Best business laptops 2021

Best business laptops 2021

Best business laptops 2021 1Best business laptops 2021

The best business laptops on the market are both powerful and versatile enough to cater to a wide range of requirements and use cases.

In this age of working from home, the best business laptops need to do more than just send emails and connect to the internet – it needs to be reliable, robust, and be as easy to use for working remotely as for taking to the office, or events.

In short, you need one of the best business laptops on the market, a powerful machine with the latest and greatest internal components as well as the best productivity features and the longest battery life. It’s also worth considering which accessories you may need, such as the range of available laptop bags, docking stations, and portable chargers to keep the battery going.

You also need to think about your laptop will have any specific needs. While Windows laptops are the most common, sometimes a Linux laptop will be more useful. Additionally, for outdoor use you may need a rugged laptop. Students may find themselves preferring a Chromebook.

These considerations are essential whether you’ve got a small startup, a Fortune 500 enterprise, or a home office-based one-man team. And, with them in mind, we put together a list of the best business laptops on offer. So that whether it’s the best Ultrabook or the best mobile workstation or even a thin client you’re seeking, you won’t have to waste countless hours doing research. You’ll find something here to suit the needs of your bus oniness.

If you’re looking for something with a bit more oomph though perhaps not as portable, you might just be looking for the best business desktop PC or even a workstation Alternatively, check out our best tablets for business feature as well.

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  • We’ve also featured the best laptops for journalists, programmers, graphic designers, and photographers.

Best business laptops 2021 2

The best business laptops at a glance:

  1. Dell XPS 15
  2. MacBook Pro 16″
  3. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen)
  4. Huawei MateBook X Pro
  5. Dell XPS 13
  6. Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 13-inch 2018
  7. Lenovo Yoga C630
  8. 13-inch MacBook Air (2018)
  9. Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch)
  10. Asus Chromebook Flip

Dell XPS 15

If you’re looking for the best Windows laptop on the market at the moment, the Dell XPS 15 is a clear contender. With it’s stunning 15.6″ screen which can be anything  from a clear FHD (1,920 x 1,080) to a beautiful 4K UHD+ (3840 x 2400), this is not a laptop to be easily overlooked.

Additionally, it’s available with a choice of i5, i7, or i9 Intel Core processors, along with standard RAM configurations of 8, 16, or 32 and up. Video card options are anything from standard integrated graphics to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 150 with 4GB DDR5 memory.

In other words, the Dell XPS 15 can be used as anything from a general workhorse for business use, to a powerhouse of a laptop that can handle any creative, design, even gaming demands you might want to throw at it.

Of course, you get what you pay for and the Dell XPS 15 is no different, so expect this laptop to be more expensive than rivals, especially when you start customizing the build for more powerful processor, RAM, and graphic card options.

However, if you do want the best Windows laptop currently available, the Dell XPS 15 is probably it.

MacBook Pro

If you don’t want a Windows laptop and you want only the best Mac laptop you can get, then the MacBook Pro 16″ is truly the best laptop from Apple you can choose.

Aside from its large and beautiful 16″ screen, the technical specifications make this probably the most powerful laptop on this list, and should provide many years of excellent use.

There’s a choice of 6-core or 8-core processor, and for RAM the base model comes with 16 GB with the option to expand to 64 GB. There’s also a choice of graphics cards available, allowing this laptop to handle even the most demanding applications.

All in all this is a beautiful and powerful machine, but as you’d expect, it comes with the biggest price tag of all of the laptops featured here. If you want only the best, then the MacBook Pro 16″ should probably be at the top of your list.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen)
 

Previous versions of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon have been the absolute best-in-class when it comes to business laptops, and this year’s model is no exception, with Lenovo delivering a thinner and smaller design with practically no trade-offs.

If you’re looking for one of the best Lenovo laptops with business grade capabilities, you’ve got an ace here. Despite its small size, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with pretty much every feature you need in a productivity machine, making it the best business laptop money can buy. Thanks to a battery life of up to 15.5 hours, and a rapid charging feature that brings the battery back up to 80 percent capacity in only an hours, the X1 Carbon is an ultrabook that lets you keep on working while you’re on the move.

Huawei MateBook X Pro
 

Huawei may not be the first name you think of when looking to buy a new business laptop – whereas Dell and Lenovo are two names you’d more likely associate with notebooks for work, but the Chinese company has proved to be an excellent laptop manufacturer with its new MateBook X Pro. It has a beautiful design that will get appreciative looks in the boardroom, it’s light enough to carry around with you, and it has powerful components and excellent battery life. It’s also one of the cheaper ultrabooks on the market.

Dell XPS 13
 

If the Dell XPS 15 is a little large or expensive for your needs, then the Dell XPS 13 makes for an excellent second.

This ultraportable laptop – as Dell puts it – punches above its weight with Windows 10 Pro across the entire range as well as rather attractive pricing.

This award winning laptop (it won best laptop of the year from us and many others) manages to pack a 13.3-inch display into the chassis of an average 11.6-inch model. It was also refreshed in 2019 with even better components, for a much improved business laptop experience.

The laptop can be upgraded to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB M2 SSD drive. Battery life is exceptional as well with almost 22 hours of continual use when using productivity applications.

Dell has once again given the Dell XPS 13 a boost when it comes to components, and the webcam is now placed above the screen for better video calls, which helps make the Dell XPS 13 once again one of the best business laptops money can buy.

Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 13-inch 2018
 

The 2018 model of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar makes for a good second choice to the newer MacBook Pro 16″. Although it’s a little smaller and cheaper, it still packs a powerful punch when it comes to specifications.

The 13-inch model is available with a range of strong Intel Core processors, all USB-C ports are not Thunderbolt 3, and you can have up to 16GB of RAM. If you want even more performance, the 15-inch version is worth considering, as it bumps the specs up even more.

Lenovo Yoga C630
 

The Lenovo Yoga C630 is hands-down the best Snapdragon-powered laptop ever made. Unlike other Windows laptops that run on Intel or AMD hardware, the Lenovo Yoga C630 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 850 SoC. This is usually found in flagship smartphones, and it allows the Lenovo Yoga C630 to have some of the best smartphone features – but in a laptop.

So, you get instant-on startup times and 4G connectivity. This makes it one of the best business laptops because it means you don’t have to rely on Wi-Fi. You can be out almost anywhere, and as long as you have a 4G SIM installed, you can access the internet quickly and securely. The Lenovo Yoga C630 is also always connected, which means even when it is not being used, it’s still connected to the internet. So, when you next turn it on, all your emails, messages and notifications will be there waiting for you.

Best of all, it’s got a phenomenal battery life of almost 24 hours. That means it can go several work days on a single charge. The only problem is that because it doesn’t run on traditional hardware, not all applications are compatible. Hopefully that will change in the future, but if your business relies on a certain program, make sure it runs on Snapdragon or ARM hardware before you buy.

13-inch MacBook Air (2018)
 

This MacBook Air offers a thinner and lighter alternative to even the more recent models, and at the time of release it was the best MacBook Air we’d ever used. This made it an excellent  choice for a business laptop then, and it still remains a favorite thanks to both its portability, good hardware and fast SSD harddrive storage.

Even better is that the 2018 edition can be bought quite cheaply from a number of retailers, which means you can get your hands on a great laptop that good both for working from home as well as taking with you to the office or trade shows, without having to pay top price for the latest model.

We just wish that these were full-fat U-series quad core chips, rather than the Y-series dual-core fanless processors. Still, this means that you’re going to easily get all-day battery out of this thing, which makes it one of the best Macs for travel.

 

Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch)
 

The Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch) is another entry from Microsoft in our best business laptop list, and it’s worthy of its spot, as Microsoft has crafted one of the most powerful 2-in-1 laptops in the world. The Surface Book 2 has some powerful enough components to handle most day-to-day tasks, and even some light gaming and video editing if you go for a model with a dedicated graphics card. If you want a bigger screen, then there is also a 15-inch version of the Surface Book 2, which comes with more powerful components.

Asus Chromebook Flip
 

Chromebooks might not be the most obvious devices for business laptops, but the Asus Chromebook Flip proves that they can be excellent work tools. It comes with a full-fat Intel Core processor, full HD 1080p display and backlit keyboard. ChromeOS is now a more robust operating system with plenty of tools, and if you rely on web-based CMS or Google Docs to do your work, then the Asus Chromebook Flip is an affordable, well built and handy business laptop.

Check out our laptop buying guide video below.

  • Want more choices? Check out our list of the best laptops.