovo) in nearly all the subcategories we query in our survey. The one exception is price. That one goes to HP.
Apple’s workstation laptops rank particularly high in ease of use, reliability, battery life, and display quality.
“My Mac is the opposite of my Windows PC,” says one respondent. “Intuitive user interface, excellent build, fast search, beautiful apps that you actually want to use.”
But not everyone buys into the Apple ecosystem, so we also select a winner for Windows workstation laptops. Lenovo bests or ties Dell and HP in nearly every area, most notably in overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, the categories we consider first when determining winners.
“Lenovo is a big player in the workstation space for all the reasons you'd expect,” says lead PC reviewer Brian Westover. “They make a great laptop, they have a rock-solid reputation among IT departments and technical users, and the systems just look and feel as great as they perform."
"But when it comes to mobile workstations, Lenovo ThinkStations offer something that even Apple doesn't, with Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certifications for compatibility and reliable performance from mission-critical machines," Westover adds. "Meeting those kinds of formal requirements is often essential for the industry niches that rely on workstation-grade machines.”
If you require top-tier processing and industrial-grade graphics in your laptop, we've lab-tested The Best Mobile Workstations.
Ultraportable Laptops
Apple wins again in the ultraportable laptop category, with scores similar to those of the brand's workstations. Apple posts particularly high scores for setup and reliability.
“Apple all but started the ultraportable category in 2008 with its first MacBook Air, which has continued to serve as the bar for all thin-and-light laptops to come since,” says PCMag deputy managing editor Joe Osborne. “Lately, Apple has gone from strength to strength with its MacBook Air line, leaning into a sublime design with lots of technical refinement. It's even reduced prices.”
Meanwhile, last year’s big overall winner, LG, is our Windows-based champion for ultraportables. It even outscores Apple for the size and weight of its devices, a top consideration if you’re considering an ultraportable, after all. And LG ties Apple for class-leading display quality, earning a 9.6 out of 10. “For as big a screen it has, it's incredibly lightweight,” says a survey respondent with an LG Gram-branded laptop. “The colors are vivid, and it's been extremely reliable.”
The only area in which LG doesn’t beat other Windows brands is price (which, again, goes to HP).
For our expert assessments, peruse our current rankings of The Best Ultraportable Laptops.
Hybrid Laptops
Hybrids, also called 2-in-1s or convertibles, can take many forms. At their most basic, they're clamshell notebooks that fold backward into a tablet or a tent. Lenovo wins this category again, thanks to high satisfaction and recommendation ratings; it also scores well for display quality and its touch-screen interface.
“This is my first time ever having a Lenovo laptop and a 2-in-1. I really love having the touch screen and being able to fold it to a tablet because I'm disabled. It makes it easier to use when lying down in bed,” says one of our survey-takers.
For expert insights on portable PCs that can change shape, check out The Best 2-in-1 Laptops.
Touch-Screen Laptops
When it comes to laptops equipped with touch screens, Samsung—a company known more these days for its smartphones—takes the win thanks to its 9.6 score for touch-screen quality. The brand’s Galaxy Book line also has the best overall satisfaction and recommendation scores in this category by more than half a point.
“This is my second Samsung laptop, and much like the former, it's great," says one respondent. "Tough, reliable, and consistent."
Looking for more? Here's how we rank The Best Touch-Screen Laptops.
Budget Laptops
When it comes to low-cost laptops, for our readers’ money, the top choice this year is Acer. Acer gets a higher satisfaction rating than the big three—Dell, HP, and Lenovo—all of which tie for second place. Dell, it should be noted, outscores Acer in a few subcategories, such as likelihood to recommend and display quality.
Some Acer users are saving big with Chromebooks, but the majority of survey takers, about 83%, use Windows. “For the price, it’s been reliable,” says one reader of his Acer budget system. Another says, “For the price I paid, I am getting more than I expected.”
“While Acer’s budget laptop build quality has steadily improved, the company wins here because it focuses on quality components rather than high design,” Osborne says.
To see the best affordable models our experts recommend right now, read The Best Budget Laptops.
AI Laptops
This is our first year including your favorite AI laptops in our results. When it comes to portables packing a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), a chip designed to support AI, the big three all make the list, but MSI pulls out the win.
MSI’s AI laptops are a full half-point ahead of the second-ranked brand here, Lenovo, for overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend. MSI also pulls standout scores for ease, reliability, and display quality. But naturally, what matters most here are AI capabilities; MSI scores a 9.2, ahead of Dell’s 8.8.
“Oftentimes, one of the first, if not the first, laptops we see with a given chip is an MSI model," says John Burek, PCMag’s executive editor and PC Labs director. "The company has built a reputation for incorporating new tech before almost anyone else, and that was especially true with the AI PC revolution. That’s because the first wave of AI PCs was enabled by robust NPUs in the latest chips. It stands to reason that readers would associate MSI with leading-edge AI in laptops.”
To see which AI systems lead in our lab testing, read The Best Copilot+ Laptops.
The Top Laptop Operating System for 2026
When it comes to OS software, only 13.2% of our survey respondents use macOS. Among the rest, 94.3% use Windows (83% of whom run Windows 11). But none of them are as satisfied with their operating system choice as the select group of users who’ve upgraded a laptop to run a Linux distro. This route may be largely for hard-core techies, but they're an extremely vocal portion of PCMag's savvy audience.
GNU/Linux wins handily not just for satisfaction but also for reliability, file management, updates, and even software choices. That last subcategory is a reason many forgo Linux as an OS choice, since you can’t find all the most popular third-party apps. But our Linux-loving readers feel they’ve found the apps they need.
Meanwhile, second-place macOS, found only on Apple systems, fares better than Linux for ease of use, security, tech support, and likelihood to recommend.
The most-used distros among our audience are Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and Fedora. “My laptop had Windows 10 when I purchased it, but when end-of-support was looming for Windows 10, I switched to Linux without regrets,” one reader says. “Linux Mint is more stable, more secure, and easier/faster to update. You don't have to reboot with each update, which saves valuable time.”
“Linux Mint in particular is a great substitute for Windows, as it imposes a minimal learning curve on ex-Windows users,” says PCMag’s OS expert Michael Muchmore. “Just be aware that you’ll have to do without some support for some hardware peripherals and leading applications."
As for the rest, 17% of users say they're sticking with Windows 10, though Windows 11 has higher ratings in every single subcategory in our survey. Still, a number of readers bemoan the fact that Microsoft is pushing the Windows 11 upgrade. "I hate everything about Windows 11," one says. "[Microsoft] had a great product with Windows 10. It should have stuck with what was best."
ChromeOS—by far the least-used operating system among our readers, at only 2%—rounds out the bottom in many subcategories. Still, it scores slightly ahead of Windows overall in OS reliability, security, updates, and included software.
Still on the fence? Check out our operating system head-to-head comparison: Which OS Is Best: Windows, macOS, Linux, or ChromeOS?
Full Results
The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for laptops and desktops was fielded from Oct. 27, 2025, to Jan. 19, 2026. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read our methodology.