Without a doubt, the best laptops on the market are those powered by AMD Ryzen. The long-awaited Ryzen 6000-series laptops are still a great option because they offer an unbeatable balance of price, performance, and battery life. While the 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs from Intel and the 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs from the company are doing well, AMD’s multi-year advantage on 7-nanometer chips will continue to be a challenge for Intel.
1. HP Envy X360
The HP Envy x360 we previously reviewed was a capable performer, and the 2021 model improved upon that. The HP Envy x360 offers exceptional performance that will be more than adequate for the vast majority of customers. However, gamers should still visit our page on the greatest laptops for gaming.
2. Asus ROG Flow X13
Thanks to its new Ryzen 5000-series processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU, the Asus ROG Flow X13 delivers impressive performance in a laptop under three pounds. The ROG Flow X13 has now been transformed into a gaming laptop beast with the power of an Nvidia RTX 3080, but that’s not its best trick.
3. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 completely astounded our reviewer with its performance and battery life, except that the Nvidia 2060 Max-Q GPU was the highest it could support. You can appreciate our reviewer’s excitement when Asus unveiled this new, larger model at CES 2021. It features up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU and steps up to the more recent Ryzen 5000-series CPUs.
4. Lenovo Thinkpad X13
The ThinkPad X13 (AMD), which is powered by a Ryzen processor, is a serious contender in the market for business laptops. Lenovo and its ThinkPad lineup are mainstays in this market. While the Ryzen 5 Pro 4650 U processor we evaluated could have had a longer battery life it lasted just under 8 hours in our battery test—it still delivered a superb performance.
5. Lenovo Legion 5 Pro
The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro doesn’t have a particularly showy design, but it more than makes up for it with a stunning 16-inch QHD display, a superb keyboard and touchpad, and a tonne of connections. Several outstanding AMD gaming laptops are now available with Nvidia 30-series GPUs. Despite consuming a lot of power, the Legion 5 Pro offers a good battery life.
6. Asus ROG Strix Scar 17
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 has all the features that the best gaming laptops aspire to have, including a 360Hz refresh rate display, an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU, and a wonderfully clicky mechanical keyboard.
7. Microsoft Surface Laptop 4
By providing faster performance and longer battery life, the Surface Laptop 4 fixes the major issues we discovered with the Surface Laptop 3. The Surface Laptop 4 has suddenly changed from a laptop with many drawbacks to one with very few with the right CPU. The 15-inch display is bright and vivid, the keyboard and trackpad are incredibly close to class-leading, and the sleek, sturdy design is as fashionable as ever.
8. Acer Swift 3
The Acer Swift 3 is a rather unassuming little laptop, so you’d be right to pass on the Intel version. However, the AMD 4000-series version offers stunning performance. The over 11-hour runtime we observed during our battery life testing is all the more impressive in light of this performance.
9. Acer Nitro 5
Even while the Acer Nitro 5 has some obvious compromises, such as the absence of a high refresh rate display and a high-end GPU, it does not match the value it offers. It performed just below average in some of our graphics-based tests for budget gaming laptops, but as you can see in our comprehensive review, it was remarkably close and cost far less than its rivals.
10. Asus ZenBook 13
Fortunately, the Asus ZenBook 13 UM325S is one of the top ultraportable laptops available because they are less prevalent than gaming laptops with AMD Ryzen 5000-series CPUs in this price bracket. A fantastic multimedia experience is provided by the gorgeous OLED display and powerful speakers.
